Window Maker's Workshop

Lore & Background

The 11th to 13th century brought unprecedented population growth and prosperity to northern Europe, particularly to the large cities, and particularly to those cities on trading routes. The old Romanesque cathedrals were too small for the population, and city leaders wanted visible symbols of their new wealth and prestige. The frequent fires in old cathedrals were also a reason for constructing a new building, as with Chartres Cathedral, Rouen Cathedral, Bourges Cathedral, and numerous others. Bishops, like Maurice de Sully of Notre-Dame de Paris, usually contributed a substantial sum. Wealthy parishioners were invited to give a percentage of their income or estate in exchange for the right to be buried under the floor of the cathedral. In 1263 Pope Urban IV offered Papal indulgences, or the remission of the temporal effects of sin for one year, to wealthy donors who made large contributions. For less wealthy church members, contributions in kind, such as a few days' labour, the use of their oxen for transportation, or donations of materials were welcomed. The sacred relics of saints held by the cathedrals were displayed to attract pilgrims, who were also invited to make donations. Sometimes relics were taken in a procession to other towns to raise money. The guilds of the various professions in the town, such as the bakers, fur merchants and drapers, frequently made donations, and in exchange small panels of the stained glass windows in the new cathedral windows illustrated their activities.

In Their Own Story

The key figure in the construction of a cathedral was the master builder or master mason, who was the architect in charge of all aspects of the construction. One example was Gautier de Varinfroy, master builder of Évreux Cathedral. His contract, signed in 1253 with the master of the cathedral and Chapter of Évreux, paid him fifty pounds a year. He was required to live in Évreux, and to never be absent from the construction site for more than two months. Master masons were members of a particularly influential guild, the Corporation of Masons, the best-organized and most secretive of the medieval guilds. The names of the master masons of Early Gothic architecture are sometimes unknown, but later master masons, such as Godwin Gretysd, builder of Westminster Abbey for King Edward the Confessor, and Pierre de Montreuil, who worked on Notre-Dame de Paris and the Abbey of Saint-Denis, became very prominent. Eudes de Montreuil, the master mason for Louis IX of France, advised him on all architectural matters, and accompanied the king on his disastrous Seventh Crusade. The skill of masonry was frequently passed from father to son. A famous family of cathedral-builders was that of Peter Parler, born in 1325, who worked on Prague Cathedral, and was followed in his position by his son and grandson. The Parlers' work influenced European cathedrals as far away as Spain. Master masons frequently travelled to see other projects, and consulted with one another on technical issues. They also became wealthy. While the salary of an average mason or carpenter was the equivalent of twelve pounds a year, the master mason William Wynford received the equivalent of three thousand pounds a year.

Reader's Guide

Master masons usually first made a model of the building, either of papier-mâché, wood, plaster or stone, to present to the bishop and canons. The plans for certain parts were sometimes drawn or inscribed in full scale on the floor in the crypt or other portion of the worksite, where they could be easily consulted. The original plans of Prague Cathedral were rediscovered in the 19th century and were used to complete the building. Building a cathedral required enormous quantities of stone, as well as timber for the scaffolding and iron for reinforcement. Sometimes stone from earlier buildings was recycled, as at Beauvais Cathedral, but usually new stone had to be quarried, and in most cases the quarries were a considerable distance from the cathedral site. In a few cases, such as Lyon and Chartres cathedrals, the quarries were owned by the cathedral. In other cases, such as Tours Cathedral and Amiens Cathedral, the builders purchased the rights to extract all the stone needed from a quarry for a certain period of time. The stones were usually extracted and roughly trimmed at the quarry, and then taken by road, or preferably shipped, to the building site. For some early English cathedrals, some stone was shipped from Normandy, whose quarries produced an exceptionally fine pale-coloured stone – Caen stone. The preferred building stone in the Île-de-France was limestone. As soon as they were cut, the stones gradually developed a coating of calcination, which protected them. The stone was carved at the quarry so the calcination could develop before being shipped to the building site. When the facade of Notre-Dame de Paris was cleaned of soot and grime in the 1960s, the original white colour was exposed. On land, stones were often moved by oxen; some shipments required as many as twenty teams of two oxen each. The oxen were particularly important in the construction of Laon Cathedral, moving all the stones to the top of a steep hill. They were honoured for their work by statues of sixteen oxen placed on the towers of the cathedral. Each stone at the construction site carried three mason's marks, placed on the side which would not be visible in the finished cathedral. The first indicated its quarry of origin; the second indicated the position of the stone and the direction it should face; and the third was the signature mark of the stone carver, so the master mason could evaluate the quality. These marks allowed modern historians to trace the work of individual stone carvers from cathedral to cathedral. An enormous amount of wood was used in Gothic construction for scaffolding, platforms, hoists, and beams. Durable hard woods such as oak and walnut were often used, which led to a shortage of these trees, and eventually led to the practice of using softer pine for scaffolds, and reusing old scaffolding from worksite to worksite. Iron was also used in early Gothic for the reinforcement of walls, windows and vaults. Because the iron rusted and deteriorated, causing walls to fail, it was gradually replaced by other more durable forms of support, such as flying buttresses. The most visible use of iron was to reinforce the glass of rose windows and other large stained glass windows, making possible their enormous size (fourteen metres in diameter at Strasbourg Cathedral) and their intricate designs. As the period advanced, the materials gradually became more standardized, and certain parts, such as columns and cornices and building blocks, could be produced in series for use at multiple sites. Full-size templates were used to make complex structures such as vaults or the pieces of ribbed columns, which could be reused at different sites. The result of these efforts was a remarkable degree of precision. The stone columns of the triforium of the apse of Chartres Cathedral have a maximum variation of plus or minus 19 mm (0.75 in). Excess materials and stone chips were not wasted. Instead of building walls of solid stone, walls were often built with two smooth stone faces filled in the interior with stone rubble. Cathedrals were traditionally built from east to west. If a new building was replacing an older cathedral, the choir at the east end of the old cathedral was demolished first, to begin construction of the new building, while the nave to the west was left standing for religious services. Once the new choir was completed and sanctified, the rest of the old cathedral was gradually torn down. The walls and pillars, timber scaffolding and roof were built first. Once the roof was in place, and the walls were reinforced with buttresses, the construction of the vaults could begin. One of the most complex steps was the construction of the rib vaults, which covered the nave and choir. Their slender ribs directed the weight of the vaults to thin columns leading down to the large support pillars below. The first step in the construction of a vault was the construction of a wooden scaffold up to the level of the top of the supporting columns. Next, a precise wooden frame was constructed on top of the scaffold in the exact shape of the ribs. The stone segments of the ribs were then carefully laid into the frame and cemented. When the ribs were all in place, the keystone was placed at the apex where they converged. Once the keystone was in place, the ribs could stand alone.

Did You Know?

• The stone columns of the triforium of the apse of Chartres Cathedral have a maximum variation of plus or minus 19 mm (0.75 in).
• The master mason William Wynford received the equivalent of three thousand pounds a year, while an average mason or carpenter earned the equivalent of twelve pounds a year.
• The oxen that moved stones for Laon Cathedral were honoured with statues of sixteen oxen placed on the towers of the cathedral.
• The original plans of Prague Cathedral were rediscovered in the 19th century and were used to complete the building.
• When the facade of Notre-Dame de Paris was cleaned of soot and grime in the 1960s, the original white colour of the limestone was exposed.