Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
This church's unique, bowed facade is textbook Flamboyant Gothic. Its recent cleaning
(still underway) revealed a brilliant white facade. Notice the flame-like tracery decorating
its gable. Because this was built at the very end of the Gothic age—and construction took
many years—the doors are from the next age: the Renaissance (c. 1550). The bright and
airy interior is worth a quick peek.
Cost and Hours:
Free, Fri-Mon 10:00-12:00 & 14:00-17:30, closed Tue-Thu.
• Leaving the church, turn right, and then take another right (giving the little boys on the
cornerwallawideberth).Wanderpastafinewallofhalf-timberedbuildingsfrontingRue
Martainville, to the end of St. Maclou Church.
Because the local stone—a chalky limestone from the cliffs of the Seine River—was
of poor quality (your thumbnail is stronger), and because local oak was plentiful, half-
timbered buildings became a Rouen specialty from the 14th through 19th century. Canti-
levered floors were standard until the early 1500s. These top-heavy designs made sense:
City land was limited, property taxes were based on ground-floor square footage, and the
cantilevering minimized unsupported spans on upper floors. The oak beams provided the
structural skeleton of the building, which was then filled in with a mix of clay, straw,
pebbles...or whatever was available.
• A block farther down on the left, at 186 Rue Martainville, a covered lane leads to the...
During the great plagues of the Middle Ages, as many as two-thirds of the people in this
parish died. For the decimated community, dealing with the corpses was an overwhelming
task. This half-timbered courtyard (c. 1520) was a mass grave, an ossuary where the bod-
ieswere“processed.” Bodies wouldbedumpedintothegrave(wherethewell isnow)and
drenched in liquid lime to help speed decomposition. Later, the bones would be stacked
in alcoves above the colonnades that line this courtyard. Notice the ghoulish carvings
(c. 1560s) of gravediggers' tools, skulls, crossbones, and characters doing the “dance of
death.”Inthis
dansemacabre,
Death,thegreatequalizer,grabspeopleofallsocialclasses.
The place is now an art school. Peek in on the young artists. As you leave, spy the dried
black cat (died c. 1520, in tiny glass case to the left of the door). To overcome evil, it was
buried during the building's construction.
Cost and Hours:
Free, daily mid-March-Oct 8:00-20:00, Nov-mid-March
8:00-19:00.
