Note 175 — Chapter VII · Plantagenet Gothic Architecture[174]

Saintes lies on the Charente, some fifty miles from Angoulême. In the venerable XII-century church of St. Eutrope cropped out one of the early sporadic uses of diagonals. Its crypt, which is one of the largest in France, is braced on heavy, semicircular arches. The exterior of the apse is decorated. Nothing is left of the original nave; the present one is transitional work. The choir and part of the transept are of the XV century. The superb tower, with corner-turret effects that rise from base to summit, was finished with a spire by 1480. It is said that John XXII, who promulgated the Angelus by his bull of 1318, had learned its usage from a custom of St. Eutrope. The church of St. Pierre, at Saintes, rebuilt in 1117, and again in 1450, has another Flamboyant Gothic tower of good design, which is now much wasted by decay. See Congrès Archéologique, 1894; 1912, pp. 195, 309; also Bulletin Monumental, 1907, vol. 71; J. Laferrière et G. Musset, L’art en Saintonge et en Aunis; Ch. Dangibeaud, L’école de sculpture romane saintongeaise (Paris, 1910).