Chartres: La Cathédrale

Harlan and I have settled now for a few days in Auray, on the south coast of Brittany. It's warm and beautiful and we got out for a good ride this morning to check out the country roads here. But first I want to report on our stopover in Chartres, where we made a very big meal of the cathedral and its sculpture and stained glass. Here, then, are perhaps a few too many pictures of that. 

Chartres is about 50 miles southwest of Paris; the cathedral dates mostly from 1190-1250 or so.

We indulged in two nights in a little hotel right next to the front left (northwest) tower. Here's Harlan at the cafe in front of the hotel just after we arrived, steps from the west portal:

For a couple of our meals we didn't even bother to get out of sight of it.

The north, south, and west entries are covered with sculpture, for example the north porch:

The art tells stories from and draws intricate connections between the Old and New Testaments. It's especially fun to look for the human details, such as this conversation between Mary and Elizabeth:. 

Here Abraham is ready to sacrifice his own sun, as ordered by God:

But he is stopped at the last minute by this angel who arrives from the capital above the next figure over, taking Abraham by surprise (whew!):

Mary lays the baby Jesus in a manger where the cows can admire him too, or are they hoping to root around for some of their feed?

If you were thinking of risking a trip to Hell, you might study these elements just overhead as you go into Mass. As the dead rise from their coffins, the devil on the right, with enormous ears and a chortling face in his lower belly, hauls a woman off by her legs, while another devil wraps his arms around a miser with his bag of gold. I was surprised by the number of images of misers in flames. Perhaps because the building of the cathedral depended on donors, from the aristocracy to "merchant confraternities" (bakers, carpenters, etc.), this was a scolding to those who hadn't ponied up.

Meanwhile here are two scholars, below, and above them two of the Seven Liberal Arts: Music and Grammar, who has her "birch" handy to keep her two young students in line: 

In another corner someone gets ready to slaughter his pig.

I can't stop...

The stained glass is outrageously beautiful and just as much fun to study for the stories and details, but tricky to catch well with anything short of a professional camera and scaffolding, so you are spared my urge to share an image of every last window. But I can't resist one, okay, two... one for context:

And finally, from a border along the bottom of a window, the cathedral builders at work, hauling the stone to the site, shaping it, laying it in place, and on the right working up a figure for one of the porches: