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Architecture of Normandy

The architecture of Normandy spans a thousand years. Architecturally, Norman cathedrals, abbeys (such as the Abbey of Bec) and castles characterise the former duchy in a way that mirrors the similar pattern of Norman architecture in England following the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Domestic architecture in upper Normandy is typified by half-timbered buildings that also recall vernacular English architecture, although the farm enclosures of the more harshly landscaped Pays de Caux are a more idiosyncratic response to socio-economic and climatic imperatives. Much urban architectural heritage was destroyed during the Battle of Normandy in 1944 – post-war urban reconstruction, such as in Le Havre and Saint-Lô, could be said to demonstrate both the virtues and vices of modernist and brutalist trends of the 1950s and 1960s. Le Havre, the city rebuilt by Auguste Perret, was added to Unesco’s World Heritage List in 2005.

Vernacular architecture in lower Normandy takes its form from granite, the predominant local building material. The Channel Islands also share this influence – Chausey was for many years a source of quarried granite, including that used for the construction of Mont Saint-Michel.

The south part of Bagnoles-de-l’Orne is filled with bourgeois villas in Belle Époque style with polychrome façades, bow windows and unique roofing. This area, built between 1886 and 1914, has an authentic “Bagnolese” style and is typical of high-society country vacation of the time. The Chapel of Saint Germanus (Chapelle Saint-Germain) at Querqueville with its trefoil floorplan incorporates elements of one of the earliest surviving places of Christian worship in the Cotentin – perhaps second only to the Gallo-Roman baptistry at Port-Bail. It is dedicated to Germanus of Normandy.

Local architectural style
In Upper Normandy (in the old sense of the term which also includes the Pays d’Auge), the architectural style of villages and farms is typically half-timbered. There are more houses of this type than elsewhere in France (except Alsace, according to a different technique) and in the cities: some remarkable examples in Rouen escaped the destruction of the Second World War, against Caudebec-en Caux or Lisieux were totally destroyed.

There are still half-timberings in large numbers in the country of Caux, the Roumois, the country of Bray (including the country of Bray picard), Norman Vexin (unlike French Vexin which has very little), the country of Ouche (including its ornamental part) and the Pays d’Auge.

The architectural style in Lower Normandy, especially in the Cotentin Peninsula, tends to use granite, a predominant building material, whereas, however, there is the less elaborate wood panel than in Haute-Normandie, in the Domfrontais and the Mortainais. The Bessin and the countryside of Caen are marked by the constructions in oolitic limestone known as Caen stone.

The Channel Islands and Chausey, as part of the Armorican massif, also share the vernacular style of the Cotentin, Chausey having been a source of granite extraction for many years, including for the construction of the Mount -Saint-Michel.

Religious architecture
Religious architecture, as in Lessay and Bayeux, has left the mark of his daring on the landscape as well as on literature and art, for example, the series of Impressionist paintings on the Gothic facade of the cathedral. Rouen by Monet or the description of the churches of Normandy by Proust in In Search of Lost Time.

Castles and Fortifications
Carolingian Empire
During the Carolingian period, the successor princes of Charlemagne had made some efforts to oppose the invasions of the Normans; they had tried several times to defend the course of the rivers, but these works, ordered in moments of distress, built in a hurry, were to be rather posts in earth and wood than castles properly so called.

Scandinavian incursions
The Vikings scarcely thought of founding fixed settlements in the midst of the countries they devastated; attracted only by the envy of the spoils, they hastened to go back in their boats as soon as they had plundered a rich province. However, they sometimes stopped on some promontory, in some islands in the midst of the rivers, to shelter the product of looting, under the guard of a part of the men composing the expedition; they fortified these points already defended by nature, but these were still only entrenched camps rather than castles. We find an establishment of this kind on the coasts of Normandy, Brittany or the West, so long ravaged by Norman pirates; it’s the Hague-Dicklocated at the northwestern end of the peninsula of Cotentin, near the island of Alderney.

Ducal Normandy
When at the x e The Normans were definitively established on a part of the territory of France, they built fortified houses, and these residences preserved a particular character, at the same time political and feudal. The Norman castle, at the beginning of the feudal period, is distinguished from the French or Frankish castle; it is still linked to a territorial defense system, while the French castle has long maintained its Germanic origin; it is the home of the band leader, isolated, defending his own domain against all and taking no account of the general defense of the territory. To make us understand in a few words, the Franklord has no country, he has only one domain; while the Norman Lord seeks, at the same time, to defend his domain and the territory conquered by his nation. This distinction must be made first, because it has an influence, not only on the position of the feudal mansions, but on the defense system adopted in each of them. There is, in the construction of the Norman castles, a certain parity which one does not meet in the French castles; these present an extreme variety; we see that the caprice of the lord, his particular ideas have influenced their construction, while the Norman castles appear subject to a principle of defense recognized good and adopted by all the domain owners, according to a national idea. When taking into account the circumstances that accompanied the settlement of the Normans north-west of Paris, immense interest that these pirates tolerated on the soil of Normandy had to maintain the course of the rivers opened for them and the reinforcements which arrived from the North, closed for the Frank people, possessor of the high Seine and most of its tributaries, one can see how the Normans were trained to adopt a defense system subject to a political idea. Besides, the Normans, when they presented themselves on a point of French territory, proceeded necessarily everywhere in the same manner; it was by occupying the coast, by going up rivers and streams on their long boats, that they penetrated to the heart of the country. The rivers were the natural path of any Norman invasion; it was on their banks that they must seek to maintain themselves and to strengthen themselves. The islands,

Already, in the time of William the Bastard, the Norman barons were building vast masonry castles with all that constitutes the squares of this kind in the Middle Ages: deep and skillfully dug ditches, lower and upper enclosures, dungeons, etc. The Duke of Normandy, during the long struggles of the beginning of his reign, erected castles, or at least dungeons, to hold the cities which had taken sides against him against them.

After the descent to England, the establishment of castles was one of the means that William the Conqueroremployed to secure his new kingship, and it was largely to these fortresses raised on strategic points or in the very cities that he had to be able to keep himself in the middle of a country which was trying every day to raise abroad and regain its independence. But many lords, as long as the general war was over, holding these castles in fief, began to quarrel with their neighbors, made excursions on the lands of each other, and came to attack in their strongholds.. Or, dissatisfied with seeing the suzerain’s favor fall upon others than with them, sought to make their castles more formidable in order to sell their services more dearly to the rivals of their lord, and to make common cause with them.

Thus, as a result of the feudal organization, even in Normandy, where the national spirit had remained much better than in France, the lords were every day inclined to make their castles stronger and stronger, so to free themselves from all dependence and to be able to dictate conditions to their suzerain. The Norman castle of the xi th century consisted only of a tower square or rectangular, around which stood some works of little importance, especially protected by the deep ditch performed atop an escarpment; it was the true Norman post of that time, destined to dominate a territory, to close a passage or to contain the population of the cities. Castles with defenses as extensive as those ofwere rare; but the Norman barons becoming feudal lords, in England or on the mainland, soon found themselves rich and powerful enough to increase singularly the dependencies of the dungeon, which originally was the only point seriously fortified. The primitive enclosures, often made of palisades, were replaced by walls flanked by towers. The oldest written documents relating manors and even castles (documents in England dating back to xii th century) often refer to the fortified residence of the Lord by the word Aula, hall ; it is because these kinds of military establishments consisted only of a halldefended by thick walls, crenellations and foothills with watchtowers or flanking bretèches. The outbuildings of the seigniorial house were of relatively minor importance; in the event of a serious attack, the garrison soon abandoned the exterior works and closed itself in the dungeon, the defenses of which were formidable at the time. During the course of the xii th century, this tradition is preserved in the countries where the Norman influence predominates; the dungeon, the fortified room, takes on a relative value which we do not find to it to the same degree on the French territory;th century in the castle of French origin; it is higher, has a larger mass; it is a post around which is marked a fortified camp rather than a castle. This arrangement is apparent not only in Normandy and England, but also in Pin (Calvados), Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, Nogent-le-Rotrou, Domfront, Falaise, Chamboy (Orne), Newcastle, in Rochester and Dover (England), but on the west coast, in Anjou, Poitou and Mainethat is to say, in all the countries where the Norman influence penetrates; we find it again, accompanied by the Norman ditch whose character is so sharply defined, at Pouzauges (Vendée), Blanzac, Broue, Pons (Charente-Inferieure), Chauvigny near Poitiers, and Montrichard, Beaugency and at Loches. The outer defenses which accompany these large rectangular dungeons, or which present only earthworks without traces of important constructions, or if they are raised in masonry, are all posterior of a century at least with the establishment of these dungeons, which indicates quite clearly that the primitive speakers ofxi th century and xii th century were of little importance and that they had to be replaced when at xiii th century this defensive system of castles was changed, and that he recognized the need to broaden and strengthen outworks.

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The castle of Falaise, in the xii th century, that really was a big dungeon with an enclosure containing secondary buildings, probably built in the most simple way, since he left no trace, and for housing garrison, shops, stables and other outbuildings. The name of aulacan be given to this castle, since, in fact, the only important part, the seigneurial post, is a fortified room. The castles that William the Conqueror had raised in the cities of England to keep the urban population in respect were only rectangular dungeons, well equipped and surrounded by some earthworks, palisades, or external enclosures that were not of great strength. This explains the rapidity with which these military posts were built and their prodigious number; but this also explains how, in the national uprisings directed with energy, the Norman garrisons which held these places, obliged to take refuge in the dungeon after the removal of the external defenses, which presented only a rather feeble obstacle against a large and determined troop, were soon reduced by famine, defended themselves badly in such a narrow space, and were forced to surrender to discretion. William, during his reign, in spite of his prodigious activity, could not do more on the expanse of a vast country always ready to rise; his successors had more leisure to study the plate and the defense of their castles; they took advantage of it, and soon the Norman castle increased and perfected its external defenses. The dungeon took on less relative importance; he was better connected with secondary works, and protected them more effectively; better still, the whole castle was only a vast dungeon, all parts of which were skillfully combined and became independent of each other, though protected by a stronger construction. From then on, we began to apply this law “that everything that defends itself must be defended. ”

So we reach the end of the xii th century to meet the real castle, that is to say a group of high buildings with together, defending himself alone, though united by a common defense thinking, arranged in a certain order, so that one party is removed, the others still possess their complete means of resistance, their ammunition and food stores resources, their free exits to either go out and take the offensive, or to make escape the garrison if it can no longer hold. Richard the Lion Heart realized this challenging program with a rare sagacity during the final years of the xii th century, when it built the important placeChâteau-Gaillard.

Vernacular domestic styles
In Upper Normandy and in the pays d’Auge, Mortainais, Passais and Avranchin (Lower Normandy), the vernacular domestic architecture is typically half-timbered and thatched.

The half-timbered farmhouses scattered across the countryside are inherited from an older tradition that has its roots in the Celtic farms, the remains of which have been excavated by archeologists. A particular style of farmstead called clos masure or cour-masure developed in the Pays de Caux as a result of the harsher landscape of that area and local tradition, which has been influenced by English and Danish styles.

Brick and flintstone were later used to build or rebuild some of the cottages and public buildings, such as town halls. Some villages of the pays de Caux and the pays de Bray were entirely rebuilt this way.

The other parts of Lower Normandy, especially the Cotentin Peninsula, tends to use granite as the predominant local building material. The Channel Islands also share this influence – Chausey was for many years a source of quarried granite, including stone for the construction of Mont Saint-Michel. The Caen plain and the area of Bessin use the traditional unusually hard limestone, called Caen stone.

Urban vernacular style
Like almost everywhere in France, the oldest houses in the main cities are half-timbered, but there are more widespread in Haute-Normandie and there are more recent examples.

Unfortunately the urban architectural heritage of mainland Normandy was badly damaged during the Battle of Normandy in 1944. Many historic urban centres were destroyed, notably in Caen, Rouen, Lisieux and perhaps most tragically in Valognes, once known as the Versailles of Normandy for its aristocratic mansions and palaces. Massive post-war urban reconstruction in 1950s and 1960s, such as in Le Havre and Saint-Lô, has left modernist interventions.

Ecclesiastical architecture
The confident ecclesiastical architecture, such as at Lessay and Bayeux, has left its mark on the landscape, as well as an artistic legacy in literature and in art, for example Claude Monet’s series of impressionist paintings of the Gothic facade of Rouen Cathedral.

Abbey of Jumièges, near Rouen (ruins)
Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy (continued in Gothic style)
Abbey of Bec
Two abbeys at Caen founded by William the Conqueror

Fin de siècle architecture in Normandy
The south part of Bagnoles-de-l’Orne, which is called “Belle Époque” district is filled with superb bourgeois villas with polychrome façades, bow windows and unique roofing. This area, built between 1886 and 1914, has an authentic “Bagnolese” style and is typical of high-society country vacation of the time.

The neo-Norman architecture
The neo-Norman architecture is a style villas created by Claude Mignot by Jacques Beaumier at Houlgate in the second half of the xix th century. Norman form of regionalism, it is characterized by buildings built from a traditional wooden pan structure, but with modern materials. Example:

Villa Strassburger in Deauville
Station Trouville-Deauville
Château Gabriel in Benerville-sur-Mer

The architecture end of century Normandy
The ” Belle Epoque ” district, south of Bagnoles-de-l’Orne, abounds in superb bourgeois villas with polychrome facades, bow windows and unique roofs. This district in the style “Bagnolais” authentic, arranged between 1886 and 1914, is typical of the holidays in the countryside of the high society of the time.

Source From Wikipedia

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