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From Gallo-Roman origins to Late Medieval
Prosperity: In the 11th-12th centuries France's northern provinces
of Picardie began to experience a lengthy period of economic prosperity,
based on growing agricultural and textile production. This economic expansion
occurred together with a sizable population increase, and corresponded with
the early period of Gothic cathedral construction at several of the towns
in the province, including
Senlis,
Laon, Noyon, Soissons,
Beauvais,
and the provincial capital at
Amiens.
Most of the cathedral towns in northern
France began as Gallo-Roman market centers at major road and river crossings
(fig.1) Primary Gallic tribal centers had typically been converted by the
Romans after 50 BC into civitas capitals, which eventually developed into
medieval towns.
The cathedrals were usually built on the sites
of early medieval churches, which themselves had often been originally placed
on the sites of pagan temples or shrines.
Chartres
cathedral, for example, is built at the site of the yearly
assembly  and sacred oak grove of Celtic Druids or priests, while Notre-Dame
of Paris is built over the site of a Gallo-Roman temple of Jupiter. There
is thus a striking degree of functional continuity and cultural overlay in
the cathedral towns, in the use of the same ceremonial locales by different
religions in a succession of eras.
Fig.1: Map of Roman towns in north-central
France that became cathedral towns in the Middle Ages. Cathedral sites are
shown with red dots (after Barrington Atlas 2000).
After the collapse of the Roman Empire
and its trade networks in the early 5th century AD, these towns attracted
a succession of Germanic and Viking raids up through the 9th century. During
this period, the early medieval settlements at Paris, Amiens, Senlis, Soissons,
and neighboring towns had contracted within the confines of their 3rd-4th
century Roman walls.
Bourgs and
the bourgeoisie: The bourgs or fortified towns of western
Europe dated from the late Roman empire (ca. AD 250-400), when walls were
built around towns, church centers, and military outposts to ward off increasing
barbarian incursions from east of the Rhine River. In succeeding centuries,
the walls were successively reinforced with stones taken from ruined Roman
buildings, which were also used to build and rebuild early churches within
these walls (fig.2). In Senlis, Amiens, and many other towns in France, the
ancient Roman walls continued to be maintained as protective enclosures
throughout the Merovingian and Carolingian eras (ca. AD 482-987). The genesis
of cathedrals often occurred in small, early Christian churches or basilicas
located in the central fortified zone of a town, and were literally (as at
Senlis and Amiens) built into the ancient Roman wall (see
The
Roman Wall of Senlis).  By the 11th century, as riverine trade
again flourished in northern France and the threat of outside invasions
diminished, merchants began to settle in colonies within the bourgs and
ecclesiastical centers. Soon the towns outgrew their ancient walls, as new
settlement areas crystallized around mills, factories, and related commercial
zones. The merchant and craft worker's colonies expanded outside the original
walled towns or bourgs, and were eventually enclosed by an outer city wall
called a faubourg, such as the wall built in Amiens in the late 12th century;
or that including the Right Bank of Paris where the merchants' ville was
located. Fig.2: Gallo-Roman wall at Senlis
(photo:Athena Review).
The medieval merchants or suppliers conducting
riverine trade were called the bourgeoisie, or inhabitants of the bourg,
a term with a fundamentally different meaning than the term bourgeoisie or
capitalists used by 19th and 20th century political economists. As Belgian
historian Henri Pirenne notes, in his classic analysis of medieval cities
(1936) "In our days the word bourgeoisie ... is completely diverted from
its original sense... Of the bourgeoisie of the Middle Ages nothing remains."
Historian Stephen Murray (1996) also notes that "modern scholarship, dominated
by simplistic concerns with class struggle, has sometimes failed to recognize
the complexity of the medieval urban fabric." The 12th-13th century burghers
in major towns such as Amiens and Paris represented an array of textile
manufacturers, riverine traders, and venture capitalists often linked by
family ties, who gradually solidified a new political and economic base.
This new social entity created new wealth, encouraged upward mobility, and
often became allies of the expanding Capetian monrchy, against a backdrop
of feudal properties regulated by ecclesiastical laws.
While the market towns of the Île
de France and Picardie expanded steadily in the 11th-14th centuries, most
of the population lived in the countryside, around dozens of villages
administered by councils of aldermen and mayors. Village growth in Picardie
is demonstrated by evidence of at least sixty town charters issued by the
monarchy between 1175 and 1235, the same period in which most of the Gothic
cathedrals were first built (Murray 1996). Population estimates based on
the census of 1328 suggest that at the height of the Gothic era, during the
13th-14th centuries, Picardie held two million people (compared to today's
1.7 million), making it one of the most densely inhabited provinces of late
medieval France. Picardie's largest town, Amiens, had a 13th century population
of about 20,000, comparable to Arras (25,000) in neighboring Pas-de-Calais,
and Paris (25-35,000) in AD 1190, during the reign of Philippe Auguste (Murray
1996).
Food and textile
production: This demographic rise accompanied a long period
of economic growth in Picardie centered on agricultural products, including
grain for food consumption, and textile and dye materials for export. The
gently rolling, fertile terrain of Picardie (today the "breadbasket" of northern
France) had by the middle of the 12th century already become a major producer
of wheat. Farm lands were increasingly cleared in the 11th-12th centuries,
and more intensive use of horses and improved iron plows and other farming
equipment led to a steadily growing cultivation of wheat, barley, and other
staple grains.
Industrial inventions, meanwhile, such
as water mills utilizing the Somme and its tributaries led to unprecedented
levels of flour and bread production, as well as an upsurge in the manufacture
of textiles, which became the prime export of the region. All of this greatly
enhanced the economic stability of Picardie. By the early 13th century, at
about the time construction began on the new Gothic cathedral in Amiens (fig.3;
1218), an estimated 8,000 tons of grain were provided annually to Amiens
from the surrounding farmlands (Murray 1996).
Ecclesiastical prosperity: An
increase in the price of grain around 1200, and a resultant economic boom
in Picardie which enriched farmers and landowners, was one of the underlying
factors of the surge in cathedral building at that time. Among the large
landholders were religious institutions and high-ranking clerics, who could
now, in an atmosphere of prosperity, pursue various construction projects
related to the Church.
An expansion in royal coinage during the
reign of Philippe Auguste (r.1180-1223) further linked the economies of different
towns (see
Paris under the Carolingians and
Capetians). Significantly, by about 1200 royal coinage replaced
local currencies from Laon,
Corbie,
Beauvais, and Amiens. A more liquid money supply resulted, enabling large
capital outlays such as used in cathedral construction. The greater liquidity
and supply of money also facilitated the importation of skilled labor and
the purchase of construction materials, and enabled the complex logistics
of supplying a large temporary or seasonal labor force with food and supplies.
Royalty vs.
feudal counts: Political upheavals in northern France had
been building since the breakup of the Carolingian Empire, with local landowning
counts usually affiliated with either neighboring Normandy and Flanders.
By the end of t he 12th century, the monarchy's program of establishing town
charters in Picardie, and placing royal provosts in major towns along the
Aisne and Oise Rivers including Saint-Quentin, Noyon, Senlis, Corbie, and
Peronne came to political fruition (Murray 1996).
In 1185-1223 Picardie was annexed by the
Capetian monarch, Philippe Auguste. He also married Isabella of Hainault,
a princess of Flanders, thus gaining extensive new territories. Between 1185
and 1191 Philippe took control of Amiens and eventually, all of central,
southern, and eastern Picardie. This was extended to northern Picardie by
his 1214 victory over Flemish, Norman, and German adversaries at the Battle
of Bouvines. After the death of his first wife, Philippe married the Danish
princess Ingeborg in Amiens.
Fig.3: West façade of Notre-Dame
cathedral at Amiens (photo: Athena Review).
Gothic Cathedrals
in Picardie: Economic prosperity combined with a more uniform
currency, the expansion of urban centers, and a relatively more stable political
situation, permitted the expenditure of large amounts of money on the
construction of large cathedrals. Major cathedral towns in
Picardie include
Amiens
(fig.3), Senlis, Noyon, Laon, Soissons, and
Beauvais. Construction costs were funded
by a variety of methods including donations of land from local bishops
(Soissons); donations by the burghers (Amiens); fixed percentages of clerical
income from property (also Amiens); and royal gifts (Senlis). [For a fuller
discussion of cathedral financing methods, see the article by
Wolfgang
Schöller.]
References:
Murray, S. 1996. Notre-Dame Cathedral of Amiens. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Pirenne, H. 1936. A History of Europe. (tr. B. Miall). New
Hyde Park, New York, University Books.
This article appears on pages 53-54 of Vol.4 No.2 of Athena
Review. .
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