Gothic Age Essay, Research Paper
The Gothic Age
Introduction
The Gothic Age
As the third year that followed the year on thousand grew near, there
was to be seen over almost all the earth, but especially in Italy and in Gaul, a
great renewal of church buildings; each Christian community was driven by a
spirit of rivalry to have a more glorious church than the others. It was as if
the world had shaken itself, and casting off its old garments, had dressed
itself again in every part in a white robe of churches.
Raoul Glaber, Historia, c.1003
The Gothic Age (c. AD 1130-1530) marked the end to an age of chaos,
primarily caused by the sacking and pillaging of the Vikings. After the great
minds of Western Europe were freed from using their vast knowledge to defend
against invaders or plagues, they now had the time and the resources needed to
design any and everything in this era from bridges to city walls and castles to
cathedrals. This was also a very religious age, with plenty of money being
pumped into the Church, some from the crusades, with all of its included
looting, and a lot more from all of the tithes all of the people who were born
in the population explosion gave faithfully. Another even bigger source of
income for the Church came to it in the shape of power and prestige, when the
power of the church peaked in AD 1277.
Not only was this a good time for the Church, but this was also a very
good time for all of humanity. The standard of living dramatically rose, and
along with it, the population of Western Europe shot up. In 1346, the estimated
population of Europe was fifty-four point four million just before the plague
hit and wiped out more than a third of the population.1 2 This was more than
twice the population of Europeans in the year 950 when it was 22,600,0003.
While the population was exploding there were so many new cathedrals
built that in the relatively short time period of two hundred and fifty years,
there was more stone quarried to be used in cathedrals (several million tons)
than was quarried during the age of the pyramids in Egypt, where there are
pyramids that are over two hundred and fifty million cubic meters big.4
The Gothic age survived many crusades, a plague that didn?t leave Europe
until the late 18th century, and many other horrible atrocities. Following this
great age, there was a period without the great accomplishments as in this age,
since everyone was just happy using what their forefathers had done. If not for
this age, we would today be without many of our modern conveniences, so I firmly
believe that this age was essential to modern day living.
Body of Knowledge
Gothic Architecture
Anyone who has ever walked into a true Gothic cathedral knows how much
of an impact one can have on a person. The sheer magnificence of it will shut
even the noisiest of tourists up. One can only imagine the impact seeing such a
place would have on a person who has never had the opportunity to see one of the
great wonders of the modern world, such as a skyscraper. The name alone is
enough to bring visions of grandeur, or Las Vegas, a place known for its flashy
style and glitz. Just think what a person who has never seen either one of
these places, or any place anything like it, would think when they saw a choir
with a roof so high a fourteen story building could fit in there* and not even
touch the rafters.5 And Imagine what you would think of a stadium that was so
large it could hold one million people (the largest one today holds a “mere”
forty-two thousand people1). This is what Ameins Cathedral was like when it was
built. The entire town of ten thousand people could fit into it all at the same
time to go to the same mass. It had a floor that was seven thousand, seven
hundred square meters.
New Ideas in the Cathedral that Reflected Christianity
There were many aspects about Gothic cathedrals that reflected the then
modern-day ways of life, such as how a common belief in those times was that the
closer you were to God, the holier you were. The architects would build huge
spires and high ceilings which would make the building look absolutely massive.
Another clever technique of the time was to create picture stories on the
windows with stained glass since the vast majority of the people couldn?t read
or write to help the common folk learn the Bible without having someone read it
to them.
-Walls
The walls in a Gothic cathedral were way ahead of the walls in the style
that preceded Gothic, Romanesque. The walls in Gothic were thin and had a lot
of stained glass in them, not to mention the fact that the new style was a lot
higher. The reason that the architect could put up thinner, higher walls was
because of two new inventions, the flying buttresses and ribbed vaults. The
latter of the two, ribbed vaults, sounds simple enough, but it is effective and
ingenious enough to have earned a place in history. All they really are, are
supports that go from corner to corner like rafters, although, unlike rafters,
they are up against the actual ceiling, therefore putting the weight on the
corners and, at the same time, effectively supporting the ceiling.
The former of the two inventions, flying buttresses, was also very
important, since they, like the ribbed vaults, allowed the architect to build
the walls thinner and higher, but it also supported the weight of the walls and
the roof. Flying buttresses are basically kickstands that rest up against the
side of a cathedral, giving it a wider base, and, a lot like an arching bridge,
they put equal pressure from two opposite sides on a keystone.
-Stained Glass
“[Stained glass windows were] …a bearer of holy images, an
intrinsically rich material resembling valuable stones, and a mystery, because
it glowed without fire.” -Abbot Sugar
It was very common in this day for a person not to know how to read, and
there was also a great burden on the Church for the villagers to know basic
important scriptures, so there had to be pictures on the wall. Since one can
only go so far using frescoes, paintings and other ways to portray a picture,
stained glass was an interesting alternative. Before since the walls were
thicker and build more as a means to support the high ceilings, stained glass
never really was an option, but now with the help of the two previously
mentioned means of support, the walls could be made thinner so glass also could
be used now.
-Spires
The function of spires goes far beyond just being there for the
appearances, since the church bells are kept in the spires. These bells would
tell the town what to do, as in time to go to church, time to eat and among many
other different things, time itself, and could be heard clearly throughout the
entire town.
Even though spires were present before the beginning of the Gothic age,
this was the first time they could be built so high, thanks to flying buttresses
and ribbed vaults.
Cathedrals
When funds were readily available, cathedrals didn?t take very long to
build, usually two stages,? although, some times, it took as many as two hundred
years. The fastest, though was Chartes, which was built in exactly twenty seven
years.6
My Two Favorites
There were many different cathedrals built in the Gothic age, but I
think that the two most important ones are the cathedral at Notre-Dame in France,
and Abbot Sugar?s masterpiece, St. Denis, which was mentioned previously for its
tremendous size.
Notre Dame of Paris is famous because it was the first cathedral to use
flying buttresses as a means of support, 7 and it also was known for its
incredible detail. It has many spectacular figures carved into the stone
covering its famous portholes. Notre Dame also has some very famous Rose
windows, which show the lines of ancestry (the begating) in the Bible
The St. Denis cathedral is famous for its prodigious size, and the fact
that it was the first cathedral to use ribbed vaults. I also really admired the
architect of St. Denis, Abbot Sugar, because I agreed with a lot of his points
of view on cathedral design. One such example can be found in the quote that I
used above, about the stained glass. I totally agree with him that point,
because I think cathedrals used to have a strong foundation in first
impressions; that if you want your cathedral to make the money necessary for
upkeep, you must be willing to impress whomever will be going to the church.
Conclusion
At one time in France, there were over eighty cathedrals, or in other
words, a cathedral for every two hundred people. All of these cathedrals being
built, not only in France, but also all over Western Europe, needed a lot of
stone, and most of it came from France. In fact, by the end of this era, there
was so much stone quarried out of Northern France, that the only way to get the
rocks needed to build a cathedral, they had to get their bricks from old, run
down cathedrals and castles.
A Wonderful Time For the Church
The reason, I think that there were so many cathedrals, not just as a
whole, since the amount per capita is just as staggering, was because this was a
great time for the church. As I said before, there were no shortages in men and
money to build cathedrals, so the only difficulty was just getting your hands on
this money.
A Wonderful Time For Mankind
Besides all of the advances in the field of architecture, there also
were a great deal of inventions for the everyday man. Inventions that greatly
increased the standard of living, and eating habits.
Reasons for this Being such a Wonderful Age In the Gothic Era, now that there
was a high standard of living, the commoners were a little bit closer to being
equal with the nobles, which I think was the most important breakthrough that ”
“broke through” in this age.
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