The Lateral Chapels of Notre-Dame in Context

Abstract

The lateral chapels appended to the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris starting after 1228 are the earliest dated examples of the ubiquitous standard chapel type that flourished throughout Western Europe. Although diminutive in scale and relatively simple architecturally, the chapels had a profound effect on the cathedral, altering it physically and functionally. This study examines conventional art historical sources, such as documents and the building fabric, in conjunction with the sociocultural context to offer a more accurate date than has hitherto been available for the inception of work on the chapels, which influenced buildings in Paris and beyond for generations. This examination posits a connection between the emergence of chapels at the cathedral and the preoccupation with the nascent doctrine of purgatory in Parisian intellectual circles in the early thirteenth century. Built primarily to accommodate chantries (endowments for private masses believed to hasten the soul's release from purgatory), the chapels responded to and helped promote changing conceptions of the afterlife. Work on the chapels began under the leadership of the visionary bishop Guillaume d'Auvergne, who transformed the cathedral into a locus ideally suited to respond to individuals' desires for intercession and commemoration, while simultaneously advancing a doctrine that brought both power and profit to the Church.

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