The Cathedral in Chartres was built for 66 years and was opened to the people with great fanfare in 1260. The French king himself arrived for the holiday, and the pilgrims and townspeople, finally allowed to witness the miracle, went inside and stood with their mouths open. Exactly 540 years later, during the years of the French Revolution, architect Louis-François Petit-Radel, a fighter against the "obscurant art of the Gothic," drew up a project to destroy all such structures. Chartres Cathedral was almost the first on his list …
In the town of Chartres, the first Christian cathedral appeared together with the officially introduced new faith - under Bishop Adventus, in 350. How long he stood is unknown. The churches were then mostly wooden and burned with enviable regularity. The next cathedral mentioned by chroniclers burned down together with the city in 753. A new temple built on the same site was burned by the Vikings in 858. It is believed that Rorik (Rurik) of Jutland, who is tipped to be the founding fathers of the Russian state, had a hand in this matter.
Under the cover of Our Lady
The cathedral collapsed, but it was already made of stone, so a part of it survived and successfully formed the basis of the next building. According to the generally accepted legend, King Charles the Bald gave this cathedral a Christian relic - the cover of the Mother of God, that is, the cape in which she gave birth to Jesus. And the Byzantine Empress Irina presented this shrine to the monarch. After such a generous donation, the city of Chartres and its cathedral became very famous in the Christian world.
In 911, when the Normans attacked Chartres again, Bishop Gilbert hung the relic on the city wall. The pirates retreated. The joy was endless. True, short-lived. In 962, during the siege of Chartres by the Norman Duke Richard, this temple also burned down. Of course, they built it again. He suffered the same fate in 1020. Bishop Fulbert began building a new one. But he died eight years later, and the cathedral was completed only in 1037. This structure was lucky to survive in the terrible fire of 1134, when only embers remained from Chartres. But in June 1194, an ordinary lightning destroyed him. Both the cathedral and the city burned down. The bishop of Chartres was then the enterprising young prelate Renaud de Musson. He quickly figured out how to encourage the inhabitants of Chartres to build a new cathedral on the site of the burnt down cathedral. To be honest, the previous one was already dilapidated in a century and a half, and the bishop did not like it. He wanted his cathedral to be superior to the recently erected Notre Dame in Paris. And the inhabitants of Chartres mourned their property that had perished in the fire and the holy relic that had burned down with the temple.
It was then that the bishop announced: the relic survived. And then he showed the saved artifact for everyone to see. Everyone, of course, immediately believed in the miraculous salvation of the shrine. An unknown architect was immediately found, who in a short time created a project for the future cathedral. The townspeople and peasants volunteered to carry out all the necessary work free of charge - to remove the soil for the foundation, to carry and saw the stone. The veil perfectly fulfilled the role assigned to him - he collected money for the construction of the cathedral. Donations came from ordinary believers, and from the nobility, and even from kings. But if there were no church relic in Chartres, everything could have turned out quite differently.
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Heavenly Jerusalem
What the ambitious bishop ordered to build was essentially a heavenly Jerusalem, which parishioners should see on a sinful earth. A huge temple with spiers extending to the sky, with an abundance of light and air. This new trend in church architecture appeared in 1147 thanks to the Abbot Suger. According to this principle, the Abbey of Saint-Denis and the famous cathedral in Paris were rebuilt. Chartres Cathedral was supposed to become even larger, even brighter, even more beautiful. It was built from 1194 to 1225, when the masonry work was mainly completed, and it took another 35 years to complete. Intermittently. Since while the bishop was alive, his enthusiasm and iron will was enough to inspire the builders. When he died, systematic riots began. And although the stained glass windows were ready by 1240, it took another 20 years for the temple to be fully completed. It was consecrated and the crowds of believers were finally allowed in.
The temple was magnificent. Its size was amazing. The height of the inner vaults reached 37.5 meters, the height from the ridge of the roof to the floor was 51 meters, the length from the entrance to the eastern wall was 130 meters, the width inside the cathedral was 63.4 meters. The former cathedral, from which part of the western wall, the crypt and both bell towers remained, was long, low and dark. The new cathedral was significantly expanded and took the form of a Latin cross - if you look at it from above, as God will certainly do, you can see a huge cross. This cruciform roof was supported by relatively thin walls with many pointed arches, which were decorated with multicolored stained glass windows. On the sides of the walls, buttresses with flying buttresses were supported, which made the structure even more airy. The towers were completed. The highest, the northern one, 113 meters high, was put on the base,preserved from the previous Romanesque building. There was no spire on it yet; it appeared only in the 16th century. The south tower, 103 meters high, has preserved all the features of the 12th century cathedral.
But the main feature of the cathedral was its interior decoration. Believers did go to heaven. The walls inside were painted green, blue, ocher. Arched vaults soared to the very roof. Sculptural groups have been carved into the walls and support columns. There are more than 10 thousand of them in the cathedral. Brightly stained glass windows showed scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Light openings were made in two rows - rosettes were located above narrow pointed windows, stained-glass windows were made in two prevailing colors - scarlet and blue, and this blue color has no analogues in glass production, the recipe for staining glass in “Chartres blue” has been lost. The total area of stained-glass windows is more than 2 thousand square meters!
For believers, the entrance to the temple began with a labyrinth. This stone labyrinth is huge - it has 11 inscribed circles, and the path from the beginning to the end of the labyrinth is 260 meters. In the center of the labyrinth is a six-petal rose, the same shape as the rosettes on the walls. Traditionally, it was necessary to pass the labyrinth, relying on hands and knees. It was a symbolic expression of man's path from earthly life to heavenly. To that shining Jerusalem, which was waiting around the bends of the labyrinth.
Through the centuries
Although the cathedral was "commissioned" in 1260, work on its improvement did not end there. In 1506 the north tower was badly damaged by fire. Work began on its restoration. As the roof was damaged, it was decided to build a Gothic spire instead of the Romanesque pyramid. In 1514, construction began on the altar wall made of carved stone and wood, about 100 meters long and over six meters high. This work took over 200 years. In 1520, an astronomical clock was installed in the choir, which showed not only the hour and minutes, but also the day of the week, month, year, and even an astrological sign. In 1723, five new bells were installed on the towers, which soon suffered a sad fate.
On September 15, 1793, Chartres Cathedral was renamed the Temple of Reason. Some of the stained-glass windows and statues were smashed, furniture and wooden interior details were burnt, the metal was used for military purposes: bullets were cast from lead broken out of stained-glass frames, gold and silver dishes were melted down to make coins. The bells were also unlucky. Six bells, including the largest - 15-ton Marie and 10-ton Gabriel - were melted down. The revolutions needed not bells, but guns. Miraculously managed to stop the destruction of the Chartres miracle. And after another four decades, the cathedral almost died from the negligence of two plumbers, who left an unextinguished candle. After this fire in 1836, the roof had to be completely changed.
With the beginning of a new century, more caring for the heritage of the past, systematic restoration work began to be carried out in the cathedral. Since 1979, Chartres Cathedral has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Mikhail ROMASHKO