LONGPONT

. The ruins of the abbey church of Longpont (Aisne) present the most striking example of Cistercian architectural rigor in a High Gothic style. The abbey, founded in 1132 by Gerard and Agnes de Cherisy, was highly favored by the bishops of Soissons and the other nobility of the region. A first provisional chapel was replaced after 1144 by a new church founded by Count Raoul de Vermandois. (The remains of this structure have been detected in a geomagnetic survey, but the site has never been excavated.) Beginning in the last decade of the 12 th century (James) or the first decade of the 13 th (Bruzelius), the older structure was replaced by the present church, consecrated in the presence of Blanche of Castile and Louis IX in 1227.

The scale of the 13th-century church reflects the renown and wealth of the abbey. Peter the Chanter retired to Longpont from Paris shortly before his death in 1197, and the tomb of the Blessed Jean de Montmirail attracted numerous pilgrims after his death in 1217. The medieval tombs in the abbey church, recorded by Gagnieres, presented an important series of ambitious Gothic sculptural compositions.

Although the church has often been described as an example of the decadence of 13th-century Cistercian architecture, it has been demonstrated that the proportional system is identical to that of the buildings associated with Bernard of Clairvaux in the 12th century, such as Fontenay. This indicates that principles of architectural simplicity in the Cistercian order were based on internal proportions as well as on general austerity. The principle of austerity was

Longpont (Aisne), Notre-Dame, nave ruins. Photograph: Clarence Ward Collection. Courtesy of Oberlin College.

Affirmed at Longpont by the adoption of simple cylindrical supports, a blind triforium, and a reduced clerestory.

Caroline A. Bruzelius

[See also: CISTERCIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE; ROYAUMONT]

Bruzelius, Caroline. “Cistercian High Gothic: The Abbey Church of Longpont and the Architecture of the Cistercians in the Early Thirteenth Century.” Analecta cisterciensia 35 (1979): 3-204. Heliot, Pierre. “Le chreur gothique de l’abbaye d’Ourscamp et le groupe de Longpont dans

L’architecture cistercienne.” Bulletin de la Societe Nationale des Antiquaires de France (1957): 146-62.

James, John. “The Canopy of Paradise.” Studies in Cistercian Art and Architecture 2 (1984):115-29.

Lefevre-Pontalis, Eugene. “L’abbaye de Longpont.” Congres archeologique 78 (1911):410-22.