Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, France

The Abbey of Saint-Sernin was an ancient foundation. St. Sylvius, bishop of Toulouse, began construction of the basilica towards the end of the 4th century. Its importance increased enormously after Charlemagne donated a quantity of relics to it, as a result of which it became an important stop for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela, and a pilgrimage location in its own right. The size of the current building and the existence of an ambulatory may reflect the need to accommodate increasing numbers of pilgrims.

The difficulty of determining an accurate chronology for the construction of Saint-Sernin and the completion of its sculpture has given rise to numerous problems. At least as early as the 1010s, Bishop Pierre Roger had set aside a portion of the offerings to Saint-Sernin for an eventual rebuilding of the Carolingian church. During the decade of the 1070s and by 1080 at the latest, the canons of Saint-Sernin had accepted the rule of St. Augustine and had placed themselves under the direct control of the Holy See. Nevertheless, there are only two firm dates that bear directly on the church itself and even these involve certain difficulties. On May 24, 1096, Pope Urban II dedicated the altar of the still largely incomplete building. Although there have been numerous attempts to determine the point that construction had reached at this time, the most that can be said with certainty is that 1096 is a firm terminus ante quem. That is, construction must have begun at least several years before that date.

The second firm date is July 3, 1118, the death of St. Raymond Gayrard, canon and provost of the chapter. A 15th-century life of the saint states that he took charge of the building after part of the church had been completed and that by the time of his death he had “brought the walls all the way around up to the completion of the windows…” However, the life was written much later—some three hundred years after the events it describes—and since at least three different Raymonds were involved in the building of the church, the biographer may have confused elements from the lives of all three.

At any rate, whenever started, it appears that construction of the church did not progress continuously through to completion, for there is physical evidence of several interruptions in construction. The literary evidence cited above indicates that construction proceeded from east to west and, indeed, it appears that the earliest part of the exterior walls is the southern, lower part of the ambulatory and its corresponding radiating chapels. The walls in this section are built of brick and stone, with a higher proportion of stone than elsewhere in the building. As construction proceeded, it was clearly marked by an increasing proportion of brick, the characteristic building material of Toulouse. While there is basic agreement on the starting point, interpretation of the subsequent archeological evidence is subject to varying opinions. The earliest systematic examinations, after the restoration of Viollet-le-Duc, concluded that there had been three major building campaigns.

More recent observations have concluded that there were four major building campaigns. The earliest section begins with the apse and includes the chevet and all of the transept below the level of the gallery, including the Porte des Comtes in the south face of the transept. The second stage is marked by the walls of the transept being completed with alternating courses of brick and stone. This change is also paralleled by a change in the style of the interior decorated capitals. This break is most evident in the transept buttresses, which change from solid stone at the bottom to bands of brick and stone at the top, a change which occurs at various levels around the transept but generally about the level of the gallery floor. There then follows another break between the eastern portion of the church – including the transept and the first few bays of the nave itself – and the rest of the nave. The alternating courses of brick and stone give way to a predominantly brick technique with stone quoins and stone window frames. This third campaign includes the wall enclosing the entire nave, including the western entrance and ends just below the gallery windows. During the fourth phase, the remainder of the nave was completed in brick with almost no stone.

The plan of the abbey church here was also used in the construction of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, “begun in 1082, too direct a copy to have been done by any but Saint-Sernin’s own architect or his favored pupil”, but finished much earlier. In 1860, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc restored the church, but his changes are currently being removed to restore the original appearance.