page_title: 1340s
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: 1340s / Europe / Culture, religion and philosophy / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: the Notre Dame de Paris: Western Façade, mid-afternoon, April 2007. Photograph by Tom S., while observing and admiring High Gothic in France.
context_page_description: The 1340s were a Julian calendar decade in the 14th century, in the midst of a period in world history often referred to as the Late Middle Ages in the Old World and the pre-Columbian era in the New World.
  In Asia, the successors of the old Mongol Empire were in a state of gradual decline. The Ilkhanate had already fragmented into several political territories and factions struggling to place their puppet leaders over the shell of an old state; the Chagatai Khanate was undermined by religious unrest and fell to rebellion. The Black Plague swept through the Kipchak Khanate in 1346, and also affected the Genoese colonies under Mongol siege, thence spreading into Europe. The Yuan dynasty in China was struck by a series of disasters, including frequent flooding, widespread banditry, fires in urban areas, declining grain harvest, increased civil unrest and local rebellion – the seeds of resistance that would lead to its downfall. Southeast Asia remained free from Mongol power, with several small kingdoms struggling for survival.
  In Europe, the decade continued the period of gradual economic decline, often mistitled the "depression" of the 1340s.
context_section_description: A number of European building projects were completed in the 1340s, mainly consisting of cathedrals and universities. In 's-Hertogenbosch, construction was finished on the Romanesque church begun in 1220, which was later rebuilt as the 16th century St. John's Cathedral. In the German city of Mainz, work was completed on the Collegiate Church of St. Stephan, begun in 1267. In Naples, three decades of work were finished on the monastery of Santa Chiara.
  The High Gothic choir of St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, was consecrated in 1340. Mecheln Cathedral, then a collegiate church, was started with the choir in 1342. In 1344, Prague was made an archbishopric, and the foundation stone was laid on the new St. Vitus Cathedral. Cathedrals completed in this decade, excluding later alterations, include Notre Dame de Paris and the Cathedral of the Theotokos, Vilnius, completed around 1345 and 1346 respectively. In Ely Cathedral, the last part of the repairs to the structure was finished with the richly decorated Lady Chapel in 1345.
  In Venice, the Venetian Gothic Palazzo Ducale, or Doge's Palace, was erected on top of older buildings in 1340. In Switzerland, the walls of the Old City of Berne were extended up to the Christoffelturm, from 1344 to 1346. Berne's Käfigturm was erected from 1256 to 1344 as the second western city gate. In Siena, the Torre della Mangia of the Palazzo Pubblico was completed in 1348. That same year, land in the English town of Charing held by the Archbishop of Canterbury was redeveloped as an episcopal palace.
  The Scuola della Carità, one of the six Scuole Grandi of Venice, was built in 1343. Two medieval universities were established in the 1340s: the University of Pisa (1343) and the University of Prague (1347). The University of Valladolid was also granted a licentia ubique docendi by Pope Clement VI in 1347, during the reign of Alfonso XI.  Queen's College, Oxford, was founded by the chaplain Robert de Eglesfield in 1341, and Queen Philippa secured the lands of a small hospital in Southampton for the college in 1343.  Meanwhile, Bablake School was founded in Coventry in 1344 by the Queen Mother, Isabella of France., while Pembroke College, Cambridge, was completed in 1347.
caption: The western façade of Notre Dame de Paris, completed in 1345
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