Church of St. Sernin, Toulouse, France In 1080 AD, the church of St. Sernin in Toulouse was a busy place. Charlemagne had given the church some saints' relics, and many people stopped to pray [...]
Sainte Chapelle, in Paris The Sainte Chapelle was (and is) a beautiful little church or chapel in France, on the island in the middle of the city of Paris. King Louis [...]
Rouen cathedral (begun 1202 AD) The people of Rouen, in northern France, decided to build themselves a new cathedral in 1200 AD, just after people started building Chartres cathedral, and only about forty years after [...]
Façade of Pisa's Duomo We call this kind of building Romanesque because it is a little like Roman architecture, with its columns and round arches. But people built Romanesque buildings around 1000-1200 AD instead [...]
Elevation of the nave inside Reims cathedral One difference between Chartres cathedral and Reims cathedral was that at Reims they didn't build a deep gallery over the aisle. Instead, they just put [...]
Reims cathedral (begun 1211 AD) Reims was already an important Christian church in 496 AD, just after the fall of Rome, when the first Christian king of France, Clovis, was baptized there (the remains of the baptismal [...]
Cathedral of Pisa (the Duomo) This is the cathedral of medieval Pisa, in Italy. The architects built the cathedral in the Romanesque style around 1064 AD. The rounded arches are typical of the Romanesque style. So is the [...]
Notre Dame of Paris (1160s AD) A Roman temple to Jupiter In the time of the Romans, about 100 AD, the city council of Paris built a temple. They dedicated it to the [...]
Notre Dame of Paris nave Building the apse of Notre Dame After they had pretty much finished the nave of Notre Dame of Paris, the builders worked on the crossing. [...]
Notre Dame of Paris (1160s AD) Why did Sully build Notre Dame? It was 1160 AD, a hundred years after Matilda built the Abbaye aux Dames in Caen, and about the same time [...]
