Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The Sainte-Chapelle and the Construction of Sacral Monarchy
  • Cited by 11
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      05 November 2014
      24 November 2014
      ISBN:
      9781139198332
      9781107025578
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139198332
      Dimensions:
      (253 x 177 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.88kg, 400 Pages
      Dimensions:
      Weight & Pages:
      • Subjects:
      Area Studies, European History 1000-1450, Art, History, European Studies, Western Art
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Area Studies, European History 1000-1450, Art, History, European Studies, Western Art
    Information

    Book description

    This book offers a novel perspective on one of the most important monuments of French Gothic architecture, the Sainte-Chapelle, constructed in Paris by King Louis IX of France between 1239 and 1248 especially to hold and to celebrate Christ's Crown of Thorns. Meredith Cohen argues that the chapel's architecture, decoration, and use conveyed the notion of sacral kingship to its audience in Paris and in greater Europe, thereby implicitly elevating the French king to the level of suzerain, and establishing an early visual precedent for the political theories of royal sovereignty and French absolutism. By setting the chapel within its broader urban and royal contexts, this book offers new insight into royal representation and the rise of Paris as a political and cultural capital in the thirteenth century.

    Reviews

    'Meredith Cohen’s study of the Sainte-Chapelle belongs to the distinguished tradition of studies of thirteenth-century Parisian and northern French Gothic architecture inaugurated in the United States by Robert Branner and continued by her teacher Stephen Murray … It does for the Sainte-Chapelle what the studies of the late Stephen Gardner did for the abbey of Saint-Denis, providing a contextual perspective on a well-known monument, without pretending reductively that context wholly explains any building. It is a study of the way the Sainte-Chapelle fitted into a new urban Gothic as well as promoting a cult of very special relics, and of kingship itself … What Meredith Cohen has done in this very useful and thoroughly documented book is to extend our understanding of a great single monument by contextual analysis, in which objective she has succeeded admirably.'

    Paul Binski Source: Journal of the British Archaeological Association

    'The Sainte-Chapelle is a book directed at true scholars. Its dense yet nuanced architectural descriptions reward the attentive reader with a rich image of medieval spaces, many of which are no longer extant. It has a great deal to offer students of architecture and medieval France, not simply in re-examining the chapel’s style and typology, but especially by considering its importance within the built landscape of Paris as a statement of Louis’ redefinition of kingship.'

    Maile Hutterer Source: Speculum

    '[The Sainte-Chapelle and the Construction of Sacral Monarchy] is absolutely crammed with data, citations, documents in Latin followed by translation, measurements taken with the latest devices now in use, precise references to archival documents as well as an impressive collection of images of early drawings of many lost monuments of medieval Paris. … For readers whose research touches the themes of Cohen’s book, therein lie its riches.'

    Meredith Parsons Lillich Source: French History

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.