À l’aube de l’art gothique comtois : Saint-Hilaire de Pesmes

Saint-Hilaire de Pesmes, early gothic art in Franche-Comte. The Saint-Hilaire de Pesmes church, in the Haute-Saone department, dates from the first third of the thirteenth century. The church seems to have been constructed fairly rapidly, probably built from east to west. It underwent various transformations, mainly affecting its western and eastern ends, during the fourteenth century and again, more importandy, in the sixteenth century. The nave, which is four bays long, survives today as the principal vestige of the thirteenth-century church. The high central nave is vaulted with four intersecting quadripartite ribs forming an oblong plan. The side aisles have groined vaults of square plan form. The interior two-level elevation of the nave makes wall surfaces more important than vertical rhythms. In the first three bays, the supports are cruciform piers, with cylindrical piers in the eastern bay. This choice of cylindrical piers, to be found at the same time in many churches in the Ile-de-France region around Paris, after the construction of Notre-Dame, is to be explained perhaps by the existence of a screen for the liturgical choir. The moulding presents remarkable unity. The profile of the nave piers and the decoration of their capitals and bases with carved crockets, leaves and balls all suggest a date of around 1220 to 1230. Thus this nave of the church of Saint-Hilaire de Pesmes is a good example of the characteristic features of early gothic architecture in the Franche-Comte region, marked by a quest for austerity and modesty, still much under the influence of the Cistercian ideals of the preceding century.