Rebuilding of Chartres Cathedral and the High Gothic

On the night of 10 June 1194 fire destroyed the Romanesque cathedral of Chartres; only the crypt, the towers and the west front with its Royal Portal survived. The rescue of its chief relic, the tunic venerated as the Virgin’s, was taken as a sign from heaven; a papal legate who happened to be in the town spread the news, and funds came from royal and noble patrons across Europe as well as from ordinary people. The main body of the new church, with its sculpture and stained glass, was largely finished within 25–30 years, and the roof was in place by 1220. The builders simplified the elevation, dropped the tribune galleries and propped the high walls with flying buttresses, which left room for tall windows: of the cathedral’s 167 windows, counting roses and oculi, the great windows of the aisles and ambulatory were glazed between about 1205 and 1235. It was solemnly consecrated on 24 October 1260 in the presence of King Louis IX.

Art historians date the High Gothic to about 1194–1250 and see Chartres as the model for a series of new cathedrals of unprecedented height and size. At Reims, the coronation church of the French kings, by the traditional dating the first stone was laid in 1211, a year after a fire (recent research suggests 1207–1208), and the structure was completed by 1275; at Amiens building began in 1220 and the main work was finished around 1270. Amiens had become a great place of pilgrimage thanks to the reputed head of John the Baptist, brought from Constantinople after the sack of 1204 and received in the city in 1206.