Notre Dame of Paris – Medieval Cathedral
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 [...]
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Laon Cathedral – Laon, France
Laon Cathedral, France(begun 1160 AD) Where is Laon? In 1100 AD, Laon was a very rich town in northern France, with strong walls and a lot of farmland. It's on top of a [...]
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Gothic Cathedral – Middle Ages – History of architecture
Gothic cathedral: Nave of Rouen cathedral (1200s AD) Northern France gets rich enough to build cathedrals In the late 1100s and early 1200s AD, the kings of France, Philip and his son Louis, [...]
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The Duomo in Florence, Italy
The Duomo in Florence (cathedral) Why did Florence want a new cathedral? The Republic of Florence started to plan this cathedral in the late 1200s AD, when Dante was growing up, to replace the old cathedral from [...]
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Early Gothic architecture
Early Gothic architecture: Notre Dame of Paris (1160s AD) What came after Romanesque? After the Romanesque period in architecture, around 1100 AD, architects in western Europe gradually started to build Christian churches and palaces in [...]
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What is a cloister? Medieval architecture
Cloister at Moissac (ca. 1100 AD, southern France) Where do cloisters come from? Cloisters were a medieval kind of building that developed out of Greek and then Roman peristyles. What is [...]
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Chartres cathedral transepts
Chartres cathedral crossing and transept When the builders were done with the nave, they built the great big columns of the crossing. Like the columns of the nave, the crossing columns [...]
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Chartres cathedral – inside the church
Chartres nave Inside Chartres cathedral The architect started from the west end of the cathedral, at the nave. The builders built the nave very tall, the highest in France at that [...]
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Chartres cathedral – medieval France
Chartres on the horizon Why was Chartres so important? Even though Chartres, near Paris, France, was only a small town, it had an important treasure: the dress that people said Mary was wearing when [...]
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Medieval cathedrals – Architecture
Medieval cathedrals: Façade of Amiens cathedral in France What is a cathedral? A cathedral is any Christian church where a bishop has his headquarters. No matter how big a church is, if there's [...]
