The stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral are known to be one of the best-preserved, and most complete set of medieval stained glass, notably celebrated for their colours, especially their cobalt blue. They cover 2600 square metres in total and consist of 167 windows illustrating biblical scenes, the lives of the saints and scenes from the life of trade guilds of the period..
Some windows survive from an earlier Chartres Cathedral, such as the three lancets on the west front (1145–1155, contemporary with those made for Abbot Suger at the Basilica of Saint-Denis) and the lancet south of the choir known as 'Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière', famed for its Chartres blue (1180). However, most of the windows were probably made between 1205 and 1240 for the present church, taking in the Fourth Crusade (bringing a large number of important relics to Chartres) and the Albigensian Crusade, as well as the reigns of Philip II Augustus (1180–1223) and Louis VIII (1223–1226), with the building's consecration finally occurring in 1260 under Louis IX (1226–1270).
Some of the windows were made later, such as those in the Vendôme Chapel (1400–1425) and some in the transepts (20th century), whilst some damaged 13th-century windows were restored from the 15th century onwards. The destruction of Reims Cathedral and its stained glass in 1914 caused shock across France and led to all Chartres' windows being taken out and stored throughout both world wars. Conservation and removal of pollution has been ongoing since 1972. Preliminary studies were carried out by the ..
Windows
Since the late 10th century all churches across Europe had been built in a common Romanesque style, with thick walls supported by massive external buttresses and often with barrel vaulted naves. This limited the number of windows, leading to a play of light and shade which builders compensated for by adding internal frescoes in bright colours. In northern France buildings in this style would still be quite dark, with semi-circular arches not allowing large windows. The lateral forces on the walls were very important and higher vaults inevitably meant a thicker wall to support and reinforce them. By contrast, lancet windows and ogive crossings allowed the forces to be spread across multiple points, meaning the walls no longer had to support the structures' whole weight and could have far more openings for windows. Thus far more light was allowed into the structure for the glass-painters and their colours to work with, though nothing could now be seen of the exterior from the interior.
This architectural advance ran in parallel with theological developments in the 12th century, dominated by the clergy. Genesis 1.1-5 evoked darkness and light, as elaborated by Abbot Suger alongside his reasons for rebuilding the choir of the church at Saint-Denis Abbey. When his contemporaries assisting in the choir's consecration in 1144, they were astonished by the amount of light entering the building. In his "On the Construction of the Church of St Denis", Suger justified the bright side chapels "thanks to which the whole church shines with wondrous light, uninterrupted by sparkling windows which radiate their beauty into the interior".Anne Prache, Les vitraux du XIIe siècle, pp. 60-67, dans Saint-Denis, la basilique et le trésor, Dossiers d'Archéologie, n°261, mars 2001. This new art (known at the time as Opus Francigenum and only named Gothic architecture in the 17th century) spread from the Kingdom of France right across Europe. To quote Louis Grodecki, it was in the Abbey Church of St Denis "that Gothic architecture first emerges as a consistent way of building, fruitful in its solutions of independent ogives, arcus singulariter voluti as the abbot called them.Louis Grodecki, Les vitraux de Saint-Denis, p.18, CNRS et Arts et Métiers graphiques, Paris 1976. The works at St Denis also included the first-ever rose window in its west façade.
In around 827 Louis the Pious had given St Denis Abbey a Greek manuscript of the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, which he had himself received from Michael II, Emperor of Byzantium. This manuscript and John Scotus Eriugena's interpretation of it was the origin for the whole mystical Free Spirit current in medieval theology, which strongly influenced Suger, an exact contemporary of Hugues de Saint-Victor, the most notable master in Paris at the time. He was comforted by his vision of the world, written in 1125 in his commentaries on Pseudo-Denis' Celestial Hierarchies. Georges Duby wrote "Hugues de Saint-Denis proclaimed that each sensed image is a sign or "sacrament" of invisible things, those things which the soul will discover when it is freed from its bodily envelope".Georges Duby, Le Moyen Âge - L'Europe des cathédrales 1140-1280, p. 58, Éditions d'Art Albert Skira, Genève, 1995 . He laid out three stages in this progression from the visible to the invisible: Cogito: exploring the perceivable world by studying abstract thought Meditatio: the soul looking upon itself introspectively Contemplatio: intuition of truth
The first affirmation Suger made is work was "God is light", quoting from the First Epistle of John 1,5 ("The news that we have learned from him and are announcing to you is that God is light and that in him there is nothing of darkness"). He backed up this identification of God with light with other texts from the Old and New Testaments and argued that such a truth had to be made manifest in a cathedral, since in such a church a bishop taught his Christian flock, a foretaste of the heavenly Jerusalem described in Revelations 21, 11-14 ("Its lustre was like that of a most precious stone, of jaspar stone transparent like crystal"). Entering by the cathedral's west door and moving towards the choir and high altar to receive communion, the faithful had to be able to go through the different stages described by Hugues de Saint-Victor.
Using the language of colour and changing harmonies according to the time of day, the stained glass windows formed a doxological liturgy, a canticle whose words were the images, a metaphor first used by Pope Honorius III in his 1219 letter to Stephen Langton - "That the happy church at Canterbury may thus sing a new song to the Lord". Stained glass windows were also linked with theological questions about baptism and the eucharist, two sacraments violently affected by heresies but firmly doctrinally defended by Eudes de Sully and the Fourth Lateran Council. Augustine of Hippo's City of God had already written that heretics would escape eternal damnation if they had received baptism and communion. Sacraments were often at the centre of stained glass windows, such as the windows on the lives of St Martin, St Paul and St Sylvester at Chartres, the third of these showing that saint's baptism of Constantine the Great. The Chartres windows on the lives of the Apostles also showed them baptising new disciples. However, such windows could only obliquely refer to the fierce debates about the problem of real presence and the moment of transubstantiation - the central medallions of the Chartres windows on the life of St Lubin (bay 45) show the stages in the wine's transformation into the blood of Christ. Other windows referred to other rites under debate in the late 12th century - confession, the hierarchy of church power, marriage, extreme unction, finding relics and translating relics. Colette Manhes-Deremble, Les vitraux narratifs de la cathédrale de Chartres: étude iconographique, pp. 205–237.
Some windows referred to political theology such as the status of princes and kings and the balance of temporal and spiritual power. At a time when the kings of France were defending their hereditary right to rule, Chartres' windows of the Tree of Jesse showed the continuous line from the Kings of Judah to Christ via the Virgin Mary, whilst the windows on the life of Thomas Becket showed the recent clash in England between temporal and spiritual power. The windows on the life of St Sylvester were placed symmetrically with those on the life of Charlemagne - the former show Constantine as a bloodthirsty tyrant who later summoned St Sylvester to hear his repentance and heal him of leprosy, hearing his preaching and submitting to him after baptism, whilst those of Charlemagne show a royal figure that the Church could support (indeed, one that had been canonised on 29 December 1165 by Antipope Paschal III, though that canonisation was not recognised by the mainstream Church). These windows were probably chosen by Reginald of Bar, Bishop of Chartres and cousin of Philip II Augustus, who portrayed himself as the new Charlemagne, taking up the theme Suger had chosen for Saint-Denis to flatter Louis VI of France. Colette Manhes-Deremble, Les vitraux narratifs de la cathédrale de Chartres: étude iconographique, pp. 239–268.
Schemes
Understanding and interpreting the windows can be difficult in an era out of contact with medieval theology, teachings and sermons commenting on the Gothic cathedrals' stained glass windows. However, the presence of the famous 12th-century School of Chartres suggests that the precise placing of the windows had meaning for their designers. As taken up in the design of other Gothic churches, Suger's arguments showed how all four senses of scripture were present:
Literal (the product of linguistic understanding of the statement) Allegorical or typological (stating one thing by saying another) Tropological or Moral (stages that the human spirit had to go through in order to ascend towards God; concerning the present) Anagogic (giving an idea of final realities which would become visible at the end of time; concerning the future)
The windows can be grouped in several different ways.Colette Deremble, Les vitraux de la cathédrale, le programme iconographique, dans Chartres et sa cathédrale, Archéologia, Hors série nº5H, 1994. One is between the lower levels with their narrative windows on the lives of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the saints and the prophets, and the upper level with saints, major figures and prophets, showing the glory of the Christian Church. The narrative windows generally read from bottom to top and left to right, making connections between scenes, though the window of the Typological Passion (bay 37) is read from top to bottom. The scenes in a single window can be grouped together in squares, four-leaf flowers or lobes.
Another is reading from east (site of sunrise and reminiscent of Genesis 1) to west (site of sunset, reminiscent of Christ's death and resurrection as well as the Last Judgement) and north (with its scenes from the Bible and Christ's life) to south (announcing redemption and the Kingdom of God after Christ's second coming), two readings which can be combined across the cruciform plan of the cathedral. A rose window of the Last Judgement is placed above the main west door, whilst the north one centred on the Madonna and Child recalls the Incarnation leading to Redemption and the south one of Christ Triumphant surrounded by the 24 Elders of the Apocalypse announces Christ's second coming and the Kingdom of God.
Another interpretation divides the windows by their location in the nave, transepts and choir, with each of the three linked to a period in the history of revelation. This is more difficult to do at Chartres than in other churches. However, at this period Chartres Cathedral had hundreds of relics, not only the Virgin Mary's veil but also relics of Saints, Peter, Thomas, Catherine, Margaret and others - as it was impossible to show them all to the public the windows became a reminder of the diocese's relic collection for the faithful and pilgrims.Claudine Lautier, Les vitraux de la cathédrale de Chartres: Reliques et images. dans: Bulletin Monumental, Tome 161 N°1, année 2003, Les vitraux de la cathédrale de Chartres: Reliques et images, pp. 1–3.
Technique and workshops