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This site has been chosen as a benchmark because it is one of the best-preserved and most important structures remaining from the medieval period and it can be used to illustrate virtually every aspect of medieval life. The church itself serves as an illustration of the dominant role of the Catholic Church in medieval Europe. The church's position as the center point of the town and its commanding size, both illustrate its importance. Additionally, the iconography and ornament throughout the church shed significant light on more mundane aspects of medieval life. For example, a series of forty-three stained glass windows were donated by various tradesmen of the time and depict everyday tasks such as wine making, glazing, and carpentry. These illustrations also portray common dress and behavior. Additionally, the design and craft employed in the construction of the Cathedral give us insight into the technological knowledge and abilities in the craft of the medieval period.
     Although Chartres Cathedral has been altered greatly over the years, due to numerous fires, construction on most of the existing church began in 1194, immediately following a fire which demolished all of the previous Romanesque cathedral, save the front towers, the foundation and a portion of the crypt which still exists from an ever earlier structure. While most of the new church was completed by 1223, the Church was officially consecrated on October 24, 1260 as "The Cathedral Church of the Assumption of Our Lady." The connection to Mary, the mother of Jesus, comes from a relic housed in the church, an article of clothing believed to have been worn by Mary either at the birth of Jesus or during the Assumption. Medieval Catholics strongly believed in the ability of the saints to intercede in earthly affairs through relics related to their lives on earth. In the case of Chartres, a relic so directly related to the Virgin Mary, assured protection of the church and the town.
     The Cathedral at Chartres, today called Chartres Cathedral of Notre Dame (our lady), is an amazing architectural achievement. Built of limestone, Chartres is 112 feet (34 meters) high and 427 feet (130 meters) long. The new church used innovations, which were widely copied throughout Europe. The massive weight of its high clerestory windows meant that the external support of flying buttresses had to be used in new ways. Each curved pier connects with an arch to a wall and extends (or "flies") to the ground or a pier some distance away. Thus, the supporting power of the buttress was greatly increased. The cathedral's incredible height, a basic characteristic of the Gothic style, invited worshippers to lift their eyes upward to God.
     Chartres Cathedral is built on a cruciform plan (a design which was just taking hold during the period the church was constructed). The church is generally entered through the west front's Royal Portal, which sits between the north and south towers (all of which date from the older 12th century church). The church is divided into three sections both horizontally and vertically. Looking up, the church's interior is divided into arcade, triforium and clerestory. Looking across the church, heavy columns divide the building into a large central section with two flanking isles. In the nave (front part of the central section) is a great labyrinth, which was a common element of church construction in this period and was frequented by pilgrims who walked it as a form of penance. It is interesting that we, today, associate labyrinths with earlier pagan practices, yet the presence of this labyrinth illustrates the ways that earlier practices had been incorporated into medieval Christian practice. As one proceeds through the nave to the crossing one can see the north and south rose windows towering above additional entrances to the church. On the exterior, each of these portals carries a highly detailed sculptural program and a large projecting porch. Beyond the crossing lies the choir, largely for the use of clergy and others involved in the service itself. Behind the choir is the ambulatory, which is ringed by small chapels, each dedicated to a particular saint or individual.
     Additionally, Chartres is well known for its amazing stained glass and sculptural program. The church contains as many as 176 separate stained glass compositions. Some of these are small clerestory windows of just a few panels or rondels, while others are as large as the great rose window with over 50 unique scenes. Stained glass was used in medieval cathedrals to illuminate the light of Christ and to imitate the fabled heavenly Jerusalem. Stained glass is made by combining small pieces of brightly colored glass together with lead to form an artistic scene or composition. The glass is sometimes over-painted to add facial features and other fine details. The creation of the colored glass involved keen knowledge of the chemical properties of various minerals, which when melted together with sand, silica and other ingredients, would create the desired hue. The scenes depicted in the glass at Chartres range from biblical stories of the Old and New Testament, to everyday scenes of medieval life. It is significant that stained glass was a widely known craft during the early middle ages, as this skill was lost during the later middles ages not to be rediscovered until the Renaissance. The creation of the stained glass windows for Chartres Cathedral employed one third of the town during the time of the Cathedral's construction. The windows of Chartres are some of the most significant stained glass windows on earth today. During the world wars of the 20th century, the windows were dismantled and stored to protect them from bombing and destruction. Since 1968, the windows have undergone a systematic cleaning and restoration process to assure their future well-being.
     The sculptural program at Chartres Cathedral has a similarly important role in art history. The church's Royal Portal at the west front displays sculpture dating to the mid 1100s, when this, the oldest part of the Cathedral was constructed. The difference between these characters and those of the later church are striking. These earlier figures are more elongated and stylized than the later and more human figured throughout the remainder of the building. The evolution in the art of carving and representation in the 100 years between the creation of the Royal Portal works and those elsewhere at Chartres, illustrates the rapid development in the scu1ptural arts in the early medieval period. Figures, as in the stained glass windows, are highly representational. Facial features may not vary appreciably from one figure to the next, yet each is identifiable by what they hold, wear or are accompanied by. Since most medieval church-goers would have been illiterate, inscriptions are few throughout the sculptural program, relying instead on familiar signs to identify each figure. Examples of this include, shells used to identify the apostle James the Greater, a bald man used to identify St. Paul (or Elijah in an Old Testament context), and a beardless man used to represent St. John.

This site can be used to address the following themes of World History as recommended by the New York State Regents.
1. Medieval Life - many of the windows and sculpted figures of Chartres show examples of daily life, clothing and habits during the middle ages.
2. Catholicism - The massive size and placement of this church at the center of the town, illustrate the dominant role of Catholicism in medieval Europe.
3. Medieval Towns - The town of Chartres is an excellent example of many aspects of a medieval town including, protective walls, farm land beyond the town borders, small, crowded urban quarters, meandering streets, water powered industry, etc..
4. The Crusades -The cathedral building fervor, which Chartres was a part of, mirrors the missionary zeal which led to the Crusades and was financed in part by spoils brought back from the Crusades.
5. Monarchy - The construction of the current and previous cathedrals at Chartres was largely financed by various Frankish, British, French, Spanish and Dutch monarchs. The willingness of these monarchs to finance a cathedral in attempts to assure their good favor in the eyes of God, is a testament to the precarious nature of the various monarchs during the 12th and 13th centuries.

In English this site can be used to explore symbolism, medieval literature and illuminated manuscripts.
     Throughout the church, symbols are used to teach the illiterate church-goers the stories of the Bible and the moral teachings of the church. Even colors are symbolic including green crosses representing the new life, which sprang from it upon Jesus' death and purple robes to denote royalty. Ask students to consider what stories they would have thought important to share through the iconography of the building and to design a sculpture or piece of stained glass which tells this story without the use of language.
     A good amount of literature remains from the medieval period. These range from epics such as The Song of Roland, poetry such as Canterbury Tales, to tales of the Crusades, to stories of kings, queens, knights and ladies. In addition to original material, a great deal of historical fiction had been written about this period, which seems to captivate many writers and readers. Two good examples of such historical fiction are The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley which tells the story of King Arthur from a the point of view of the women involved and particularly highlights the transition from pagan practices to Catholicism and Pillars of Stone by Ken Follet which is the tale of the construction of a medieval cathedral. Both of these contemporary works are too long to be read in their entirety with students, but can be excerpted as examples of well-researched and interesting historical fiction.
     Illuminated manuscripts are the highly illustrated, hand-copied books that were the primary source of written material during the middle ages. Several of these books are on view at the Cloisters Museum. These books were the work of monks whose entire lives might often be spent recopying and illuminating one volume. The fact that these books were carefully stored in secluded monasteries is the reason that much early literature, such as that of the Greeks and Romans, remains today. These awesome volumes were hand lettered, illustrated and bound with such care that students cannot fail to understand the value medieval people had for writing and literature.

Connections between this site and science are the plants and animals depicted throughout the stained glass and sculptural program, the evolutionary progression of the architecture and sculpture of the building and the idea of religious teaching versus scientific teachings.
     The iconography of Chartres cathedral includes a myriad of plant and animal forms as a part of the representational vocabulary of symbols used to teach illiterate peasants the stories of the Bible and Christian doctrine. Examples are the vine which grows from Jesse's groin in the Jesse window which depicts the ancestry of Jesus Christ. Animals are used to represent people such as the eagle, ox, lion and lamb, which symbolize the four gospel writers.
     The church itself is the result of several building campaigns, the earliest remains only in the crypt, followed by the west front dating from the 1100s and then the majority of the church, which dates from the mid-1200s. There are also later additions to the church in the St. Piat Chapel, dating from the 15th century, and even some replacement stained glass from the 1900s. This evolution over time is similar to the process of evolution in humans or animals, in that the style of ornament and the methods of construction developed over time with beneficial practices being retained while less successful features were eliminated. An example of this are the wooden steeples, which repeatedly burned down and were eventually replaced with fireproof stone.
     The important role of the Catholic Church in the lives of medieval people, illustrates the importance of that institution as a center for knowledge and information. The Church offered explanations to the people for such perplexing events as death, birth, rain, the changing of the seasons and disease, while also setting up a moral framework within which society might function efficiently. As science progressed it was found that many of the teachings of the Church were in direct conflict with scientific discoveries and direct observation. One school of thought, the humanists, was devoted to making sense of this discrepancy by finding ways that religion and science might co-exist. This philosophy placed a new emphasis on the individual and, for the first time, took some control of the universe away from the almighty and laid it in the hands of the people. A school existed at Chartres Cathedral, called the Chartres Academy, which was one of the finest schools of its time and was specifically noted for its humanist scholarship.

Connections between this site and mathematics are the engineering of the building with the use of flying buttresses, the numeric divisions throughout every part of the building and their symbolic nature, and the plethora of geometric shapes throughout Chartres Cathedral.
     Masons and crafts people with very little formal training carried out the engineering of great cathedrals like Chartres. Often only the most rudimentary mathematics were employed, yet the result is a complex system which disperses the stresses and loads of the building flawlessly while allowing for a huge, vaulted central space open 112 feet high. Students might wish to research the structural systems employed at Chartres and elsewhere and the mathematical formulas used to design such systems.
     Numerology is used through the building to illustrate various religious teachings. Three is used often for its obvious relationship to the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but also for its importance as the first non-divisible number after one. The church is divided into three parts both horizontally and vertically. There are three doors in each portal and three stained glass panels just below the large west rose window. Sets of seven and numbers divisible by seven are used often because of their importance as three plus four. The number four represents the four elements of the earth, with seven thus being a combination of the spiritual realm (trinity) and the earthly. Twelve is also used to represent the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles of Christ. The west rose window is made up of four rings of twelve panels each. Additionally, twelve is three multiplied by four, so it shares its significance with seven as noted above.
     Throughout Chartres Cathedral, geometric forms are employed and manipulated for beauty and strength. Pointed arches are made up of segments of circles, rondels are often formed by the intersection of numerous circles, barrel vaults are sections of circles, the plan of the church is roughly rectilinear and the exterior of the building has an interesting combination of squared comers with curving vaults and buttresses.

Some recommended activities to use with the site are to ask students to compare the Romanesque style to the Gothic style. Romanesque was related to the control of Europe by Rome and featured the round Roman arch. The Gothic, on the other hand, is the style of Christianity and features pointed arches thrusting always upward to God. How does the transition from one style to the next mirror what was occurring at the time in Europe's political and social climate? What are other characteristics of each style? Are these styles still used today, and if so, do they still hold the same symbolic meaning?
     Ask students to research or calculate (estimate) the cost of the construction of Chartres Cathedral. What would be the modem equivalent and what projects do we spend such vast sums on today? Ask students to consider the motivation behind this expenditure. What do we value enough today to spend the equivalent amount of time and money on?
     Chartres was a site of frequent pilgrimages. People traveled far and wide to visit the spectacular church and see its holy relics. Pilgrims were often housed within the church, and indeed the building was built with their need for shelter in mind. What are places that might have this type of importance for you today, or for other Americans? Why are these places important? How do places that are heavily visited meet the additional demands placed on them? How does this type of tourism affect a place and alter its meaning? Some examples might be, the Hajj to Mecca where many visitors feel that the commercialism necessary to support so many pilgrims takes away from the religious nature of the trip. Sites such as Independence Hall have had to make changes to their structure (Independence Hall inserted a steel frame into the existing brick structure to sustain the heavy load of tourists) to remain open to the public. At the World Trade Center site, visitors were so problematic for the clean-up efforts, that a special public viewing area was eventually constructed to control the movements of visitors. Students might also create their own labyrinth to use at school based on mathematical calculations.

Some local buildings which relate to themes addressed in this unit and could be used for additional study are:
     The Cloisters - Built in the 1930s in Fort Tryon Park, this is a compilation of numerous fragments of medieval buildings. It includes chapels, cloisters and a chapter house and houses numerous medieval treasures from stained glass and statuary to religious objects, jewelry and illuminated manuscripts.
     The Cathedral of St. John the Divine - Though mostly built in the Gothic style, this building had an earlier Romanesque design, which can still be seen in the rounded arches at the back of the church. This change mirrors the transition from Romanesque to Gothic at Chartres. Additionally, this church is still under construction and employs traditional construction methods much like those used at Chartres.
     Riverside Church - The interior and main entrance of riverside church are closely modeled on Chartres and include some of the oldest stained glass in New York City.
     The Woolworth Building - This building is an example of the Gothic style adapted for another purpose. In this case a Cathedral of Commerce uses the height and ornament of the Gothic style to glorify money and capitalism rather than God.

Some other ideas, which could be explored or expanded on having to do with this site are the transition from pagan ritual to Catholicism and the similarities between biblical tales and older non-Christian stories, the daily life of the people who built this cathedral, the Bible as literature, the town of Chartres, the craft of stained glass and school at charters, Chartres Academy.