Saint-Denis Basilique

The basilica of Saint-Denis was the burial place of St Denis (Dionysius), the patron saint of France, and the French kings. Here the royal insignia and banner, the oriflamme, were preserved and the royal chronicles were kept. Several abbots of Saint-Denis acted as Regents of the kingdom. For 12 centuries almost all the French kings, from Dagobert I (d. 639) to Louis XVIII (d. 1824), were laid to rest in this splendid necropolis.

The building of the choir and west front of Saint-Denis marked the beginning of Gothic architecture, providing a model which was followed by Chartres, Senlis and Meaux cathedrals. The Gothic style of central and northern Europe, given expression in architecture, painting and sculpture, was born in France, in the province of Ile-de-France with Paris as its center. Coming between Romanesque and Renaissance styles, it was predominant from the 12th to the early 16th centuries. The term Gothic stems from the Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari (1511-74), who, considering the style from the point of view of the Renaissance, regarded it as a barbaric (i.e. northern) form of art and associated it with the Goths. In the 19th century the Romantic movement's enthusiasm for history led at first to an uncritical and extravagant overvaluation, later followed by a more rational and balanced assessment of Gothic, now regarded as one of the high points of medieval architecture.

Saint-Denis has been an important place of pilgrimage since early Christian times. The legend of St Dionysius - missionary, first bishop of Paris and martyr - has it that after his beheading on the Butte Montmartre the saint carried his head in his hands to the place where he desired to be buried. A church was built on the spot in the fifth century, followed in the seventh C by the foundation of an abbey. In the reign of Abbot Suger (1081-1151), in the 12th century, work began on the conversion of the church from Romanesque to Gothic. The Early Gothic west front and narthex were built between 1137 and 1140, the choir in 1140-43. A hundred years later the surviving central part of the earlier church was pulled down and replaced by a High Gothic high choir, transepts and nave under the direction of Pierre de Montreuil (d. 1264), Louis IX's architect. Over the centuries the church fell into disrepair. In the early 19th C restoration work began, and was later carried on by Viollet-le-Duc between 1858 and 1879 on the basis of historical records, giving the church the form in which we see it today.
This site is 10km north of Paris.