Notre-Dame de Chartres

Chartres Cathedral stands in the old capital of the Beauce, about 80 km southwest of Paris, and it is one of the most complete and influential Gothic cathedrals in Europe. At least five churches stood on this site before it. On the night of 10 June 1194 fire destroyed most of the Romanesque cathedral, sparing only the crypt, the west towers and the west front. The rebuilding went ahead with astonishing speed, and most of the present cathedral was built between 1194 and about 1220. Because so little was changed afterwards, it shows the High Gothic style almost as its builders finished it. It has been a World Heritage Site since 1979.

The first thing you notice is that its two west spires do not match. The south one, a plain stone pyramid about 105 m tall, was completed around 1160. The north one, rebuilt after lightning struck it in 1506, is a lace-like Flamboyant Gothic spire 113 m tall, finished in 1513 by the architect Jehan de Beauce. Between them, the Royal Portal, which survived the fire of 1194, has 12th-century column statues of the men and women of the Old Testament flanking its doors, with Christ enthroned in the central tympanum. The north and south transepts have their own sculpted porches, with hundreds more figures.

Chartres is above all a cathedral of glass. Around 152 of its original 176 stained-glass windows survive, far more than in any other medieval cathedral. The oldest windows, from the 12th century, are the three lancets under the west rose, including the Tree of Jesse, and Notre-Dame de la Belle-Verrière, the Blue Virgin, in the choir. The west rose, about 12 m across, shows the Last Judgment; the north and south roses date from the 1220s–1230s. During the Second World War most of the glass was taken out and hidden in the countryside. In August 1944 the cathedral itself was nearly shelled by American artillery, who suspected the towers were a German observation post; Colonel Welborn Griffith went to check, found them empty, and had the bells rung as a signal to hold fire. He was killed in action the same day.

Inlaid into the floor of the nave is the labyrinth of the early 1200s, a single winding path that pilgrims follow on foot; on certain days the chairs are cleared so that it can be walked. The cathedral also keeps the Sancta Camisa, a relic said to be the Virgin's tunic, given to Chartres in the 9th century by Charles the Bald. A restoration begun in 2009 cleaned the glass and repainted the interior walls a pale cream with painted details, as they may have looked in the 13th century; the brighter interior is still a subject of argument.

Getting there

The cathedral stands in the centre of Chartres. Chartres station is on the Paris–Brest railway line out of Paris-Montparnasse and is served by TER Centre-Val de Loire and Ouigo trains. Paris-Orly Airport (ORY) is about 72 km away.