Gothic Catherdrals
GOTHIC:  [General]  [Early]  [High]  [Late]

     -[The Notre Dame of Paris]-

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                  [Art History (index)]
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Stars of the show:  -[St. Denis]-





Gothic Cathedrals


Reference:  [François Icher]
"Building the Great Cathedrals", ISBN 0.8109.4017.5
(Abrams, Italy, 1998). Tr. from the French by 
Anthony Zielonka.


P.11:  It is easy to undertand the interest in the cathedrasl'
mysteries and symbolism. There exist how-ever, extensive archives
of writers and illustrative materials to document the true 
identity of the cathedrals and their builders. We now know 
that every city wanted a unique, special, monumental building.

Each construction-site was original, and every architect had
his own plan and every craftsman took his own approach to the
work and utlised his particular manual and intellectual skills.
From the Merovingian Age [????] to the end of the Middle Ages,
construction techniques evolved to a considerable degree, and
with them evolved to a considerable degree, and with them
evolved the way in which construction-sites wer organised,
and professional skills mastered. 

We should, therefore. be skeptical of overly generalised views
of the cathedrals and their builders. The medieval construction-
sites must always be differentiated in time and space. There is 
no typical construction-stie or any single community of builders
that may be stero-typed.

But, the massive stuff comes later. Indeed, as Icher points out:

P. 14: Contrary to a widely held notion, cathedrals are not 
       all large Gothic churches. A cathedral is first and
fore-most a particular church, that of the bishop, and at its
centre stands the cathedra from the Greek name
that is given to the bishop's seat or throne. 

PP-02.

In fact, the bishop's church was first simly refered to as
the ecclesia the Greek term denoting the assembly
of the faithful there to pray, to listen, and to observe. 
The use of the term ecclesia became so wide-spread
that it was applied to every place of worship. It thus, 
became necessary to invent  new name to distingush the
bishop's church from the other churches of the diocese.
That is how the bishop's cathedra gave birth to
cthedralis -- the cathedral -- the title and 
distinctive name of a place of worship around which would
be assembled the services and staff of a bishop, whose 
powers would grow as those of the civic authorities
declined.

[P. 16] The cethedral district became the hub of the city.
Businesses flourished along the main streets leading to
the churches.




Characteristics include:

Gothic:  Rib vaulting, flying butresses, pointed arch.

Early Roman Churches:  Small castle-like structures with
                       small windows, massive walls.

Romanesque?? 

Anyway, the barrel vault then got ribbing to direct the force
to the corners of a square, instead of the whole side of each
wall. Thus, this allowed the area between the columns to 
have glass walls. Again, though this meant that the columns
must become more massive. But, they kept pushing the height
upward, and...

Gothic: Crcuiform design. Solid foundation, set 25-feet
into the earth, 

Traditional buidlings (eg, houses) have the roof supported by 
the walls, but in the their use as churches, the walls were
replaced with arches (arcades) with load-bearing columns.
Many churches burned down -- think about it, they are
using candles for night services. And the roof is made of
wood (to lighten the load on the columns. The "solution"
was to replace the wooden roof with a stone ceiling 
-- vaults. Eg, the barrel vault is really an arch and
the weight is thrustd down into the two side walls. This
necessitated (in turn) making the walls thicker. The outward
THRUST of the roof (it's a 2-dimensional structure being
supported along the vertical axis, no matter what the 
]aws of physics tell us that there WILL BE some out-ward
"x" component (the thrust). THis means that you have to
"prop" some counter weight against the wall to keep it
from collapsing outward:

                   ...
                  .    .
                 .      .  Vaulted ceiling
                .        .      
               ---      ---  +--->  X component!
               |||      |||  |
               |||      |||  |
               |||      |||  V Y component (handled by
               |||      |||      supporting columns

Two possible approaches:


        ---\      
        ||| \    This inward slanting support
        |||  \   keeps the X component in check
        |||   \
        |||^^^ But then all this other stonework has
        |||    to be kept from colapsing.  -- Basically
               you end up with a pyramid!

The other ingenous 1100c idea is butressing


        ---\
        ||| \  <-- In practice this is an ARC !!
        |||  \
        |||  -   <-- Now the X-compent is supportd
        |||  |       by the butress column. (then
        |||  |       they quite cleverly used an ARC
        |||  |       to help guide the X-component of
                     the main column down into the 
                     butressing column. By using 
an ARC (as opposed to a straight line shown here), this
means that much of the x-compnent is turned into downard
force, and hence the butressing column doesn't have as
much x-force on it. 

This means that you can do two things:

1. Build EVEN higher (near to God)

and

2. Put TALL windows (St. Chapell -- CURTAIN WALL) -- letting
   in all of that wonderful light.

The Usual Suspects

Abbot Suger (soo-zhay) 1130

Chartres -- wooden church. But then, in 876 burned partially, 
but the relic was in-tact, seen as a miracle and that was 
interpreted that Mary deserved a better church. Some of
the stained glass illustrate the craft guilds who raised
the money to build the church.

One of the first (St. Dennis considered first gothic church)
the butresses were v. thick, but the flying buttresses are
"rather timid" (David McC). -- each butress (vert column)
weghts some 2_000_000 pounds!

At Bourges long, delicate flying butresses, each butress 
weighs only 1/3 as much as at Chartres


1284 Beauveih ?sp?  

The pinaccles on the top of each butress actually adds its
small weight to help the butress to wrok better.
Nathional Cathedral (Washinton, DC)



====

1 cubic foot of limestone weighs about 150 pounds
Ttal weight approx 300M pounds. porrus stone.
Gargoyls as drainage system.

Carpenters that built ships would double as constructors
of the cathedrals.

===============


==== Cathedral 

Beaulieu (Bohl-yuh or bohl-yeuhr -- very slight "r' sound)
May 1214. (the story is made up)

Chartres: 1194 - 1221




Amiens  1219 - 1269 -- Head of St. John the Baptist

Everywhere a strong connection between ubuinsess 
THe town dock was jointly owned by the merchants

Bourges 1195 - 1255



Notre Dame de Paris 1152 -1240 


Laon 1153 - 1223

From David McC:
1112 Bishop Gaudry -- citizens bought a communal 
charter from the king to separate themselves from
the Bishop. He in turn payed even more to the King to
annul the charter. Gaudry's men murdered the towns
leader in cold blood.The people marched into the
palace (of the Bishop, i presume) and cut off his
head. Then they set the palace and the cathedral on
fire. The new bishop had to send the relics on tour
twice to pay for repairs.


Riems 1209 - 1290

Again from David McC:
THe peasants were forced to pay for the cathedral, 
Rose in bloddy revolt and halted construction for
several years. Often the local Parish churches
had to stop their own construction to help support
the cathedral.

THe Chapter -- the council that oversaw the work
-- mainly the raising of money, etc -- keeper of the fabric