In 1122, Henri Sanglier, a member of the court of Louis VI of France, was named archbishop of Sens and began the project of building a larger and grander cathedral.

Pope Alexander III came to Sens with his court in September 1163, in the midst of a dispute with The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and remained for three years.

At the end of 1164, Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, came to Sens as an exile, forced to leave because of his opposition to the seizure of church property by King Henry II of England.

The cathedral also briefly hosted the reputed Crown of Thorns from the Crucifixion, purchased by Louis IX from the Emperor of Constantinople, as it was handed over to the King with great ceremony, and then transported by boat to Paris for eventual placement in the Sainte-Chapelle.

To bring in more light, He raised the upper walls of the choir and installed larger stained glass windows, a process that also took place at Notre Dame de Paris at about the same time.

He also began the construction of the Archbishops' palace adjoining the cathedral, the remodelling of the Saint Severin chapel, and the installation of an ornate jubé, or rood screen, between the choir and nave.

[13] The works were interrupted by a disaster, the collapse on 5 April 1268 of the south tower, which caused several casualties and damaged the adjoining Archbishop's Palace.

The rebuilding of the tower was long delayed for lack of funds, but was finally completed by a legacy in the will of the Archbishop Étienne Bécard de Penoul (1292–1309).

[13] The other major 13th-century modification was the reconstruction of the early Gothic Chapel of the Virgin, built in 1150, into the Rayonnant style, with larger and more decorative windows.

An even more ambitious project, a transept similar to that of Notre Dame de Paris, was started but, evidently because of a shortage of funds, was not built until between 1490 and 1518.

Nonetheless, Sens remained an important religious center, attracting monastic communities of the Jesuits, Carmelites, Benedictines, and Ursulines.

In 1638, the explosions of cannons firing to celebrate the birth of the future Louis XIV broke the stained glass windows installed over the west portal.

In 1760, King Louis XV ordered that the golden table, which served as the centerpiece of the altar, be melted down to help refill the royal treasury after a costly war.

[13] In 1785 A project was prepared for a new west portal of the Church, in the form of a classical portico with columns, designed by François Soufflot, nephew of the future architect of the Pantheon in Paris, but it was rejected too radical.

[13] The Outbreak of the French Revolution in Sens preceded that in Paris by a day: on 13 July 1789, peasants broke down the gates of the Palace of the Archbishop to seize the grain that had been confiscated and stored in the courtyard.

They stopped in Sens for a few hours on November 7, 1793, and took the time to smash the sculpture on the central portal of the cathedral, sparing only the statue of Saint-Etienne, because a quick-thinking clergyman had put a Revolutionary cap on its head.

[18] With the end of the Terror, For a time the Catholic Church shared the structure with semi-religious cult called Theophilanthropy, but in October 1800 the cathedral was entirely returned to its former status.

In February 1814 the town was bombarded by Russian artillery, which damaged some of the stained glass, and in the same month, Prussian soldiers used the cathedral as a barracks.

Robelin served as the consultant on Gothic cathedrals to Victor Hugo, whose novel Notre Dame de Paris had appeared in 1831.

Hugo came to Sens to see the cathedral in 1839 and wrote, "All the contrasts are mixed in this admirable church, and are resolved into harmonies...It is the complicated art of history, it is the religion of the spirit powerfully combined with the philosophy of facts."

Viollet-le-Duc added a gilded bronze armchair, modelled on 12th-century designs, placed in the center of the cathedral, to be the formal seat of the archbishop.

Now Pious IV reigns in Rome, the Emperor Ferdinand governs the Germans, King Francis II the Gauls, and Jean, Cardinal Bertrand, the Archdiocese of Sens."

Some of the sculpture was smashed during the French Revolution, and some original pieces, notably the column-statues and two bas-reliefs, have been moved to the museum within the Archbishop's palace, and replaced with copies.

Traces of paint were found on the sculpture, including red pigment on the neck of John the Baptist and gold on the cup of Salomé, indicating that, as with other Gothic cathedrals, the entire tympanum was brightly coloured.

The stairways are marked with the fleur-de-lis emblem of Louis X of France and the ermine, symbol of his wife, Anne de Bretagne.

It includes sculpted images of John the Baptist, Saint Stephen, a Virgin and Child, and eight statues of prophets and sibyles.

[29] Other Prominent works of sculpture and bas-relief represent scenes from the life of Cardinal Antoine Duprat, chancellor of France and archbishop of Sens from 1525 to 1535.

The altar originally had a celebrated golden table, which was removed and melted down to raise money during the reign of Louis XV.

A new, larger instrument, more in keeping with changes in church music, was ordered in 1722, and installed for Easter 1734 near the entrance of the nave, on the inside face of the west facade.

The museum has a very diverse collection, including a painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, a sculpture by Rodin, and Art Deco furniture from the workshop of Raymond Subes [fr], who provided furnishings for the ocean liner Normandie.