Tower and glory
ELEANOR PARKER is largely impressed by a novel biography of Europe’s medieval Christian masterpieces
Among the many legacies the Middle Ages left to the modern world, the medieval cathedral must rank as one of the most precious. The cumulative work of generations, products of centuries of ingenuity and imagination, cathedrals carry in their stones the stories of the people and communities who constructed them, as well as the histories of the cities over which they tower. These were buildings designed to offer glimpses of divine glory, to attain a beauty beyond the earthly. As Emma J Wells observes in Heaven on Earth, the medieval cathedral “was intended to be the metaphorical and physical exemplar of the Celestial City, the Heavenly Jerusalem… No wonder Gothic cathedrals exploded with light and the gleam of gold and jewel-encrusted walls, coloured glass and luminous pearls.”
This book tells the stories of 16 medieval cathedrals, recounting their architectural history over the course of the Middle Ages, and exploring the lives of the builders and patrons who contributed to them. There is a geographical sweep – with monuments ranging from Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia to York Minster, in cities from Prague to Santiago de Compostela – but a special focus on France and England, which between them account for 11 of the case studies. With a particular, though not exclusive, interest in the Gothic, the book functions partly as a history of this style as it spread from France across Europe from the 12th century onwards.
Themes recur across the different stories: the constant danger from fire and other disasters (earthquake, plague or short-sighted building practices), but also the opportunity such calamities provided for rebuilding and creative responses to engineering challenges. Cathedrals may have been intended to represent heaven, but their foundations and materials were very much of the earth. Their spires soared towards the skies, but were always being pulled earthwards – literally or figuratively – by mundane forces. Wells neatly describes the inventive ways in which medieval builders tried to work within their political, financial or physical constraints.
With imaginative descriptions of colour and light effects, Wells evokes how these buildings might have looked to the eyes of their first builders and worshippers. Such a book needs good pictures, and Heaven on Earth is attractively illustrated with full-colour images.
Unfortunately, there are also inaccuracies. The religious festivals and liturgical rituals for which these cathedrals were built – inseparable from a full understanding of each monument’s meaning – are not always accurately described. There are instances of exaggeration and imprecision, such as in the confused account of William the Conqueror’s coronation that opens the chapter on Winchester Cathedral, and in the accompanying description of Winchester’s Anglo-Saxon history.
Also, contrary to Wells’ account, The Canterbury Interlude and the Merchant’s Tale of Beryn (an anonymous later addition to The Canterbury Tales) was not written by Chaucer. In fact, Chaucer’s own pilgrims never made it to Canterbury. When their author left them they were still on the road, listening to a sermon about how to reach “Jerusalem celestial” – the heavenly city of which the cathedral, their ultimate but unattained destination, was intended to give them a glimpse.