...and angry revolutionaries (part 2)

 This is a very history-heavy post - a warning if you do not enjoy such things.

Noyon is about an hour from Guise.  Because we ran a little late earlier we weren't able to stay very long in Noyon - all we did really was go inside the cathedral.  I wish we could have explored the town a little more, but maybe I'll end up going back sometime.

Firstly, Noyon is a very old town: it existed and was fortified during Roman times, and was one of the earliest bishoprics in France, subsequently making its cathedral one of the earliest Gothic buildings in the country (mid 12th c).  You can see from the front how little frill there is:

 I didn't know it at the time (thanks, NYU planner, for choosing a cool place without doing any actual research!) but Charlemagne and Hugh Capet - founder of the Capetian dynasty (987-mid 14th c) which, according to me, played a key role in the transformation of the French monarchy from regional mafia-style kings to a centralized, effective, near absolutist monarchy - were crowned here. 

We came in through the side so one of the first aspects of the cathedral we saw was the super cool half-timbered bishop's library.

 It's pretty impressive that such a structure has survived for 800 years or so - it's much tougher to preserve wooden, or even part-wooden, buildings.

The cathedral has four levels, which is pretty unique in Gothic cathedrals.  Usually they have three (ground entrance level, second nobles' or possibly bishop's level, third tower level).  You can see the bottom three here, and the towers above.

 And here, just for my mother, is a collection of gargoyles!  They have some very fine examples, though they're not as intricate or creative as the ones at Notre Dame in Paris.  The first three are from the left arm of the cathedral and the last is from the inner cloister courtyard.

There was only one other student really interested in the architecture of the cathedral and as we walked in on the left side we immediately noticed something strange: every decorative carving in the portal (door area) was effaced.  There was no scene in the tympanum (arched area above the door which usually has Jesus doing some sort of scene), nothing in the archivolt (thin arches above the tympanum), nothing on the lintel (horizontal part immediately above the door, between it and the tympanum, usually having some sort of representation).  It could have been unfinished except that there were some lighter blotchy areas where the carvings should have been.  Here is a picture of the main portal in the front:

The front portal did have the traditional Madonna and child statue, but the heads were gone.

Being the clever and observant historian I am, I surmised this cathedral came under serious attack during the Revolution, when it was the fashion to destroy religious imagery and persecute the clergy.  This was rather exciting as I had never seen such a clear example of religious violence during the Revolution, or for that matter such a strangely empty portal.  It turns out I was right!

To the memory of the blissful [I think there is a more technical churchy word for that but whatever] J. L. Guyard of St Clair, canon of the cathedral, massacred on the night of the 2nd to 3rd of September 1792 in the abbey of St Germain, near Paris.  To the blissful F. J. de la Rochefoucauld, bishop count of Beauvais.  To the blissful G. C. Maignien, priest of Villeneuve-le-Roi, massacred at Carmes in Paris.  To the blissful P. Brisse, canon of Beauvais, executed in the prison of St Firmin, and to all this country's [as in regional area, not France] martyrs for the faith beatified on October 17th 1926 by Pope Pius XI.  Plaque given by Bishop A. M. Hardy, bishop of Beauvais, Noyon, and Seulis, September 6th 1992, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the massacres of September.

So several important people from Noyon were killed in 1792.  Another sign indicated that the damage to the cathedral itself occurred the following year, during the Terror. 

The inside the cathedral was pretty much what I expected for one that's in use, except that it had almost no carvings or statues in the wings of the transcept - a bunch of smaller chapels, carved wooden pulpit thing, simple columns and vaulting, and a pretty cloister courtyard. 

Also supposedly the axis of the cathedral is off (the line, which should be straight, from the very front of the nave to the back where you come in) but I couldn't really see it. 

My first cathedral adventure of this trip!  I've been fairly busy but now that I'm settling things on the job front (more on that in a few days, probably) I'll be able to wander more.