Suger, Abbot

Suger, Abbot (c.1081–1151). French churchman and statesman, one of the greatest patrons of the Middle Ages. He was adviser to Louis VI and Louis VII, acting as regent in 1147–9 during the latter's absence on the Second Crusade, but he is remembered mainly for the rebuilding of the abbey of Saint-Denis, near Paris, of which he was abbot from 1122 until his death. Suger's reconstruction and redecoration of the abbey was the most important landmark in the emergence of the Gothic style in architecture and sculpture. In the 1140s he wrote an autobiographical account of the work—a unique document of the time. It was edited and translated (1946) by Erwin Panofsky, who wrote that Suger was ‘frankly in love with splendour and beauty in every conceivable form: it might be said that his reponse to ecclesiastical ceremonial was largely aesthetic’. He thought that through the splendour and brilliance of material treasure, men were led to an appreciation of spiritual glories. Suger commissioned several items of furnishing and sacred vessels for the abbey, some of which survive, notably an antique porphyry vase that he had converted into the shape of an eagle (Louvre, Paris).