Notre-Dame de Chartres

Timeline

1. 4th c.

   First Church

   The earliest known church on the site is established at the foot of a Gallo-Roman wall as the Diocese of Chartres becomes an episcopal see.

2. 743

   Duke of Aquitaine's Fire

   The first church is burned to the ground on orders of the Duke of Aquitaine, opening a long cycle of fires and rebuilds on the site.

3. 858

   Danish Viking Raid

   Danish raiders set the church on fire and the site is again reconstructed and enlarged under Bishop Gislebert in the years that follow.

4. 1020

   Fulbert's Cathedral

   After yet another major fire, Bishop Fulbert begins a large Romanesque cathedral funded by donations from royal houses across Europe including Cnut the Great.

5. 1145

   The Cult of Carts

   More than a thousand penitents reportedly haul carts of stone and timber from quarries 8 kilometers away to the cathedral in a wave of religious enthusiasm.

6. 1194

   Great Fire and Rebuilding

   Lightning ignites a fire on 10-11 June that destroys the town and the cathedral except the west towers, but the miraculous survival of the Sancta Camisia spurs immediate rebuilding.

7. 1220

   Main Structure Complete

   The body of the cathedral is essentially complete after just 26 years, an astonishing pace that gives Classic Gothic architecture its definitive form.

8. 1260

   Consecration

   On 24 October the new cathedral is formally consecrated under the royal house of Louis IX, sealing its status as a great Marian sanctuary.

9. 1507-1513

   Flamboyant North Spire

   After the older wooden spire is lost, architect Jean de Beauce designs and builds the 113-meter Flamboyant stone spire on the north tower.

10. 1594

    Coronation of Henri IV

    Henri IV holds his coronation ceremony at Chartres because the customary site of Reims lies under enemy control during the religious wars.

11. 1862

    Monument Historique

    The cathedral is classified as a Monument Historique of France, placing it formally under state protection as a national patrimony.

12. 1939-1945

    Stained Glass Evacuation

    The stained-glass windows are removed and dispersed to the countryside during World War II to protect them from German bombing and 1944 Allied artillery.

13. 1979

    World Heritage Inscription

    UNESCO inscribes the cathedral on the World Heritage list in December under criteria i, ii, and iv, calling it 'the high point of French Gothic art'.

14. 2009 onwards

    Interior Restoration

    A large-scale interior restoration program cleans masonry and recovers medieval frescoes and color schemes inside the building over the following decade.

Detailed History

Chartres Cathedral's history reaches back to the Gallo-Roman 4th century, when the earliest known church stood at the base of a Roman wall and the Diocese of Chartres was already an episcopal see. That first church was burned in 743 on orders of the Duke of Aquitaine, and a successor was set ablaze by Danish raiders in 858. Reconstruction under Bishop Gislebert was destroyed again by fire in 1020. Bishop Fulbert (1006-1028) then resolved to build a major Romanesque cathedral, appealing to the royal houses of Europe and receiving gifts including a donation from Cnut the Great. In 1134 another town fire damaged the facade; restoration produced a wooden spire on the north tower around 1142, and by 1165 the 105-meter south tower (the older surviving spire) was complete. In 1145 came the religious paroxysm known as the 'Cult of Carts', during which more than a thousand penitents reportedly dragged carts laden with stone from quarries 8 km away. The decisive turning point arrived on the night of 10-11 June 1194 when lightning ignited a fire that consumed the town and cathedral except for the west towers, facade, and crypt. Priests emerged three days later with the Sancta Camisia intact, and rebuilding was framed as the Virgin's own commission. The body of the cathedral was completed between 1194 and 1220 — an astonishing 26 years for a medieval project. The result was a cruciform plan 128 meters long with a nave 37 meters high, supported by flying buttresses that allowed unprecedented window apertures and 176 stained-glass windows defining Classic Gothic. On 24 October 1260 it was consecrated under Louis IX, and in 1594 Henri IV held his coronation rite here because Reims lay in enemy territory. Between 1507 and 1513 a new Flamboyant stone spire by Jean de Beauce was built on the north tower, rising to 113 meters and creating the contrasting twin spires we see today. The cathedral was spared the worst of the French Revolution's iconoclasm; a roof fire in 1836 left the structure itself untouched. During WWII the stained-glass windows were removed and dispersed to the countryside to protect them from German bombing and 1944 Allied artillery, then restored after the war. In December 1979 UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site, calling it 'the high point of French Gothic art'. From 2009 a restoration program has cleaned masonry and recovered medieval frescoes.

Cultural Significance

Chartres Cathedral is regarded as the completed form of French High Gothic, the first of the four great Gothic cathedrals of France alongside Reims, Amiens, and Bourges. The 1194 rebuild was the first to demonstrate at full scale the use of flying buttresses to liberate the wall for vast stained-glass windows — the template every later Gothic cathedral adapted. Classified as a Monument Historique in 1862 and inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in December 1979 as 'the high point of French Gothic art'. Of 176 original stained-glass openings, 152 remain in their 13th-century state — the largest and best-preserved corpus of medieval stained glass in the world. The cobalt pigment dubbed 'Chartres Blue' has resisted modern scientific replication. As a pilgrimage site the cathedral holds the Sancta Camisia, by tradition the tunic worn by the Virgin Mary at Christ's birth; reportedly gifted by Charlemagne in 876, it made Chartres a key Marian pilgrimage center for eight centuries. The 12.9-meter stone labyrinth in the nave floor is the largest surviving medieval labyrinth, walked by pilgrims as a meditative substitute for Jerusalem. In 1855 Pius IX crowned the cathedral's Black Madonna. The Cathedral School of Chartres was a leading center of 11th-12th century European learning — the 'School of Chartres' where the quadrivium briefly surpassed Paris's rival schools.

Architectural Details

Chartres Cathedral is a Latin cross with its long axis aligned east-west, 128 meters in total length, with a nave 37 meters high and 16.4 meters wide; the transepts are short, and at the east end five semicircular radiating chapels form a curving ambulatory (chevet). Structurally it is the completed form of French High Gothic: roughly 1.5-meter exterior walls are supported by double-tiered flying buttresses that take the lateral thrust outward, freeing the wall surface for enormous stained-glass apertures impossible in the older Romanesque idiom. Each bay is covered by a rectangular four-part rib vault, an advance over the six-part vaults of the earlier Early Gothic cathedrals at Laon and Sens. The west front is composed of three doorways (the central is the famed Royal Portal), the great west rose window 12.9 meters in diameter, and the contrasting twin spires: the south spire is a plain pyramidal 105-meter tower from around 1142-1160, while the north spire is the 113-meter Flamboyant stone tower completed in 1507-1513. The roof was re-clad in copper during the 19th-century restoration, and oxidation has given it the soft pale-green patina now distinctive from afar. The principal stone is local Berchere limestone, transported by townspeople from a quarry 8 kilometers away during the 'Cult of Carts' of 1145.