The Church of Saint-Séverin (French: Église Saint-Séverin, pronounced [eɡliz sɛ̃ sevʁɛ̃]) is a Catholic church in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, of Paris, on the lively tourist street Rue Saint-Séverin. It was constructed beginning in 1230, then, after a fire, rebuilt and enlarged in the 15th to 17th centuries in the Flamboyant Gothic style. It was the parish church for students at the University of Paris, and is one of the oldest churches that remains standing on the Left Bank.
History
The church took its name from Saint Séverin of Paris, a devout hermit who lived at the site in the 6th century, and died in about 540.[1] One of his pupils was Clodoald or Saint Cloud, a Merovingian prince who quit the royal family to himself become a monk and hermit, who also later became a Saint.[2] After the death of Severin, a chapel was erected on the site of his cell, believed to be near the oratory of Saint Martin in the present church.[3] This chapel was destroyed during the Norman invasions in the 9th century, then rebuilt in the Romanesque style in the 11th century. Several Sarcophogi from a cemetery of the Merovingian dynasty were discovered during rebuilding on the site in the 19th century.[4]
The church in 1702
At the end of the 12th century, due to the popularity and growing size of the theology school attached to the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, the students and teachers were relocated to the Left Bank. The University of Paris was founded in 1215, and Saint Severin became its parish church.[4][5] The fame of the university and its teachers attracted students and scholars from across Europe, and a larger church was required. Beginning in about 1230, construction began on a new building in the High Gothic style. The church was contemporary with Notre Dame de Paris and Sainte-Chapelle. An additional aisle on the south side was built in the early 14th century.
The church was seriously damaged by fire in 1448 during the Hundred Years' War. The archpriest Guillaume d'Estouteville began rebuilding the church in the more ornamental Flamboyant Gothic style. A new aisle was added on the north side, and, in 1489, a semi-circular apse and ambulatory was added at the eastern end, with dramatic Flamboyant columns, arches, and vaults, around a dramatic spiral central pillar. A circle of radiating chapels was added around the apse, and new chapels built along the outer aisles between the buttresses. As the church grew, the surrounding neighbourhood pressed against it. The 13th-century bell tower, originally on the exterior, and still the original work up to the level of the balustrade, was surrounded by the expanded church, as was the ancient "Charnier", or Charnel House, a mausoleum. The old cemetery is now a garden.[6]
After its completion in 1520 the church took on the general appearance it still has today. In 1643 a second sacristy was added, and in 1673 the royal architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart built the communion chapel on the church's southeast corner. In 1684 the decorator Charles le Brun modified the design of the choir, removing the rood screen and providing the apse columns with marble facing.[3]
During the French Revolution the church was closed and turned into a storehouse for gunpowder, and later a storehouse for grain and for church bells, which during the period were often melted down to make cannon.[6] It was returned to the Catholic Church in 1803, but, like other Paris churches, the building is still owned by the French State, with exclusive use granted to the Catholic Church.
In the 20th century future French President François Mitterrand and Danielle Gouze were married in the church on October 28, 1944, not long after the liberation of Paris from the Germans,[7]
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