Saint Lubin in the crypt of Chartres, the list of the early bishops of
that diocese and the general history of the evangelization of Gaul,
it is inferred that ever since the beginning of the fourth century
a bishop’s church has stood on the site of the present cathedral.
Mingled with all the superstition of its age there was a certain
tolerant broad-church element maintained at Chartres from the first.
Perhaps that made the church so peculiarly dear to the people of
France, for though the French kings were crowned at Rheims and buried
at Saint Denis, Chartres seems the most intimately associated with
their lives. It is written that after his conversion Clovis stopped
there for further instruction, and Gibbon observes his measures were
sometimes moderated by the milder genius of Rome and Christianity. The
Carlovingian kings were very partial to Chartres. Charles the Bald, who
comes down to us familiarly as a church builder through an old picture
in which he holds a cast of a cathedral in his hand, conferred the most
precious of relics upon Chartres—the _Sancta Camisia_ of the Virgin!
Robert the Pious contributed a sapphire. Within her mystic walls
sensible Louis the Fat pardoned his enemies; there Philippe le Bel,
Charles le Bel and Philippe de Valois gave thanks for their victories,
childishly presenting their armor and their beloved war-horses to this
Church, their Mother. Saint Louis marched barefooted about twenty-one
miles to endow Chartres with her beautiful _Portail Septentrionale_.
And when Henry IV changed his religion, let us believe with the really
good intention of bringing about a little peace on earth to Frenchmen,
he elected to be consecrated at Chartres, “by reason of the peculiar
devotion of his ancestors, the Dukes of Vendome, to the old cathedral,
the most ancient in Christendom.” There were reasons why he could not
conveniently have been crowned at Rheims like other French kings,
that city being hostile to him. But Henry IV always had a clever and
sufficient answer.
To return to the material story of the old bishops’ church near the
well of Saint Lubin, our first dated record takes us back into a feudal
war. In 743, Hanald duc d’Aquitaine, fighting the Comte de Chartres,
burned the town cathedral; but when he realized what he had done he
retired to a monastery to do penance all the rest of his days. Was it
in superstition? Was it in true repentance? Did he burn the church by
accident? That might have been. The simple piety of the Dark Ages that
would build “The House of God” for all time rendered the churches the
strongest of buildings, and defensive armies often resorted to them;
then, too, there were spiritual objections to attacking a church. This
factor was sometimes over-estimated.
[Illustration: _A View Through the Portail of Chartres, which Louis IX
Walked Barefooted Twenty-one Miles to Present, in a Lowly Spirit, to
the Church._]
The Cathedral of Chartres was rebuilt, only to be burned down one
hundred and fifteen years after by the Normans. During this siege the
non-combatants of the town confidently took refuge in the cathedral
with their bishop instead of buying off the pirates with gold from
the Holy Altar as the people of Rheims had done (they are all gone
now and God knows which did best). Unexpectedly, neither church nor
bishop impressed the Normans, who overturned the city walls, burned
the buildings, massacred the bishop, and every one else who came in
their way; but after the Normans left, the Chartrians had the cold
comfort of gathering their dead and laying them away beside the Well of
Saint Lubin and “through the merits of those there reposing a crowd of
miracles were wrought.” About this period the disease we now know as
erysipelas came to be highly respected. In France it was called _le mal
des ardents_; in England, the “sacred fire”; for, one thousand years
ago processions like those that now visit Lourdes were pressing on to
Chartres to drink of the holy spring. The world moves, but somewhat in
a groove. At this Lourdes of the Dark Ages the afflicted were tended by
nuns, but we find a certain telltale regulation:—after nine days (ample
time for blood poisoning to develop unmistakably) the sick must go
home, “cured or not.”
Was medical practice then so much worse than ours during the Rebellion,
when old rags of the nation were collected and all sorts and conditions
of women scraped them into lint full of germs for the wounded soldiers?
But if the church was a crazy physician, she was a gentle nurse. She
established a chivalry toward the sick that no Cervantes would laugh
away. It lives in medical ethics, and the quixotic obligation of
the doctor to leave no stone unturned for his patient has been the
foundation of medical science. Some of the old Hotels-Dieu of blessed
name and memory have developed into up-to-date hospitals and medical
schools, like Charing Cross Hospital, London, which still enjoys its
mediæval benefice, while modern hospitals, in general, are moral
descendants of the old ideal.
Again the old Church of Chartres was rebuilt, again to stand for a
little over a century. This building had the satisfaction (may we not
use the figure, for the mediæval church was very human) of seeing the
Normans, under Rollo, defeated by an army marching under its blessed
standard, the _Sancta Camisia_ of the Virgin borne aloft as a banner.
But later, Rollo married the daughter of Charles the Simple, settled
down in Normandy, presented his castle to the see of the Bishop of
Chartres and adopted the Christian religion. A double victory for
the church! Many of the first Norman converts were baptized a dozen
times, for the sake of excitement or for the white garment given them
at the ceremony. Thereafter the funeral of Rollo was rendered doubly
memorable by the slaughter of one hundred captives and rich gifts to
the monasteries.
In spite of the _Sancta Camisia_, in spite of all the remains of all
of the martyrs that had been aggregating in the _martyrium_ under the
church for seven hundred years, in 962 Richard of Normandy burned the
cathedral with the town. But the relics had not been powerless, for
this was the last pagan outbreak. The church had the holy triumph
of Christianizing her adversaries, and the _martyrium_, between the
excellence of its building material, the water of the spring of Saint
Lubin near by, and “the merits of those there reposing,” remained
intact and was found in the excavations of 1901; but the spring is
gone; it was probably diverted by the foundations of the present
cathedral.
Though a paralyzing conviction had come upon the people, Bishop Vulpard
immediately started to rebuild. It had somehow been very generally
decided that the world would come to an end in the year 1000, so near
at hand.
How did this private information regarding the future affect the
multitude? They probably took it riotously,—at least, such has been
the experience in times of plague and horror, when it seemed that the
race was about to be wiped out. Indeed, it is only for others that the
saner, better life is led—best of all, unconsciously led.
[Illustration: _A Detail of the Portail Septentrionale._]
We do know that at that time church building flagged. Ah, be it
credited to these old builders, they worked for others rather than
themselves! Nevertheless, the latter part of the tenth century is the
day of vast and massive crypts of which Chartres is one of the noblest
examples. Let us hope that brave old Vulpard lived to see it under way.
History has very little to say of the delusion regarding the year 1000,
except that it shows that the church gained ground therefrom. Many
persons thought it well to present their goods to the churches since
they could not use them much longer themselves. Scarce as records are,
we have one instance of the church helping the world out of one of the
dilemmas arising from this misunderstanding. We do know positively that
the valuables of the Church of Saint Benignus of Dijon were all sold to
relieve the famine of the year 1001. Probably the ground had not been
sown the previous autumn.
However often it has fallen from grace, in the main the Christian
Church has won its way by service. However often its services have been
mistaken, it has maintained the ideal that the Christian should serve
the world.
Instead of the world’s coming to an end according to their schedule, to
the astonishment of the Chartrians, lightning singled out their holy
church and burned it to the ground. Some of the more or less logically
inclined suggested that some of the pilgrims might have been guilty of
indiscretions within its consecrated walls and thus have brought down
this celestial disaster.
The church had a particularly charming bishop at that time who arose to
the astonishing occasion and called for help from the whole religious
world regardless of nationality. He might be known as the successful
correspondent of history. We still have some of his letters. The
one to Cnut, King of England and Denmark, is certainly a flower of
history, showing, as it does, the sympathy of a great king with a great
scholar (as the times went) and a great movement. Fulbert writes, in
acknowledgment of Cnut’s donation to his building fund: “When we saw
the offering which you deigned to send us, we admired at once your
astonishing wisdom and religious spirit; your wisdom, in that you, a
prince, divided from us by language and by sea, are zealously concerned
not only with the things around you but also with things that touch us;
in your religious spirit, in that you, of whom we have heard speak as
a pagan king, show yourself a very Christian and generous benefactor
of churches and servants of God. We render lively thanks to the King
of kings through whose mercy your gifts have descended upon us, and
we beseech Him to make your reign happy and prosperous, to deliver
your soul from all sin.” The result of Fulbert’s appeals proves that
Christianity had established a brotherhood on earth. Though much of
Fulbert’s structure was burned within ten years the church inherits
both spiritually and materially from him; his crypt is left and it
gives lines to the splendid church we know. Saint Thierry rebuilt the
upper church, and it grew in beauty under Saint Ivo, who succeeded in
getting the ear of Mathilda of England. Not that Saint Ivo was a snob,
for in his time we may see among the records timely rebukes to royalty
and dignified acknowledgment of the services of individual workmen
upon the mighty edifice. After all, there is nothing sweeter than the
“widow’s mite.” A great deal is said by social historians about the tax
upon the communities for these splendid churches, but they overlook the
joy of public giving, which also moulds and unites a people.
And now this wonderful old church, which echoes from tower to crypt
with the human story, commences to speak picturesquely of the wild Holy
Wars. The heavy Dark Ages developed its crypt. The body of the church
passed through many metamorphoses in the time intervening until a
period of the greatest religious enthusiasm crowned the cathedral with
its marvelous towers.
[Illustration: _A Thirteenth Century Statement of the Liability of
Pride to Have a Fall Solemnly Proclaimed on the South Portal of
Chartres._]
In all history is there a movement more extraordinary, more
far-reaching, more curious than the crusades? They are about
as surprising to a reader today as they were to the Emperor of
Constantinople when the first disorderly army appeared at his gates.
The monk, Guibert, who, at least, seemed to have more grasp of the
subject than any other contemporary writer, ingeniously suggested that
“God invented the crusades as a new way for his laity to atone for
their sins and merit salvation.” Certainly they thus atoned for the
great sin of inertia. No army, I suppose, was ever more confident, more
surprised or more disappointed than that of the crusaders. However,
this much is to be said in favor of Guibert’s hypothesis. From that
time forth the laity took their place in the march of civilization.
They arose and left the Dark Ages behind. New views were forced upon
them at the point of the sword,—most needed of all, new civic ideals.
Separation and longing and the sweet sorrow of parting awoke the spirit
of poetry, the craving for beauty; and all this new thought and feeling
was soon to blossom forth in the one art, whose _metier_ the people had
already learned,—architecture.
Through a long admixture of races, by the twelfth century (hardly
before it) there had arisen in Gaul genuine Frenchmen, who from the
beginning were most artistic artisans and most enthusiastic partisans.
They spent more on their crusades and on their churches than their
neighbors, and they were to reap the rewards of extravagance, always
more imposing than those of economy. Money poured into the church
alike from those who went to the Holy Land, and from those who thus
excused themselves from going. Incidentally the Holy Wars diverted a
disorderly element of nobles and serfs from France to Palestine. During
the period of the crusades the Cathedral of Chartres suffered from
two fires just sixty years apart; thus in rebuilding, the overflowing
religious excitement of the era came to be lavished upon the very
stones of the cathedral.
In 1134 a great fire in the town of Chartres damaged the cathedral
so far as to make it necessary to restore the façade. In spite of
their own losses the Chartrians decided that their church should be
finer than ever. She should have two connected towers, instead of one
separated from the building as before. And the design they here evolved
has become standard.
To effect these grand restorations the workmen formed themselves into
permanent guilds. One especially which devoted itself to working on
the cathedral was honorably known as the “_Logeurs du Bon Dieu_.” And
the nobles who had watched the workmen growing in grace and in skill,
raising themselves as they raised the temple, were finally seized
with a strange and humble enthusiasm which can only be convincingly
described by eye-witnesses.
“In this same year” (1144), writes Robert Du Mont, “at Chartre men
began to harness themselves to carts laden with stones, wood and other
things, and drag them to the site of the church, the towers of which
were then a-building.”
Says Abbé Haimon: “Who has ever seen or heard in all the ages of the
past that kings, princes and lords, mighty in their generation, swollen
with riches and honor, that men and women, I say, of noble birth, have
bowed their haughty necks to the yoke and harnessed themselves to carts
like beasts of burden, and drawn them laden with wine, corn, oil, stone
or wood and other things needful for the maintenance of life or the
construction of the church, even to the doors of the asylum of Christ.”
“Mighty are the works of the Lord,” exclaims Hugh of Rouen (ready to
use the example). “At Chartres men have begun, in all humility, to drag
carts and vehicles of all sorts to aid the building of the cathedral,
and their humility has been rewarded by miracles. The fame of these
events has been heard everywhere and at last roused this Normandy of
ours. Our countrymen, therefore, after receiving our blessing, have
set out for that place and then fulfilled their vows. They return with
the resolution to imitate these Chartrians, and a great number of the
faithful of our diocese and the dioceses of our province have begun to
work at the Cathedral, their Mother.”
But since it is the spirit that makes the action fine, the services
of these builders were accepted only under the triple condition of
confession, penitence and reconciliation with their enemies; they
delivered their offerings in tears, while disciplining themselves with
blows.
George Eliot speaks of a common feeling of good-will among a mass of
men affecting her like music; to such music the incomparable tower of
Chartres was built, and a later age sees tears transformed to pearls
when another great fire destroyed the old part of the cathedral, and
they had, in rebuilding, to live up to their splendid new façade.
[Illustration: _A Page from the Sculptured “Bible of the Laity,”
Chartres._]
The cardinal assembled the people of Chartres around the smoking
ruins of their dear old church and persuaded them to forget their
personal losses and to think only of rebuilding the House of God;
and the people, united by the strongest of bonds, a common disaster,
arose again to work for the common good, and again Christians from
far and near sent in their donations. The old chroniclers say that
the very Holy Virgin multiplied her miracles. One of them we still
have before us. It was then and there that an architect, whose name is
forgotten but whose genius is immortal, perfected the cathedral type of
thirteenth century Gothic. All designers of Gothic churches still do
him homage; all lovers of Gothic architecture still sing his praise.
And the old church at Chartres grew on, gently developing her people
on many lines. She watched her _imagiers_ grow into sculptors, her
glass-workers into painters, the more or less serfs of the soil develop
into workmen, then guildsmen and free burghers of the town; of this
they themselves have written upon her very walls. About half of the
windows of the cathedral we find were presented by the guilds; the
other half by kings, princes and seigneurs, lay and ecclesiastic. The
glass of Chartres, by the way, is considered the finest in the world.
The eighteenth century was a bad day for churches in France; the
general contempt in the air for the past led them to destroy the
“barbarians’ art,” which was good, to make way for their own, which
happened to be bad. The Cathedral of Chartres, as ever so truly in
touch with the times, suffered from the artists in the early part of
the century, while in 1793 the revolutionists invaded it. They buried
the relics and appraised the barbarians’ statues at 100 francs. Then
the next idea was to knock down the cathedral, which they found was not
so easy; so they concluded to transform it into a Temple of Reason,
wherein they behaved most unreasonably. Somebody started to destroy the
immense group of the Assumption on the grand altar. It represents the
Virgin on an embankment of clouds with her arms extended and her figure
coming toward the congregation. Her “pied-à-terre” of clouds (excuse
the hibernicism) is upheld by angels and every face and attitude in the
group is full of aspiration and action. Although as sculpture, this
group is not of the first order, as allegory, it is perfect. A bright
idea occurred to an architect present; he put the Phrygian cap upon the
head of the Virgin and a lance in her hand, and the old symbol became
the new; with her arms open to the world and her eyes turned a little
above it, the Virgin of Chartres became a beautiful emblem of liberty.
I wonder if she impressed any of the wild congregation before her; not
long thereafter Napoleon observed that “Chartres was no place for an
atheist.”
[Illustration: _Altar-piece at Chartres. The Virgin who once Wore a
Liberty Cap_]
In about six months the church managed to reinstate itself in its old
stronghold, though the Revolutionary Commission of public works (or
rather the commission for the destruction of public works) had had the
impertinence to strip the lead from the cathedral roof to make its
ammunition.
But the old church was built to weather all storms, and so was the
French nation. The revolutionists besieged the Louvre and turned it
into a public art gallery. The republic has quietly advanced much
farther in its right of eminent domain and taken under its enlightened
protection all the great monuments of architecture in all fair France.
Nothing is more charming than the enthusiasm throughout the land,
extending even to the simplest people, over these “national monuments.”
As the building of them long ago formed a bond of union with the
communes, so the love of them now forms a bond of union with the
nation. Fostered in their shadows, French genius was able to bring
forth at need architects capable of restoring them almost to their
pristine beauty, a beauty which, growing out of mystic relics, seems
fraught with a relic’s power through love and awe to lead men on. May
its magic transform these Roman Catholic cathedrals of the Age of Faith
into Holy Catholic churches of the Age of Doubt!
In the nineteenth century James Russell Lowell wrote a poem containing
some lovely lines on the Cathedral of Chartres, but if a twentieth
century poet approach the theme he will treat it in a more Catholic
spirit, for the messages of these venerable fanes must grow broader and
gentler as time goes on. A greater poet than Lowell said: “I never can
feel sure of any truth but from a clear perception of its beauty.” From
this idea he framed his invocation to beauty, which applies alike to a
Grecian urn and to the Cathedral of Chartres:
“Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend[2] to man, to whom thou say’st,
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
_Caen: An Eleventh Century Tableau_
Two hours from Cherbourg, as the motor flies, lies the old town of
Caen, founded by William the Conqueror.
A curious peace reigns in this old fortress, with the drawbridge down,
and the moat a bower of trees and flowers: the peace of consummated
action; the returns are all in, and you may receive them according to
your humor, for the burning questions of other days have faded into
dreamy generalities.
Were all those wild centuries of struggle and warfare vain? Or is the
old Greek battle-cry, “Now let us go forward, whether we shall give
glory to other men, or other men to us,” the normal note of primitive
manhood? Were Rollo the Norseman and William the Norman, following the
war-gods fiercer than they, commissioned by fate to lead great armies
across the great waters, and, sailing under sealed orders, to found two
great nations and one great language? Or are all things vanity?
Perhaps, after receiving the children’s children of his loyal subjects,
who may have crossed a certain wide ocean unknown to him to attend
the great Court of History that William the Norman holds at Caen, the
Shades of the Conqueror growing more familiar might conduct the musing
cortége into the beautiful abbey near-by, which he built in expiation
of the love-match he made in defiance of the church.
I wonder here if the old king might not laughingly recall the story of
his first meeting with Lanfranc.
[Illustration: _William the Conqueror’s Old Fortress; the Chains are
said to be the Originals._]
Like other forceful men, William married upon his own responsibility.
Accordingly, the Pope not only excommunicated him, but laid various
bans upon his realm. Such bans were once marvelously inconvenient,
to say the least. William fought the church valiantly for six years.
It may have been then that he got his measure of the uses and abuses
of that institution, which, in the long run, proved most valuable to
England. Among others, Lanfranc, Prior of Bec, became a target for
William’s displeasure and was ordered to leave his monastery. Lanfranc
started forth forlornly enough on a lame horse. Thus caparisoned,
he met the furious Duke William. Lanfranc had but one weapon at his
command—tact. He approached the great duke, saying, “I am obeying your
command as quickly as I can. I will obey faster if you will give me a
better horse.” William was blessed with humor. He impressed Lanfranc
into his service then and there, and made him his friend forever: the
Conqueror could make good friends. Then he sent Lanfranc to make his
peace with the Holy See. Understanding William’s passion for building,
Lanfranc, the peacemaker, arranged that William and Mathilda should
each build an abbey in expiation of their marriage. And William and
Mathilda performed their contract so royally that France has lately
restored their abbeys, line for line, as national monuments.[3] Thus
a tableau of Caen, as the Conqueror saw it, actually lies before
twentieth century eyes.
Ah, put yourself in his place! I never knew a traveler to leave this
old town without becoming attached to its founder. The strong, orderly,
noble and logical Norman buildings express the old Conqueror at his
best; at Caen one prefers his older, gentler, more unique title of
William, the builder, for, indeed, many have conquered in England, but
William I built up his conquest.
In this interesting old Norman church, with its suspicion of the
pointed arch (probably the earliest instance) pointing toward the
unparalleled Gothic that developed in Normandy, one feels like
congratulating the old Conqueror, both as lover and architect, and
reinstating his old claim to romance, even though modern research has
discovered that he was not a very gentle knight.
William I was no saint; but why should he have been one? Professional
saints were only too common in his day: he was but a strong, direct man
in a most superstitious, childish and indirect age. Is not the position
of one who can stand alone through his age heroic enough?