They are crowned and nimbused as the kings and
saints of antique France. A more impressive gallery of illustrious
personages is nowhere else to be found.
Rheims
By Epiphanius Wilson
[Footnote: From "The Cathedrals of France." By permission
of the author. Copyright, 1900.]
French cathedrals have, as it were, a royal character, and this is
emphasized especially in the history and architecture of Rheims cathedral,
which became, from the time of Philippe Auguste, the church at whose altar
the kings of France were crowned.
The origin of the Church at Rheims dates from the third century; when we
are told Pope Fabian sent into Gaul a band of bishops and teachers. Rheims
was chosen as the seat of an episcopal primacy, and it was in the church
built by St. Nicaise, or Nicasius, in 401, that Clovis was baptized and
crowned in 496. This ancient building, doubtless of simple Roman
proportions, was rebuilt in the reign of Louis the Debonair in 822, when
Ebon was archbishop.
It was completed with a magnificence which vied with the churches of
Constantinople, Ravenna and Rome.
Pages:
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264