bk. 11. ch.iii. anjou. . 483 CHAPTER III. ANJOU. I CONTENTS. Cathedral of Angers — Chvirch of Fontevrault — Poitiers — Spires. rpHE architectural province of Anjou cannot, perhaps, be so distinctly J- defined as the two already described. On the north, indeed, it is separated by the clearest line both from Normandy and from the Frankish province. But in the south, as before remarked, it is not easy to say, in the present state of our information, what works belong to Aquitaine and what to Anjou. Not that there is any want of sufficient marks to distinguish between the styles themselves, but a large portion of examples appear to belong to a sort of debatable ground between the two. This, however, is true only of the buildings on the borders of the province. The two capitals of Angers and Poitiers are, full of examples jDeculiar to them alone, and as a rule the same i-emark applies to all the principal churches of the province. The age of the greatest sjilendor of this province is from the accession of Foulques Nerra in the year 989 to the death of Henry II. r)f England, 1190. During these two centuries its prosperity and inde- pendent ])Ower rose to a height which it subsequently neither main- tained nor ever regained. Prior to this period the buildings found scattered here and there are few and insignificant, but during its continuance every town was enriched by some noble effort of the piety and architectural taste peculiar to the age. After its conclusion the completion of works previously commenced Avas all that was attempted. The rising pov/er of the northern provinces, and of the English, seems to have given a check to the prosperity of Anjou, which it never thoroughly recovered ; for when it did to a certain extent again become prosperous and wealthy, it was under the influence and dominion of the great central Frankish power which ultimately absorbed into itself all the separate nationalities of France, and obliterated those provincial distinctions which are so strikingly prominent in the earlier part of her history. The plan of St. Maurice (Woodcut No. 349), the cathedral of Angers, may be considered as a typical example of the. Angiovine style, and will serve to explain in what it differs from the northern and in what it re- sembles the southern styles. On comparing it with the plan of Souillac,
