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Bibles Made of Stone and Glass
Howoften do you go to church?
Probably not more than once a week—on Sundays.
But in the Middle Ages people usually went to church every day and often several times a day. They did not go only when there was a church service. They went to say their prayers by themselves; they went to tell their troubles to the priest, to get advice from him, to burn a candle to the Virgin Mary, or simply to chat with their friends.
All during the Crusades, and immediately after the Crusades, the chief thing that people thought about was their church.
There was only one church in a neighborhood, and every one went to the same church for there were no Baptists, nor Episcopalians, nor Methodists; all were just Christians.
The church was every one’s meeting-house, and so people naturally gave as much money and time and labor as they could to make their church the best that could be built. That is why therewere built in France and other parts of Europe at this time many of the finest churches and cathedrals in the world. These churches and cathedrals are still standing, and, because they are so beautiful, people go long distances to see them.
Do you know what a cathedral is? A cathedral is not just a large church. It is the church of a bishop. In the chancel of this church there is a special chair for the bishop. This bishop’s chair is called in Latin a “cathedra,” and so his church is named a cathedral after this chair.
These churches and cathedrals were nothing like the old Greek and Roman temples; they were not like anything that had ever been built before.
If you have ever built a house out of blocks, you probably did it this way: first you stood two blocks upright, and then you laid another block across the top of these for a roof. This is the way the Greeks and Romans built.
But the Christians throughout Europe at that time did not build in this way at all.
When you were building toy-houses, instead of laying a single block across the two standing ones, you may perhaps have tried leaning two blocks together like the sides of a letter A for a roof? If you did, you know what happened: the two leaning blocks pushed over the sides, andcrash! everything tumbled. Well, these churches were built somewhat in this way, with stones archedacross the standing stone columns. But to keep the stone arches from pushing over the standing stone columns the builders put up props or braces. These props or braces were made of stone, too, and these props of stone were calledflying buttresses.
Flying buttresses—Apse of Notre Dame.
Flying buttresses—Apse of Notre Dame.
The people in Italy thought this a crazy way of building. They thought such buildings must be shaky and might easily topple over—like a house of cards. The Goths who had conqueredItaly in 476 were wild and ignorant and after that people called anything wild and ignorant “Gothic.” So people called all buildings such as I have just described “Gothic,” although the Goths had nothing to do with the buildings, for they had all died long years before.
Indeed, from my description you, too, may think such buildings propped up by flying buttresses must have been tottering and ugly, but they were neither. They were not rickety, for though occasionally one that was not carefully built did collapse, the largest and best are still standing to-day. And although there were old-fashioned people who thought no building was beautiful that was not built in the Roman or Greek style, we have come to admire the great beauty of these so called Gothic buildings.
But there were other ways in which the Gothic churches were different from the Greek and Roman temples. Before a Gothic church was started, a very large cross was first drawn on the ground with its head towards the east, because that is the direction of Jerusalem. On this cross-shaped plan, the church was built so that if you looked down from above on the finished building, it was shaped like a cross with the altar always toward the east.
Gothic churches had beautiful spires orarrows, which have been likened tofingers pointing toheaven. The doorways and windows were not square or round at the top, but pointed, like hands placed together in prayer.
Nearly the whole side of a Gothic church was made of glass. These large windows were not, however, plain white glass, but beautiful pictures made of colored glass. Small pieces of different colors were joined together at their edges with lead to make what looked like wonderful paintings. But these pictures were much finer than ordinary paintings, for the light shone through the stained glass and made the colors brilliant as jewels—blue like the clear sky, yellow like sunlight, red like a ruby. These pictures in glass told stories from the Bible. They were like colored illustrations in a book. So the people who could not read, and very few could read, were able to know the Bible stories just by looking at these beautiful illustrations.
Statues of saints and angels and characters in the Bible were carved in the stonework of the church. So the churches were like Bibles of stone and glass.
Besides these holy beings, strange, grotesque beasts were also made in stone—monsters like no animal that has ever been seen in nature. These creatures were usually put on the outside edge or corner of the roof or they were used for waterspouts and calledgargoyles. They were supposedto scare away evil spirits from the holy place.
Gargoyle.
Gargoyle.
No one now knows who were the architects or the builders of these Gothic churches or who were the sculptors or artists. Almost every one did some work on the church, for it washischurch. Instead of giving money he gave his time and labor. If he had any skill, he carved stone or made stained glass. If he had no skill he did the work of a common laborer.
Some of these Gothic churches took hundreds of years to build, so that the workmen who started them never lived to see them finished. Some of the most famous cathedrals are Canterbury Cathedral in England, the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and Cologne Cathedral in Germany.
Cologne Cathedral took the longest of all to build, as it was not entirely finished until about seven hundred years after it was begun! The beautiful Cathedral of Rheims in France was almost destroyed by the gun-fire of the Germans in the Great War only a few years ago.
Gothic churches were built, with loving care, of stone and jeweled glass. Nothing but the best was thought good enough. To-day almost allchurches are still built with spires, pointed doors and some stained glass windows, and often the altar is toward the east. But although they imitate the Gothic style in these things, they seldom have stone ceilings, as Gothic churches had, nor flying buttresses, nor walls of stained glass. The ceilings are usually of wood, the spire often of wood, also, and even the whole building of wood or some cheap material. Real Gothic was enormously expensive and difficult, and nowadays people haven’t the time, the money, nor the interest to build in such a way.
And that is the story of Gothic churches that the Goths had nothing to do with.