Dissent

Twice in the 1230s, in their repeatedly frustrated attempts to wrest a charter loosening economic restrictions and control from their ecclesiastical overlords, the burghers and citizens of Reims rose in open revolt against the cathedral chapter and the detested, autocratic count-archbishop, Henri de Braine (1227–1240). ² In 1233–1235 and again in 1238–1240, the chapter and the archbishop feared the violence of the burghers and, after putting the city under interdict, fled to the archiepiscopal castles at Courville and Cormicy. The occasion of this volume devoted to new studies of the north transept of Reims Cathedral, which was under construction before, during, and completed only after these revolts, provides the appropriate moment to return to discussion of these events and their consequences for the church and the city first studied in a series of articles published between 1988 and 1997. ³ This also provides the opportunity to introduce more evidence bearing on the revolts. ⁴ In addition, this evidence must be seen in light of the recently revised construction sequence, ⁵ as well as the studies included in this volume, especially those proposing new readings of the north transept’s iconography that appear to re-enforce the power of the cathedral chapter. ⁶