The von der Heyde Chapel at Legnica in Silesia and the Early Phase of the French Flamboyant Style

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the case—hitherto virtually unknown—of an anonymous French master mason from St.-Denis, active around 1416–30 in the wealthy town of Legnica in Silesia. Invited to Central Europe in the turbulent times of the Hundred Years’ War by the local duke Louis II, in Legnica he executed several works, foremost among them the von der Heyde Chapel at the parish church of Saints Peter and Paul, featuring an impressive stellar vault with a hanging boss. Attributed to the French master on stylistic grounds, it constitutes a unique example of a remarkably mature design from the early phase of Flamboyant architecture, in some respects predating its geographically distant yet stylistically proximate parallels in France itself. This article reconstructs the master’s oeuvre, discusses the chapel’s artistic origin in the Île-de-France of the early fifteenth century, and shows its surprising importance in the history of French late medieval architecture. In this context, the Silesian monument is all the more important because so little architecture survives from the Parisian milieu of the early fifteenth century. The works of the French master active in Legnica analyzed here should be considered as representative examples of the rapid stylistic development that occurred within the initial phase of Flamboyant architecture in France.