modern architect, these early builders must have learned empirically,
that is, in the school of defeat—but, too, there are triumphs there.
Did the idea of the beautiful flying buttress (which is simply a
constructive device to strengthen walls pierced by enormous windows)
come suddenly to some baffled old architect, as from the lips of an
angel, in answer to work and prayer? These old builders of Rheims
leave us no written word, but there is a great Florentine architect
who is a little more communicative; he leaves a discreet hint or two
of his method of reasoning and also of securing contracts. Regarding
the construction of the projected dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria
del Fiore, which the public regarded as impracticable, Brunelleschi
writes: “Yet, remembering that this is a temple consecrated to God
and the Virgin, I confidently trust that for a work executed in their
honor, they will not fail to infuse knowledge where it is wanting and
will bestow strength, wisdom and genius on him who shall be the author
of such a project. But how can I help you, seeing that the work is
not mine? I tell you plainly that, if it belonged to me, my courage
and power would, beyond all doubt, suffice to discover means whereby
the work might be effected without so many difficulties, but as yet I
have not reflected on the matter to any extent.” And when he got the
contract and reflected, he turned to the “parent past”—he went to Rome,
where the vaulting of the Parthenon taught him to vault that lovelier
Florentine dome which “clasps the ancient to the modern world.”
The builders of the Gothic were in some ways more original than the
builders of the Renaissance; they evolved their own bracing; thus
gradually at Rheims, the “Athens of the Middle Ages,” a great cathedral
grew up that ranks with the Parthenon.
The Greek had the subtlest of languages in which to speak of the
good and the beautiful, while where the greatest Gothic churches
were designed there was only a corrupt dead language and a partially
developed living one; but the subtle poets of Chartres, Rheims, Amiens,
Rouen, Bourges and Laon built strongly into their cathedrals the
sweetest things they had to say. When the Parthenon was constructed
Athens was so wealthy that it was one of the glories of Pericles that
he was able to spend so much so well upon the greatest capital in the
world. Rheims was simply, as the Middle Ages went, a rich see, and
the Middle Ages were wretchedly poor, yet her cathedral is the more
elaborate building of the two. To the end of time it is a monument
of civic and religious enthusiasm; and, as we seek the human story,
so elusively suggested through the marvelous pile, we realize at
least how great a thing it is for each worker to give, in perfect
self-effacement, of his best. The decorations of the mighty temple are
so exquisitely subservient to the great whole that the handiwork of
the gifted _imagier_, with that of his weaker brother, the one serving
as a foil to the other, holds together like their prayers in the noble
harmony of the great church. Gothic sculpture is for all sorts and
conditions of men, but least of all for artists. It speaks its simple
lesson distinctly. It is not sculpture for sculpture’s sake, but rather
for decoration and lyric expression. Its emaciated saint betokens
sacrifice; literally and figuratively he fills his place in the long,
narrow niche, annihilating himself for the great church as a Catholic
priest should.
[Illustration: _The Sculptured Saint Upon a Gothic Cathedral Fills His
Place in the Long, Narrow Niche, Annihilating Himself for the Great
Church, as a Devotee Should._]
Would you know how the Gothic affects a sculptor?
Says August Rodin: “Life is made up of strength and grace; the Gothic
gives us this; its influence has entered into my blood and grown into
my being.”
Nowadays, when all “the world travels,” schools of art do not grow
up in little communities; intellectual boundaries are in no way
geographic, and the moral effect of one man on another is hidden from
view. But on the walls of the old mediæval churches a simpler people,
as their work improved, show their direct obligations to one another.
The Gothic cathedrals which served as Bibles for the laity (who, as
a rule, could not read print) are now the most veracious chronicles
of the period that we possess. Their statements cannot be gainsaid,
however variously they may be understood. If some of the last judgments
sculptured on their walls, with half of the figures marching toward
heaven and the other half (very similar in appearance) moving serenely
toward hell, are rather too didactic for this age of doubt, between
the lines of these great stone volumes a gentle reader finds countless
beautiful stories, much more convincingly told, of artists and artisans
working away with smiles on their faces, carving Bible stories under
the direction of the clergy; devising figures to personify the virtues
and vices; inserting little angels here and there to fill out the
design, while the best artist is rewarded with the sweet honor of
carving the Madonna.
The barbarian’s gold pays interest yet; the spirit of the bequest is
not changed;—a united tribute of the material to the spiritual coming
from many men of many minds. The old golden Madonna is patroness still
of the five thousand statues of the Cathedral of Rheims, whose mute
lips speak so various a language. They tell of a day that is dead and
of a day that is eternal; they speak of substance and of spirit; of
error and of intuition; of things human and of things divine. Indeed,
“Of every work of art the silent part is best,
Of all expression, that which cannot be expressed.”
_The Little Old Abbé of Saint Denis and the Imagiers_
Early in the twelfth century, within the hospitable walls of the old
Abbey of Saint Denis, a prince and a charity child grew up together;
there a love, almost romantic, developed between them. When the prince
became king and embarked upon a crusade he left the reins of government
in the hands of his old comrade, who in the meantime had become the
Abbé of Saint Denis and was, incidentally, one of the cleverest of
politicians. Suger paid the royal debts (democratic good pay seems
to have been an ideal with him), and called the realm to order so
successfully that statesmen came from afar to study his very novel
methods, for the crusades had set the people traveling. On his return
the king graciously greeted his regent as “father of his country.”
Suger, not to be outdone, instituted a somewhat legendary liturgy to
be celebrated annually at Saint Denis commemorating the merits of
Louis the Lusty (or Louis the Fat, as we call him).
Was this liturgy so different from the campaign songs we sing now? It
was really more called for, since enthusiasm over the royal person
is one of the legitimate tools of monarchy, and Louis VI is an early
monarch who deserves credit for abetting the gradual advance of France
from a feudality to a veritable kingdom.
Suger, individually, did not stand too greatly in awe of royalty, for
he peremptorily ordered Louis VII to come back from the “Holy Wars” to
attend to his mundane duties, and be it credited to that monarch that
he graciously obeyed the old friend of his father.
Suger is the most interesting personality that comes down to us from
France of the twelfth century. Though a few characteristic anecdotes
are told of him, we know him most intimately as the builder of Saint
Denis and the far-seeing friend of the arts and crafts. It was said
that he was a good goldsmith, and his sympathy with skilled labor lends
color to the statement; but however hazy our other impressions of
Suger may be, we know how he loved the old Abbey of Saint Denis—“_sa
mère et sa nourrice_.” As a churchman he loved the blessed spot to
which the angels had escorted brave old Saint Denis, when, after his
martyrdom, he picked up his head and walked along with them unto the
place “where he now resteth by his election and the puveance of God.
And there was heard so grete and swete a melody of angels that many
that heard it byleuyd in oure lorde.” He loved the old building that
Dagobert, the Robin Hood of French monarchs, had built so royally,
almost five hundred years before his day, for the poor and lowly, and
for which the pleasant Saint Eloi, patron of goldsmiths, singing as
he worked, had made the wondrously beautiful old reliquary; and as a
man of literary feeling, he loved the old Abbey as his Alma Mater.
But the diocese had grown, and on festal days so pressing were the
crowds who would touch the holy relics of Saint Denis that good people
were continually being trodden underfoot by eager and other worldly
worshipers. So Suger decided to enlarge the church. He did not touch
the dear old choir of Saint Denis: that was consecrated to God and,
too, it was tenderly hallowed to man by many human associations; but he
decided to add to it a great nave.
Of course at first the crowds vigorously abetted him, humbly harnessing
themselves together like beasts of burden to draw the stone from the
quarry. The trumpet sounded; banners were unfurled, and the procession
marched; except for the murmur of those who confessed their sins to
God, silence reigned. When the concourse arrived at the holy site, the
multitude burst forth into a song of praise. Their sins once disposed
of, the ardor of the multitude may have flagged, for we read of the
busy little Abbé leaving the cares of state to go himself to the
forests in search of the big timber others had not the enthusiasm to
find.
That the very earth might pay its tribute to the blessed martyr, Suger
studded the new golden screen in front of the tomb of Saint Denis with
gems from “every land of the world,” and then the little old Abbé
conceived of a still higher tribute: he gathered skill from “every
country in the world” (his world was small, it is true); he gave to
these skilled craftsmen the honor of working on “the Church, his
Mother”; besides, they taught in the layman’s school of architecture,
which he established in the yard of the old abbey.
To the amazement of the world, in that day of serfdom, Suger
voluntarily paid his workmen and paid them by the week; and with the
force and intensity that was in him, he advanced architecture as much
in the ten years he was rebuilding Saint Denis as others had done in a
hundred. The influence of his school of architecture still lives. It
was one of our earliest instances of systematic training for the laity,
and those who would trace the Italian Renaissance to French and classic
sources, attach especial importance to the _imagiers_ of Saint Denis.
An immense number of statues, varying greatly in excellence, were made
during the Middle Ages to decorate the churches. In our meagre records
of the period, we even come across instances of peasants traveling far
and spending their all to secure an especially beautiful Madonna, and
we are assured of miraculous rewards, spiritual and temporal, coming to
them from it. Actually, through the enthusiasm and liberality of these
rude people, miracles of art have wrought their magical effect upon the
imagination of generations and generations of men. These _imagiers_
became so numerous that they formed a powerful guild in which a race of
sculptors was born and bred. While Sculpture was merely the hand-maiden
and scribe of Architecture, her craftsmen were called _imagiers_. But
the _imagiers_ became so expert that in the seventeenth century the
French Academy changed the name of their order to the “Sculptor’s
Guild.”
[Illustration: _In the Sixteenth Century the French Academy Changed the
Name of the Imagiers’ Guild to the Sculptors’._]
That the _imagier_ loved the cathedral which he was dowering with
what talent he possessed is most likely; for, added to the simple
conscientiousness, alike in all ages, of the worker who loves his craft
and respects himself, was the intensity of the Age of Faith.
Gothic art may have been lived more generally even than Grecian, for
it was the only intellectual outlet of its age. Much of its symbolism
is now a dead language. We guess at the meaning of the gargoyles and
grotesques, and draw liberal interpretations from the lips of the
smiling angels who spoke more familiarly to a childish people; but when
we count the decorative kings and bishops ranged in rows upon the grand
façades, their supremacy over the souls, bodies and estates of men, of
which we know so well, seems the myth of myths. However, we can read
some of the old carvings, which had nothing in particular to say at the
time they were made, like a book. Hybrid designs on pillars, capitals
and cornices speak of the chivalrous meeting of the east and the west
on the broad field of art. They bring up pictures of the rude crusaders
overpowered by their first view of oriental elaboration, and we smile
to see how it set them imitating, or, better still, adapting, and how
the arts of war may bring about the arts of peace; for, in the fulness
of time, those who strive, achieve, if not for themselves and their
cause, for others and perhaps for a better cause.
Another art made great strides during the rebuilding of Saint
Denis,—the glass-maker’s. We read about Vitrearii as far back as
Charlemagne’s time. The windows they made were glass mosaics, held
together with lead instead of stucco, forming little gem-like pictures
above the holy altars, which told sacred stories beautifully, for in
this way many scenes could be connected on one window; besides, color,
like music, takes the emotions captive. One must examine a statue to
realize it, but, in the phrase of the studio, color “sings.” A childish
old chronicler relates that the retainers of Godfrey of Bouillon were
obliged almost to tear him away from the churches, so absorbed was
he in gazing on the windows. Was it through beautiful windows that
the mystic aspiration of the mute minor poets of the cloister was
finally reflected upon the man of action who took the first step, all
unconsciously, toward the deliverance of his age from its dark, narrow
bondage?
[Illustration: _A Continuous Story, Related on a Thirteenth Century
Window._]
As a soldier, Godfrey de Bouillon had answered the call of the pilgrims
who demanded protection; as a soldier, he had kept the peace (when
there was any to keep). He was the one early crusader of whom we have
record, who seems to have had the slightest idea of the fitness of
things; indeed, in feeling, he was as truly a poet as a soldier. “So,
day after day, in silence and in peace, with equal measure and just
sale, did the Duke and the people pass through the realms of Hungary,”
writes an astonished old chronicler, for Godfrey de Bouillon had paid
the way of his army to the Holy City—an unheard of idea in warfare! How
quixotic he must have seemed!
Language has changed since those windows spoke to Godfrey of Bouillon.
But when a general stops on his line of march for higher council and
then steers so true through the darkest day toward a faint, far-distant
light, must he not have seen through the glass darkly?
It was but a few years after this “parfit gentil” knight passed away
before he was as dear a hero of romance as King Arthur had become after
many centuries, so little was there in his life for men to forget, so
much that was sweet to dream upon. I suppose his story must have been
related many times in beautiful glass, though as the panes grew larger
and finer they told their stories less personally; but gallant knights
on windows far and near are still reflecting an ideal that came to the
First Baron of Jerusalem through the old church’s windows. Might it not
be said of these old church builders, who builds from the heart feeds
three: himself, his hungry neighbor, and Me?
To make windows like those of Saint Denis, an orderly, organized
factory was necessary, and organization was the crying need of that
age. Another astonished old chronicler repeats, that in those days of
serfdom Suger paid his glass-workers. But the men learned their rights
more readily than the chroniclers. Thereafter we constantly run upon
the records of powerful workmen’s unions or guilds. In fact, we read of
them later on the glass itself. These splendid church windows were, of
course, very costly, and then, as now, they were usually presented to
the churches. We find the guilds are the proud donors of many of them;
two fine old church windows come down to us proudly representing some
_imagiers_ and glass-makers at their work, those guilds having thus
elected to “with the angels stand.”
Complaints of the luxury of the church also come down. Saint Bernard
declares “their stones were gilded with the money of the needy and
wretched to charm the eyes of the rich” (but had the poor no eyes?).
Being against the government by temperament, Saint Bernard especially
abominated the royal Abbey of Saint Denis. He complained of the
“unclean apes and befowled tigers” upon which Suger’s _imagiers_
developed their skill, and it is written (how the writer arrived at the
scene he does not explain) that as Suger’s confessor, Bernard commanded
him to divest his mind of mundane cares and to dream only of the
heavenly Jerusalem.
But the world weighed on Suger as long as he remained in it: his
dream was of two splendid powers, England and France, separated,
but living in peace! Suger was not in favor of crusades. He was the
one ecclesiastic who would subject the clergy as well as the laity
to royal authority, rendering unto Cæsar that which was Cæsar’s.
Though a priest, in his political methods Suger was a broad, true and
practical patriot, and if, unlike Saint Bernard, he was not adapted for
canonization, he was a hero to his private secretary and to his king;
and he still is a hero to the modern student of architecture, or of
economics.
Into the very walls of his big and simple old church the “little old
Abbé” built his big and simple sermon. It read: “Let us have good,
honest, beautiful work, doing honor alike to God and man. Let us train
our craftsmen, pay them and respect them.”
Though Saint Denis may lack the mystical beauty of the best Gothic, so
noble and satisfactory is its design that the nineteenth century could
do no better than to restore it.
Though Suger’s economics were very simple, the twentieth century has
found no better platform: “Pay your workmen voluntarily, and summon
all, from the king down, into their respective fields of labor; only
when they all respond, we shall have a lovelier church than the old
Abbey of Saint Denis.”
_The Mystic Cathedral of Chartres_
The Episcopal Church recognizes three distinct divisions: the High
Church, or mystical element that, words failing, would speak by
symbols; the Low Church, that would say what it means and mean what it
says; and the Broad Church, that would set aside details and seek in
religion a general harmony.
Though they are not so formally defined, these same divisions, being
based on human temperaments, exist in other sects so literally that the
same symbols have met with the identical adoption and objection. About
205, Tertullian ridiculed the use of candles on the altars of the early
church, and Lactance took up the subject some hundred years later.
Thereafter Saint Jerome laid these still troublesome candles at the
door of the laity, especially of the women. However, the symbol and the
women conquered.
In this desultory search of ours for hints of the social history of
the old French cathedral builders, we meet with the high and low
church elements which seem, though this idea may be fanciful, to have
influenced the appearance even of their respective churches. There is
the grandly simple and direct architecture, the Cathedral of Laon,
which inclined to Low Church, allowing its votaries considerable
latitude, and the symbolically ornate cathedral at Chartres, which
from remote ages has been a noted shrine of mysticism. Its site was
holy ground to the early Christian and perhaps to the Druids before
him. Tradition has it that even to them on this hallowed spot came a
prophecy of the Messiah. (If it did, it probably came from some Jewish
source in the days of the Romans.)
There is a charming story, more than legend, if less than history,
of “Notre Dame Sous Terre” of Chartres. While most of the early
Christians, in a spirit of hatred, were destroying false gods and their
shrines, some pioneers of Christianity found in a grotto at Chartres
a figure which had been worshiped by the Druids, resembling their own
Madonna, whereby, to these gentle priests, she seemed doubly hallowed.
Accepting her grotto as already consecrate, they located their high
altar there, upon it reinstated the old Madonna of the Druids, and in
a humble spirit, along with their simple converts, they bowed down
before her, for upon them had descended that sovereign reverence which
appreciates another man’s god.
From the time this old druidic figure was raised upon a Christian altar
to this day, first honors have been accorded to her shrine. Before her
or her representative have bowed, weary and footsore, every one of the
French kings, from Clovis to Louis XV, as well as innumerable other
pilgrims, rich or poor, gathered from every land of Christendom by the
democracy of the church.
Even the revolutionists recognized this “First Lady of Chartres,” for
while they lumped other relics together in general destruction they
paid Notre Dame Sous Terre the back-handed compliment of a special
bonfire at the cathedral door.
[Illustration: _The Old-Time House of Prayer, which Still Dominates the
City of Chartres._]
The sansculottes have passed away without individual record, but a
charmingly carved representative of the old Notre Dame Sous Terre still
occupies the most venerated shrine of Chartres; while its old-time
spirit of church hospitality yet pervades the noble cathedral that has
developed above her grotto, her clergy still smile kindly upon the
pilgrim and the stranger, even though his interest in their church be
solely artistic. They seem to say: “Take from our old cathedral what
you may, surely her beauty is pure and holy.”
True religious art can but lead to some phase of piety, as August
Rodin declares that all true art must. It may be but a chance title;
however, the latest book on French Gothic speaks of “Chartres, the
House of Prayer”; but certainly the feeling which has been lavished on
this spot, the passionate generosity of devotees through long ages, has
brought forth one of the most sacredly beautiful churches in the world.
Now let us investigate literally the claims of Notre Dame Sous Terre.
Recent excavations prove that the present Cathedral of Chartres is
built over a grotto, where the Druids probably held their services. In
excavating under and around the choir of the cathedral, vestiges of
ancient altars and idols were unearthed which prove conclusively that
the symbols of the heathen were not cleared away violently. The policy
of Rome tended toward religious tolerance; the gods of the Romans
often mixed peaceably in the temples with the gods of the people Rome
conquered, hence the cult of the Virgin might have existed along with
that of the pagan gods.
In the early days of Christianity the Virgin was not given the
prominence she acquired after the eighth century; this figure known
as the druidic Madonna may even have represented some sweet, motherly
goddess of another name. Symbols are elastic, therein lies their
supreme value; they may be all things to all men. Words always have
brought division to the church; symbols, unity. The wisest and kindest
of the early bishops had the most grace in translating the old symbols
of their converts into the picturesque language of their new church.
For instance, Gregory the Great changed the pagan memorial custom
of putting food on graves on a certain fête-day to bringing flowers
for the graves and praying for the dead on All Souls Day. The early
Christian missionaries at Chartres may have believed this figure to be
a Madonna or they may have translated it into one. Indeed, it is not
the genuineness of the figure itself that is the point of this story;
it is the attitude of the Chartrians toward it.
[Illustration: _Saint Martin, Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory, as They
Stand Forth on a Pillar at Chartres._]