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In 1225 the bishop and the chapter of Beauvais decided to build a new church, to replace the former 10th century church that was built with salvaged gallo-roman stone blocks. The plan was to reach a height of 48m from the floor to the top of the vaults inside the church. The choir is built first and the desired height was achieved, however, the church partially collapsed in 1284. After reinforcement works lasting 40 years and a number of war interruptions, the transept in turn is built and completed in 1550. A tower 153m tall is built in 1569 before the nave is even started. Only 4 years later, in 1573, due to the structural weakness of the unfinished church, the tower collapsed. Money ran out and the tower and the nave were never built. Instead, the open church was simply closed off.