Note 165 — Chapter VI · Six of the Lesser Great Cathedrals: Bourges, Beauvais, Troyes, Tours, Lyons, Le Mans (continued 2)

The abbey church of the Trinité has in its transept walls parts of the edifice dedicated in 1040. At the beginning of the XIII century that transept was vaulted in the eight-rib Plantagenet way, the keystones being well carved. The ambulatory and radiating chapels are early-Gothic; the choir is late XIII century; the easternmost bays of the nave are of the XIV, and its westernmost bays of the XV century. The façade is a gem of Flamboyant Gothic. There are also windows of the XIII and XV centuries, and some well-known carved choir stalls. The Merveille of Vendôme, its tower of 1140, prototype for the Primary Gothic ones at Chartres and Rouen, stands free of the church. From the earlier abbatial was saved a famous XII-century window of the St. Denis school, a Byzantinesque Madonna.

Congrès Archéologique, 1872; Abbé Plat, Notes pour servir à l’histoire monumental de la Trinité (Vendôme, 1907); La Martellière, Guide dans le Vendômois (Vendôme, 1883).