It is manifestly some sort of confessio, and van der Meulen has argued that it was part of a complete east end, with ambulatory and chapels, parts of which he thought also survive. This would make Chartres Cathedral the earliest known example of this type of plan in France.
The theory contradicts the chroniclers who asserted that the church was completely destroyed by fire in and entirely rebuilt by Bishop Fulbert reg — The significance of the confessio is its identification of the earliest cult at Chartres with a local saint rather than the Virgin.
There is no firm evidence for the cult statue before the 11th century, and whether the Virgin played a major part in the religious life of Chartres before the 12th century may be doubted. The CULT OF CARTS of and the building operations connected with it were partly in honour of the Virgin, but the transformation of the cathedral into a recognizable pilgrimage church was accomplished only in the rebuilding after , when the transepts were introduced. Even then the role of the Virgin in the total imagery of the cathedral was subordinate to a grander vision of the Church and the Christian picture of world history.
Evidence for the cult is meagre and perplexing. By definition it ought to have been a major attraction; yet it seems to have been taken seriously only by the well-to-do, and there are few miracles associated with it. The cult may have been a promotion that gathered momentum slowly as Chartres subsided into the status of a provincial cathedral city, and the clergy sought consolation for the lost greatness of the past.
The great days of Chartres were those of the 11th-century cathedral school, when Fulbert and his pupils taught there. By its reputation was already fading. It is not entirely fanciful to detect a causal relationship between the decline of the school and the development of the cathedral as a showpiece of religious art.
He was certainly responsible for nearly all the crypt, and this determined the widths and bay lengths of the Gothic cathedral. There were no transepts. Later in history, Chartres was the coronation site of Henry IV in Later medieval insistence that Christianity came to Chartres as early as the 1st century AD was bound up with local legends focused on the cult.
The story was elaborated over the centuries, but it flourished particularly during the late Middle Ages and during the Baroque period, when it was successfully fused with the image of the cathedral itself. As a whole, the building dates from the 13th century. The immense church is the work of an unknown master. Built to accommodate large numbers of worshippers, the high Gothic cathedral features alternate cylindrical and octagonal columns, rationally designed flying buttresses and rib-vaults that soar to feet.
Between and , Jean Texier built a new bell tower. That foot spire features lace-like stonework in the flamboyant style of a later age. Then, beginning in , French masters of the Renaissance and age of classicism carved the choir screen, which illustrates the lives of the Virgin Mary and Christ. The Great Organ, occupying a 15th-century loft, was restored completely in That neo-classical contemporary instrument is the centrepiece of Sunday summer concerts. The cathedral at Chartres was among the first sites to be included in the Unesco list of world heritage in It is regarded as one of the great masterpieces of Gothic architecture.
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