Note 298 — Chapter IX · The Gothic Art of Burgundy[267]

St. Germain’s abbatial is less pure Gothic than the cathedral’s choir. Beneath its sanctuary are two superimposed crypts, the lower one of the IX century, and that above it belonging to the XIII-century reconstruction of the abbey church. Conflagrations wiped out several early churches of the monastery. In the XII century rose the Romanesque tower—one of the best in France; until 1820 it was attached to the nave. A total reconstruction of the abbatial was necessary in 1277, but after the upper crypt and the choir were undertaken there came a pause. The abbot here (1309-39), who erected the crenelated inclosure walls of the monastery, resumed the church as Rayonnant Gothic. Urban V, the greatest of the Avignon patrons of art and letters, had been abbot of St. Germain (1352), and his arms were cut on a keystone of the new nave, to which he contributed, as did his successor, Gregory XI. Soon after the church was completed it was pillaged during the religious wars. Napoleon turned the establishment into a hospital, which it still is. Congrès Archéologique, 1907, p. 182, C. Porée; p. 627, Jules Tillet; Abbé V. B. Henry, Histoire de l’abbaye de St. Germain d’Auxerre (Auxerre, Gallot, 1853); Victor Petit, “Les cryptes de St. Germain d’Auxerre,” in Bulletin Monumental, 1872, vol. 38, p. 494; Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire de l’Architecture, vol. 3, p. 377.