Angers, Cathédrale Saint-Maurice

Cathedral of Saint-Maurice, built under Bishop Hubert de Vendôme (1006-1047), burned in 1032. The rebuilt cathedral was consecrated in 1096. The nave, ten bays long, was covered with a wooden roof; there were projecting transept arms each formed of a square bay with an eastern apse and a short chevet in the form of a central apse. The Gallo-Roman wall ran directly to the east of this apse. There is some doubt as to exactly when 12th-century work began on the retrofitting of the old nave. A key role may have been played by Bishop Ulger, (1125-48), an associate of Abbot Suger, but the principal building bishop appears to have been Normand de Doué (1148-53) under whom construction of the vaults was begun. (Obit bonae memoriae Normandus de Doe episcopus noster qui, de navi ecclesiae nostrae trabibus pro vetustate ruinam minantibus ablatis, voluturas lapideas miro effectus edificare coepit in quo opere octingentos libras expendit.) Work was well along by 1160. The old walls of the 11th-century edifice were left intact and new internal responds and exterior buttresses were construction. The interior responds were linked by a mural arcade topped by an internal passage. The start of work on the western frontispiece belongs to the same period. Guillaume de Beaumont (1202-1240) began work on the new transept. The construction of the chevet necessitated the demolition of the old Roman wall. North west tower 1518 and SW 1523.