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Suger (; ; ; 1081 – 13 January 1151) was a French abbot and statesman. He was a key advisor to King Louis VI and his son Louis VII, acting as the latter's regent during the Second Crusade. His writings remain seminal texts for early twelfth-century Capetian dynasty, and his reconstruction of the Basilica of Saint-Denis, where he was abbot, was instrumental in creating the Gothic architecture style.
Suger began a successful career in monastic administration as he went on several missions for his abbey, which held land at several vantage points across the country. Finding favour with the abbot of Saint-Denis, Abbot Adam, Suger's political career would develop under him as in 1106 he became his secretary.Suger has a tendency to downplay Abbot Adam's achievements: these are explored in Rolf Große, " L'abbé Adam, Prédécesseur De Suger," in Rolf Große, ed. Suger en question (Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004) pp. 31–43. in Suger found himself involved in significant events: in the same year, he was at the synod at Poitiers; in the Spring of 1107 to attend Pope Paschal II; in 1109, where he met Louis VI again as he sat a dispute between the king and Henry I of England, and; in 1112 at Rome for the second Lateran council. During this time, he held administrative roles that required him to be first at Berneval in Normandy in 1108 as provost, then from mid-1109 to 1111 provost to the more important priory of Toury. The area was suffering as a result of Hugh III of Le Puiset's exploitation of revenues, with a series of disputes and failing alliances eventually led to Suger gaining experience on the battlefield.John France, Medieval France at War (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2022) p. 79. OCLC WorldCat 1381142379. He appeared to take up this new challenge well and was successful, though would go on to heavily regret his involvement in warfare by his sixties.In Ordinatio, he asks God to forgive "what I have done," and refers to himself as "clearly being an irreligious man." (trans. Panofsky, p. 123) There is a complete gap in sources on Suger's whereabouts after he left Toury in 1112,Grant, Suger: Church and State, p. 96. though he was likely advancing his monastic position alongside working on further negotiations.
It is from 1118 when the sources start again, where Suger is deeply entrenched in royal affairs. He is chosen as the royal envoy to welcome the fleeing Pope Gelasius II (John of Gaetani) to France and arrange a meeting with Louis VI.Pope Paschal II dies January 1118; John of Gaetani is made the new pope, becoming Gelasius II; Henry V marched on Rome and appointed Gregory (VIII) as an antipope; Gelasius fled to France to the protection of Louis VI. Suger was sent to live at the court of Gelasius at Maguelonne, and later at his successor Pope Calixtus II's court in Italy in 1121. It was on his return from in March 1122 that Suger, now 41, learned of Abbot Adam's death and that the others at the abbey had elected him to be the new abbot. Suger took pride in the fact that this happened in his absence and without his knowledge—whilst Louis was initially enraged at the fact that the decision was made without him being consulted first, he was clearly content with Suger assuming the role, as the two enjoyed a strong working relationship.
He urged the king to destroy the feudal bandits, was responsible for the royal tactics in dealing with the communal movements, and endeavoured to regularize the administration of justice. He left his abbey, which possessed considerable property, enriched and embellished by the construction of a new church built in the nascent Gothic style. Suger wrote extensively on the construction of the abbey in Liber de Rebus in Administratione sua Gestis, Libellus Alter de Consecratione Ecclesiae Sancti Dionysii, and Ordinatio.
Suger's final year continued to be busy for him, as he was instructed by the pope to reform Saint Corneille at Compiègne. Odo of Deuil's appointment as abbot had the backing of Louis VII and Suger, though after the two left, it was met with violent resistance by the canons (as was the case at Sainte-Geneviève).
File:Vitraux Saint-Denis 190110 19.jpg|alt=| The Annunciation pane of the Infancy Window, showing Suger, the patron, at the feet of the Virgin.
Vouet - L'abbé Suger, vers 1632 - 1634, 756.jpg|alt=|A painting by Simon Vouet of Suger (1633), held at the Musée d'Arts de Nantes.
File:Saint-Omer 92.jpg|alt=|A marble statue by Jean-Baptiste Stouf (1836). Today, it stands in front of the ruins of Saint-Bertin Abbey, Saint-Omer.When it was decided in 1931 that the statues be moved to the birth places of their representatives, Suger's was moved to Saint-Omer from a local legend that he was born there.
File:Statue de Suger - Foyatier.jpg|alt=|A neoclassical sculpture by Denis Foyatier (1835) in the Palace of Versailles.
Today, a French street is named after Suger, and two schools bear his name ( in Saint-Denis, and École secondaire Suger in Vaucresson).
Suger began with the West front, reconstructing the original Carolingian façade with its single door. He designed the façade of Saint-Denis to be an echo of the Roman Arch of Constantine with its three-part division and three large portals to ease the problem of congestion. The rose window above the West portal is the earliest-known such example, although Romanesque circular windows preceded it in general form.
At the completion of the west front in 1140, Abbot Suger moved on to the reconstruction of the eastern end, leaving the Carolingian nave in use. He designed a choir (chancel) that would be suffused with light.When the new rear part is joined to that in front,
The church shines, brightened in its middle.
For bright is that which is brightly coupled with the bright
And which the new light pervades,
Bright is the noble work Enlarged in our time
I, who was Suger, having been leader
While it was accomplished.
Abbot Suger: On What Was Done in His Administration c.1144–8, Chap XXVIII
Erwin Panofsky argued that Suger was inspired to create a physical representation of the Heavenly Jerusalem, however the extent to which Suger had any aims higher than aesthetic pleasure has been called into doubt by more recent art historians on the basis of Suger's own writings. To achieve his aims, his masons drew on the several new features which evolved or had been introduced to Romanesque architecture, the pointed arch, the ribbed vault, the ambulatory with radiating chapels, the clustered columns supporting ribs springing in different directions and the which enabled the insertion of large clerestory windows.
The new structure was finished and dedicated on 11 June 1144,Hugh Honour and J. Fleming, (2009) A World History of Art. 7th edn. London: Laurence King Publishing, p. 376. in the presence of the King. The Abbey of Saint-Denis thus became the prototype for further building in the royal domain of northern France. It is often cited as the first building in the Gothic style. A hundred years later, the old nave of Saint-Denis was rebuilt in the Gothic style, gaining, in its transepts, two spectacular .Wim Swaan, The Gothic Cathedral
Of his histories, Vie de Louis le Gros (Life of Louis the Fat) is his most substantial and widely circulated. It is a panegyric chronological narrative of king Louis VI, primarily concerned with warfare, but also his dependence on the Saint-Denis abbey.Suger, VLG. Historia gloriosi regis Ludovici (The Illustrious King Louis) is the other demonstrably unfinished work of Suger, accounting for the first year of Louis VII’s reign.Suger, Hist. VII. Written in Suger’s final years, it (like his other history) covers in great detail events where Suger was himself present or involved in.
Suger’s secretary, William, himself produced two works on Suger: the first, a letter shortly after his death announcing the death; the other a short biography ( Sugerii Vita; The Life of Suger) authored between summer 1152 and autumn 1154.Willelmus, Vita.After Suger’s death, William’s leading of a faction against the new abbot at Saint Denis, Odo of Deuil, meant he was exiled. It was during exile that he authored the life of Suger; it was thus intended to portray Suger in good light, implicitly criticising Odo. Grant, Church and State, 44. A collection of Suger’s letters exist in Saint Denis, mostly from near the end of his life, though its provenance is unknown.Grant, Church and State, 43–5. Suger's works served to imbue the monks of St Denis with a taste for history and called forth a long series of quasi-official chronicles.Anne D. Hedeman, The Royal Image: Illustrations of the Grandes Chroniques de France, 1274-1422 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) 3–6, 10.
Scholars tend to attribute Suger's influences on his ideas of symbolism and manner of symbolic thought to interpretations of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and the derivates of John Scotus Eriugena, as well as; those from the school of Chartres.There are three Dionysiuses who have been confused and interchanged throughout history: Dionysius the Areopagite, an Athenian first century judge and saint; Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a Greek author of the fifth/sixth century who pseudepigraphically (falsely) identified as the former and wrote Christian theological and mystical works; and saint Dionysius of Paris, or Denis of Paris, after whom the abbey is named after. Where Erwin Panofsky made the claim that this theology of Pseudo-Dionysius influenced the architectural style of the abbey of St. Denis, it was questioned by later scholars who have argued against such a simplistic link between philosophy and architectural form.For a summary of the 'arguments against' Panofsky's view, see Panofsky, Suger and St Denis, Peter Kidson, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 50, (1987), pp. 1–17. Though Suger did not leave any explicitly theological writings, his work on Saint Denis was inspired by his own set of religious ideas influenced by a range of new or renewed theological themes in the wider context of twelfth-century France. The influence of the cosmology of the Chartres school, which resulted from interpretations of Plato and the Bible, created a speculative system which emphasised mathematics, particularly geometry, and the aesthetic outcomes that arise from the convergence of the two.von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral, pp. 26–7.Further reading: Neoplatonism and Christianity#Middle_Ages, and von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral, pp. 25–39.
Art historians paint Gothic architecture as Suger's own creation, though some question this: Similarly the assumption by 19th century French authors that Suger was the "designer" of St Denis (and hence the "inventor" of Gothic architecture) has been almost entirely discounted by more recent scholars. Instead he is generally seen as having been a bold and imaginative patron who encouraged the work of an innovative (but now unknown) master mason.Conrad Rudolph, Artistic Change at St Denis: Abbot Suger's Program and the Early Twelfth Century Controversy Over Art, Princeton University Press, 1990Kibler et al (eds) Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, 1995 It is difficult to contextualise St-Denis to other buildings of the time and place, due to the fact that many churches in Capetian France between 1080 and 1160 were destroyed and/or rebuilt later,Take St-Meglorie, Ste-Genevie, and St-Victor in local Paris. combined with the fact that no other building of this period enjoyed the level of precision and detail of Suger's accounts of St-Denis. Thus, the Gothic style can be seen as a multiplicity of trends in the architecture of this period, some occasionally intersecting with others: Jean Bony describes it as "a happy accident of history; it would have been infinitely more normal if the Gothic had never appeared.""Un hasard heureux de l'histoire. Il aurait été infiniment plus normal que le Gothique n'eût jamais paru," p. 11. Jean Bony, "Architecture gothique. Accident ou nécessité?" in Revuew de l'Art, LVIII-LVIX (1983) pp. 9–20.Stephen Gardner, " L'église Saint-Julien de Marolles-en-Brie et ses rapports avec l'architecture Parisienne de la génération de Saint-Denis," in Bull Mon 153 (1995) pp. 23–46.
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