Everything about Metz Cathedral totally explained
» For other uses of Metz, see Metz (disambiguation)
Metz Cathedral or
St. Etienne's Cathedral in
Metz (
Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Metz), in the departement of
Moselle,
France, is the seat of the
Bishop of Metz. It was formed in the 14th century by joining together two churches: the nave of Saint-Etienne, built in the 13th century, was attached to the north side of an older
Romanesque church. It is found in the heart of the city, on the
Place d'Armes, where it provides a focal point for the "centre ville".
In the 15th century, a transept and a choir were added. This nave is the third highest in France with its 41.41 meters. Only
Beauvais Cathedral and
Amiens Cathedral are higher.
Windows
The
stained glass windows, the largest expanses of stained glass in the world, were made by the master craftsmen Hermann de Munster in the fourteenth century, and Valentin Bousch in the sixteenth. In the twentieth century the painters
Marc Chagall and Roger Bissière provided designs for further windows.
History
The site was consecrated from the fifth century to
Saint Stephen Protomartyr, who enjoyed a wave of popularity following the invention of his relics at Jerusalem in 415. Several French cathedrals are dedicated to him:
Agde,
Auxerre,
Bourges,
Cahors,
Châlons-en-Champagne,
Limoges,
Meaux,
Sens,
Toul,
Toulouse, most of them also dating from the fifth century.
Metz had been the seat of a bishop since the third century.
Gregory of Tours reports the tradition that the shrine of Saint Stephen was the sole structure miraculously spared when the
Huns sacked and levelled the city, 7 April 451. According to the history of the bishops of Metz, written about 784 by a Lombard Benedictine,
Pepin the Short financed works undertaken by bishop Chrodegang (742-766):
ciborium, chancel, presbyterium and ambulatory. All these were replaced by the
Romanesque building campaign, 965-984 undertaken by Bishop Thierry I, under the patronage of Emperors
Otto I and
Otto II. The new basilica was completed and reconsecrated in 1040 by his successor, Thierry II.
Within two centuries a reconstruction commenced. About 1220, the building campaign in
Gothic style was begun, to the order of Bishop Conrad of Scharfeneck. It wasn't completed until about 1520. The new cathedral was consecrated 11 April 1552.
Unexpectedly, the cathedral has an
early neoclassical portal, designed in 1764, in spite of the canons' resistance, by the Parisian architect
Jacques-François Blondel. The project weas due to the governor of the Trois-Evêchés, the maréchal de Belle-Isle, who decided that Metz shouldn't be outdone by
Nancy, with its Place Stanislas, and determined to build a
Place Royal before the gothic cathedral. He disengaged the cathedral's façade by razing the cloister and three attached churches, Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux, Saint-Pierre-le-Majeur and the chapel of the House of Lorrain. Blondel was engaged to give Metz a stylish urban center. The resulting urban space, realised from 1762 onwards gave the dense medieval city centre a
Place d’Armes for military musters and parades, with its mayoral palace, the Place de Chambre with the new bishops' palace, and the Place du Marché, ranged on three sides of the cathedral., provide a unified classicising setting that plays against the Gothic fabric of the cathedral.
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