Cathédrale Saint-Just-et-Saint-Pasteur de Narbonne

Narbonne

An archbishop of Narbonne, Gui Foucois, who became pope under the name of Clement IV, decided in 1268 that his city would have a cathedral to match those of the North. The first stone was laid on 13 April 1272 by Archbishop Maurin, in the foundations of the present chapel of the Sacré-Cœur; the plan is in the Rayonnant style, with an ambulatory, radiating chapels and a glazed triforium, and its design was long attributed to Jean Deschamps, the master of the choir of Clermont, who also worked at Limoges and Toulouse — the attribution is disputed. The following masters are known from the accounts: Dominique de Fauran from 1295 to 1309, his son Jacques until 1336, Raymond Aicard until 1349. The choir was completed in 1332: forty-one metres under the vault, the third-highest in France after Beauvais and Amiens, for a vessel sixty metres long. Then, to build the transept and the nave, it was necessary to breach the old rampart, which the consuls of the town claimed as their property; a lawsuit opened in 1345, lasted eight years and ceased in 1354, without the town giving way. The plague of 1348, the raid of the Black Prince in 1355 and the silting-up of the port did the rest: the cathedral remained a choir, closed by a provisional wall that is still there. The cloister, built from 1349 to 1417 on the site of the Carolingian church, links the cathedral to the Palais des Archevêques.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale Saint-Just-et-Saint-Pasteur de Narbonne ↗

Getting there : From the place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville, you enter, it seems, by the passage de l'Ancre, between the two archbishops' palaces, then through the cloister; the main entrance is said to be on the rue Armand-Gauthier (route to be checked). The cathedral is open every day, free entry; the treasury, in the upper room reached, it is said, by a spiral staircase above the chapel of the Annonciade, is visited with a ticket, at the posted hours (opening hours to be checked before you go). Parking on the quays of the Robine or in the town-centre car parks. Allow an hour, more with the treasury and the palace.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound