Robert De Coucy

Coucy caput ecclesiæ construxit". After the death of his father, Robert de Coucy had also chief charge of the work on the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims, which was rebuilt after its destruction by fire in 1211. The new cathedral was begun in 1211, and the choir, constructed by Robert de Coucy the elder, was completed in 1241; The cathedral was built on a simple plan of a vast choir, no transepts, and a rather narrow nave. Viollet-le-Duc says: "This building has all the strength of the cathedral of Chartres without its heaviness; in short it combines the essential requirements of artistic beauty, power and grace; it is, besides, built of fine materials cunningly put together, and there is found in all its parts a painstaking care and a skill very rare at a period when men built with great rapidity and often with inadequate resources". In a labyrinth, or representation of a maze, which formerly existed in the pavement of the nave of the cathedral were effigies of the architects of the edifice from its foundation up to 1382; among these effigies, according to tradition, were those of the two Robert de Coucys, father and son. In the cloister of the Abbey of Saint-Denis at Reims, Andre Félibien noted the gravestone of Robert de Coucy, "Maistre de Notre-Daine et de Saint-Nicaise, qui trépassa en l'an 1311".

The recorded working language is French. Works named in the authority record are Reims Cathedral.