Chartres Cathedral

Chartres on the horizon

Even though Chartres, near Paris, France, was only a small town, it had an important treasure: the tunic that Mary was wearing when she gave birth to the baby Jesus. This tunic had been a present to Charlemagne from Irene, the Empress of the Roman Empire, about 800 AD. Thousands of people came on pilgrimage every year to Chartres to see the tunic. (Click here to see the tunic for yourself).

In 1134 AD, a big fire damaged the front of the old Romanesque cathedral of Chartres. The Christian people of Chartres decided to fix the damage with a new front in the new Gothic style. (This was the same time that people were building the Cathedral at Pisa, in Italy. Eleanor of Aquitaine was Queen of France, and Heloise was an abbess).

The new front was going up quickly, and was nearly done, when in 1194 AD another terrible fire broke out and caught the wooden roof of the old cathedral. Almost all of the old church (and most of the rest of the town of Chartres) burned down. Only the new front, or façade, was still standing when they got the fire put out - and the priests had saved Mary's precious tunic!

Everyone was sad, but at least the new front was still there! They made new plans for an even bigger and more fashionable church, and they built their new church in less than thirty years, very fast for a cathedral. Everyone was really excited about the new building, which would be even cooler than the new church of Notre Dame in Paris. Thousands of people volunteered to pull carts full of stone up the steep hill to the church. They kept the façade from the church that burned down, and one of the towers (the one on the right), but all the rest was new.

See the rest of Chartres cathedral (page two)

To find out more about Chartres cathedral, check out this book from Amazon.com or from your library:

Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction, by David Macaulay (1981). Beautiful drawings and clear text explain exactly how medieval craftsmen built a cathedral, from foundation to the stained glass windows. For kids.

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