University of Cincinnati

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Date:______

I, ______, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in:

It is entitled:

This work and its defense approved by:

Chair: ______

The Faces of Reims: An Investigation into the Meaning of the Corbel Heads of the Cathedral of Notre Dame at Reims

Thesis proposal submitted to The Art History Faculty Of the School of Art / College of DAAP University of Cincinnati In partial fulfillment of the requirement For the degree of Masters of Arts in Art History Committee Chair – Kristi Nelson

Sarah A. Moeller Bachelors of Arts in Art

Abstract

Gothic cathedrals are unique and splendid objects which record a time in history so far removed from today that it is sometimes difficult to comprehend. The cathedral of Reims has a population of heads or masks sculpted on its exterior that serve the architectural purpose of being decorative corbels. These heads are emotionally expressive and beautiful, but investigating previous scholarship on the subject gives little insight as to why such a program exists. Looking at these heads and comparing them to previous and contemporary sculpture that is similar in nature, and also to manuscript illumination gives insight into where this representation comes from. These heads are important to examine because they show the renewed interest in using Roman sculpture for artistic inspiration. The craftsman is turning into the artist. The heads show the growing humanism of the thirteenth century.

Table of Contents:

Abstract 1

Table of Contents 3

List of Illustrations 4

Introduction 6

Chapter 1 11

Chapter 2 22

Chapter 3 33

Conclusion 44

Bibliography 47

Illustration Citations 49

Illustrations 52

List of Illustrations

1. Corbel head, northern window 2. Corbel heads, north tower, western façade. 3. Corbel head, north transept. 4. Corbel head, north rose window. 5. Corbel head. 6. Atlas and corbel head, apse. 7. Corbel heads around windows of the apse. 8. Corbel heads on the flying buttresses of the nave. 9. Corbel heads. 10. Corbel head. 11. Corbel head. 12. Corbel head, northern transept. 13. Corbel head. northern transept. 14. Corbel head, northern transept. 15. Corbel head, northern transept. 16. Corbel head, interior of tower. 17. Corbel head, north tower, beneath rib vaulting. 18. Corbel head, south transept, triforium. 19. Corbel head, green man, window of choir. 20. Corbel head, window of choir. 21. Corbel head, window of choir. 22. Corbel head, window of choir. 23. Corbel head, lion, window of choir. 24. Corbel head, window of choir. 25. Corbel head, window of choir. 26. Corbel head, south transept façade, rose story. 27. Angel of the Annunciation, west portal, left door, left jamb. 28. Corbel heads, choir, south side. 29. Corbel heads, north transept façade, rose window. 30. Corbel head, face-puller. 31. Corbel head, east tower, south transept. 32. Mouth-puller, capital, Wells cathedral. 33. Grotesque capital, Wells cathedral. 34. Houses of Parliament, faces. 35. Door jamb, west façade, Chartres cathedral. 36. Reims, the Annunciation and the Visitation, west jamb figures. 37. Reims, western façade. 38. Bawdy betrothal, Ormsby Psalter. 39. Clerestory windows Semur-en-Auxois. 40. Clerestory windows, Semur-en-Auxios.

41. Roman theater mask, marble relief. 42. Roman theater mask, terra cotta. 43. Mouth-puller, romanesque monastery, Castletown. 44. Didyma, roman medusa head. 45. Green man, Bamberg cathedral. 46. Reims labyrinth. 47. Mouth-Puller, monastery, Puy-de-Dome. 48. Sex on the edge of the illuminated manuscript. 49. Creatures at church of Saint Pierre, Aulnay-de-Saintonge. 50. Man coming out of the corner at Aulnay.

Introduction

In this thesis, I will investigate the sculpted heads of Reims cathedral. Generally referred to as masks, this program of sculpture is placed high up on the glazed arcades of the outer triforium and as corbels on the clerestory windows, barely visible from the ground. These corbel heads are located on every side of the exterior. Much has been written on the cathedral, so it is intriguing that while mentioned in literature and described stylistically, no one has attempted to make more than a cursory case for their meaning. It has been suggested that the sculptures were practice pieces sculpted by young artists to learn the art of sculpting the human face. Other historians think they could be portraits of the town‟s citizens or self-portraits of the artist, a way in which to show social stratification, or an illustration of the “common man” perhaps mocking authority. Through my research, I will to show that the corbel heads at Reims cathedral are a planned, deliberate program. I will show how the corbel heads evolved from previous sculptural types, and how they take part along with other art of the age, in the changing values of art. I will show that this program is indeed a precursor to the human representation to come in the fourteenth century.

The cathedral of Reims was begun in 1211, exactly one year after the earlier edifice burned down, and the west towers were not completed until around 1290. According to historians, Reims occupies a unique niche in medieval cathedral architecture because of its extensive interior and exterior sculpture program. Past scholarship indicates that there were originally 162 life-sized corbel sculptures. Only 125 of the original masks can be either viewed today, or reconstructed from early photos, plaster casts, and written accounts. Some of these are full figures, some are busts, most are simple heads, and the majority are executed in a very natural and expressive style. From the study and photos of earlier historians, the masks and busts show the four evangelists, the virtues Justice,

Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance, seven lions, nine animals resembling sheep, pigs, or horses, three demons, three kings, two foliated heads, thirteen women, and 110 men with a variety of

headgear and expressions. The carefully executed observations of the human face and of emotion seen in the heads can also be found in the other monumental sculpture of the cathedral. A certain freedom was doubtless permitted the artist here, for whereas the saints were made to conform to some modicum of respectability and to the wishes of the archbishop, there was probably not as much constraint for the sculptor in making the corbel heads.

Recent scholarship has explored information concerning the evolving position and power of the artist in the building of the cathedrals during the thirteenth century, and the importance of the growing cities in which they are found. I believe that the older literature, coupled with these new ideas, help to bring into focus the reason these corbel heads exist. My research will look at these heads in a manner thus far ignored. I will examine the masks of Reims as representations of the community of the cathedral, taking into account the Church of the time, the location of the sculptures on the building, and the importance of the artist and of the common worker.

In my research, the first scholar I encountered who commented on the faces was Michael

Camille. In his book Gothic Art Glorious Vision (1996), he provides an illustration of a mask and gives an overview of their placement and purpose according to other historians. The masks have been said to represent the masons or artists who created the cathedral sculpture, as a sort of signature.

They could represent “different psychotic and pathological states as medievals understood them,”

(p. 165) or could be a representation of the lower classes. Camille comes from a background of investigating marginal imagery in medieval society, especially that of illuminated manuscripts. The heads can be considered very similar to this kind of marginal representation, and in his book Image on the Edge, The Margins of Medieval Art (1992), Camille investigates the use of these out of the way images in art. Camille considers why this type of image exists and how it affects the overall meaning of the art of which it is a part. The corbel heads are included in his assessment, but he relegates them to practice material.

William Wadley‟s 1984 doctoral dissertation at the University of Texas on the Reims masks is the most in-depth piece of literature on the subject, for his is the only study devoted exclusively to the program. Wadley has several aims, the first is to provide a general history of the various reconstruction campaigns which took place on the cathedral, and to determine which masks are original thirteenth-century pieces, and which were replaced during these restoration campaigns. He groups the original masks into stylistic and chronological categories in order to understand more clearly when the building of the cathedral and the sculpting of the monumental figures occurred.

Wadley also describes the influence of the sculpture of Reims, in particular the masks, on the program of sculpture at Bamberg cathedral in Germany. His aims, then, are not directed toward understanding what the sculptures represent, but toward how the works can help us understand and date other parts of the cathedral. Wadley‟s primary research at Reims and his exhaustive categorizing of the heads will greatly assist my own analysis.

In his book, French Sculpture during the Reign of Saint Louis 1226-1270 (1929), Paul Vitry includes illustrations of the heads and briefly discusses them. Vitry suggests that they are not portraits, but are natural studies of the human head inspired by observation of the real world. Vitry thinks further that younger artists, not the masters, carved these pieces. Willibald Sauerländer, in

Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270 (1970), on the other hand, restricts his interest to the dates of origin and to the connection of the works to the masters of the larger sculptures. The heads are important for Sauerländer because if they were executed by the masters, and not merely as practice exercises by novice artists, it means that they are a planned part of the exterior program. Through a stylistic analysis of the heads, Sauerländer connects them with the sculpture of Bamberg cathedral.

Through this, he shows the influence of the mask program upon German Gothic sculpture, and at the same time assists in the dating of the Reims masks because there is much more surviving

documentation from Bamberg. My research is less connected with who sculpted the corbel heads and when they were made, than in why they were put there, and the purpose they serve.

Toward the beginnings of widespread interest in the cathedrals early in the last century,

Émile Mâle in The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century (1913) explains that medieval artisans saw that the whole cathedral and its location had symbolic meaning. Each part of a cathedral has meaning beyond its physical reality. Mâle relegates gargoyles, vampires, dragons, ominous birds, and “stupendous heads” as having “essentially popular origins” (p. 59), and thereby no symbolic significance. Few art historians seem to agree entirely with Mâle on this point, but his conclusions do help, possibly to account for the lack of study of the more marginal pieces.

Étienne Moreau-Nélaton in La Cathédrale de Reims (1915), illustrates several heads and describes the breadth of society that they represent, from the affluent to the poor, from ecstatic to miserable. The heads are enthusiastically praised and labeled as portraiture of contemporary society.

Louis Bréhier (1916) and Louise Lefrançois-Pillion (1928) similarly extol the naturalism of the program, but say little more about it. Hans Reinhardt, in Cathédrale de Reims: son histoire son architecture, sa sculpture ses vitraux (1963), agrees with Mâle that the heads have no specific meaning, but are simply decorative in purpose. The only exceptions to this, according to Reinhardt, are the depictions of the four Evangelists and those of the Virtues.

Though many of the early historians, chiefly Erwin Panofsky (1951), Hans Jantzen (1957), and Paul Frankl (1960), have nothing to say specifically about the masks, their works help in my understanding nevertheless because they put Reims sculpture in its historic context. Architecturally and decoratively, Reims departs from earlier cathedrals. Window designs are advanced here, and the sculpture is much more naturalistic than elsewhere. Classical influence is seen throughout the cathedral, and is illustrated by the fall and fold of the clothing and by the more realistic suggestion of the human figure beneath the robes. The depiction of facial structure and expression of these Reims

sculptures show a remarkable advance in understanding of actual human features. The emphasis on the psychological dimension to the figure, aptly illustrated in the masks, represents a further advance beyond contemporary art.

I plan to augment the existing scholarship by clarifying the purpose of the sculpted heads.

Overall, I must agree with the vision of Moreau-Nélaton, but I wish to make his general theory more concrete. The heads do seem to represent a cross-section of society, and I will apply my research to explain why this is so. My research consists, chiefly, in studying the changing role of the common person, the artist, and the city, as well as the role the Catholic Church played in medieval society. To understand fully the corbel heads and their place in the iconography of the cathedral, we must take into account the idea of the cathedral as a physical representation of the community, indeed of the whole of the cosmos.

My first chapter presents the sculptural program, what it consists of, the difficulties associated with studying it, and the earlier literature regarding the program. The second chapter describes the masks, addresses the question of what this type of representation derives from historically, and explains its context within the Church. The third chapter draws parallels with illuminated manuscripts of the age, and looks at the role of the art and the artist during this time.

Chapter 1: Past Scholarship and Architectural Practice

The corbel head sculptures of Reims cathedral are a striking and unique program. The name corbel head is really a descriptor of what these sculptures are. They are heads sometimes busts that are situated all over the upper stories of the cathedral of Reims. They appear mostly around the clerestory windows where they act as corbels or brackets to support an architectural element that protrudes above. They often “support” architectural decoration around the windows. Although there are occasional sculptures on other cathedrals and churches that are similar, at Reims the heads are vastly more numerous and display much more realistic aspects of human anatomy and emotion.

My aim is to prove that these heads are a planned and deliberate program on the cathedral. It is important to place the sculptures in a position of cultural and artistic significance. Many early historians dismissed the heads as practice pieces placed out of the way because they are irrelevant.

Anyone who sees the heads cannot fully accept this. Because of their location and exposure to the elements, they have fared worse than much other sculpture on the cathedral, however, what is intact is not only brilliant work, but also departs from the more staid figures of the saints and angels. The heads stand as their own unique program. The early dismissing comments about the heads were mostly taken as a given by subsequent historians. Later, some postulated that they were life studies, but this, too, is simply not in keeping with the methods of the time. It is, therefore, important to understand how buildings were designed, built and ornamented during this age.

The corbel heads are the very essence of Gothic. The word Gothic in itself is somewhat difficult. It is clouded by ages of use as well as by the disparity between its initial meaning and present day applications. Gothic does not only refer to art and architecture, it is the definition of an age. In the years following the Middle Ages, writers of the Renaissance, in particular Vasari (1511-

1574), famous for his Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, named the earlier art “gothic” for what he considered its “barbarity” because the style was mistakenly thought to come from the

Goths. These ancestors of the French were considered infidel hordes who destroyed the beauty of classical structures and created dark, monstrous images in their stead. Gothic art and culture were not properly appreciated until the nineteenth century, when historians such as John Ruskin saw the

Gothic from a new and enlightened perspective. He believed that what were previously thought of as flaws in Gothic architecture were actually signs of a more liberated society. When craftsmen were allowed to employ their own invention and artistic skill, the strict symmetry and proportion of classical architecture was thrown off.1 Ruskin reveled in the uneven and „grotesque‟ sculptures of the Gothic age. He saw grace in the sculpture made by “An imagination as wild and wayward as the

Northern Sea; creations of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but full of wolfish life; fierce as the winds that beat, and changeful as the clouds that shade them.”2 This admittedly was a highly romanticized idea of the culture, but his genuine love of the architecture helped to revive an interest in the Gothic style. In the same way, art historians began to study Gothic art and architecture in a more serious manner beginning in the mid-nineteenth century.

In 1927, Charles Homer Haskins, a notable historian with a truly startling idea, wrote that the twelfth century could be considered a renaissance just as surely as was the Quattrocento. The twelfth century is more obscure to historians, it is far older, historically, and with fewer extant documents, making it more difficult to study.3 Still, developments in art, literature, music, law, and the resurgence of Latin classics seen during the twelfth century demonstrate that the “Renaissance was not so unique or so decisive as has been supposed.” 4

Gothic is truly the use of prototypes already in place from previous generations to create a new, expanded, more ornamented and graceful version of the original ideas. Popular songs become

1 John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, ed. J. G. Links (New York: J. Wiley, 1851; reprint London: Collins Publishing Group, 1960; Penguin Books, 2001), 165. 2 Ibid., 163. 3 Charles Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927; reprint, 1955), 12. 4 Ibid., 5.

epics of war or of love as old tunes are written down and expanded upon. Illustrated Bibles become richly illuminated manuscripts, crawling with beasts and beings in the margins as well as the images which accompany the text. Poets gain reputations, and buildings soar to the heavens, full of light with every surface covered in didactic sculptural decoration. And so, the corbel heads fit perfectly into this scheme of Gothic. The heads are based upon ancient Roman and more recent

Romanesque prototypes but are expanded in number and in expressive quality.

All of these changes, which are part of Gothic and in which the corbel heads participate, came about as a result of the peace that was settling over the area now called France. Peace promoted travel, trade and communication which promoted the spread of ideas further afield than in the previous age.5 Poets and minstrels could carry their songs about the countryside and artists and architects could take their knowledge and apply it to more than one structure. Not only could the artists travel and work in many different cities, diffusing their ideas and methods, but peace also led to prosperity. A rising middle class had the luxury to spend money on books6, art objects, and wanted their name or profession remembered in the cathedral they supported.

The first mention in scholarship of the corbel heads is in Baron Isidore Taylor‟s study of the cathedral (1854). Taylor simply calls the sculptures grotesque masks.7 Expanding only slightly on this was Charles Cerf‟s (1861) look at the cathedral sculpture of Reims. Cerf describes several masks and says they are full of expression.8

The word “mask” has become the common scholarly way to refer to the sculpted corbel heads. Although it is the traditional term applied to the program the word misrepresents the

5 Ibid., 13. 6 Randall, Lilian, Images in the Margin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966) , 9. 7 Baron Isidore Taylor, Reims, ses monuments. Sacre des rois de France (Reims: A.F. Lemaitre, 1854), 37; quoted in William Bert Wadley, “The Reims Masks: A Reconstruction, Stylistic Analysis, and Chronology of the Corbel Sculptures on the Upper Stories of Reims Cathedral,” (Ph.D. diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 1984), 21. 8 Charles Cerf, Histoire et description de Notre-Dame de Reims, 2 vol. (Reims: Dubois, 1861), 67; quoted in Wadley, “The Reims Masks,” 22.

sculptures. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “mask” as a facial covering for disguise, a device used at a ball, or a prop used by an actor. “Head” is the portion of the body which contains the sense organs and the brain.9 The sculptures on Reims relate more fully as a head than as a mask, both physically and intellectually.

Paul Vitry is perhaps the first art historian to take much serious note of the corbel heads.

Vitry (1907) writes of the heads in an article. He lauds them as extraordinary with a notable truth of expression about them. He notes that they were inaccessible to the naked eye and therefore less bound by the restrictions placed upon other cathedral sculpture. Vitry suggests they were executed by apprentices.10 In his book written several years later, he expresses much the same sentiments, speculating further that the heads could have been executed from the observation of live models.11

Despite his early attention to the sculptural program, and tribute paid to their extraordinary nature, it is difficult to give much credence to Vity‟s ideas. On an important structure such as a cathedral built in the early thirteenth century, one cannot assume that any item is overlooked in planning. It is equally not fitting to the time to suggest that the sculptures were done from human models.

Émile Mâle (1913) is an historian who stirred the public‟s interest in Gothic architecture.

Much respected and highly circulated, his book dismisses what he considered marginal imagery in general and the masks of Reims in particular. “One may well ask the meaning of these creatures and of the stupendous heads or ominous shrouded birds that project from the façade of Notre Dame at

Reims.” 12 These just like “gargoyles … churchyard vampires, or the dragons,” 13 the more fantastic portions of sculpture, are to him merely illustrations of fables believed by the people of the time.

9 Oxford English Dictionary. 10 Paul Vitry, “Deux têtes décoratives du XIIIe siècle,” Monuments et memoirs de l’académie des inscriptions et belles letters 3 (1907): 24lff; offprint in Bibliothéque Municipale, Reims, n.d., p.7; quoted in Wadley, “The Masks of Reims,” 23. 11 Paul Vitry, French Sculpture During the Reign of Saint Louis 1226-1270 (Florence, 1929; reprint, New York: Hacker Art Books, 1973), pg, 74. 12 Émile Mâle, The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, trans. By Caroline Dobson Satzweld (E.P. Dutton and Company,1913; reprint, New York: Harper and Row, 1958), 59. 13 Ibid., 59.

This imagery, according to Mâle, was born out of a superstitious mind and would soon become extinct as reason takes over. Mâle‟s opinions on the marginal imagery were, sadly, reflected in the work of many later historians.

Two historians who did not take quite the same stance as Mâle were Étienne Moreau-

Nélaton (1915) and Louis Lefrançois-Pillion (1928). Moreau-Nélaton describes the truthful and realistic renderings of the sculptors as “men, women, clerks or laymen, all ages and all conditions parade past in this gallery of realistic portraits.” 14 He gives them importance in their reflection of medieval society. Lefrançois-Pillion, like many historians, extols the unique and varied nature of the corbel heads. Although he does not analyze the program, and finally relegates them to meaningless marginality, several striking observations are made. The heads are compared to the peasant renderings of Leonardo da Vinci, and like these the historian calls them idealized visions of the lowest classes.15

Hans Reinhardt in his book of 1963 seems to repeat Mâle, saying, “the role of the masks, like that of the gargoyles is purely decorative.” 16 After Mâle, the same opinions are voiced over again. Wadley (1984) expands his research into the first full-length study devoted solely to the corbel heads. While his research provides much valuable information, his concern is with dating the heads and documenting the extent of the restoration that took place on each piece. Wadley explores the range of possible meanings attached to the heads over the years and concludes that “it is still impossible to say whether any iconographical meaning was attached to this exercise [of describing the human countenance more realistically].” 17

14 Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, La Cathédrale de Reims (Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1915), 79. 15 Louise Lefrançois-Pillion, Les Sculpteurs de Reims (Paris: Les Éditions Rieder Place Saint-Sulpice, 1928), 53. 16 Hans Reinhardt, Cathédrale de Reims: son histoire son architecture, sa sculpture, ses vitraux (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963), 156. 17 William Bert Wadley, “The Reims Masks: A Reconstruction, Stylistic Analysis, and Chronology of the Corbel Sculptures on the Upper Stories of Reims Cathedral” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1984), 8.

Moving forward, Michael Camille‟s work (1992) on marginal imagery provides a point of departure from all previous scholarship on the heads. He expresses concern for and interest in the less often discussed and more difficult portions of medieval art, the wild and wonderful portrayals that occupy the edges. These marginal images inundate work from the Middle Ages and are pervasive through different media.

Some of the more insightful ideas concerning medieval art come from historians who do not directly talk about the corbel heads at Reims. My research relies on the writings and enthusiasm of

John Ruskin (1851), Charles H. Haskins (1927), Marcel Aubert (1929), Erwin Panofsky (1951),

Teresa Frisch (1960), and Robert Branner (1962), as well as those cited previously. Through these historians, I have come to appreciate Gothic art and better understand the culture that created these magnificent cathedrals and programs of sculpture.

The goal of this research is to determine the meaning of the masks, and it is important to look first at who designed, sculpted, and saw this program. Was the entire cathedral planned to the finest detail, and who was involved in this process? In deciphering the corbel heads, it is necessary to sort through historian‟s opinions and for this research, to decide whether or not the program was planned, by whom, clergy, architect, craftsmen, and when, beforehand, in the workshop, or on the work site.

The Gothic cathedral is a plan of the whole world. Just as a summa sought to outline all knowledge in an area, the cathedral set about showing “the whole of Christian knowledge, theological, moral, natural, and historical …” 18 This is done in a straightforward, orderly manner.

By accepting this view of a Gothic cathedral, the corbel sculptures are thus both a planned and integral part of the story of Christian knowledge presented by the cathedral. “Art was considered as one form of liturgy,” and as such artists knew the proper conventions to apply for each character

18 Erwin Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism, (Saint Vincent Archabbey, 1951; New York: Meridian Books, 1961), 44, 45.

and situation.19 To diverge in portrayal from the Church-sanctioned view would be unheard of; it would be blasphemy. While this would be a serious offense, twelfth-century ideas of correct images may not be the same as they are today.

In 816, the town of Reims was chosen to be the location of the coronation of the kings of

France, securing the importance of the city. It saw the coronations of all the kings of France from

1027-1825, except for Louis VI (1108) and Henry IV(1589). This notable fact is celebrated in an impressive gallery of kings above the West portal of Reims, which portrays David and Solomon, well known biblical kings, and an array of French kings.20 The cathedral became the traditional coronation location because St. Remi, to whom the town is dedicated, is said to have baptized the

Frankish king Clovis in 496,21 an event also depicted in the gallery of kings. The cathedral of Notre

Dame of Reims was destroyed in a fire on May 6, 1210. On May 6, 1211, the first stones were laid on the ashes of the old cathedral. The beginnings of the new structure were led by the archbishop

Aubry de Humbert (1207-1218), who wanted a grand building done in the new style seen in other churches and cathedrals, a fashion taking over the Île de France region around Paris. The first campaign of construction was well-financed and proceeded swiftly. Eventually, money grew scarce and heavy taxing led to an uprising of the people that stopped construction from 1233-1236, during which time the chapter, the archbishop and his loyals, fled from the angry citizens. This uprising was quelled and on September 7, 1241, the church was dedicated and the chapter took possession of the choir. At this point the choir and the transept were completed enough to be put to use. From records, it is clear that ground was broken for the west façade sometime after 1252. The nave and façade were completed by 1299, but work on the towers continued into the fourteenth century

(figure 37).

19 Mâle, The Gothic Image, 4. 20 Vitry, French Sculpture During the Reign of St. Louis 1226-1270, 481 21 Barbara Abou-El-Haj, “The Urban Setting for Late Medieval Church Building. Reims and its Cathedral Between 1210 and 1240,” Art History 11 (May 1988): 23.

Originally, there was a labyrinth in the nave that had four figures with inscriptions beneath.

The labyrinth was destroyed in 1779, but the layout can be traced from records (figure 45). In the sixteenth century Jacques Cellier (ca. 1550-ca. 1620),22 drew the labyrinth, but failed to indicate the specifics of the figures and inscriptions. The canon of the cathedral, Pierre Cocquault 23 provided further information in the seventeenth century. The labyrinth portrayed the architects or masters of the cathedral and described which portions they built. Jean d‟Orbais was the master from 1211 to

1231 and worked on the choir and the transept. After his departure, Jean le Loup worked on the cathedral until 1247, and from the inscription we know his main accomplishment was the north transept façade. Gaucher de Reims was the first to begin work on the west façade and his term was from 1247 to 1255. The final master listed on the labyrinth was Bernard de Soissons. He built the five eastern bays of the nave and was in his office from 1255 to 1280. From cathedral documentation, it is known that there was a fifth master named Robert de Coucy. This architect worked after 1290 and most likely completed the four western bays of the nave.24

It is important to understand that the term “architect” as used today does not directly translate into a position that existed in the thirteenth century. The person at the head of a building‟s construction was generally referred to as the master. These masters attained their position because they could both design and construct.25 The architect or master builder was the head builder or artisan, a skilled and senior member of the building team. In the writing of early historians, this master had different representations. In the mind of A.W.N. Pugin (1812-1852), the position was less physically involved. The master designed in the studio and directed with words. For John

Ruskin (1818-1900) and Eugène Violette-le-Duc (1814-1879), the master created directly on the

22 Robert Branner, “Labyrinth of Reims Cathedral,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 21 (March 1962): 18. 23 Teresa Grace Frisch, “Twelve Choir Statues of the Cathedral at Reims, Their Stylistic and Chronological Relation to the Sculpture of the North Transept and of the West Façade,” The Art Bulletin 24 (March 1960): 2. 24 Ibid., 3. 25 Franklin Toker, “Gothic Architecture by Remote Control: An Illustrated Building Cotract of 1340,” The Art Bulletin 67 (March 1985): 67.

site.26 The position of master builder or architect was, in fact evolving in the thirteenth century. In

1178, William of Sens as master builder of Canterbury Cathedral, fell from the scaffold while construction was underway. He had to resign his position because the injury was keeping him from the work site.27 By 1253, Gautier de Varinfroi, master at Èvreux Cathedral, was in residence only two or three days a year.28 The master would assign second-in-commands, called appareilleurs, who would help in supervision. There is record of a sermon given in 1261 by the Dominican Nicholas de Biart in which he states incredulously “Master of the masons, carrying a yardstick and with gloves on their hands, say to others: „Cut it for me this way‟ and do not work; yet they receive higher pay, as do many present-day bishops.” 29

The construction of Reims cathedral falls into this time of transition. There is evidence that the masters of Reims were taking on a less physically active role in the construction process. This is evident from several sources. There are geometrical designs inscribed on the stones at Reims, which point to the earlier style of design on site.30 There are also designs on paper, which show how building tactics are changing. Villiard de Honnecourt sketched an album of sixty-three pages drawn from different buildings that seems to be meant for instructional purposes. Although some scholars refer to Villiard as an accomplished architect or master, it is likely that he was a „gentleman‟ architect.31 The sketchbooks of Villiard de Honnecourt contain important records of the advances in architectural rendering. Villiard is believed to have visited Reims cathedral sometime around

26 Ibid., 68. 27 Ibid., 69. 28 Marcel Aubert, French Sculpture at the Beginning of the Gothic Period 1140-1225 (Firenze: Pantheon, Casa Editrice, 1929; reprint, New York: Hacker Art Books, 1972), 81. 29 Nicholas de Biart, Distinctiones thelogicae Veteris et Novi Testamenti (France, 13th-14th century); referred to in Toker, “Gothic Architecture by Remote Control,” 70, n. 6. 30 Michael Camille, Gothic Art, Glorious Vision (New York: Harry N. Abrams and Prentice Hall, 1996), 37. 31 James S. Ackerman, “Villard de Honnecourt‟s Drawings of Reims Cathedral: A Study in Architectural Representation,” Artibus et Historiae 18, no. 35 (1997): 42.

1230-1235,32 during the height of the initial construction phase. Some of his sketches of Reims were drawn from the existing structure, but others had to have been copied from the workers plans because they were of portions that were not completed. These items are evidence of some type of planning being used during the building process. Equally intriguing and significant to this study, there are sketches of sculpture in Villiard‟s book, which would lead one to think that some sculpture was included in the planning process of the cathedral.

The “Reims Palimpset” is a set of documents upon which has been recorded a “martyrology and obituary of the metropolitan chapter of Reims. . .” 33 These consist of a collection of 153 parchment pages that originally contained elevations of the facades, the choirstalls, and the clerestory windows as well as various details on different levels.34 Sometime between 1263 and 1270, the pages were cleaned and re-cut to be used for the parish archives. The cathedral drawings were incised with a stylus, so they are still visible even though the ink has been cleaned away.35 These show the emerging use of planning in the construction process of Gothic cathedrals. The responsibilities and job structure of the architect or master builder were changing.

So, for Reims, the architect drew out the plans for the structure; it can then be assumed that the archbishop conveyed his ideas through the architect. For while all clergy did not have the imagination nor the time to play a role in planning a cathedral as Abbot Suger did at St. Denis 1140-

1150, they undoubtedly had extensive control over the plans of the cathedral. This was an important and well-planned building whose construction was overseen by both the architect and the archbishop. The corbels, which are architectural elements, have been part of this integrated and comprehensive planning process. Although no one has previously taken it into account, the

32 See Ackerman, “Villard de Honnecourt‟s Drawings,” 41, n. 12; and Camille, Gothic Art, Glorious Vision, 143, n. 11. 33 Robert Branner, “Drawings from a Thirteenth-Century Architect‟s Shop: The Reims Palimpsest,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 17, no. 4 (1958): 9. 34 Ibid., 14. 35 Ackerman, “Villard de Honnecourt‟s Drawings,” 47.

evidence of a master plan at Reims demonstrates that these sculptures could not have been merely practice pieces or jokes added by the sculptor.

Chapter 2: The Heads and their Precursors

In the high Middle Ages each cathedral, though dedicated to Jesus and to his mother Mary, proclaimed the glory of the diocese and of the archbishop, and therefore each tried to be the most splendid. Because the Church as an institution was thriving, it had both the money and power to accomplish this. New types of sculpture were made and placed in new locations on an increasingly expansive scale. Reims sculpture is ornament expanded to beautiful and intriguing proportions.

The corbel heads are a planned portion of the cathedral, but who created these sculptures, how do they fit with the rest of the cathedral, and how do they fit together? Where also does the inspiration for these representations come from historically, and how does it fit into the age during which it was created? This chapter will look closely at the heads and show the sculptural precedent that can be found first in Roman sculpture, then also in Romanesque. In addition, there are sculptural parallels in works contemporary to Reims cathedral. William Wadley categorized the masks extensively. He breaks them down into location and subject matter. He further construes when groups of heads were created and by whom, as does Sauerlander on a much smaller scale.

Wadley‟s conclusions result in an earlier dating for the works; he puts them into the same timeline as the more visible religious works of saints and angels on the lower floors.36 Wadley also connects some of the heads to each other stylistically, and posits that they were made by sculptors of the larger statues around the doors. Thereby, he gives strong evidence that they were not done by apprentices.

If we assume that every piece of the cathedral was put into place for a specific purpose, as reasoned in the first chapter, the next question is: What part do they play in the narration of the cathedral story? The medieval audience and the „artist‟ would not be scholars. They didn‟t have libraries of reference books at their disposal, but they also didn‟t require these as we do because they

36 Wadley “the Reims Masks,” 45.

were a part of the culture and therefore had inherent skills and understanding, hard to comprehend today. For this reason, looking at literature and scholarly pursuits of the time is not the most direct route to interpretation.37 Perhaps one can best understand the figures by looking at them. Wadley concludes that at one time there were around 162 corbels.38 He could account for 125 from documentary evidence, but shelling during World War I decimated many of the then extant heads.

These images were and are small, high on the cathedral, and they have been exposed to the elements for 800 years. The sculptures were installed on a work-in-progress since the cathedral was under construction for many years due to its high cost and sheer magnitude. Even after the initial building was completed, it had to be continually re-worked as a result of the natural wear of time and the elements on stone as well as the destruction caused by fire and war. It was not built as an historic monument, but as an interactive place of worship. Just as any mall or office building does not want to fall behind the times in style, so too the cathedral. If objects broke they were fixed or replaced with newer forms. If the Church had the money, new artists or artisans could be hired to update the artwork and portions of the interior.

Santa Sophia in Turkey and San Marco in Venice are well-known and extreme examples of the layering of generations of taste and people. It is important to keep this perspective when studying this building. It is not so important which heads are originals or when they were made or replaced. Just as at Notre Dame in Paris, replacement and restoration add to the historical nature of a building. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc updated the cathedral in Paris from 1845-65, and did so in the

Gothic spirit. The building needed work, and what could not be saved was recreated with a love of the original and an impulse to make it even grander. In much the same way everywhere, each generation adds its own mark or commentary on a cathedral, whether at Reims, Chartres, or

Washington D.C.

37 Brendan Cassidy, ed., Iconography at the Crossroads (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 7. 38 Wadley, “The Reims Masks,” 2.

Looking at Reims Cathedral, one would not immediately notice the masks, unless specifically interested in them. Just as on any overwhelmingly large building, such as the Houses of Parliament in London, the casual observer would not see the wealth of pain and mirth portrayed by the little imps on the edges. Why, for instance, would these little face-pullers have been added to a government building (figure 34)? In 1835, the designers Charles Barry (1795-1860) and A.W.N

Pugin (1812-1852), were emulating previous practices, and so the imps were included because of prior precedent within English Gothic architecture. These could be studied very much in the same way as the masks on Reims.

Some of the best photos of the sculptural program at Reims were taken before World War I and appear as plates in scholarly books written before the war, or are in the Photo Monuments

Historiques, which is a catalogue begun around 1850 of images of what we would call National

Monuments. While these early historians do comment upon this program, there is little depth to the descriptions of earlier writers. The sculptures are quite impressive; they vary widely in type and intensity of emotion. There are depictions of what look like normal people gazing down upon the passers-by, as well as images of imps pulling faces and poor souls howling in grief and rage. Some faces have secret mirth, while others express incredible pain. The heads need to be looked at as devotional images, but not perhaps in the same light as the saintly figures because they are not located where they are easily seen.

The first head I encountered was years ago (figure 31): the laughing head was not terribly exceptional to one studying medieval art history for the first time. Looking at it now, after more experience with the Gothic, I see it differently. The head is not what one would traditionally expect from a piece of early thirteenth-century sacred art. The mouth is open, the eyebrows arch up, and flesh around the mouth and on the forehead wrinkles outward to show mirth. The hair falls in gentle waves back off his forehead and down either side to frame the face. There was great skill

involved in sculpting such features, down to the elegant nose. The head is rich with character and emotion, and that is why the idea of the late Gothic as an era of flux intrigues me. I always liked that which was “in between” in my art history courses. The late Gothic-early Renaissance period was when art as a practice and concept began to change dramatically. This image of the life-like laughing head came to mind as an early indication of such change. The following masks further indicate the greater attention to natural detail that mark the sculptures of the late Gothic.

Another head is female (figure 7, upper right). She smiles out at us with a cheerful expression. Her eyes are open wide and her eyebrows arch up in joy. A simple decorative band adorns her brow and calls attention to the long wavy hair that cascades down either side of her face.

The expression on her face makes it seem as if this young woman has just been offered an exquisite gift, or perhaps a delicacy to eat. Her face shows a surprised delight in something. This head does not display the extreme emotion that some of the sculptures do, but is more elegant in its restraint.

Not all faces are so amiable. Another seems to be in the process of being squashed (figure 6, lower right). He has a flat head, which could have been for a variety of purposes originally. The stone might be damaged, or more likely another object might once have been positioned on top.

His face pulls downward with weight or age. He has heavy brows which are knit inward in a violent way. The eyes are squinted to almost non-existence as his mouth opens in a loud and painful groan.

This particular head seems to carry the weight of the world upon him, not unlike an Atlas. Although unlike a traditional marginal Atlas figure, he does not bear his weight with dignity. Perhaps he helps or makes fun of the full figure of Atlas just above him. Just like this Atlas, the head does not necessarily participate in the holy imagery of the cathedral but in some ways comments upon it, in a humorous way. Perhaps he is weighed down by his sins or his worldly concerns, and this is something parishioners must be wary of. In this case, both Atlas and the nearby head have the same

useful purpose, to hold up architecture, and the spiritual purpose of entertaining and educating people.

The Reims masks are a program of sculptures which depart in many ways from previous types of Church sculpture and human representation, but still they are not without precedent. The corbel heads have their roots in several different established forms of sculpture, or masonry. The first is from ancient classical theater masks. The early and high Gothic era is seen by some as a type of „proto-Renaissance.‟39 This came about partly as a product of the classical education taking place in the cathedral schools, and more importantly in the newly formed secular universities.40 Beginning with the court of Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, who reigned from 771-814, learning became an important and accepted pursuit. Classical Latin literature, and in fact the Latin language itself experienced a revival. Once scholarly pursuits became established in Northern Europe, Greek and

Arabic learning came from Italy and locations further East. Law, medicine, philosophy, theology, and poetry were all important areas of study that blossomed. Libraries were established and collections of ancient manuscripts were assembled and translated.41

In areas once occupied by ancient Roman legions, there were vestiges of Roman art and architecture. For the architect, these were important to study when planning a building. The

Victorians studied medieval art and architecture in much the same way, and from approximately the same historical distance. Interest in the past and in the marvels created then left an impressive mark on the European world. The older architectural and artistic techniques and traditions were assimilated and expanded upon, even improved one might say. Roman artifacts exist in Reims even

39 Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1960; reprint, New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 55. 40 Charles Homer Haskins, The Rise of Universities (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1957), ? 41 Haskins, Charles Homer, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927), 17-29.

today which point to the availability of these classical influences on the image.42 The cathedral of

Reims is one place especially noted for its return to antique imagery. “[The Visitation] is the most important testimony we possess to the association of the thirteenth century with antique sculpture in the round.”43 The Annunciation and Visitation groups found on the West façade at Reims are two of the most celebrated examples of how Roman influence changed sculpture in the Middle Ages.

The change in style from the jamb figures of the Royal Portals of Chartres to those of Reims is evident (figures 35, 36). At Chartres, the figures remain much more within two dimensions. The drapery lines are more stylized than actually representative. The upright, stiff, frontal stance of the jamb figures look similar to the iconic poses found in Byzantine mosaics. At Reims, this is changed.

The jamb sculptures are much more three-dimensional, and the figures engage each other. They occupy believable space and turn to talk with their cohorts. The drapery looks more Roman, and even more important, it gives the viewer the idea that there is an actual flesh body beneath the folds.

It is thought that remnants of Roman sculpture found in the area on sarcophagi and frieze elements on buildings formed the basis of the return of the more classical elements that the builders and planners of the cathedral utilize.

The masks take part in this more humanistic and realistic representational style. The actual form of the mask is taken from Romanesque buildings, which, in turn, were loosely based upon antique models. Where the Romanesque were “inchoate, monstrous corbel types”44 based upon the antique sculptural type, the Gothic created mocking, human and intriguing images that borrowed from the more exact anatomy of the antique and the more expressive qualities of the Romanesque.

The corbels are more than soulless copies of antique, they take the technical aptitude of the antique

42 Wadley, “The Reims Masks,” 16. 43 Willibald Sauerländer, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270 trans. Janet Sondheimer (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 1970; reprint London: Thames and Hudson, 1972), 485. 44 Michael Camille, Image on the Edge, The Margins of Medieval Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 82-83.

sculptor and add the flavor of their age and are often even dressed in contemporary clothes. 45

Contemporary headdress and clothing on some of the figures clearly establishes the heads as thoughtful originals. As with many things Gothic, an initial idea was borrowed and then expanded upon until the end product was claimed as an entirely unique Gothic piece.

While the corbel heads were inspired by previous imagery, their appearance is wholly new and not imitative. The blank theater masks of antiquity and grotesque scowling demons of the

Romanesque became at Reims impressively expressive faces so lifelike in many cases that art historians have wondered if they were done from life. “Virtually every facial expression of which the human countenance is capable, however forthright or subtle, came to be represented with extraordinary empathy and naturalism.”46

This Roman terra cotta mask from the 1st-2nd century A.D., for instance, is an example of the proposed precedent for the Reims masks (figure 42). It portrays only the eyeless human face, and in this case could actually have been used as a mask to place on a person. It was undoubtedly meant to convey a specific character or emotion, but this image is difficult to decipher. The brows are puckered in what could be construed as anxiety or grief. The hair is stylized to the point where we wonder if it is indeed meant to be hair or a headdress of some sort. Aside from the expressive eyebrows it is difficult to read anything from the hardened nose, mouth, and chin. The figure gives little away to us.

The smiling head at Reims (figure 16), while similar in simplicity, conveys much more. The plain, unadorned corbel has an open, smiling expression. It greets us with a sane and cheerful countenance. The eyes squint just a bit and the cheeks round back from the full smile. Unlike the smiling imp of a corbel previously described (figure 31), this face contains neither hysteria, nor

45 Paul Vitry, French Sculpture During the Reign of St. Louis 1226-1270 (Florence, 1929; reprint New York: Hacker Art Books, 1973), 48. 46 Wadley, “The Reims Masks,” 5.

infectious laughter, merely cheerful greeting. It conveys as much in its restraint as others do in their ebullience. It is a very humanely carved piece. It looks real, not like a caricature, and not like a demon. It does not express moral tales.

Another example (figure 44), from the second or third century A.D., is located in Didyma on the Temple and Oracle of Apollo, has a bit more in common with Reims. It is in relief as part of a building as a fixed sculpture. This heavily stylized head is later Roman, more mannerist, and is the

Roman attempt to add emotion to sculpture. Despite strange wavy brows which in a cartoon might suggest that the character is about to weep, there is nothing overly sad to be read in this face. It has perhaps a hint of concern and watchfulness. The hair waves down in repeated s-curves with a bit more order and two-dimensionality than seen at Reims. The face is a bit bereft of emotion.

In contrast to this Roman sculpture is another Reims mask (figure 9, top left). While of a similar nature as the Roman mask, this face conveys a sense of sternness. The entire face contributes to the expressed emotion. Wrinkles in the forehead and frown/grimace lines down each side of the mouth express age and a grim demeanor. His hair is even more three dimensional, despite the almost symmetrical curls. While admittedly not the most refined expressive face, the attempt was made, and in this case it looks as though lack of talent not lack of effort can be blamed.

A more subtly rendered head can be found elsewhere on the cathedral (figure 11). This sculpture, once again, shows us a stern face. The expression is closer to reality than the previous almost parodied face. This head has sculptural depth with strong cheekbones and a prominent nose. His eyebrows and facial hair, unlike the more stylized hair on his head, are remarkably realistic. It is difficult to find a sculpture more humanly rendered. Images like this make us wonder whether human models were indeed used at Reims.

Before the era of the great Gothic cathedral, the Romanesque building style prevailed.

Although seen in many churches, it is generally most fully realized in monastic settings. Corbel

heads and gargoyles were prevalent on these buildings. There were ancient historical precedents for placing heads on buildings for protection against evil as “in the North it is related to the Celtic custom of worshipping decapitated heads.”47 These Romanesque figures were also based upon the earlier Roman style, only now they seemed to exhibit more exaggerated emotions, often of pain. As we see at St. Pierre Aulnay-de-Saintonge, c. 1120 (figure 49), there are little animal corbels with their tongues hanging out. Also visible in the details is a human head and shoulders peeking out from the arched ornament. Elsewhere on the same structure we see a head springing out of the bottom of an arch (figure 50). These examples show that the Romanesque heads were less realistically rendered perhaps than the earlier Roman masks, but they have new interesting placement and expression. In contrast, a head at Reims has both the more accurate human likeness and an emotive expression. A good contrast to the man climbing out of the corner at Aulney is seen at Reims (figure 2, left). This head has a similar position to the one at Aulnay, and yet it is much more realistically and expressively created. The earlier statue actually barely looks human. It is meant to be an idea as much as a human. Camille suggests that it exists to protect the doorway with its gaze.48 At Reims, the heads have less specific readable purpose. They exist to decorate the building with their beauty, and yet they also illustrate ideas about the space they occupy. There is a definite reliance on Roman sculptural ideals as well as Romanesque feeling and meaning.

Specific sources or precedents for the heads have not been found, especially nothing to match the dramatic qualities as seen at Reims, but the masks are not isolated. At Wells Cathedral

(cathedral begun 1180 head c.1220), there are heads on the capitals of the interior pillars at the meeting of nave and transept that share similar quirky traits with the Reims heads . In the case of

Wells, though, the mouth puller (figure 32) has a specific ancient precedent and is a copy or conglomerate more than an original piece. The mouth puller is an older subject type, similar to the

47 Camille, Image on the Edge, 72. 48 Ibid., 79.

youth pulling a thorn from its heel. which reappears throughout history (figure 43). The mouth pullers are humorous images that seem to have found a special place in Romanesque churches and monasteries. This version is found in Castletown, Ireland on the ruins of a convent. The Wells

Cathedral mouth puller is very similar in style. It is, of course less weathered and is also a more fully realized human form than the convent piece, but it is clear that both images come from the same original idea. That idea is often found in Great Britain and Ireland, as seen in Castletown but can be found in continental Europe as well (figure 47). Perhaps it is derived from the practice of placing the heads of animals or humans at doorways for protection, but the idea changed form when used extensively in the Romanesque monastery.

The mouth puller at Reims has its own character (figure 30). He stares stupidly or perhaps belligerently out at us from under heavy brows. His tongue lolls far out of the left side of his mouth. His teeth and lips are large and very visible, as is his wide piggish nose. His hair falls forward onto his forehead and down either side of his face in waves. His face and neck suggest the remainder of his body is chubby since a double chin supports the head, and is the first thing the upward looking viewer would see. Unlike the previous examples of mouth pullers, this is not a formulaic piece, it has a distinct identity; specifically, it is recognizable as coming from the mouth puller tradition without actually putting its fingers in its mouth. The Gothic took what was an ancient superstition, the placement of heads over an opening in a building as a guard, saw it through the lens of Romanesque emotion and Roman technical ability, and created its own complex corbel heads.

Semur-en Auxois in Burgundy, begun in 1225, also contains faces as details on the choir interior, on the pillars and about the clerestory.49 These examples are smaller in number and scale than those at Reims. In most cases the sculptor seemed less interested in realistic depictions of

49 Ibid., 82-83.

human faces and emotion (figures 39, 40). These faces are generally staid. They look down at the congregation from above and observe. Both on Reims and in Semur-en Auxois, the sculptures are human heads, but the theme is much more lavishly and uniquely applied at Reims. At Reims, the sculptures step away from their historic roots and form a new type of portrayal.

Contemporary parallels are seen at Bamberg cathedral (c. 1237). In this case, both sculptures are of green men or foliate heads (figures 19 and 45). In both instance, the images were inspired by previous sculptural precedents and yet are distinctive. Like the mouth pullers, they come from established images, but these are vastly different. This is much like the art that will be coming in the

Renaissance. Iconography is the ability to make a character recognized as a specific person or event while still being purely the creation of the artist.

The corbel heads did not spring into existence from nothing. They take part in a long tradition of sculptural representation. The general portrait in stone comes more from Roman masks and heads, while their more emotional content borrows from the Romanesque. They create their own space in combining the two, and herald the coming of the Renaissance.

Chapter 3: The Sacred and the Profane

There are many ideas that have been put forth in an attempt to explain the existence of the corbel heads on Notre Dame of Reims. They have been described as practice pieces or works that were accomplished by a less skilled apprentice since they occupy a lofty and out-of-the-way location.

Their very striking character rules out this idea. These sculptures show expert execution and mastery of technique. The heads are beautifully formed and magnificently realistic images and could not have been misfit stones or sculptures. It is equally unlikely that the stone carvers took inspiration directly from life, although it is possible that there were inspired by people they knew or saw. Studios would have ancient sculptures to draw from as well as copy books. In Reims in particular, there is ample opportunity to observe Roman sculpture.50 It was also the practice of such workshops to have recorded images that could be copied, as well as the accumulated knowledge of the sculptors who has done ecclesiastic pieces in the past. There were traditions and conventions in place that could produce beautiful pieces that correctly conformed to Church doctrine.51 These pieces were executed by experts and put into place with full consent of the clergy.

In this chapter I will show how the Church at this time would have been happy with these images. I will also look at the masks as part of Gothic marginal imagery, much like is seen in illuminated manuscripts of the time.

It is important to take into account the religious and social situation surrounding the cathedral in the Middle Ages. It is equally vital to consider the Christianity of this period. The

Church had almost unlimited power over the average person. It was also a religion quite different from what is seen today. It encompassed all of life, not just Sunday, and permeated most of the working day. The local church, cathedral, or monastery gave order to the day, organizing it with the ringing of bells. The Church employed many people, and the church building or cathedral was also

50 Wadley, “The Reims Masks,” 15. 51 Mâle, Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, 3.

often a market filled with goods to buy and exchange. The Church was the primary landowner. The building was the social, civic, and spiritual center of the community. The mass itself was not rigidly formalized until Pope Pious V instituted the Roman Rite as the official “mass” at the Council of

Trent (1545-63). This mass was written out and distributed in 1570.52

What did the powerful medieval Church have to say about the Reims masks, these strange images that smirk and glare from above? From the evidence found in holy books as well as on holy buildings, it seems obvious, first of all, that the Church officials approved.

The Church acceptance of sacred imagery was a hard fought battle through the centuries.

The use of the image for generations divided the Church in thought. It continued to do so through history and became one of the tenets of the Reformation. For, when one goes back to the basic source, the Old Testament reads, “You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth.” 53 The Council of Nicaea in 787 AD cautioned the artist to not create on one‟s own, but the documents also justify the use of the image in the sacred world, “One of these traditions (which will be kept intact) consists in the production of representational artwork, which accords with the history of the preaching of the

Gospel.”54 Through the incarnation, God becomes human in the figure of Jesus “the invisible God enters into the visible world, so that we, who are bound to matter, can know Him.”55 Using earthly images or art created by humans is, therefore, an important and valid way to aid in worship. Using an image is the same as God becoming human. According to Church doctrine, the human mind simply needs these material aids because we are matter and cannot ever fully understand ideas of pure spirit. In this argument, iconoclasm only looks at the spirit and neglects to see the human side

52 Catholic Encyclopedia online. 53 Exodus 20.4, NAB. 54 Catechism of the Catholic Church from Council of Nicaea 55 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “Art and Liturgy – The Question of Images,” Adoremus Bulletin, Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy VII, no.10 (2002), online ed.

of theology.56 Such is the essence of the Church justification of why the use of the sacred image was not only considered acceptable, but a fitting and good way to pray and worship. St. Gregory the

Great (540-604) saw sacred art as a book from which the illiterate could read and learn. This came to be an important concept in the creation of Gothic cathedrals, although even in the age of the

Christian image, there were those who supported and disagreed with the use of art. St. Bernard of

Clairvoux (1090-1153) thought images corrupted humans and distracted them from prayer. His contemporary, Abbot Suger (1081-1155), on the other hand, found that art aids in devotion and provides spiritual enlightenment.

So, the image is condoned by the Church, but this does not explain the rather unholy images that are sometimes portrayed, especially on the edges of sacred art, and we may consider the masks as participating in the marginal imagery of the medieval age. A very important parallel can be drawn between the corbel heads and the images found on the borders of illuminated manuscripts and on

Romanesque monasteries. The Reims masks can be thought of as part of this marginal art. Early in the examination of Gothic cathedrals by art historians, these marginal images were ignored. Later, when considered as part of serious scholarship, the marginalia were formally classified and categorized. Early in this process, scholars took the image or sculpture off the page or building and therefore completely out of context.57 In an illuminated manuscript, strange animals and even stranger situations are depicted around the outer edge, in the margin. These books are almost entirely holy books such as prayer books, books of hours, Psalters, and Bibles, which relate them to holy buildings. Newer scholarship places the marginalia back in the holy books and on the church buildings, at the edges.

Marguerite‟s Hours, a prayer book that is now divided in half between the British Library in

London and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, offers intriguing images to investigate. The

56 Ratzinger, “Art and Liturgy,” online ed. 57 Camille, Image on the Edge, 31.

images that scurry about the page edges of this Book of Hours positively distract the modern viewer.

On one page amidst decorative pen scrawls and heads seemingly commenting upon the text, there is a nude couple in the act of copulation (figure 48). Is the image a device meant to reinforce upon this wealthy married woman that one of her prime duties as a Christian wife is the creation of offspring? Or did the illuminators take a small portion of a phrase and purposefully misconstrue the words into this image? Camille offers that the illuminator was showing a man diving back into the womb as an “anti-illustration” 58 of the Psalm in the text below the image, “And of Zion they shall say: One and all were born in her; And he who has established her is the Most High Lord.”59 It is difficult for us to prescribe any one specific meaning, for an image so far removed from our present day, especially where religion is concerned.

In the Ormesby Psalter located in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, there is another notable image (figure 48). A young man holds a ring out to a lady. The man‟s sword sticks out of the front of his robe very like a phallus, while the lady holds a squirrel. The small rodent, especially a squirrel, is seen as a reference to the male sexual organs.60 Once again this is a strange scene to appear beneath the text of Psalm 101.61 “I will walk in the integrity of my heart, within my house; I will not set before my eyes any base thing. I hate him who does perversely…” Just as with the corbel heads, this marginalia participates in or illustrates the freedom given to jest and pun and how this could co- exist with holy writing, or act as an anti-illustration of the text. In this age sacred and profane co- exist together.

Either on the page of a holy book created to aid meditation on scripture, or on a holy building meant to celebrate sacred events, these strange and unholy images seem to our modern eyes

58 Camille, Image on the Edge, 54. 59 Psalm 87.5 NAB. 60 Camille, in Image on the Edge (38), describes the popular fabliau „De l‟Escuirel‟ where a young woman, upon seeing male genitalia for the first time, asks „What‟s that?‟ and is told it is a squirrel. She then wants to hold the small animal in her hands. 61 Psalm 101.2-3 NAB.

to clash with sacred purpose. In illuminated manuscripts, apes mock the text, humans defecate into baskets or mouths, half-human/half-beast entities romp, and animals and humans engage in coitus.

It is curious to imagine what these images could mean to the person meditating and praying. Much the same could be seen in the Romanesque monastery. Today, the riotous margins pose the same difficulties in interpretation as do the odd and inexplicable corbel heads.

To compare the Reims masks with the manuscripts marginalia, I will first choose one of the animal heads. This lion (figure 23) is easily recognizable if somewhat strange to us. Just as animals romp about the edges of illuminated manuscripts, so too they play about the cathedral.

There must be some reason this similar type of seemingly superfluous decoration was used by the illuminator as well as the medieval builder or mason/stone carver. Not only are these marginal images intriguing and fun, but the edges are also the site of artistic innovation. „Portraits‟ of patrons or the daring explorations of the human form and expression occur in the book margins and with the Reims corbel heads. This was perhaps permissible because the edges of the book or of the church, like the edge of the world, were places inhabited by strange beings and monsters. In the medieval mind, the world “ended” somewhere, and at this edge, reality became more and more distorted as it came closer to oblivion. This is where monsters live, at the distorted reality at the edges of the world. It was the world become deformed and wild, not the orderly lines of a city.62 In the portrayal of this idea, marginal images can have a higher degree of creativity by their very definition.

These strange marginal images were accepted, one could say expected, by the ecclesiastical authorities; yet what purpose did they serve for the Church and for the common people who looked upon them? There have been many haphazard ideas thrown out as to what the corbel heads of

Reims could mean. Many of the ideas put forth are based solely upon observing the heads, while

62 Camille, Image on the Edge, 14.

others are more rooted in medieval study. A few ideas spring from an understanding of marginal imagery. This is perhaps because it is difficult to pinpoint a meaning in this type of imagery. As

Camille says: “I am more interested in how they (marginal images) pretend to avoid meaning, how they seem to celebrate the flux of „becoming‟ rather than ‟being‟ …”63 The marginal image acts as a pun and as decoration and are therefore ignored and disregarded in studies. Is it simply because they have no purpose or no meaning that these objects do not qualify as art, and have for centuries been ignored? The corbel heads were not studied because until the nineteenth-century with its new ideas of what can be considered art, it was simply strange ornament, much like finials on a chair or bed. In the Gothic age, there is no breaking down of the lines between high and low art, rather the masks existed before such lines had ever been clearly drawn. It was only with the Renaissance that the idea of the art “connoisseur” came into being. “The Connoisseur positioned himself above the tastes of the „vulgar.‟”64 Before Vasari, the idea of the lower image versus the higher image was not a problem to be wrestled with. This continued prejudice is a question that will come up over and over in history, a question which is not resolved to this day.

The importance of the “artist” in the building process was virtually nonexistent. In fact, the idea of the artist we think of today did not precisely exist at the time. The arts were the liberal arts taught in universities. There were no artists, just craftsmen who had apprenticed and practiced a trade within a guild, much as a weaver, blacksmith, or baker would. One cannot speak of intent of the artist, delve into what motivated the art, or what statement the artist is trying to make. It must be looked at in terms of the Church and why the ecclesiastic authorities felt the representations were important or relevant to the scheme of the church building, or perhaps why the tradition existed for this type of imagery. The Council of Nicaea, which took place in 787 AD expressly charged

63 Camille, Image on the Edge, 9. 64 Camille, Image on the Edge, 158.

craftsmen to not create on their own in regards to religious objects.65 This was in response to the anti-image iconoclasts. The Nicaean Council drew up a set of theologically based regulations on the making and the adoration of images. Much of the art produced in the Middle Ages were in fact variations on themes recorded in copybooks at the guild shops. But in this Gothic age, the artist was changing just as the architect was. These heads may be based in earlier types, but the sculptor was not just copying. There is much more feeling and personality here. They might have followed the letter of the law to do their job, but they also made new and living pieces. As seen in illuminated manuscripts of the time, artists were allowed and expected to be humorous and create puns. The masks of Reims did this with a very subtle touch.

So, when trying to decipher the corbel heads, one must understand that cathedrals were planned structures, regulated by the architect and by the archbishop. Artists were not free creators, nor were people free to express ideas not approved by the Church, especially on a cathedral. A strict set of rules was in place and traditions had to be followed. The artist could work within those rules and follow accepted precepts, while still creating a new living piece that was humorous and imaginative.

“Medieval people loved to project themselves into their images just as we can enter into our video and computer screens.”66 So while the Biblical sculpture teaches and tells a specific story, the corbels comment upon and participate in that act of teaching. They are perhaps the world or the person who looks up and learns. The corbel heads are the human, and the saints and angels are the divine. Both are integral parts of the Christian faith and must be represented.

The manner in which faith during this time period is expressed is also becoming a bit more concerned with the realm of humanity. The principal image of the Romanesque monastery was

Jesus enthroned. The God-image of Revelation sits in judgment and sorts the souls into the worthy

65 Mâle. The Gothic Image, 392. 66 Camille, Gothic Art Glorious Vision, 15.

on his right to ascend to heaven and the unworthy on his left to be thrown into the pit of fire. The image of the Gothic is the human Jesus of the passion. Even more, a strong devotion arises based upon the image of Mary the Mother of God.67 At Reims, one of the main jamb sequences is dedicated to the Annunciation and Visitation. These images clearly respond more to the human side of God. The building energy for the Romanesque was put primarily into the monastery, which relates to a withdrawn and spiritual life. For the Gothic era, the ultimate architecture was found in the cathedral, a structure made for the urban congregation. The very aim of the buildings speaks to a more humanistic approach. There are humans worshiping, and it is much easier when you can understand and empathize with what you worship. The people can identify with the suffering of

Christ in their own life and feel closer to their God.

Earlier historians present their opinions of the Reims masks briefly in tomes dedicated to the more serious sculpture of the cathedral. Paul Vitry in 1907 takes the opinion that the sculptures were done by young artists, even apprentices. He also attests that the realism of the program is most likely a result of study of actual people. Emile Mâle in 1913 says that like gargoyles, dragons, and vampires, the heads were part of the darker imagery of peasant tales and folklore. In 1915 Moreau-

Nelaton sees the faces as a reflection of medieval society, in all its classes and moods. In 1928

LeFrancois Pillion compares the corbel heads to daVinci‟s sketches of peasants, idealized lower classes. Hans Reinhardt in 1963 pins upon the faces the label of purely decorative devices. William

Wadley in 1984 is not concerned with their purpose, and while he makes the only study devoted exclusively to the masks, he does not make his own comments. Michael Camille, in 1992 looks at the heads in the context of medieval marginal imagery. While his more concise conclusions are drawn for marginalia in illuminated manuscripts, his observations can be expanded to encompass the corbel heads.

67 Ratzinger, “Art, Image and Artists,” Adoremus Bulletin, Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy VIII, no. 1 (2002), online ed.

Jerusalem, to the medieval mind, is the center of „the universe.‟ It is the base from which everything else springs. “The further one moves away from the center-point of Jerusalem, the more deformed and alien things become.”68 In very much the same way, the cathedral, which is a model of the heavenly city is clearer and much more distinct at the center where worship takes place, and at the „edges‟ are the gargoyles, the atlas figures, and the corbel heads. For, as humans participating in the world, we are not a part of the heavenly city, we are the indistinct figures around the edges who perhaps aspire to enter into the Holy City. “The exterior of the church was not part of the sacred space, it was the junction with the world.”69 As such , it would be sensible that the corbel heads are meant as representations of humans, those specifically who worship in the space of the cathedral.

Why, then, are people portrayed as grinning, scowling, idiotic, and howling? Perhaps to show that humanity is characterized by emotions, which are fleshy and mundane things. Our place would not be benevolently smiling specters gracing important areas of the cathedral, but as scarcely present, up high, on the edges. With God‟s grace though, humans are at least allowed these small places because through the miracle of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the path to heaven was opened to mortals. “Most people today consider that man is at the centre of an ethnocentric world system,”70 but this was not the medieval view. This idea of humans at the center of the world was one of the ideas of theologian Karl Rahner. His ideas on religion were very important to the changes seen in the Second Vatican Council, 1962-65, and are therefore some of the most pervasive ideas for a Catholic today. The Biblical writer Paul expected the second coming to happen in his own lifetime. Over a thousand years later, the Church was still waiting with the same expectation.

Humanity was surely at the end of its run. The world was getting worse, and the corbel heads can be seen as humanity in its last gasp waiting for the end to come and the Last Judgment to occur.

68 Camille, Image on the Edge, 14. 69 Ibid., 72. 70 Ibid., 53.

Perhaps the change in the imagery from the Romanesque Last Judgment to the gothic Jesus of the passion or Mary enthroned signals a change in the attitude about the coming of Christ. Humanity is perhaps looking toward the end of the world in a less immediate way than previously.

The corbel heads are to my understanding an image of humanity holding onto the edge of grace, looking always toward the peace and joy to come with the end of the world. All the while we are assaulted by the distractions and temptations of the world, and are hard-pressed to maintain our precarious position.

This would have been the medieval view. Humans were considered inherently evil. We want to sin because that pleases the flesh, and the flesh is what drives us in the secular world. It was the Church‟s goal or purpose to make the petty everyday people look beyond the moment toward the “reward in heaven.” For the medieval parishioner, the only way to heaven was through the

Church. The priests, saints, etc. worked as intercessors to God for the common people. As the corbel heads, the people rely on the Church to maintain even this precarious position, on the edge and barely visible.

The Renaissance is a bridge between the medieval ideas and the more recent ideas allowing a much more individual and direct access to God. In the Renaissance church, depictions of patrons are allowed in the church, participating in the images of the saints. At Reims, this idea is on its way.

The people are not patrons yet nor are they allowed to occupy important visible places, but they do have a presence. The same can be said of marginal illuminated manuscript images. Some scholarship argues that the stained glass windows at Chartres Cathedral portrays various guilds because they donated the money for the window. Even if they were only images of the guilds and not specific commissions made by the guilds themselves, the fact that they are being represented is notable. They can be read in the same way as the heads, for although the heads are much less specific and were not paid for by individuals or groups, the trade windows are windows, and are

therefore a gateway between the interior and the exterior space, or a bridge between the sacred and the profane world. Abbot Suger himself appears in a window at St. Denis.

The corbel heads in many ways parallel the marginalia of illuminated manuscripts. They occupy the same space, the outside edges. They were approved of by the Church, and yet display ideas that are difficult for us, today, to comprehend in a Church setting. The artist was not slyly commenting upon the Church, they did not have that power. Rather, they were, with church permission, commenting for the Church upon humanity. The heads are humans and because they inhabit the edges, they are allowed their small amount of freedom. They are human and therefore are portrayed as imperfect and in need of divine help. But they reflect the change in the Church to a more human based thinking. The heads project the belief of human inclusion in God‟s plan for the world.

Conclusion

I have set out with certain goals. The first goal is to investigate past scholarship on the

Reims Masks and find where it is lacking. Generally, the masks are usually dismissed as not important. The masks are described as notable as decoration yes, but not useful in an art historical sense. They are further passed off as not planned, not part of the iconography, not even done by the masters that executed the religious sculptures. My task was therefore to prove that the heads are a planned part of the cathedral, and therefore deserve as much attention and scholarship as any other piece of sculpture. In Wadley‟s investigation, he proves how they are, mostly, done by the same sculptors as the other bits of statuary.

Next is to understand the heads themselves. They are a singular and baffling program.

Looking at the past gives insight into the heads. Ancient and more recent Romanesque precedents for the heads give them a framework to be understood within. It is also important to decipher the deeper reasoning of why and how they exist in this new and more playful form at Reims. We find they have much in common with their two-dimensional counterparts in illuminated manuscripts, as

Michael Camille has pointed out. Similar representation is also seen on a smaller scale and in less impressive detail on other Gothic structures. The heads also greatly rely upon their Romanesque precedent.

Simply because we see this portrayal on a holy structure as irreverent does not mean that humor and puns were not permissible in the past. Quite on the contrary, we must concede that this was very much the case in the face of these imps in cathedrals and those that dwell on the edges of holy books. What we also see in the faces of Reims, and what sets these images apart from their contemporaries, is a turn toward a more humanistic approach to art.

All things recycle, and by the thirteenth century, humanism is coming back into western art after having been absent since Roman times. This is first seen, I believe in the cathedrals in towns

where the best artisans would work at this time. Towns are fired by the renewal of classic education and a society grown to a point where art and learning can be explored. This will build and continue on into the century until Giotto (c1266-1337) who is widely regarded as the precursor to

Renaissance painting. This is the very same century. Gothic cathedrals were in process of being built in Giotto‟s lifetime. The Black Death did of course bring progress to a sudden halt. People turned to survival as a priority. This interrupted the continuous progression of art, but was not the dividing line between Medieval and Renaissance as is so often described.

The faces at Reims therefore contribute one notable step in the long progression of art history. These small faces are even more important, some might say, than the ever-present religious images. Of course, many think they have no meaning. Led by the idea of iconography, what is art without some deep meaning to decipher? The faces have no hidden meaning that must be revealed.

They are not puzzles to be worked out. There are no attributes or clues that can lead to an understanding of what they are meant to represent. These heads are instead a beautiful example of the craftsmanship that is growing into art. It is the thirteenth century and these faces show us that the Renaissance did not spring up out of Italian genius. The idea of looking to Roman sculpture for inspiration and drawing more from life itself was growing throughout the century. The sculptors at

Reims were part of this evolution, an evolution of style and the role of the craftsman in the process.

For while the Church clergy had a strong hold on the type of representation being used, they were growing along with the craftsmen into a more human understanding of the world, and thereby the portrayal of that world.

The heads are to me the epitome of the humanism of the age. The faces are the people, the congregation. What are saints and prophets worth or even the church building itself without the people, the congregation to believe and carry on the story. Just as the congregation, the community

is portrayed at Chartres in the windows given up to the various trades, so the people at Reims are given their own space. In both cases this is on the outer edges of the cathedral.

They are not portraits of specific people, and they are not all carefully and realistically rendered human heads. They still have a lot in common with the imps seen in Romanesque monasteries, but they do create their own space in the evolution of representation.

Works Cited

Books

Aubert, Marcel. Art of the High Gothic Era. Translated by Peter George. Baden-Baden: Holle Verlag GMBH, 1965. Reprint, New York: Greystone Press, 1966.

Aubert, Marcel. French Sculpture at the Beginning of the Gothic Period 1140-1225. Firenze: Pantheon, Casa Editrice, 1929. Reprint, New York: Hacker Art Books, Inc., 1972.

Camille, Michael. Gothic Art, Glorious Vision. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and Prentice Hall, 1996.

Camille, Michael. Image on the Edge, The Margins of Medieval Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Demaison, Louis. Album de la Cathédrale de Reims. Reims: Ponsin-Druart, 1899.

Frankl, Paul. The Gothic Literary Sources and Interpretations Through Eight Centuries. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960.

Jantzen, Hans. High Gothic: The Classic Cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, Amiens. Translated by James Palmes. Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GMBH, 1957. Reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Kemp, Wolfgang. The Narratives of Gothic Stained Glass. Translated by Caroline Dobson Satzwedel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Mâle, Émile. The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century. Translated by Dora Nussey. E.P. Dutton and Company, 1913. Reprint, New York: Harper and Row, 1958.

Panofsky, Erwin. Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism. Saint Vincent Archabbey, 1951. Reprint, New York: Meridian Books, 1961.

Reinhardt, Hans. Cathédrale de Reims: son histoire son architecture, sa sculpture ses vitraux. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963.

Sauerländer, Willibald. Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270. Translated by Janet Sondheimer. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 1970. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972.

Vitry, Paul. French Sculpture During the Reign of Saint Louis 1226-1270. Florence: ?, 1929. Reprint, New York: Hacker Art Books, 1973.

Williams, Jane Welch. Bread, Wine, and Money: The Windows of the Trades at Chartres Cathedral. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Articles

Abou-El-Haj, Barbara. “The Urban Setting for Late Medieval Church Building: Reims and Its Cathedral Between 1210 and 1240.” Art History 11 (May 1988): 17-41.

Ackerman, James S. “Villard de Honnecourt‟s Drawings of Reims Cathedral: A Study in Architectural Representation.” Artibus et Historiae 18, no. 35 (1997): 41-49.

Balcon, Sylvia. “Marne: Cathédrale de Reims, decouverte de vitraux du XIIIe siecle.” Bulletin Monumental 156, no. 2 (1998): 179-81.

Branner, Robert. “Drawings from a Thirteenth-Century Architect‟s Shop: The Reims Palimpsest.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 17, no. 4 (1958): 9-21.

Branner, Robert. “Jean d‟Orbais and the Cathedral of Reims.” The Art Bulletin 43 (June 1961): 131-33.

Branner, Robert. “Labyrinth of Reims Cathedral.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 21 (March 1962): 18-25.

Clark, William W. “Reading Reims I, The Sculpture on the Chapel Buttresses.” Gesta 39 no. 2 (2000): 135-45.

Fouqueray, Bernard. “Reims, du forum au cryptoportique: un projet pour un souvenir.” Bulletin Monumental 151, no. 1 (1993): 73-87.

Frisch, Teresa Grace. “Twelve Choir Statues of the Cathedral at Reims, Their Stylistic and Chronological Relation to the Sculpture of the North Transept and of the West Façade.” The Art Bulletin 42 (March 1960): 1-24.

Gibbs, Robert. “Gothic Heights and Radiant Lights.” Art History 10, no. 2 (June 1987): 244-50.

Kurmann-Schwarz, Brigitte. “Melanges: Recits, programme, commanditaires, concepteurs, donateurs: publications recentes sur l‟iconographie des vitraux de la cathedrale de Chartres.” Bulletin Monumental 154, no. 1 (1996): 55-71.

Lambourne, Nicola. “Production Versus Destruction: Art, World War I and Art History.” Art History 22, no. 3 (September 1999): 347-63.

Toker, Franklin. “Gothic Architecture by Remote Control: An Illustrated Building Contract of 1340.” The Art Bulletin 67, no. 1 (March 1985): 67-95.

Dissertations

Wadley, William Bert. “The Reims Masks: A Reconstruction, Stylistic Analysis, and Chronology of the Corbel Sculptures on the Upper Stories of Reims Cathedral.” Ph.D. diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 1984.

Illustration Citations

1. Cl. Doucet. “Chapiteau d‟une colonne contre la nef et tête amortissant l‟archivolte d‟une fenêtre. Face Nord.” Photograph. As reproduced in Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, La Cathédrale de Reims, plate 78. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1915. 2. Cl. Doucet. “Figures amortissant l‟archivolte de deux fenêtres de la tour nord de la façade occidentale.” Photograph. As reproduced in Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, La Cathédrale de Reims, plate 79. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1915. 3. Cl. Doucet. “Arcatures d‟une tour du croisillon nord du transept.” Photograph. As reproduced in Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, La Cathédrale de Reims, plate 83. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1915. 4. Cl. Doucet. “Voussure de la rose du croisillon nord du transept.” Photograph. As reproduced in Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, La Cathédrale de Reims, plate 117. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1915. 5. Cl. Rothier. “L‟histoire de Caïn et Abel.” Photograph. As reproduced in Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, La Cathédrale de Reims, plate 118. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1915. 6. Cl. Doucet. “Cariatide sous cornice de l‟abside.” Photograph. As reproduced in Étienne Moreau- Nélaton, La Cathédrale de Reims, plate 124. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1915. 7. Cl. Doucet. “Têtes de retombée des archivolts des fenêtres de l‟abside.” Photograph. As reproduced in Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, La Cathédrale de Reims, plate 125. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1915. 8. Cl. Doucet. “Arcs-boutants de la nef. Face nord.” Photograph. As reproduced in Étienne Moreau- Nélaton, La Cathédrale de Reims, plate 74. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1915. 9. Reims-Cathédrale. “title.” As reproduced in Louise Lefrancois-Pillion, Les Sculpteurs de Reims, illustration 56. Paris: Les Éditions Reider Place Saint-Sulpice, 1928. 10. Reims-Cathédrale. “title.” As reproduced in Louise Lefrancois-Pillion, Les Sculpteurs de Reims, illustration 57. Paris: Les Éditions Reider Place Saint-Sulpice, 1928. 11. F. Rothier. “title.” As reproduced in Louise Lefrancois-Pillion, Les Sculpteurs de Reims, illustration 55. Paris: Les Éditions Reider Place Saint-Sulpice, 1928. 12. Photo Monuments historiques. “Reims Cathedral, Northern Transept, ornamental heads of the upper parts.” As reproduced in Paul Vitry, French Sculpture during the Reign of Louis 1226-1270. Reprint, New York: Hacker Art Books, 1973. 13. Photo Monuments historiques. “Reims Cathedral, Northern Transept, ornamental heads of the upper parts.” As reproduced in Paul Vitry, French Sculpture during the Reign of Louis 1226-1270. Reprint, New York: Hacker Art Books, 1973. 14. Photo Monuments historiques. “Reims Cathedral, Northern Transept, ornamental heads of the upper parts.” As reproduced in Paul Vitry, French Sculpture during the Reign of Louis 1226-1270. Reprint, New York: Hacker Art Books, 1973. 15. Photo Monuments historiques. “Reims Cathedral, Northern Transept, ornamental heads of the upper parts.” As reproduced in Paul Vitry, French Sculpture during the Reign of Louis 1226-1270. Reprint, New York: Hacker Art Books, 1973. 16. Photo Monuments historiques. “Reims Cathedral, ornamental head in the interior of one of the towers.” As reproduced in Paul Vitry, French Sculpture during the Reign of Louis 1226-1270. Reprint, New York: Hacker Art Books, 1973. 17. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, corbel head, north tower, beneath rib vaulting.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270, plate 257. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 18. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, corbel head, south transept, triforium.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270, plate 257. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972.

19. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, corbel head, windows of choir.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270, plate 257. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 20. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral , corbel head, windows of choir.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270, plate 257. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 21. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, corbel head, windows of choir.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270, plate 257. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 22. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, corbel head, windows of choir.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270, plate 257. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 23. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, corbel head, windows of choir.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270, plate 257. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 24. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, corbel head, windows of choir.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270, plate 257. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 25. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, corbel head, windows of choir.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270, plate 257. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 26. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, south transept façade, rose storey, detail of archivolt.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 27. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, angel west portal, left door, left jamb.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 28. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, choir, south side.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 29. Max Hirmer. “Reims cathedral, north transept façade, rose window.” As reproduced in Willibald Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270. Reprint, London: Thames and Hudson, 1972. 30. James Austin. “Face-pulling head. Reims Cathedral.” As reproduced in Michael Camille, Image on the Edge, The Margins of Medieval Art, illustration 42. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. 31. James Austin. “Rheims cathedral, life-sized corbel head, from east tower of south transept.” As reproduced in Michael Camille, Gothic Art Glorious Vision, figure 120. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Inc, and Prentice Hall, 1996. 32. Michael Camille. “Mouth-puller. Capital, Wells Cathedral.” As reproduced in Michael Camille, Image on the Edge, The Margins of Medieval Art, illustration 41. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. 33. Unidentified photographer Grotesque Capital, Wells Cathedral (Vineyard Robbing Scene), ca. 1867-95. Albumen print. 15/5/3090.00805, Andrew Dickson White Architectural Photographs Collection. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library rmc.library.cornell.edu/ adw/gravely/wells1.jpg 34. Photo by author. 35. J. Feuillie. “Door Jambs, west façade, Chartes Cathedral.” As reproduced in Laurie Schnieder Adams, A History of Western Art, illustration 13.16a. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1994. 36. Roger-Viollet. “Annunciation and Visitation, door jambs, Reims Cathedral.” As reproduced in Laurie Schnieder Adams, A History of Western Art, illustration 13.25. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1994. 37. Roger-Viollet. “West façade, Reims Cathedral.” As reproduced in Laurie Schnieder Adams, A History of Western Art, illustration 13.24. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1994.

38. Michael Camille. “A bawdy betrothal and a dirty look.” As reproduced in Michael Camille, Image on the Edge, The Margins of Medieval Art, illustration 19. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. 39. Jacques Mossot. “Eglise Notre Dame, Semur-en-Auxois.” At en.structurae.de ID # 17568. 40. Jacques Mossot. “Eglise Notre Dame, Semur-en-Auxois.” At en.structurae.de ID # 15530. 41. The British Museum. Marble relief with two theatre masks, Roman 2nd century AD. GR 1805.7- 3.451 (BM Cat Sculpture 2448) 42. The British Museum. Tragic theatre mask made of terracotta, Roman, 1st-2nd century AD. GR 1873.8-20.568 (BM Cat Terracottas D55) 43. Megalithomania Castletown mouth-puller 44. www.ocean.washington.edu/. ../medusahead.jpg Didyma 45. Marie Francis Boyer, Tree Talk: Memories, Myths and Timeless Customs (London: Thames and Hudson, 1996), p. 55. The Bamberg Cathedral Greenman (Germany, ca. 1200): A Symbolic Archtype of Oneness with the Earth. 46. “Reims, Labyrinth.” As reproduced in Hanz Jantzen, High Gothic, figure 33. Reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. 47. www.beyond-the-pale.org.uk Herment(Puy-de-Dome) 48. Michael Camille. “Sex on the verge of the text.” As reproduced in Michael Camille, Image on the Edge, The Margins of Medieval Art, illustration 24. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. 49. Michael Camille. “Corbel creatures.” As reproduced in Michael Camille, Image on the Edge, The Margins of Medieval Art, illustration 35. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. 50. Michael Camille. “The thing on the corner.” As reproduced in Michael Camille, Image on the Edge, The Margins of Medieval Art, illustration 37. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

51. Corbel head, northern window

52. Corbel heads, north tower, western façade.

53. Corbel head, north transept.

54. Corbel head, north rose window.

55. Corbel head.

56. Atlas and corbel head, apse.

57. Corbel heads around windows of the apse.

58. Corbel heads on the flying buttresses of the nave.

59. Corbel heads.

60. Corbel head.

61. Corbel head.

62. Corbel head, northern transept.

63. Corbel head. Northern transept.

64. Corbel head, northern transept.

65. Corbel head, northern transept.

66. Corbel head, interior of tower.

67. Corbel head, north tower, beneath rib vaulting.

68. Corbel head, south transept, triforium.

69. Corbel head, green man, window of choir.

70. Corbel head, window of choir.

71. Corbel head, window of choir.

72. Corbel head, window of choir.

73. Corbel head, lion, window of choir.

74. Corbel head, window of choir.

75. Corbel head, window of choir.

76. Corbel head, south transept façade, rose story.

77. Angel of the Annunciation, west portal, left door, left jamb.

78. Corbel heads, choir, south side.

79. Corbel heads, north transept façade, rose window.

80. Corbel head, face-puller.

81. Corbel head, east tower, south transept.

82. Mouth-puller, capital, Wells cathedral.

83. Grotesque capital, Wells cathedral.

84. Houses of Parliament, faces.

85. Door jamb, west façade, Chartres cathedral.

86. Reims, the Annunciation and the Visitation, west jamb figures.

87. Reims, western façade.

38.Bawdy betrothal, Ormsby psalter.

39. Clerestory windows Semur-en-Auxois.

40. Clerestory windows, Semur-en-Auxios.

41. Roman theater mask, marble relief.

42. Roman theater mask, terra cotta.

43. Mouth-puller, romanesque monastery, Castletown.

44. Didyma, roman medusa head.

45. Green man, Bamberg cathedral.

46. Reims labyrinth.

47. Mouth-Puller, monastery, Puy-de-Dome.

48. Sex on the edge of the illuminated manuscript.

49. Creatures at church of St. Pierre, Aulnay-de-Saintonge.

50. Man coming out of the corner, Aulnay.