Liège Cathedral

for the earlier cathedral of Liège, see St. Lambert's Cathedral, Liège

Liège Cathedral
St. Paul's Cathedral
Cathédrale Saint-Paul de Liège
Exterior
50.6403°N 5.5718°E / 50.6403; 5.5718
Location	Liège, Belgium
Denomination	Catholic
History
Status	Cathedral
Architecture
Functional status	Active
Style	French Gothic
Years built	13th, 14th and 18th centuries

Liège Cathedral, otherwise St. Paul's Cathedral, Liège, in Liège, Belgium, is part of the religious heritage of Liège. Founded in the 10th century, it was rebuilt from the 13th to the 15th century and restored in the mid-19th century. It became a cathedral in the 19th century due to the destruction of Saint Lambert Cathedral in 1795. It is the seat of the Diocese of Liège.

St. Paul's Cathedral

During the French Revolution the ancient cathedral of Liège, St. Lambert's Cathedral, was destroyed systematically, from 1794 onwards. After the revolutionary fervour had evaporated a new cathedral was needed. The ancient collegiate church of St. Paul's was thought suitable for the purpose and was elevated in rank, before 1812. This is the present Liège Cathedral.

History

The interior, masterpiece of the Mosan Gothic style, is all in pure lines and of great lightness. The elegant sobriety of the Meuse bluestone is enhanced by the yellow tuffeau of Maastricht and the yellow limestone of Lorraine. The vaults are painted with sumptuous 16th century rinceaux. The church thus appears as a "stone illumination".

The present cathedral was formerly one among the Seven collegiate churches of Liège – St. Peter's, Holy Cross, St. Paul's, St. John's, St. Denis's, St. Martin's and St. Bartholomew's – which until the Liège Revolution of 1789 together comprised the "secondary clergy" of the First Estate in the Prince-bishopric of Liège (the "primary clergy" being the canons of St. Lambert's cathedral).

Origin and buildings

Main article: Seven collegiate churches of Liège

Saint-Germain Chapel

In 967, Bishop Éracle built this church. The basilica was raised only up to the windows when Éracle died. He instituted a college of twenty canons to whom Notger, who completed the building begun by his predecessor, added ten more.

Saint-Calixte Chapel

The hamlet formed on the island had rapidly expanded, so much so that a second chapel had to be built a short distance from the first one. It was edicated to Callixtus I, Pope and martyr. The chroniclers attribute its foundation to Pirard, 36th bishop of Liege and added that he established twelve Benedictines, the only order then existing in the country of Liege.

Collegiate Saint Paul

It was upon his return from Cologne, where he had attended the funeral of Bruno the Great, archbishop of that city and vicar of the empire, that Éracle conceived the project of building a church in honor of Paul the Apostle.

First allocations

Very little information remains concerning the goods which Eracle endowed the college with twenty canons which he had created.. It seems, however, that the bishop gives the tithes of the church of Lixhe} (canton of Glons): what is certain is that the collation of this church, which was erected as a parish around 1200, belonged to the chapter of St. Paul until it was suppressed by the French on 27 November 1797.

Notger solemnly consecrated this church on 7 May 972: two altars were dedicated to Germanus of Auxerre and St. Calixte, in memory of the worship previously rendered to these two saints in the chapels which had been dedicated to them. On 21 April 980, the fortress of Chèvremont was destroyed from top to bottom and the churches that were there demolished. One of them, dedicated to st. Caprasius, had a college of ten priests; the bishop gathered them together with the twenty canons of St. Paul and thus brought their number to thirty. All the property, pensions and tithes of St. Capraise were transferred to the new collegiate church, to which Notger gave the bell called "Dardar", also from Chèvremont.

It was founded in the 10th century, reconstructed between the 13th and 15th centuries, and restored in the mid-19th century.

It became the cathedral of Liège in the first years of the 19th century as the replacement for the destroyed St. Lambert's Cathedral.

In 1812, further to a request from Napoléon Bonaparte, the tower, with its ogival windows, was raised by a storey and the belltower installed.

Building

Interior

The apse, constructed in the 14th century in the Rayonnant style, is pentagonal. The choir, the transept, the main nave and the side naves date from the 13th century and have all the characteristics of Gothic architecture of that period. Later Gothic architecture occurs in the windows of the transept and of the nave, the side chapels and the tower. The upper gallery overloaded with pinnacle hooks is modern, as is the storey with the ogival windows and the spire of the belltower with four bells on each side. The lintel of the portal bears an inscription, formerly on the city seal: Sancta Legia Ecclesiae Romanae Filia ("Holy Liège, daughter of the Roman church").

Bibliography

• Marie-Cécile Charles (2006). La cathédrale de Liège. Carnets du Patrimoine. Institut du Patrimoine wallon. p. 48.
• Isabelle Lecocq (2006). "Un dessin de la Crucifixion attribué à Lambert Lombard et le vitrail de la Crucifixion de la cathédrale Saint-Paul à Liège (1557)". La peinture ancienne et ses procédés: copies, répliques, pastiches. Peeters Publishers. pp. 258–265. ISBN 9042917768.
• Isabelle Lecocq (2016). Les vitraux de la cathédrale Saint-Paul à Liège; Six siècles de création et de restauration. Liège: Comité wallon pour le Vitrail associé au Corpus Vitrearum Belgique-België. p. 240. ISBN 2503568173. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
• Forgeur, Richard (1969). "La construction de la collégiale Saint-Paul à Liège aux temps romans et gothiques" (pdf). Bulletin de la Commission royale des Monuments et des Sites (in French). Vol. XVIII. Brussel: Commission royale des Monuments et des Sites. pp. 156–204.

External links

• Plan of the cathedral Template:Fr icon
• La place de la Cathédrale hier et aujourd'hui Template:Fr icon
• The cathedral treasury, largely transferred from the predecessor cathedral Template:Fr icon
• Architecture religieuse en occident - Fiche de la cathédrale Saint-Paul Template:Fr icon