Angers Cathedral

Angers Cathedral (French: Cathédrale Saint-Maurice d'Angers) is a Catholic church dedicated to Saint Maurice in Angers, France. It is the seat of the Bishops of Angers. Built between the 11th and 16th centuries, it is known for its mixture of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, and its ornate Baroque altar and sculpture. It also has an extensive collection of stained-glass windows, including several elements from the late 12th century, one of the earliest uses of grisaille glass in combination with coloured glass, and two rose windows depicting the Last Judgement and the Apocalypse, unique in French renaissance stained-glass.

The earliest cathedral on the site was dedicated to the Virgin Mary but in 396 Saint Martin, the Archbishop of Tours, added the Theban legion Egyptian martyr Saint Maurice to the dedication. He had acquired a relic of some of the blood of the members of the Theban Legion, who were martyred with Saint Maurice in the 3rd century for converting to Christianity. The relic was brought to Tours and later, according to the legend, a phial of it was given to Angers. In the 7th century, an additional devotion to Saint Maurilius, the Bishop of Angers in the 4th century, began. A biography of him was written and in 873 his body was transferred to the cathedral. For 200 years Saints Maurilius and Maurice were frequently mentioned together as the patron saints of the cathedral but gradually Saint Maurice became the primary patron.

At the beginning of the 11th century, Hubert de Vendôme, the Bishop of Angers from 1010 to 1047, decided to build a new cathedral in the Romanesque style to replace the existing church. The new church was consecrated on 16 August 1025, but in 1032 it was ravaged by a fire. Geoffroy de Tours, the Bishop of Angers from 1081 to 1093, ordered the reconstruction of the cathedral, which continued under the supervision of his successors, Renaud de Martigné (1102–1125), Ulger (1125–1148) and Normand de Doué (1148–1153). The altar crucifix was blessed in 1051 and the new altar was consecrated in 1096. In the mid-12th century, the cathedral underwent another transformation. Atop the Romanesque lower walls new walls and vaults were constructed in the Angevin variation of Gothic architecture; which took its name from the historic province of Anjou, a fiefdom of the French crown. The vaults were composed of high crossing ribs, supported by rows of clustered columns and pillars in the nave below. This allowed the construction of very large windows on the upper walls between the ribs. filling the interior with light. The rebuilding of the nave was followed by that of the choir and the new transept. This was carried out between 1235 and 1274, largely under the direction of Guillaume de Beaumont, the Bishop of Angers from 1203 to 1240. The choir followed a similar design as the nave, with the grand arches replaced by large blind arches topped with a narrow passageway, now decorated with a wrought-iron railing, below the large windows of the upper level. The arches are taller a more slender than those of the nave, and the decoration more stylised. In the 17th century the interior of the church underwent another rebuilding; Angers Cathedral was one of the first in France to redesign its interior following the directives of the Council of Trent, to make the interior more welcoming and decorative for ordinary worshippers, and to remove the barriers between the clergy and the congregation. This was the arrival of Baroque architecture into churches. The jubé, or rood screen, which separated the clergy and congregation was removed, and the altar was moved from the center of the choir to a position closer to the congregation in the nave. The majestic new baldaquin over the altar, with columns of red marble supporting

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).