Nineteenth-century architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc contended that Paris’s
Notre-Dame cathedral, built primarily in the late twelfth century, was supported from
the very beginning by a system of flying buttresses — a series of exterior arches (flyers)
and their supports (buttresses) — which permitted the construction of taller vaulted
buildings with slimmer walls and interior supports than had been possible previously.
Other commentators insist, however, that Notre-Dame did not have flying buttresses
until the thirteenth or fourteenth century, when they were added to update the build-
ing aesthetically and correct its structural flaws. Although post-twelfth-century modi-
fications and renovations complicate efforts to resolve this controversy — all
pre-fifteenth-century flyers have been replaced, and the buttresses have been rebuilt
and/or resurfaced — it is nevertheless possible to tell that both the nave and the choir,
the church’s two major parts, have always had flying buttresses. It is clear, now that
nineteenth-century paint and plaster have been removed, that the nave’s lower but-
tresses date from the twelfth century. Moreover, the choir’s lower flyers have chevron
(zigzag) decoration. Chevron decoration, which was characteristic of the second half of
the twelfth century and was out of favor by the fourteenth century, is entirely absent
from modifications to the building that can be dated with confidence to the thirteenth
century.