Chartres Cathedral (Part One).

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres from the South. 

A masterpiece of Gothic Architecture.

Photo: 25 August 2005.

Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Chartres_cathedral.jpg.

Auhor: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Honge.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Chartres Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres (French: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres), is a Mediaeval Roman Rite Catholic Cathedral located in Chartres, France, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) South-West of Paris. It is considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic Architecture and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The current Cathedral, mostly constructed between 1194 and 1250, is the last of at least five Cathedrals, which have occupied the site since the town became a Bishopric in the 4th-Century.

The Cathedral is in an exceptional state of preservation. The majority of the original stained glass windows survive intact, while the architecture has seen only minor changes since the early 13th-Century. The building's exterior is dominated by heavy Flying Buttresses, which allowed the architects to increase the window size significantly, while the West End is dominated by two contrasting Spires – a 105-metre (349 ft) plain pyramid, completed around 1160, and a 113-metre (377 ft) Early-16th-Century Flamboyant Spire on top of an older Tower. Equally notable, are the three great Façades, each adorned with hundreds of sculpted figures illustrating key theological themes and narratives.

Chartres Cathedral: Sacred Geometry.

Available on YouTube at

http://youtu.be/NeGdvTgROfw.

Since at least the 12th-Century, the Cathedral has been an important destination for travellers - and remains so to this day, attracting large numbers of Christian pilgrims, many of whom come to venerate its famous Relic, the Sancta Camisa, said to be the tunic worn by the Virgin Mary at Christ's birth, as well as large numbers of secular tourists, who come to admire the Cathedral's architecture and historical merit.

Chartres Cathedral. 

Clerestory and Flying Buttresses.

Photo: August 2006.

Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Strebewerk.jpg.

Author: BjörnT, BT from German Wikipedia.

(Wikimedia Commons)

As with any Mediaeval Bishopric, Chartres Cathedral was the most important building in the town – the centre of its economy, its most famous landmark and the focal point of many activities that, in modern towns, are provided for by specialised civic buildings.

In the Middle Ages, the Cathedral functioned as a kind of marketplace, with different commercial activities centred around the different Portals, particularly during the regular Fairs. Textiles were sold around the North Transept, while meat, vegetable and fuel sellers congregated around the South Porch. Money-changers (an essential service at a time when each town or region had its own currency) had their benches, or banques, near the West Portals and also in the Nave, itself. Wine sellers plied their trade in the Nave, although occasional 13th-Century ordinances survive which record them being temporarily banished to the Crypt, to minimise disturbances. Workers of various professions gathered in particular locations around the Cathedral, awaiting offers of work.

Although the town of Chartres was under the judicial and tax authority of the Counts of Blois, the area immediately surrounding the Cathedral, known as the cloître, was, in effect, a free-trade zone governed by the Church authorities, who were entitled to the taxes from all commercial activity taking place there.

As well as greatly increasing the Cathedral's income, throughout the 12th- and 13th-Centuries, this led to regular disputes, often violent, between the Bishops, the Chapter and the Civic Authorities – particularly when serfs, belonging to the Counts, transferred their trade (and taxes) to the Cathedral. In 1258, after a series of bloody riots instigated by the Count's officials, the Chapter finally gained permission from the King to seal off the area of the cloître and lock the gates each night.

Deutsch: Wandfläche mit Triforium.

English: Three tiers of wall structure of Chartres Cathedral: 

Arcade; Triforium; Clerestory (with 2 windows united by a small round Rosette window).

Photo: August 2006.

Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Triforium_Chartres.jpg.

Author: BjörnT, BT from German Wikipedia.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Even before the Gothic Cathedral was built, Chartres was a place of pilgrimage, albeit on a much smaller scale. During the Merovingian and Early-Carolingian eras, the main focus of devotion for pilgrims was a well (now located in the North side of Fulbert's Crypt), known as the Puits des Saints-Forts, or the 'Well of the Strong Saints', into which, it was believed, the bodies of various local Early-Christian Martyrs (including Saints Piat, Cheron, Modesta and Potentianus) had been tossed. The widespread belief that the Cathedral was also the site of a Pre-Christian Druidical sect, who worshipped a 'Virgin who will give birth', is purely a Late-Mediaeval invention.

In circa 876 A.D., the Cathedral acquired the Sancta Camisa, believed to be the tunic worn by the Blessed Virgin Mary at the time of Christ's birth. According to legend, the Relic was given to the Cathedral by Charlemagne, who received it as a gift from Emperor Constantine VI during a Crusade to Jerusalem. However, this legend was pure fiction (Charlemagne never went to the Holy Land) – probably invented in the 11th-Century to authenticate some Relics at the Abbey of St Denis. In fact, the Relic was a gift to the Cathedral from Charles the Bald and there is no evidence for its being an important object of pilgrimage prior to the 12th-Century.

Chartres Cathedral.

The West Front.

Photo: 26 August 2005.

Source: Own work.

Author: Atlant.

(Wikimedia Commons)

By the end of the 12th-Century, however, the Church had become one of the most important popular pilgrimage destinations in Europe. There were four great Fairs, which coincided with the main Feast Days of the Virgin: The Presentation; the Annunciation; the Assumption; and the Nativity. The Fairs were held in the area administered by the Cathedral and were attended by many of the pilgrims, in Town to see the Cloak of the Virgin.

Specific pilgrimages were also held in response to outbreaks of disease. When ergotism (more popularly known in the Middle Ages as "Saint Anthony's Fire") afflicted many victims, the Crypt of the original Church became a hospital to care for the sick.

Today, Chartres continues to attract large numbers of pilgrims, many of whom come to walk slowly around the Labyrinth, their heads bowed in Prayer – an entirely modern devotional practice, but one which the Cathedral authorities accommodate by removing the chairs from the Nave once a month.

PART TWO FOLLOWS.