Between 1170 and 1270, more than 500 great French churches were built in the Gothic style. One of the greatest rose on a wheat-rich prairie 54 miles southwest of Paris, in a town whose citizens had long believed that the Virgin Mary preferred their church to any other as her residence on earth. Resolving to erect a new cathedral truly worthy of heaven's queen, the 10,000 townspeople poured all of their energies and resources into the project, and an army of anonymous craftsmen brought to bear all of the arts and technical skills of the age. The final product, Notre-Dame of Chartres, stands today as the epitome of Gothic grandeur-faith translated into a soaring monument of carved stone and stained glass.
CHARTRES' WEST PORTAL constitutes a veritable “Bible in stone.“ The 19 tall statues that flank its three doors represent Old Testament figures.
Faith and Works
The oldest part of the Cathedral's superstructure is the west facjade, whose magnificent portal (above) dates back to 1145. The statuary framing the doors exemplifies that period's transitional art, combining the stylized severity of the Romanesque with the warmer, freer naturalism of the Gothic.
The west portal was built to beautify the 11th Century church that stood behind it. But on June 10, 1194, disaster struck Chartres. A great fire destroyed the church—except for its new faqade. The
Tympanum above the central door portrays Christ in majesty, while the other tympanums illustrate Christ's Incarnation (right) and His Ascension.
Stunned citizens feared that the flames had consumed their most precious relic—the tunic which the Virgin Mary was said to have worn at Christ's birth. But miraculously the relic survived.
In pious gratitude, the townspeople gave huge sums to rebuild the Virgin's church in matchless splendor. The Bishop of Chartres, whose diocese was one of the largest in France, and who received from it an annual income equal to some $1.5 million, committed most of this fortune to construction. Additional funds were raised at local fairs, and by exhibiting Chartres' relics on foreign tours.
The townspeople contributed their labor as well as their money. Joined by devout volunteers of every class and from every region, they harnessed themselves to carts and dragged huge blocks of stone from the quarry, seven miles distant.
The new Notre-Dame, incorporating the superb west facade, emerged from the rubble of the old and climbed slowly above the rooftops of Chartres.
World History
