Suger

SUGER. - Abbot of the abbey of St-Denis in Paris, b. at St-Denis or at Argenteuil in 1081, d. at St-Denis on 13 Jan. 1151.

He entered the priory of St-Denis de l'Estrée in 1091, where he remained ten years and studied together with the son of King Philip I, Prince Louis (later Louis VI); in 1106 he represented his abbot at the Council of Poitiers; on 9 March 1107 he met Paschal II at La Charité-sur-Loire, where the Pope consecrated the church; in the same year his abbot sent him as provost to Berneval, then in 1109 to Tours-en-Beauce, one of the great properties of the abbey; Louis VI made him his envoy to Gelasius at Maguelonne on 15 Nov. 1118 and to Callistus II in Feb. 1119 at Cluny and in Jan. 1122 at Bitonto. On the death of Abbot Adam he was named his successor and, having returned to St-Denis, he was at once ordained a priest on 11 March 1122 and on the following day was blessed as abbot. His first concern was the reform of the abbey from the worldly spirit that had penetrated it. At the same time he continued to be a counselor of Louis VI and VII, and during the absence of the latter, which he deplored, for the second crusade, he was named regent of the Kingdom (1147-49). The regency was so successful that Louis VII, on his return, conferred on him the title of "Father of the nation." Death overtook him while he was about to set out on a new crusade, which he himself had gathered.

He left various works important for the history of the period: Vita Ludovici Grassi regis and Historia Ludovici VII (which in its present form is the work of a monk of St-Germain-des-Prés), both too laudatory and lacunose as regards the blameworthy episodes of the two Kings. Several letters and political documents by him survive as well, and a long testament of 1137.

S., besides the reform of the monastery (described by him in his Liber de rebus in administratione sua gestis), is famous for the reconstruction of the Abbey church, a decisive work for the introduction and triumph of the Gothic style, and for the other works and interventions on behalf of the monastery. He restored in fact the churches and chapels near the abbey, especially the church of St. Paul, and increased its revenues; he obtained from Louis VI, who had been educated there, the confirmation of the ancient privileges; he built 80 new houses around the monastery. From the end of the 24th century a legend recounted that the Redeemer himself, assisted by Sts. Peter, Paul and Dionysius, had consecrated the church of St-Denis (J. Leclercq, La censée, légendaire de la basil. de St-Denis et la question des indulg., in Rev. Mabillon, 1943, pp. 74-84). Around 1130 he began the restoration of the Carolingian nave, around 1135 the reconstruction of the doors and of the front part of the old Basilica, which had been completed in 775 by Abbot Fulrad (L. Levillain, L'église caroling. de St-Denis, in Bull. monumental, 1907, pp. 211-

262; S. Mac Knight Crosby, New excavations in the abbey church of St-Denis, in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1914, pp. 115-26). S. enlarged it, taking the monolithic columns from Pontoise and the roof beams from the forest of Yveline. The entrance had bronze doors; the left one belonged to the old church and had been donated by a monk, Airard, depicted on the two leaves in the act of offering the door to St. Dionysius. The inscription is from the second half of the 11th century and was copied by A. van Bucher of Utrecht in 1585 and better by Peiresc (L. A. van Langeraad and A. Vidier, in Mém. de la Soc. hist. de Paris et de l'Isle de France, 26 [1899], pp. 59-195, and B. De Montesquieu, in Bull. de la Soc. nation. des antiq. de France, 1946). S. offered the other two doors in gilded bronze. In the central one the bas-reliefs represented the scenes of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord; S. was portrayed at the feet of the Lord seated at table with the disciples of Emmaus; he also dictated the related inscriptions and surrounded the two new doors with sculptures; on the left one he had a mosaic executed. The three doors were removed and melted down by the Revolution (14-20 April 1794), which broke the heads of the statues; those saved are now in the Louvre Museum. On the tympanum of the central door was placed the Last Judgment, then the medallions of the Apostles, the resurrection of the dead, the wise and foolish Virgins; the signs of the zodiac, the months. Formigé has recently rediscovered these scenes beneath a layer of dust. On 14 July 1140 the first stone of the new choir was laid, in the presence of King Louis VII; the crypt was then enlarged by adding the radiating chapels; the high altar of the new choir was dedicated to Sts. Dionysius, Rusticus and Eleutherius. In the Libellus de consecratione ecclesiae S. Dionisii (ed. Lecoy De la Marche, pp. 211-38) S. described the consecration which took place on 11 June 1144, adding to it the ceremony of laying the first stone of the foundations of the new choir. The basilica of S. then served as a model for the cathedrals of Cambrai, Laon, Notre-Dame of Paris, Noyon and Senlis. Ruined by lightning, P. de Montereau began its reconstruction in 1230, which was completed in 1280. Catherine de' Medici added the chapel of the Valois. The explorations carried out in the years 1938-39 and from 1946 to 1953 have brought to light part of the large-block foundations of the Carolingian Basilica completed in 775 by Abbot Fulrad, the apse with its passage to the crypt; Formigé has furthermore identified a plan of the Holy Sepulchre traced on a stone, which is a copy of the one executed by the Franciscan Bernardino Amico in 1515-16; it is known that the canons of St-Denis called in the Franciscans in 1605 for the service of the Basilica.

Enrico Josi