The Cult of the Virgin and Gothic Sculpture: Evaluating Opposition in the Chartres West

Facade Capital Frieze

Author(s): Laura Spitzer
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Gesta, Vol. 33, No. 2 (1994), pp. 132-150
Published by: International Center of Medieval Art
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/767164 .
Accessed: 31/07/2012 07:03

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

International Center of Medieval Art is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Gesta.

http://www.jstor.org
The Cult of the Virgin and Gothic Sculpture:Evaluating
Opposition in the ChartresWest Facade Capital Frieze*
LAURA SPITZER
DepartmentofArt, Bucknell University

Abstract
In the major literatureon Gothic sculpture the new
prominence of images of the VirginMaryon mid-twelfth
and thirteenth-centuryFrench church facades is associ-
ated with the newly increasing devotion to the cult of the
Virginin the twelfth century. The west facade of Char-
tres cathedral has played a central role in this inter-
pretation. In particular,the narrativecapital cycle that
winds around all three portals would seem to offer in- MA
valuable evidence of the importance of the cult of the
Virginin the mid-twelfthcentury because it presents the
first cycle of the life of the Virginin the west.
Through examination of thematic emphases of the Zvi? .1e:

cycle, the narrative structure of the capital frieze, and

its position within the larger Royal Portal, I will argue
that these images present a Maryvery unlike that as-
sumed to lie at the root of Gothic, a queenly intercessor
whose appeal is universal ratherthan locally varied. In
addition, I explore resonances between the images of
the life of the Virginon the capital frieze and aspects of
the folkloriccult at Chartresthat have so often been ne-
glected in the modern literature.The cathedral is thus
envisaged as a site of exchange between high and folk-
loric cultures. I conclude with questions concerning the
relationshipof images to cult at Chartres that have im-
plications for understandingthe narrativeswe construct
about Chartres and the development of Gothic.
On the twelfth-century Royal Portal at Chartrescathe-
dral the Virgin Mary assumes an unprecedentedprominence.
Elevated to the same horizontal register as the two images of
Jesus in the north and central tympana, she occupies the
south tympanumas a Sedes Sapientiae figure (Fig. 1, 2). But
even more unusual for twelfth-century sculptural represen-
tations is the cycle of the life of the Virgin on the left half
of the capital frieze that winds aroundall three portals. Here
the story begins with the Virgin's parents Joachim and Anna,
and the events leading up to the miraculous conception of the
Virgin. We see the Virgin as she is bathed (in a substitutefor
the Nativity scene), as she walks with her parents to the
Temple and to her betrothal, and at the Annunciation, the
Visitation, the Nativity, the Visit of the Magi, and the Flight
into Egypt (Figs. 3-7).
These are problematic images. Evaluated out of the
context of the rest of the facade, and in particular without
explanation of how they are read, they appear to signify the
Virgin's new importance and perhaps even independence, in
FIGURE1. Chartres,Cathedral:west facade, south tympanum(photo:
author).
the sense that the events of her advent are amplified to a
point approachingequality with Jesus: not only is she on the
same horizontal level with Jesus on the tympana, but on the
capital frieze she is a major figure on half of the bilaterally-
symmetrical portal design. If one is to speak of an emerging
cult of the Virgin, this narrativecapital cycle, the first in the
West, would seem to offer invaluable evidence of its mid-
twelfth century importance. But examination of the process
of viewing, reading, and interpretation that the narrative
organization of the Chartres'portal encourages, along with
a critical reading of the thematic emphases of the cycle,
forces me to reconsider the story that has been told about
Chartres and the cult of the Virgin since Henry Adams. In
this essay I raise questions about the accepted associations
between the emergence of Gothic at Chartresand the role of
the cult of the Virgin in that development. These questions
arise from my examination of the portrayal of the Virgin's
life at a shrine that has enjoyed a long history of practices
related to women and their concerns. But, although I believe
that my reading of Chartreseventually leads to a compelling
new way of understandingGothic, at this point in my work

132 GESTAXXXIII/2 @ The InternationalCenter of Medieval Art 1994

 ~ ~
:
Mol -~ : :il: -9:1s:_: P _~a.d $_: I: .:B :'"~ _~:B : ': ~ 9~~- :i ?: _$I- ? Z: : j
?:, *Ix

me::

i..... .

... . .
-: :--A ft:

M -:
v R:_:
:?- : Ammw-- ': %~: : :t-:-:-:-':~B? ::iil:ilra a a s - _ - I- ?- r~-i_: _: -:_ :
M,: : V Alm-
Mll ,:_:
g g

FIGURE 2. Chartres, Cathedral: west facade portals (photo: author).

I can only articulate it as a series of questions concerning Chartres and the Emergence of Gothic in the
how we construct our "story" about this period of medieval Art Historical Literature
history. I will raise these questions in the concluding sec-
tion of this discussion. The more focused objective of this Chartres has always been a key monument in the dis-
essay, therefore, is to offer observations and interpretations cussion of the genesis of early Gothic because of its early
of the position of the Chartres capital frieze within the cult of the Virgin. As the fourteenth-centuryand later writ-
larger Royal Portal as a way to open up debate about this ten sources from Chartresas well as our contemporariesre-
period whose history has become canonical. count, worship focused on the statue of the Virgin and Child,
Since Chartresoccupies such a monumental position in inscribed Virgo Paritura, reputed to have stood in a grotto
the literature on Gothic art and the story of the role of the on the site of the church before the Virgin was even born.2
Virgin at Chartresis always part of its celebrity, I begin this Chartreswould, of course, not have been so pivotal for this
reassessment by examining how the monument and its rela- discussion if its west-facade sculpture, carved between 1145
tion to the cult of the Virgin has been represented in the lit- and 1155, were not considered the first full manifestation of
erature; from there I turn to the two most important sites of the Early Gothic style.3 Indeed, whether implicitly or ex-
imagery of the Virgin at Chartres from the twelfth century, plicitly stated, in most of the authoritative studies of medi-
the capital frieze and the Sedes Sapientiae of the Royal eval sculpture this portal functions as the standardfor early
Portal, as I re-examine the relation between the narrative Gothic.4
organization of the twelfth-century sculptural program and For an example of the now canonical story of Gothic
folkloric aspects of the cult of the Virgin at Chartreswhich we can turnto the most authoritativecommentaryon the sub-
are often overlooked.' ject of Gothic sculptural style, Gothic Sculpture in France,

133
 :If
Li::__ii~iiC1:Of
FIGURE 3. Chartres, Cathedral: west facade, central portal, left jamb, capital frieze; Joachim and Anna expelled from the Temple (photo: author).
1140-1270, where Willibald Sauerlinder associates the new
prominence of images of the Virgin Mary on mid-twelfth
and thirteenth-centuryFrench church facades with the newly
increasing devotion to the cult of the Virgin in the twelfth
century.5 Chartres cathedral is the first and more important
of two sites at which he explicitly links veneration and im-
agery of the Virgin when he observes that Chartres, "as the
most importantcentre of pilgrimage to the Virgin in France,
had particularreason to assign her a place of honour on the
Royal Portal."6Yet, he then concludes that the "Chartres
programmeis unique," leaving Chartresas pivotal to his dis-
cussion while enigmatically exceptional.7
The position Chartres occupies in the story of Gothic
perhaps was formulated most decisively by Adolf Katzenel-
lenbogen who, in The Sculptural Programs of Chartres
Cathedral, creates an elision between his definition of the
Gothic style and his discussion of Chartres' west facade.8
Like Sauerlinder, he implies a link between the cult of the
Virgin and the iconography of this program, a link that was
fundamental to the form in which the facade was con-
ceived.9 His treatment of the iconography is very selective,
however. Ignoring the capital frieze, which runs the entire
length of the western portal structure and presents a truly
new subject, a narrative of the life of the Virgin, in monu-
mental form in France for the first time, he focuses almost
exclusively on the Virgin of the southern tympanum as evi-
dence of devotion to the mother of god.'
As in Sauerlinder's and Katzenellenbogen's works, the
relationship between the cult and images of the Virgin
134
remains unexamined in most narratives of Gothic." In our
writing and teaching most of us explain almost without re-
flection that the new centrality of the Virgin in Gothic ima-
gery can be attributed to popular veneration of the mother
of god. The new imagery can also be related to the Gothic
figural style: the more humanistic style with greater ana-
tomical and proportionalaccuracy and the calmness and no-
bility of the figures can be explained as a consequence of
devotion to the Virgin who as mother of Jesus is the sign of
this humanity. Despite Chartres' canonical status among
Early Gothic monuments, however, consideration of the
particular cultic context of its cathedral raises important
questions about the accepted story of the historical develop-
ment of and motivation for Gothic iconography.
Indeed, analysis of the thematic emphases of the scenes
in the life of the Virgin on the capital frieze reveals an un-
usual treatment of some traditional events in the life of the
Virgin, the particularityof which suggests that venerationof
the Virgin at this monument should be distinguished from
what has been represented in the literatureon Chartresas a
universal cult of the Virgin.12 Although practices elsewhere
in twelfth-century France and the writings of twelfth-century
theologians suggest that the Virgin is primarilyworshipped
for the mercy she shows to those who pray to her and for her
role as intercessor with Jesus, these are not the qualities that
are given visual enunciation on the frieze, the part of the
Chartresportal with the greatest proliferationof scenes from
the life of the Virgin."3The absence of imagery of the Virgin
as intercessor suggests that different qualities are celebrated

i~iiii-~iii
::::ail-i:-ii-i?_:--
la
;a?u-;~-_
.--.
::i
; -~~ 8~6tBOgBBg ~5~""81?~igeg~gg~~;~pg~~
C s~s~Bs8~j_~s~.~errrr~~a41 8a ~aaaq~
.:
::::;:
:::.
_:i?.:i-
:
::R
FIGURE 4. Chartres, Cathedral: west facade, northern portal, left jamb; Massacre of the Innocents (photo: author).
on the extended narrativeof her life on the capital frieze. Yet
these other qualities are never mentioned even in works
which emphasize the spiritual message of Chartres, includ-
ing those of Katzenellenbogen and Henry Adams, whose
representation of the cult of the Virgin is embedded in their
strong religious faith, nurturedon a theology which is quite
alien to the theology or practices of the twelfth- century. Not
only is there a distinction between twelfth- and twentieth-
century worship, however, but even in the twelfth century
there are different forms of veneration. Indeed, as I will ar-
gue later, even at Chartresa distinction should be maintained
between the liturgical celebrations carried out in the cathe-
dral and the folkloric cult of the Virgin.
In order to analyze the relation between imagery and
cult at Chartres I examine a variety of sources including
thirteenth- and fourteenth-centuryliturgical, devotional, and
historical texts from Chartres and the sculptural imagery on
the twelfth-century west facade. By shifting the focus from
the generally available and widely cited evidence of the
increasing popularity of the Virgin in the twelfth century
and examining instead the local cult of the Virgin as it was
practiced at Chartres, we will gain a new perspective on
the development of what has traditionally been considered
Gothic.14 Moreover, we can begin to understand the con-
flict, hinted at in Sauerlinder's formulation, between the
importance of Chartres's cult of the Virgin to the story of
Gothic and yet the enigmatic position the monument occu-
pies in the development of Gothic style and imagery.15 Po-
sitioning is a key word here which I use in two senses as I
::
: .-
::?::::1:
-
::? :
ii?-:
: :i-::
:-i
:;:::
-
:i
:i:~-d
:::
:::: i-B
:.:
::::8-
F::::~
---~-_
:::
;;;
go through two separate analyses of position: the first is
a visual analysis in which I explain how these images are
read; I then correlate visual positioning to analysis of the
cult of the Virgin within the liturgical practices at Chartres.
Positioning of images, positioning of cult. These are what
prompted Sauerlinder to his formulation. But if the equa-
tion changes, if the cult turns out to be different from what
he assumed it to be, do the images' elevated visual position
and visual prominence have the same meaning?
Reading Position: The Tympanumand the Capital Frieze
Examination of the distinctions between the central
and more marginal images of the Virgin on the Chartres
portals can serve as an introduction to the questions con-
cerning the cults of the Virgin at Chartres. As previously
noted, it is on the southern portal that the Virgin is given
greatest prominence. There she occupies the tympanumas a
Sedes Sapientiae figure (Fig. 1).16 As Katzenellenbogen's
analysis of this figure illustrated, the image is concordant
with principles of orthodox theology." The Virgin Mary
quite literally serves as the throne for her son, the logos,
wisdom, made incarnate.Thus although she is isolated from
a narrative Adoration scene and presented with a noble and
majestic bearing which appeals to the lowly spectators for
veneration, she is, nevertheless, as Penny Schine Gold
points out in The Lady and the Virgin, a support for Jesus.'8
She serves as a sign of his incarnation and is important in
so far as she is the vehicle for his humanity.
135

FIGURE 5. Chartres, Cathedral: west facade, central portal, left jamb; Joachim with his sheep and Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate (photo: author).
In contrast to the central and orthodox iconic image of
the Virgin on the southern tympanum, the most expansive
narrativecycle of the Virgin in twelfth-century France is rel-
egated to what to modern viewers seems to be a marginal
space, that of the capital frieze (Fig. 2).19 This frieze on the
west facade at Chartres is made up of myriad animated
figures carved on the capital faces above the statue columns
and beneath continuous architectural canopies. The figures
forming the frieze wind around the triple splayed portal
along the jambs towards the doors and along the projecting
buttresses. The frieze is clearly not as legible as the more
diagrammatical tympana, which can be read from a single
position taken almost anywhere in front of the screen facade.
The relationship of the figures to the capital surface fur-
ther contributes to the difficulty of reading the capitals rela-
tive to that of the tympana. The figures on the frieze are
smaller and the action flows over the capital faces without
accentuating the tectonics of the capital form. Thus rather
than using the independent basket shapes of the capital to
organize the figures, the capital faces are treated as the back-
drop for a continuous procession of events. For example,
scenes may continue over the gap between two capitals as in
the Adoration of the Magi, Joachim and Anna bringing an
offering to the Temple (Fig. 3), the Entombment, or the
Three Marys. Moreover, the compositions of the capitals
can be quite varied. Some capitals restrict a single scene to
a single face of a capital, such as in the Flight into Egypt,
the Bath of the Virgin (Fig. 6), the Baptism, and the Golden
Gate (Fig. 5). Other scenes run over several faces, such as
136
.rt
NEW
the Presentation or the Massacre of the Innocents (Fig. 4).
And some capitals, finally, present more than one scene on
a single face, such as the second capital on the central portal
left jamb which contains both the Anna figure from the
scene of Joachim and Anna bringing their offering to the
Temple and the pivoting figure of Anna expelled with her
husband from the Temple (Fig. 3). The fluid disposition of
figure to field on the capital frieze inhibits its assuming the
compositional clarity displayed on other parts of the portal
where single iconographic units-such as Christ in Majesty
or a zodiac symbol-or centrally composed scene are con-
fined to a single architectural space. For example, on the
voussoirs a single figure fills the entire block and on the
tympana the images of Christ in Majesty, the Ascension or
Creation, and Sedes Sapientiae consistently present a central
figure flanked by symmetrical attending figures within the
discreet arched field of the tympanum.20 In short, the figures
on the capitals are arranged in a horizontal band, a frieze,
lacking the characteristic compositional clarity displayed in
the other parts of the portal.21Moreover, as a consequence
of the continuous narrative,the frieze requires its readers to
change position frequently; and because of the shifting com-
positional patterns on the frieze, the process of reading the
story, of recognizing the different units, is more complex
than the reading of the other parts of the portal. Thus, irre-
spective of what the images signify, the viewing process
already sets up a tension between the more expansive and
complicated capital frieze and the iconic and monumental
Sedes Sapientiae.
 ........ ....
FIGURE 6. Chartres, Cathedral: west facade, central portal, left jamb; Bath of the Virgin and Joachim and Anna with the Virgin (photo: author).
The frieze and the tympanum, therefore, must be read
as giving articulation to the representedevents in two differ-
ent modes. Some scenes overlap-both have Infancy cy-
cles-but because the tympanum and frieze tell their stories
differently, they tell different stories. Indeed, the changes in
format and style indicate that the images serve distinct func-
tions in the context of their position on the facade. The tym-
panum, with its grand Virgin and Infancy on the lintel,
arrangedas an explication of the corpus verum, expresses in
clear and memorable language a theological statement.22The
frieze, on the other hand, engages the viewer in a narrative
about holy figures represented in all their prosaicness.23
Here, informality and animation rather than iconic distance
draw the viewer into contemplation of the images. The two
engage the story of the Virgin in very different ways and
thus a tension emerges in the way the portal tells the Virgin's
story. This tension cannot be explained simply by an un-
differentiatedinvocation of the Virgin's cult. Indeed, seldom
have specific characteristics of the cult been related to the
sculptural program.24A more probing analysis is necessary.
In the ensuing discussion I will do this, beginning with an
analysis of the cycle of the frieze in which I emphasize not
the iconographic sources, well discussed by Heimann and
Crozet, but rathera number of thematic strains, in particular
the dramatic gestures designed to represent psychological
states of joy and despair.25 From analysis of the iconogra-
phy, then, I will move to an examination of the cult, arguing
that the cult practiced in the crypt of the cathedral is closely
related to the story of the Virgin offered in the frieze. Its
audience is one addressed in the frieze; their concerns are
expressed in its imagery.
The Capital Frieze
The cycle of the Virgin begins at the center of the
facade on the left jamb of the central portal and moves in
a right-to-left direction (Fig. 8).26 Culminating on the north
portal's left jamb, the sequence then returns to the cen-
tral portal where it continues chronologically with a cycle
of scenes from the youth of Jesus beginning on the right
jamb. This portion of the cycle moves from left to right
and continues after the buttress pier with what has often
been described as an anomalously ordered Passion cycle.
The frieze ends on the right jamb of the southern portal
with scenes of Jesus's appearances to his apostles after his
earthly death.
As Heimann noted, the beginning of the narrative is
most unusual in so far as it focuses on the Virgin's parents,
Joachim and Anna, and their tribulations before the concep-
tion of the Virgin.27In the first scene on the left jamb of the
central portal Joachim and Anna together move to the right
bearing offerings for the Temple (Fig. 3). Before the actual
cathedral door a figure faces them, holding up his hand to
refuse their gifts for what was perceived as their sin of
being childless. The notable presence of Anna at the side of
her husband as he is rejected from those favored by god
highlights the bond between husband and wife as well as
the shared problem of infertility.28
137

...........
FIGURE 7. Chartres, Cathedral: west facade, central portal, left jamb; Annunciation (photo: author).
In the next scene on the corner of the capital Joachim
and Anna again appear together, pivoting to the left as they
are expelled from the Temple (Fig. 3). On the western face
of this capital an angel announces that Joachim and Anna's
prayers will be answered: Anna will conceive. Yet Joachim
is presented in a corner angle on the capital of a slim colo-
nette surroundedby his sheep with his head on his hand in
a gesture of despair (Fig. 5). He does not register the joyful
news.
In these scenes the pairing of Joachim and Anna and the
dramatic gestures denoting despair emphasize the spiritual
pain of the couple's childlessness. The emotional depth with
which their unhappiness is explored in this sequence of three
scenes is unprecedented. As Lafontaine-Dosogne notes,
Western representationsof the cycle of the Virgin (of which
this is the first), do not emphasize the emotional expression
so much as those in the Byzantine tradition.29Yet the issue
here is not of sources-that the Chartres designers may
have chosen a Byzantine manuscriptmodel for the cycle, as
Heimann argues-but of the desire to emphasize specific as-
pects of the Virgin by choosing to represent certain scenes
and by employing visual language that is unusually emo-
tionally expressive. Indeed, even the choice to represent all
three events in such emotionally charged visual language
is significant. We do not generally think of Romanesque or
early Gothic sculpture as psychologically perceptive, but
here the sculptor(s) have carefully observed body language
in order to render despair through the clash of Joachim and
Anna's paired bodies with the raised arm of the priest,
138
i
-c ::i!i~ii~iiii
....
through Anna's pivot, moving to the left and downwards
in a subtle spiral, and finally, through Joachim's hunched
shoulders. Acknowledging the psychological dimension of
the representations encourages the viewer to look beyond
doctrinal or liturgical explanations; indeed, one image would
have been sufficient to present the theological backgroundto
the miraculous conception of the Virgin. Thus instead of
looking to theology as the explanation for this cycle, we
should pay attention to the figural rhetoric that itself enun-
ciates a consistent theme in the cycle. Reading the cycle
on this level we become aware of the powerfully intimate
relationship between Joachim and Anna expressed through
gesture. We become aware of the spiritual pain of their bar-
renness, the pain that physically seems to oppress Joachimas
he sits hunched over, isolated in the corner, cradling his head
in his hand.
The sadness of the figures in these images contrasts
with their quiet happiness in the next: here, Joachim and
Anna sit on a bench before the Golden Gate, tenderly hold-
ing hands (Fig. 5). The warm welcome that Anna extends
to her husband, according to the Golden Legend, confirms
the angel's prophecy to Joachim that they will have a
child.30The gesture of embrace and the detail with which
their hands are entwined suggests profoundjoy.
On the other side of this capital is the scene generally
identified as a surrogatefor an image of the Birth of the Vir-
gin, that of the Bath of Virgin (Fig. 6). Following this scene,
the viewer finds unusual images whose inclusion has never
been satisfactorily explained. The next two scenes are fam-
 Chronological sequence of events.
Direction of movement within scenes in oppositon to general chronological flow of scenes on capital frieze.
[ Out of sequence scenes.
FIGURE 8. Chartres, Cathedral: west facade portal; diagram of Narrative Sequence and Direction of Figures within each Scene on the Capital Frieze
(drawing: Melissa Wall and Laura Spitzer).
ily scenes with little action (Fig. 6). In the corner on a cap-
ital above a colonette Anna stands with the Virgin as a child
before her while Joachim sits to their right. The representa-
tion corresponds to no known iconography and seems, in the
end, to function both as filler for this capital and as thematic
reinforcement, as an image of a family (defined by the pres-
ence of a child with two parents). The second image, on the
next major capital, is identified by Heimann through com-
parison with the Proto-Evangelarium of James as Joachim
and Anna walking with Mary to the Temple, a scene whose
theological or liturgical importance is not confirmed by its
presence in other, later, images in the western tradition after
Chartres.31 On the most basic level, then, both of these fam-
ily scenes represent another example of the desire mani-
fested in this programto expand upon the Virgin's life. Even
through it is an anachronistic metaphor, it is tempting to see
these extra-narrative filler scenes as family photographs
lined up on the mantle for public display. But this metaphor
neglects an essential quality of these images which is that
they are not read as static and isolated pictures but are part
of a narrative sequence and thus must be understood in re-
lation to the images that precede them. These family scenes
balance the scenes of the childless Joachim and Anna; hope-
lessness and approbationare superseded by the joy of fruit-
fulness and images of family.
This section of the first jamb is replete with images
which are unusual not only because this is the first cycle of
the life of the Virgin in the west but more importantly be-
cause some of the events or images never become part of
the standardrepertory of scenes for this cycle. And it is on
this section that the capital frieze gives shape to a clear
theme. This is a theme which, in comparison with the dia-
grammatical representation of events on the lintel of the
southern portal, is less concerned with Church dogma and
instead focuses more intently on the social and psychologi-
cal establishment of a family.
139
 The scenes in the ensuing section of the frieze belong
to traditional cycles of the Virgin but their narrationis ex-
panded by the addition of episodes leading up to the main
events. After the Miracle of the Steps when Joachim and
Anna bring the child Mary to the Temple, the adult Mary is
presented to Joseph. Then, after the Sposalizio, Joseph leads
Mary home. Thus three scenes with Mary and Joseph pre-
cede the Annunciation, which is found on the southern side
of the capital on the projecting pilaster (Fig. 7). This is fol-
lowed by the Visitation and Nativity on the front face. On
the northernside of this capital and running to the door, the
Adoration of the shepherds is followed by the meeting of
the three kings with Herod and then the Adoration of the
Magi. Across the space of the door, the frieze continues
with the Flight into Egypt and the Massacre of the Innocents
(Fig. 4).32 Two aspects of the representations are worthy of
note for my discussion. First, even the Annunciation, which
need include only the Virgin and the angel, is made into a
family scene here: Joseph appears seated at the side of the
Virgin (Fig. 7). And second, on the northern-mostjamb the
Massacre of the Innocents is presented in an extended rep-
resentation-it runs across a full nine capital faces (Fig. 4).
The prominence of this scene has never been satisfactorily
explained, yet an examination of its dramaticrepresentation
of children torn from their mother's arms and slain rein-
forces the theme of family established on the left jamb of
the central portal by presenting its inverse. Here, the family,
reduced to the core constituents of mothers and children,
and clearly emphasizing what is most valuable in a fam-
ily-that is, the children-is threatenedby armed men. As I
will suggest below, this theme resonates with the focus of
the folkloric cult of the cathedral.
The unusual thematic focus of the cycle of the life of
the Virgin, however, is only part of what makes the capital
frieze so anomalous and the representation of the Virgin at
this monument so intriguing. Equally important for our ex-
amination of the representation of the Virgin at Chartresis
understanding how the part of the frieze with the cycle of
the Virgin relates to the rest of the capital frieze. We need
to understand the effect of the organizational structure of
the entire capital frieze on the process of reading the cycle
of the Virgin. Indeed, we must ask why the planners of the
west facade programdesigned a narrativecycle that encour-
ages the viewer to begin reading at the central portal and
then walk to the left to continue reading until abruptly the
sequence ends at the northernmostbuttress at which point
the viewer, in order to complete the story, is forced to walk
back to the central door to begin reading again, this time
walking to the right (Fig. 8). What is the point of this seem-
ingly bizarre oppositional organization?
To answer this we must look at the effect it has on our
interpretationof the story. In its formal organization the bi-
laterally symmetrical composition and opposition of right-
to-left and left-to-right reading direction of the narrative
140
capital frieze suggest a substantive or thematic opposition
between the parts of the frieze that are read in opposite
directions.33Yet the consistent chronological progression,
despite the rearrangementsof sequence within the general
framework, suggests that the structuralopposition serves as
a trope to encourage a rereading of the earlier part of the
narrative in light of the sequentially later part. Indeed, as
narratologists generally agree, in the sense that we interpret
earlier received information in light of what we read later,
all reading is in a sense a process of re-reading. It should be
emphasized that arguing this process of re-reading for the
way in which the capital frieze would be interpreted is not
dependent on a culturally conditioned hierarchy of left-to-
right reading in western literate cultures. Whether or not the
Chartres viewers could read texts, the right side of the por-
tal is privileged by the chronologically later events in the
story of Christian history. All Christians who read this por-
tal know the story beforehand and thus re-orient themselves
according to the sequence of events. Even the re-orderingof
some of the events on the right half of the facade does not
obscure the general organization in which chronologically
earlier scenes are found on the left half of the facade and
read right-to-left while the chronologically later events are
organized as if they were sequentially arrangedleft-to-right
on the right half of the facade. The implications of the hy-
pothesis that viewers re-read the cycle of the Virgin in light
of the Passion is not only to suggest that the life of the
Virgin is a prelude to that of Jesus, as biological necessity
dictates, or to his sacrifice. Rather, because of the unusual
nature of the images in the cycle of the Virgin which, I will
argue, relate directly to the focus of the cult of the Virgin at
Chartres,the implications concern the cult itself. These will
be addressed more fully later.
The Cult of the Virgin at Chartres
Chartres' cycle of the life of the Virgin is indeed un-
usual. This is the first representationof the story of the Vir-
gin's parents in monumental form in France; some of the
scenes are not encountered anywhere else in western icon-
ography; the scenes focus on unusually tender relationships,
and particularly family bonds, between the characters; and
they express ideas about the Virgin that are rarely encoun-
tered in contemporary theological texts or in explanations
of the cult of the Virgin given by twentieth-century art his-
torians. In this cycle there are no references to the interces-
sory powers of the Virgin or to her qualities of mercy.
Instead, the cycle begins with Joachim and Anna. The life
of the Virgin's parents is told as a dramatic and expressive
story about their infertility and then the subsequent joy of
conceiving a child. Although the emphasis on Anna and the
Virgin has always been explained by the great devotion to
the Virgin and the presence in the cathedral of the relic of
the tunic, worn when she gave birth to Jesus, the frieze
evinces special attention to concerns which have not been
explained, and I do not think can be explained, by recourse
to doctrinal or liturgical issues. Rather, the focus on family
issues and psychological or emotional relationships sug-
gests that this cult should be distinguished from what has al-
ways been presented in the literature as a universal cult and
from what is practiced in the upper church, as suggested by
the thirteenth-centuryOrdinary.
To ask how these images relate to the cult of the Virgin,
we must ask about local beliefs and practices, about the
shape of the cult at Chartres. Information about the cult of
the Virgin at Chartresis plentiful although it has been little
utilized by art historians. In particular, material suggesting
the existence of folkloric practices has been generally ne-
glected in the recent literature.There are three main sources
for the cult of the Virgin at Chartres: Jean le Marchant's
Miracles de Notre-Dame de Chartres, the Chartres Ordi-
nary, both from the thirteenthcentury, and the Vieille Chro-
nique of the fourteenth. The richest of these is the vernacular
Miracles by Marchant, dated 1262, and based on an earlier
thirteenth-century Latin text.34 This collection includes
thirty-two miracles, all of which, save one, take place at
Chartresand the majority of which take place after the 1194
fire.35 It is quite explicitly written to aid the fundraising
effort for the new building.36The tales are generally simple
stories, most of which involve everyday situations; genre
scenes featuring characters of peasant or laborer status are
the most common. Exemplary of the stories and charactersis
one that tells of a mother who goes to attend to business,
leaving her daughter in the care of a guardian.37When the
guardian tires of the baby's cries, she hands it a piece of
glass with which to amuse itself and which, not surprisingly,
the baby swallows. The mother returnsto find her child dead
and, as in many of the other miracles, the climax is marked
by her invocation of the Virgin. The regurgitation of the
piece of glass and the miraculous resuscitation of the child
occurs as the mother carries it to the cathedral. Other fre-
quently repeated plots or types of miracles that also occur in
the context of mundane experiences concern peasants who
profane holy days by working (three miracles) and those that
tell of pilgrims traveling in groups with provisions for the
construction of the cathedral at Chartres (five miracles).38
The more unusual events recounted in the Miracles concern
an epiphany of the Virgin in the church at Chartres, the use
of the tunic to repulse invading Normans from Chartres,and
the Virgin's intercession to release a knight-pilgrim from
imprisonment during a period of war.39But the majority of
miracles involve more ordinary circumstances.
Also useful as a source for the cult at Chartres is the
fourteenth-century Vieille Chronique which recounts the
history of Chartres beginning with the almost miraculous
foundation of the church before the birth of Jesus and refer-
ence to the prophetic statue of the Virgo Paritura, the Virgin
who will give birth.40This is clearly written at a time when
the clergy is trying to capitalize on the antiquity of the cult
at Chartresand its special relationship with the Virgin.41On
the other side of the liturgical spectrum from the Miracles is
the thirteenth-century Ordinary, which, while it tells us
about the ritual functions of the church as the seat of a
bishop, that is as a cathedral, reveals little about the cult of
the Virgin.42The most importantinformation it offers is the
enumeration of the three feast days celebrated at Chartres
commemorating events in the Virgin's life, the Annuncia-
tion, the Nativity of the Virgin, and the Purification.43As far
as liturgy is concerned, most of the ceremonies detailed in
the Ordinary take place in the choir of the church, while the
sites of the cult whose miracles are recounted in Marchant
and the Vielle Chronique did not take place in the choir.
Instead, modern scholars of the cult at Chartres have con-
cluded that it centered on the sacred sites in the subterranean
church.44 As if to emphasize the distinction between the
official cathedral role of Chartres and the folkloric cult,
Marchant nowhere makes any reference in the Miracles to
Chartres as a cathedral.45
Analysis of these and other sources can help to situate
the cult of the Virgin at Chartres among a local, rurally-
based following. According to the topographical distribu-
tion of miracles in the Miracles of Notre Dame of Chartres
as well as of pilgrimage medallions purchased at Chartres,
Andre Ch6deville identifies Chartres as a local pilgrimage
site.46 Only four out of the 32 miracles take place more than
100 kilometers away: two each in Aquitaine and Soissons.
Thirteen are less than thirty kilometers away, thus a day's
walk. He also argues that the money needed to rebuild the
cathedral after the 1194 fire was raised from the local coun-
tryside, furthersuggesting that, despite its renown, Chartres'
significance as a site of worship in the twelfth century is
local ratherthan international, as von Simson proposes.48
Ch6deville's analysis of the cult following in terms of so-
cial class is more problematic. He identifies the worshippers
as primarily coming from the upper class, especially among
ecclesiastics.49 Yet Ch6deville's reliance on written testa-
ments-diaries and letters as well as the cartularyof the ca-
thedralfor donations-skews his results. Written sources can
come only from this stratum;the uneducated leave neither
large donations nor written testaments of devotion. In con-
trast, in the Miracles only three of the miracles involve pro-
tagonists who clearly belong to the upper class, while the
majority are referredto without elaboration or are identified
as peasants.5? Indeed, B6t6rous found in the miracles a
concern for humble people in ordinary circumstances.51His
analysis of the actors in the miracles suggests that, despite its
widespread fame, Chartresserved a general public from the
local arearatherthan a geographicallywide-rangingelite one.
The local natureof the cult and thus the homogeneity of
the culturalframeworkmay explain how some special beliefs
and practices could have survived in this cathedral church.
Indeed, in two of the most importanttexts concerning the cult
141
at Chartresthere is an explicit strategyto representthe cult as
unique and different from other cults of the Virgin. Both the
Miracles of Notre-Dame of Chartres of Jean le Marchantand
the fourteenth-centuryVieille Chroniquego to great pains to
associate the cult of Notre-Dame with the specific sanctuary
of Chartres.52And particularlyin the miracles of cures or the
resuscitation of dead children, the focus of the cult is iden-
tified not as the Virgin, or even Saint Mary, but as the Lady
of Chartres.53 Thus in the Middle Ages there was a clear as-
sociation between the site of the cathedralof Chartresand the
Virgin, who was especially responsive to a particularclass of
concerns. This association was reinforced by the church'sen-
couragement of the production of its history through texts
such as the Miracles and the Vielle Chronique.
The Miracles, once again, provide one of the best
sources of information on what were probably the main con-
cerns of the twelfth-century cult at Chartres.Through analy-
sis of the miracles we can identify the supplicants and their
reasons for appealing to Notre-Dame of Chartres. The two
most frequently cited reasons for which people came to
Chartreswere to pray for a miraculous cure (ten miracles) or
to seek resuscitation for a loved one after an accidental death
(six miracles).54 Although modern sources such as the Doc-
umentary History of Art Series has made us most familiar
with the pilgrims pulling carts with materials for the con-
struction of the post-1194 cathedral, the pilgrims in these
five miracle are always discussed en masse and without men-
tion of motivations other than to venerate the Virgin."5While
the sanctuaryof Chartresis also particularlyassociated with
cures for the mal des ardents, suffered since the time of and
even by Bishop Fulbert in the early eleventh century, this
plays a small role in the Miracles of Jean le Marchant.56In
fact, only three out of thirty-two miracles concern the mal
des ardents.57Yet, while therapeutic miracles make up the
largest group, these miracles do not neatly coalesce into
homogeneous groups of types of miracles or narratives.Ex-
cept for the three cases of mal des ardents, the other illnesses
or infirmities cover a spectrum of medical ailments and a
broad range of age and gender categories. The plots of these
stories are also quite varied. Instead, the largest, most homo-
geneous group of supplicants are mothers praying for the
Virgin's intercession to resuscitate or save a threatenedchild.
As Gerard Gros's study of the theme of "l'enfant sauv6"
reveals, seven out of thirty-two miracles, or one-fifth to one-
sixth of the total verses, present concerned mothers praying
for their children.58The number of miracles focusing on the
tribulationsof mothers, therefore, is greater than the number
of miracles of the cult of carts (five) with which Chartresis
more commonly associated. Five of these seven miracles
feature mothers calling on the Virgin to restore their
drowned children to life; in one the child dies by swallowing
a piece of glass; while in the remaining one a mother prays
to the Virgin to rescue her apparentlystill-living child from
a burninghouse.59 In conclusion, from their representationin
the Miracles, the largest category of devotees of Chartres'
142
Virgin identified with a specific motivation for their pilgrim-
age appear to be local peasant women who are mothers.
This information about the cult of the Virgin at Chartres
encourages me to construct a new story for the context
within which the capital frieze would be encounteredand in-
terpreted.It certainly provides us with a very different image
of Chartresthan we get from Katzenellenbogen, Ch6deville,
or Sauerlander, among the canonical writers, in which we
find two very different images of the cultic following: on the
one hand, we imagine peasants en masse acting as beasts of
burdenhauling carts and, on the other, we see educated cler-
ics and canons or perhaps knights (in the case of Ch6de-
ville), uniting at Chartreson major feast days, perhaps that
of the Nativity of the Virgin, in an act of piety that follows
the chivalric model of paying homage. Yet the Miracles sug-
gest the existence of a following with a class and gender
identity with whom we are much less comfortable for it does
not fit in as well with our image of the Middle Ages. Mar-
chant's representation of the supplicants encourages us to
imagine peasants of all categories as individuals, not just en
masse, and, in particular, peasant women-in their role as
caretakersof children-all of whom are motivated by prob-
lems of health.60 Unlike the pilgrims of modern scholars,
these ones probablydo not assemble at the cathedralon feast
days for group devotions but because of the nature of their
troubles arrive when accident or necessity dictates.
The Eyes of the Beholder
This group of viewers brought to their reading of the
capital frieze a special set of concerns. An audience of
mothers responsible for the health and safety of their chil-
dren might be particularly receptive to one very important
image in the Virgin cycle: the Massacre of the Innocents
(Fig. 4). While it is not an exceptionally importantevent in
the narrative, the Massacre is given the longest span of any
scene on the frieze, running over a full nine capital faces. In
this scene with its extended focus soldiers attack the chil-
dren, tearing them from their mothers' arms, sometimes
stabbing them with long swords, or cutting off their limbs,
while the mothers vainly attempt to pull them away to
safety or, if it is too late, embrace their already dead chil-
dren. One child on the western face reaches for its mother,
one hand around her neck, while a soldier pulls him away.
This representation uses a gestural rhetoric of great emo-
tional intensity that encourages sympathetic identification
with the main actors in the story. Indeed, the vivid images
of mothers fighting with Herod's soldiers for their childrens'
lives seem to play on those same fears that inspired devo-
tion through the reading in the Miracles of the mothers
praying for their drowned children.
In a more general way, however, the capital frieze dem-
onstrates a special interest in women's concerns.6'The cycle
of Joachim and Anna is a story about infertility. The emo-
tional depth with which it is visualized may signal that these
concerns were importantfor those visiting the cathedral. In-
deed, the event of Anna's giving birth to the Virgin was me-
morialized in the cathedral service as part of an important
liturgical ceremony at Chartressince the time of Bishop Ful-
bert, when he introduced the feast of the Nativity of the Vir-
gin.62Although the origin of the association of the cult of
the Virgin of Chartres with childbirth is unclear, the cathe-
dral's most powerful relic, the tunic of the Virgin, the che-
mise that she is said to have worn when she gave birth to
Jesus, is described in the Miracles as given to the cathedral
in the ninth century by Charles the Bald.63That it was par-
ticularly associated with the dangers of childbirth and de-
livery seems to be borne out by the later practice, begun in
the sixteenth or seventeenth century, of giving copies of the
chemise that were then blessed in the cathedral itself to
royal women before they delivered.64Moreover, the integra-
tion into the cathedral liturgy of the feast of the Purification,
one of the three feast days cited in the thirteenth-century
Ordinary which specifically celebrate the Virgin, builds or
perhaps reinforces the link between the site of Chartres,the
Virgin, and childbirth.
These special associations with Notre-Dame of Char-
tres may have been assimilated from pre-Christianpractices
focusing on mother deities. That Chartes' cult site grew out
of pagan pre-Christian culture is a long-standing idea ex-
pressed in the work of Male, Merlet, and van der Meulen,
among others.65 Even in the twelfth century there is evidence
from the legendaire, a text that was in the ChartresBiblio-
theque municipale (Ms 190) and dated c. 1150 by L6pinois
and Merlet, for the belief that the cathedral was built on the
site of what had previously been a pagan temple and was
later dedicated to the Virgin.66The fourteenth-centuryrefer-
ence in the Vieille Chronique to the statue inscribed "Virgo
Paritura," alleged to have been found before the birth of
Jesus at the site of the cathedral, may be an amplification of
this older legend.67Little firm evidence survives from this
early period to confirm the existence or focus of a pagan cult
at the site of the cathedral, but the region around Chartresis
known for local pre-Christian water cults.68 Moreover, as
Boisvillette notes, when the inhabitants of the area con-
verted to Christianity, the evangelists devoted the springs
and fountains to local patronsaints.69Boisvillette himself ar-
gues that because of the over-riding devotion to Notre Dame
there was less room for local devotion to water cults at Char-
tres. But he fails to note that the local cult in the crypt
focused on a water source, a miraculous well, known as the
Sanctus-Locus-Fortium.70Moreover, the forty-four sacred
springs in the Eure-et-Loir, many of which were the site of
devotions until the nineteenth century, would provide a
cultural context for veneration of the well inside the cathe-
dral, insuring the survival of local pre-Christian belief and
practice long into the Christian period. Within the town of
Chartres there is, in fact, an immediate example of another
church built over an originally sacred spring: the church of
St. Andr6, of Merovingian foundation, on the banks of the
Eure below the cathedralwas built above a spring which was
used as a baptismal font.71Considering this context of folk-
loric tradition within the region and town, it would not be
unusual for the cult at Chartres to have continued serving
some of its pre-Christianfunctions.
What is less clear, however, is the relationship between
pre-Christiantraditions and devotion to the Virgin. Not sur-
prisingly, we do not know when the Virgin first became
associated with the site. We know that the very earliest mir-
acles recorded as taking place at Chartreswere not attributed
to the Virgin, but revolve around the sacred well located in
the crypt of the church (Fig. 9).72 As early as aroundthe year
600, however, Bishop B6thaire came to Chartresto pray to
the Virgin.73In addition, a charter of 768 by Pepin le Bref
mentions the church of the Virgin of Chartres,"ad ecclesiam
Sanctae-Mariae Carnotensis urbe," and the oldest text men-
tioning the consecration of the church to the Virgin dates
from the tenth century.74Miracles attributedto the Virgin's
intervention are recorded from the ninth century on, after the
gift of the relic of the sacred tunic.75By the twelfth century
the wells are associated with a hospital in the crypt, de-
scribed in the Vieille Chronique as a place where those sick
with the mal des ardents stay for nine days awaiting the cure
of the Virgin.76The early cult at Chartres, therefore, seems
to have focused both and perhaps simultaneously on the
Virgin and on the well in the crypt, although the relationship
between these two still remains to be clarified.
The context of this cult, focusing on a well of Gallo-
Roman facture, gives new resonance to one image on the
capital frieze so far quickly glossed over. The strangeness of
the image of the Bath of the Virgin is seldom noted (Fig. 6).
Flanked by two attendants,a grown woman, not a newborn
baby, is immersed in a tub made out of a barrel. It is above
all the placement of this image after the Golden Gate and be-
fore the family scene of Joachim and Anna with the Virgin as
a child to the left that suggests that the woman in the tub rep-
resents the baby Virgin. It is also similar to the image of the
Bath of the Christ Child at Etampes where a grown man is
immersed in the same kind of barrel.Indeed, the scene is one
of conventional iconography.77The immense size of the Vir-
gin is an anomaly in the representational language of the
frieze, however, where children are usually shown naturalis-
tically in small scale. Thus its significance is more than as an
alternativeor substitutefor a scene of the Birth of the Virgin.
The designers of the programmay be drawing upon pilgrims'
associations with the well and its cult in the crypt. Chartres'
earliest miracles, recorded in the Vieille Chronique, concern
martyrs-among them a woman, St. Modeste--who were
thrown into the well and miraculously survived.78Moreover,
the well in the twelfth century was part of a healing cult un-
der the Virgin's care; and six of the miracles told by Jean le
Marchant concern drownings, two of which take place in
wells.79 Although the specific message of the image of the
Bath of the Virgin remains unclear to the modern viewer, it
does seem to be rich in allusions to the cultic power centered
143
 -6

14:
ducalorifIre
local
l r
post.-104C
II
accsau cheur carolingien
5: 000000

f gallode
16:fondationsdetradition dcouvertesen 1901
romane

5: acces au chceurcarolingien
6: couloir
7: puits votcarolingien-,----
desSaints-Forts 4--6-J-"-
8: chapellet -
St-St-Savinien
9: chapelle .....
10: chapelleSt-C1e6ment
9: enrochements
St-Clement
vus dansl'avant-chceur
en 1891
10: enrochements
11:piedroits vusdans
en l'avant-cheur
deacouverts 1891 en 1891 LIE-

12: escalierd'acc's I la crypteSt-Lubin(XIIIesi~cle)

'
13: acce's la crypteSt-Lubin(XVIIIesiecle) "
14: local du calorif~re
15: contrefortajouteau murromandecouverten 1891 s
16: fondationsde la faqaderomanedecouvertesen 1901
FIGURE 9. Chartres, Cathedral: crypt, plan (after Joly, with permission of the Socite' archdologique d'Eure-et-Loir).

on the well in the crypt. These allusions depend on the
viewer's familiarity with the cult. It is surely our lack of
familiarity with the details of the cult that makes this image
so difficult to understand.
Nevertheless, the Gallo-Roman well may be one of the
strongest clues that link the medieval Chartraincult with its
special attention to women's concerns and children's health
and safety to pre-Christian traditions. Indeed, as Boisvil-
lette notes in his nineteenth-centuryStatistique archdologi-
que d'Eure-et-Loir,at other sites of water cults in the region
there is a connection between cures and children.80 Even in
his lifetime women were still bringing their children for
cures to the sacred fountains of Notre-Dame de Gallardon,
Saint-Odoir, and Saint Germain de Sours. Thus the pres-
ence of this sacred well with curative powers in the crypt at
Chartres, in a region with this strong folkloric tradition and
its own associations with originally folkloric traditions,
suggests that the cult of Notre-Dame of Chartres may re-
focus devotion from an originally pre-Christian water cult
to that of the Virgin Mary.
The consistency with which older remnantsin the crypt
are incorporated into new building programs at Chartres
suggests an analogous process of accommodation or appro-
priation. As the cultic focus of the cathedral site, the crypt

144
was preserved in subsequent building projects: the Gothic
choir was built above the pre-Romanesque structures and
Fulbert's famous ambulatory encircled and thus preserved
the older parts of the crypt where the cult was practiced.81
This suggests if not a strategy at least a tradition in which
originally sacred sites never lost their power and impor-
tance. The operating strategy at Chartres, then, for this
period of the Middle Ages (until the sixteenth century),
seems to be one in which sites and practices are conceived
of and constructed as complementary to each other.
In summary, our reading of the texts from Chartres,the
Miracles and the Vieille Chronique, as well as our reading
of the archeological remains of the crypt (particularly the
well) in tandem with information about regional traditions
that continued up until the nineteenth century, suggest that
the cult of Notre-Dame of Chartres may have particularly
served an audience of women pilgrims from the local area,
probably in continuation of pre-Christiantraditions. Indeed,
the capital frieze addresses this special audience with a ges-
tural rhetoric that conveys with great emotion a dramatic
narrativein which family issues, fertility, health, and safety,
take center stage. While there is evidence to suggest that
elsewhere in twelfth-century France the cult of the Virgin
particularly served women, these issues of cultic focus have
generally been overlooked.82In the writings of our contem-
poraries, save that of Van der Meulen, the cult of the Virgin
has been neutralized and its continuity with pre-Christian
rituals and beliefs has been made almost imperceptible.83
Evaluating Opposition
Even when the special cult of the Virgin is given un-
precedented prominence in the sculptural program on the
west facade, it is simultaneously marginalized within the
capital frieze in its relation to the Christological cycle:
Mary's life is presented as part of Jesus' and she appears
without him only on a single jamb before the buttress
between the central and northern portals. Indeed, theo-
logically her story is part of his story of the Incarnation.
Moreover, the contrast between the first jamb of the cycle
of the Virgin, read right-to-left, and that of the Passion,
read left-to-right, distinguishes the different cults and their
foci (Figs. 3, 5, 6, 7, 10). The images of Joachim and Anna
and the young Virgin display the focus on family health and
fertility of the folkloric cult while the Passion refers to the
pivotal event of Christian history which is re-lived and me-
morialized daily in the Mass. Yet, as the story of the Virgin
eventually becomes that of Jesus, so this folkloric cult is
constructed as leading to devotion of Jesus. Indeed, ortho-
dox theology explains devotion to the Virgin as ultimately
veneration of her son. Even in the Miracles, a text written
in the vernacular but nevertheless a product of the church,
supplicants pray to the Virgin but Jesus delivers the mira-
cle.84 The strategy of presenting images resonant with the
folkloric cult as initially oppositional and yet eventually
complementary to the Passion, in conjunction with the dis-
parity between the different textual sources, suggests to me
that this local cult of the Virgin may long have been consid-
ered problematic, so problematic that it is positioned in op-
position to traditional mainstream christocentric devotion.
Perhaps the twelfth-century clergy who commissioned the
portal could be suggesting that the cult associated with the
Virgin, focused on the crypt, is mis-guided and needs to be
re-oriented, righted, as it were.
A similar argumenthas been made concerning the archi-
tectural design of the Royal Portal. These doors lead directly
into the nave, deflecting attention from the twelfth-century
entrance to the crypt through the stairs of the northerntower
(Fig. 9). In his review of Biographie der Kathedrale, Riidiger
Hoyer interprets van der Meulen's archeological observa-
tions on the relationshipof the post- 1194 portals (which were
never built), the towers, and the crypt, as suggesting that the
design of the portals was part of a strategy to draw attention
away from the Marian cult of the crypt.85The representation
of an extended cycle of the Virgin may be part of a parallel
strategy for it similarly redirects entrance. Consider the po-
sitioning of this cycle on the north half of the facade, which
seems to take advantage of the associations with the impor-
tant cultic sites in the crypt, such as the well, located in the
north gallery., In addition, entrance to the subterranean
church was down the stairs of the north tower, visible on
Joly's plan of the crypt (Fig. 9).86 (The south stairs, on the
other hand, were reserved for exit from the crypt to the upper
church.) As the positioning of the portals between the towers
was designed to minimize access to the crypt, according to
van der Meulen and Hoyer, the progression of the narrative
of the Passion re-orients the viewer to bypass the northern
entrance and instead to enter the church on the south side,
where we generally enter today. Even if the continuity of the
sequence from the life of the Virgin to Jesus' Passion sug-
gests that the Virgin is ultimately reconciled and complemen-
tary, in the basic structure of the frieze the Virgin of the
folkloric cult is no longer associated with entrance. She is
subordinatedto Jesus and presented in opposition to him.
Not only is the Virgin of the capital frieze constructed
as in opposition to (and ultimately reconciled with) Jesus,
but the whole capital frieze is undercutby its context in the
larger program of the facade. As noted before, in terms of
the entire portal program, the capital frieze is marginal: the
figures are the smallest on the facade and therefore the
viewer must stand close to read the frieze; moreover, be-
cause it runs across the re-entrantangles of the portals, the
viewer must move around to see all the images; in addition,
the shift in the direction of the narrative means that the
viewer must walk in an unusual pattern, beginning at the
central portal and then walking all the way across both sides
of the facade. In general, most attention, whether scholarly
or touristic, focuses on the jamb figures and the tympana at
145
..?:?
c x_i`*.
- ~-P
%:
::~-:
?1?,
::?:~I?~PLW~BII
::-
m Y:"~~E:-il
::
i::::::
iii-I
:P
FIGURE 10. Chartres, Cathedral: west facade, left jamb, southern portal; Last Supper, Peter Cutting off Malchus's Ear, Kiss of Judas, Arrest, Entry into
Jerusalem, Entombment,Three Marys at the Sepulcher (photo: author).
Chartres. Among the three tympana, the Sedes Sapientiae is
privileged in its relationship with the capital frieze by its
position at the conclusion of the narrative for the Passion,
which reorients the viewer from the right-to-left reading to
a left-to-right direction, depositing the viewer at the south-
ern portal. In this manner, the pattern of reading the portal
constructs a contrast between the Virgin of the capital frieze
and this orthodox version of the Virgin, the mother serving
as a throne for Jesus. Repeating the lines of van der Meulen
and Hoyer's argument about the design of the Royal Portal,
I would argue that not only does the position of the Sedes
Sapientiae draw attention away from the images relating to
the folkloric cult and, perhaps most important, away from
the traditional entrance to the crypt down the north stairs,
but it substitutes a different kind of image of the Virgin on
the south. The capital frieze concludes then by drawing the
viewer to what is another new monumental image for the
twelfth century as it leads away from what may, in fact,
have been more traditional ways of thinking about the Vir-
gin, as she was associated with childbirth and family issues
of health and safety. Despite the background for these be-
liefs in folkloric culture, the organization of their represen-
tation on the portal suggests that they were problematic
images. Indeed, the opposition between the cycle of the Vir-
gin on the left half of the facade and the Passion and Sedes
Sapientiae on the right reveals tension between the cults
and, in light of later history, suggests the eventual domina-
tion of the cathedral cult's focus on Jesus, associated with
the upper church, over the folkloric cult's focus on the Vir-
gin and the well in the lower church. The remodeling and
eventual closing of the crypt in the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries suggests that the discomfort with the cult of
the Virgin persisted. These actions lent the final death blow:
when the site was obliterated, so vanished the cult.87Today,
the uniqueness of the cult of the Virgin at Chartresremains
no more than a picturesque memory in the story of the
cathedral.
146
1~
1 ~b
4~ '
~I't
::i: ?";-~:
~rliBa 31- 18
~I '
ggr
?o:i-
The Cult of the Virgin and Gothic Sculpture
As promised in my introduction, I will conclude with
some questions concerning how we as historians recount the
story of Gothic sculpture. If Chartres's cult of the Virgin
developed from a pre-Christiancult and retained much of its
local characterand, most important,its distinctive following,
how do we understandthe emergence of Gothic style and im-
agery at this site? Moreover, since the cult of the Virgin that
I have explored in this article is particularto Chartres,what
is the role of Chartresin the expansion of imagery of the Vir-
gin in France? And if we looked at the specific practices and
beliefs at other centers with cults of the Virgin, would we find
similar local traditions at the root of the twelfth-century cult
of the Virgin? Indeed, Chatel's analysis of twelfth-century
miracles of the Virgin and pilgrimages to sites associated
with her cult suggests that Mary in her role as healer was
widely venerated.88My investigation has shown in the cult at
Chartres a Virgin very different from that one that scholars
of the Gothic have read in cathedral facades: a Virgin who
is locally specific and who is not merely an accessory to the
humanity of Christ. She requires that we ask anew who the
Virgin of the Gothic was.
This brings us full circle with the question that began
this query, that is, the relationship between twelfth-century
iconography and devotion. We must now ask how the
frieze of the cycle of the life of the Virgin relates to the
growth of interest in the humanity of Jesus. This is perhaps
the most critical issue in terms of the appropriationof im-
ages that were designed to address women's concerns. The
cult of the Virgin has always been interpretedas part of the
interest in the humanity of Jesus but, in fact, since the cult
of the Virgin at Chartres was originally probably autono-
mous and autochtonous, the evidence that suggests the
presence of this interest, namely the more sympathetic and
humane images of Jesus on the Royal Portal, may have
been the clergy's attemptto provide a more accessible deity
in the face of more popular spontaneous devotion to a
mother-goddess figure. Although visual imagery alone does
not provide sufficient evidence to prove this assertion, it
does raise sufficient questions to warrantrenewed query on
the relationship of the cult of the Virgin to Gothic style and
imagery. Indeed, the study of the history of the engagement
of the local church with local patterns of worship and belief
would seem very promising as a source of ancillary evi-
dence from which we could begin to resolve some of the
questions concerning the cult of the Virgin and the devel-
opment of the Gothic style at Chartres. These questions
could eventually lead us to re-envisage the period and style
of art we now call Gothic.
NOTES
* Chartres," M" moires de la Socite' archeologique d'Eure-et Loir, VI
For their careful readings and generous comments that have helped me
to clarify and refine my arguments, I owe many thanks to Linda Seidel
and the editor. For assistance with specific points and for reading ear-
lier drafts of this project, I am grateful to David Bernstein, Stephen
Murray, Jane Rosenthal, and Jenny Shaffer. I especially thank SR for
the searching questions of someone outside the field that have been so
critical all along. The material for this essay derives from a chapter in
my dissertation, "The Passion and Pilgrimage: Models and Images in
Twelfth-Century France" (Dissertation, Columbia University, 1992).
The germ of this essay was first presented at a symposium in honor of
Stephen Gardner, New York, May 1991. The section "Reading Posi-
tion" developed from a paper presented at the conference, "Roles of
Women in the Middle Ages: A Reassessment," at the Center for Me-
dieval and Early Renaissance Studies, SUNY Binghamton, NY, Octo-
ber 1992. I am also grateful for the assistance of a Bucknell University
Faculty Development Grant for the summer of 1993.
. For discussion concerning the choice of words, "popular"or "folk-
loric," see Michel Lauwers, "'Religion populaire',culture folklorique,
mentalit6s: notes pour une anthropologie culturelle du moyen age,"
Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique, LXXXVII (1987), 225-27. In general
I have chosen to use "folkloric" to distinguish the culture and cult that
developed out of pre-ChristianEuropeanculture from twelfth-century
clerical culture. Both of these must be considered different manifesta-
tions of twelfth-century Christian culture.
2. The opening of the Vieille Chronique records that "dicta ecclesia fun-
data fuerat, antequam Christus nasceretur,"and continues its myth of
pre-dating the origin of the church site with the reference to the statue
of the Virgin, E. de L6pinois and Lucien Merlet, Cartulaire de Notre
Dame de Chartres, 3 vols. (Chartres, 1862), I, 1-2, 38. Villette points
out that the legends concerning this statue only go back to this four-
teenth-centurytext while the mention of the Druidic cult is a sixteenth-
century interpolation, Jean Villette, "Que savons-nous de la Vierge
druidique de Chartres,"Notre-Dame de Chartres, XXI (1974), 12-14.
For the discovery of the sixteenth-century interpolation of the Druids,
see Maurice Jusselin, "Les Traditions de l'6glise de Chartres,"extract
Memoires de la Socite' archeologique d'Eure-et-Loir, XV (1914),
1-26, (Chartres, 1914), 15-16. For evidence of the longevity of these
myths see the early historical studies on Chartres,for example that of
the late seventeenth-centurywriter, M. J. F. Ozeray, Histoire ge'nerale,
civile et religieuse de la cite des Carnutes ou du pays Chartrain, vul-
gairement appele la Beauce, 2 vols. (Chartres, 1834), I, 13, where,
based on Julius Caesar'sdiscussion in the Gallic Wars of the sanctuary
of the Druids, Chartresis identified as one of the principal sanctuaries
of the Druids; also see the Chartrescanon J. B. Souchet (1589-1651),
Histoire du diockse et de la ville de Chartres (Chartres, 1866), 10-11;
also see Victor Sablon, Histoire de l'auguste et venerable eglise de
Chartres didiee par les anciens Druides a une vierge qui devoit en-
fanter (Chartres,1683), 1-7; Estienne Prevost, Petit Traite touchant la
fondation et erection de l'eglise de Notre-Dame et cite de Chartres
(1558; repr. Chartres, 1675), 3-5. Even in the late nineteenth century
this myth is repeatedby l'abb6Bulteau, Monographie de la Cathedrale
de Chartres, 2 vols. 2nd ed. revised and augmented by l'abb6 Brou,
(Chartres, 1887), I, 7, 16; and in a recent book, the myth of Chartres
and the Druids is even expanded: Jean Markdale, Chartres et l'enigme
des Druides (Paris, 1988).
Despite the popularityof this myth, Male argues that the statue of
the Virgin could not have existed before the twelfth century, Male,
Notre-Dame de Chartres, (Paris, 1963), 8. This is rejected by Et.
Sabb6, "Le culte marial et la genese de la sculpturem6di6vale," Revue
Belge, XX (1951), 101-25. In an unsubstantiateddiscussion, Roger
Joly argues that the veneration of the statue of the Virgin was a
strategy put in place around 1100 to exalt the antiquity of the church,
Roger Joly, "Permanencedes structuresantiques dans la cath6dralede
(1985), 15-16.
For bibliography on a variety of topics pertainingto Chartres,see
Jan van der Meulen with Riidiger Hoyer and Deborah Cole, Chartres:
Sources and Literary Interpretations (Boston, 1989).
3. The many anomalies of the west facade portals and their sculpture led
early scholars to hypothesize that the portals were moved and re-
mounted after the 1134 fire at Chartresalthough this has been rejected
in most recent criticism. See John James, "An Examination of Some
Anomalies in the Ascension and Incarnation Portals of Chartres
Cathedral,"Gesta, XXV (1986), 101-8; Paul Popesco, "Nouvelles ob-
servations sur la faqade ouest de la cath6drale de Chartres,"BSNAF
(1972), 94; Villette, "Le portail royal de Chartres. A-t-il 6t6 modifi6
depuis sa construction?"Memoires de la Societd archeologique d'Eure-
et-Loir, XLII (1971), 255; Ren6 Crozet, "Ml1anges: 'apropos des cha-
piteaux de la faqade occidentale de Chartres," CCM, XIV (1971),
163-64; Adelheid Heimann, "The Capital Frieze and Pilasters of the
Portail Royal, Chartres,"JWCI, XXXI (1968), 80-81; Etienne Fels,
"La Faqade de la cath6drale de Chartres au XIIe siecle et sur l'6tat
ant6rieurtel qu'il existait au XI siecle," BSNAF (1967), 232-33; van
der Meulen, "Histoire de la construction de la cath6drale Notre-Dame
de Chartres apres 1194," MWmoiresde la Socite' archeologique
d'Eure-et-Loir,XXIII (1964), 82. For a survey of the nineteenth-century
debate over the dismantling and reassembling of the west portals, see
Eugene Lefevre-Pontalis, "Les faqades successives de la cath6dralede
Chartresau XIe au XII siecle," MWmoiresde la Socited archeologique
d'Eure-et-Loir,XIII (1901-1904), 1-2.
No additions or replacements appear to have been made in the
course of restorations.For the dossiers of restorationson the Royal Por-
tal, see Monuments Historiques, Paris, Eure-et-Loir, Chartres Cath6-
drale, 820 dossier 3 (1920-1929), 820 dossier 4 (1930-1936), 821
dossier 5 (1937-40), 821 dossier 7 (1955-1963), 822 dossier 8 (1964-
1972), and Ministbre de la Culture, sous-direction des Monuments
Historiques, Paris, Eure-et-Loir, Chartres Cath6drale Portail royal:
sculptures qu'il a fallu remplacer, 1971, Eure-et-Loir,Cath6draleStat-
uaire, nd. For a descriptionof the most recent restorationsby the Archi-
tecte en Chef des MonumentsHistoriques,see G. Nicot, "Le Portailroyal
restaur6,"Notre-Dame de Chartres,LIX (1984), 5-15. Also see Colette
DiMatteo, "Le Portailroyal de Chartres:de la copie a la consolidation,"
Monumentshistoriques de la France, CXXXVIII (1985), 70-76.
4. See for example, Sauerlinder, Gothic Sculpture in France, 1140-
1270, trans. Janet Sondheimer (New York, 1972), 13; Sauerlinder,
"Sculpture on Early Gothic Churches: The State of Research and
Open Questions," Gesta, IX (1970), 32-36; Whitney S. Stoddard,Art
147
 and Architecture in Medieval France (1966; repr. New York, 1972),
153; Henri Focillon, The Art of the West, 2 vols., 3rd ed. (Oxford,
1980), II, 26-27; Arthur Gardner, Medieval Sculpture in France
(Cambridge, England, 1931), 202.
5. Willibald Sauerlinder, Gothic Sculpture, 32-36.
6. Sauerlinder, Gothic Sculpture, 32. His discussion of Senlis cathedral
is the only other point at which he clearly links the two phenomenon
when he concludes that the representationof the Assumption at Senlis
is "proof of the growing veneration of Mary in the West," ibid., 33.
7. Sauerlinder, Gothic Sculpture, 32.
8. Adolf Katzenellenbogen, The Sculptural Programs of Chartres Cathe-
dral (1959; repr. New York, 1964), 3-5.
9. Katzenellenbogen, The Sculptural Programs, 10-12. See also, Hei-
mann, "The Capital Frieze," 77.
10. For comparison, Katzenellenbogen devotes 18 pages to the southern
portal (pp. 7-24) and only two pages (pp. 24-25) to both the central
and northernportals together;the capital frieze is summarilydiscussed
in a single page (pp. 25-26), Katzenellenbogen, The Sculptural Pro-
grams, 5-26. In a revealing comment, he refers to the relation of the
frieze to the portals as "historical notes in a margin accompany a dog-
matic text," ibid., 26. See also Aubert, French Sculpture at the Begin-
ning of the Gothic Period, 1140-1225 (Paris, 1929), 23; Sauerlinder,
Gothic Sculpture, 32.
11. Henri Focillon, The Art of the West, II, 27. Emile Male, Religious Art
in France. The Twelfth Century(Princeton, 1978), 427-40; Male, Re-
ligious Art in France, XIII Century(New York, 1913), 232-36; Male,
Notre-Dame de Chartres, 29; Marcel Aubert, French Sculpture, 23;
Penny Schine Gold, The Lady and the Virgin (Chicago, 1985), 43-75,
where she also discusses the implications of the images and the cult of
the Virgin for human women; Marie-Louise Chatel, Le Culte de la
Vierge en France (These, Paris, 1945), 135. For analysis of the devel-
opment of the cult of the Virgin, see Hilda Graef, Mary: A History of
Doctrine and Devotion, 2 vols. (London, 1963), vol. I; Hubertdu Man-
oir, ed., Maria: Etudes sur la sainte Vierge, 2 vols. (Paris, 1949-1952);
Chatel, Le Culte; MarinaWarner,Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and
the Cult of the VirginMary (New York, 1983), which despite its popu-
lar nature is the best synthesis of the widest range of materials often
not discussed in other works; E. R. Carroll,"Mary,Blessed Virgin, De-
votion to," New Catholic Encyclopedia (Washington, D.C., 1967), 365.
For an exception in the art historical literaturefor his careful presen-
tation of the problem, see Xavier Barral i Altet in Georges Duby,
Xavier Barral i Altet, and Sophie Guillot de Suduiraut,Sculpture, The
Great Art of the Middle Ages from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Century
(New York, 1990), 117.
12. See especially Katzenellenbogen, The Sculptural Programs and
Adams, Mont-Saint-Micheland Chartres (Boston, 1905).
13. For discussion of the theology of the Virgin's intercession, see
E. Druw(, "La mediation universelle de Marie," in du Manoir, Maria:
Etudes, I, 417-572; Graef, Mary, 212-21, 229-30; Warner,Alone of
All Her Sex, 285-98; Chatel, Le Culte, 69, 82-92.
14. Although the major studies on Chartresemphasize the long-standing
natureof the cult of the Virgin, Chatel dates the cult at Chartresas be-
ginning in the eleventh century, Chatel, Le Culte, 261. This is based
on the eleventh-century date of the first recorded miracle related to the
Virgin's intervention and reveals Chatel's neglect of the archaeologi-
cal and historical material directly pertaining to Chartres.
15. Sauerlander, Gothic Sculpture, 32.
16. For the basic work on Sedes Sapientiae figures, see Ilene Forsyth, The
Throne of Wisdom(Princeton, 1972).
17. Katzenellenbogen, The Sculptural Programs, 11-15.
148
18. Schine Gold, The Lady, 49-50.
19. For the most recent monograph on the Chartres capital frieze, see
the dissertation of Rachel Dressler, "Medieval Narrative: The Cap-
ital Frieze on the Royal Portal, Chartres Cathedral" (Dissertation,
Columbia University, New York, 1992).
20. For the identification of the north portal as the Creation, see van der
Meulen with Nancy Waterman Price, The West Portals of Chartres
Cathedral: The Iconology of Creation (Washington, D.C., 1981).
21. The lintel underneaththe southern tympanum is the only other narra-
tive sequence on the facade besides that on the capitals and it too is
treated as a frieze. Yet, although the even spacing of figures on the
lintel renders the scenes more legible than on the capital frieze, clar-
ity is at the expense of drama.
22. For the most recent analysis of the tympana at Chartresas articulat-
ing an orthodox theological message, see Margot Fassler, "Liturgy
and Sacred History in the Twelfth-Century Tympana at Chartres,"
AB, LXXV (1993), 499-520.
23. As Hayden White argues in his discussion of the use of narrative in
historical writing, the narrativeformat is itself a device that engages
and persuades an audience of the truthfulness and significance of the
account, White, "The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of
Reality," Critical Inquiry, VII (1980), 5-27, esp. 26-27.
24. See, for example, Heimann, "The Capital Frieze," 77. For analysis of
the southern portal as explication of the theology of the Incarnation,
see Katzenellenbogen, The Sculptural Programs, 10-15.
25. Heimann, "The CapitalFrieze," 73-102; Crozet, "Ml1anges," 159-65;
Heimann, "A propos des chapiteaux de la faqade occidentale de Char-
tres. R6ponse de Mme. Adelheid Heimann'a M. Ren6 Crozet," CCM,
XIV (1971), 349-50; Crozet, "R6publiquede M. Ren6 Crozet," CCM,
XIV (1971), 350-53. Crozet notes that the gestures in this cycle are
characterizedby an unusual tenderness but does not draw any conclu-
sions from this observation, Crozet, "Ml1anges," 160-61.
26. For study of the narrativeand reading sequence of the related monu-
ment of Etampes, see Kathleen Nolan, "Narrative in the Capital
Frieze of Notre-Dame at Etampes,"AB, LXXI (1989), 166-84.
27. Heimann, "The Capital Frieze," 75-77.
28. Jacqueline Lafontaine-Dosogne notes that although the textual
sources for this apocryphalevent do not mention Anna's presence, she
is almost always included in Byzantine representations; Anna is not
represented, however, in Lafontaine-Dosogne's example of a Western
manuscript, the Wernherlied von der Magd (c. 1225), Lafontaine-
Dosogne, "Iconographiecompar6e du cycle de l'enfance de la Vierge
a Byzance et en Occident, de la fin du IXe au debut du XIIIe s.,"
CCM, XXXII (1989), 295.
29. Lafontaine-Dosogne, "Iconographie,"303.
30. Jacobus de Voraigne, The Golden Legend, trans. Granger Ryan and
Helmut Ripperger (New York, 1969), 523. According to Marina
Warner, the meeting at the Golden Gate marks the moment at which
Anna conceived, Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, 25. Lafontaine-
Dosogne notes that in the Byzantine tradition, the meeting of Joachim
and Anna is often referredto as "the conception," Lafontaine-Dosogne,
"Iconographie,"295.
31. Heimann, "The Capital Frieze," 76-78.
32. For furtherdiscussion of the role of the actual doors of the cathedralin
the representations,see Spitzer, "The Passion and Pilgrimage,"85-91.
33. This opposition is not equally actualized on all parts of the portal but
is most clearly expressed between two key sections: the cycle of the
Virgin before Jesus's birth and the Passion. For further discussion,
see Spitzer, "The Passion and Pilgrimage," 77-81.
34. Jean le Marchant'sMiracles de Notre-Dame de Chartres are a thir-
teenth-centurytranslationof an anonymous Latin text, Vatican Regina
339, which itself may be a copy of an earlier thirteenth-centuryLatin
text, according to Pierre Kunstmannin Jean le Marchant,Miracles de
Notre-Dame de Chartres, ed. Pierre Kunstmann(Ottawa, 1973), 2-3,
hereafter referred to as Marchant.
35. Four of the miracles are repetitions or variations of miracles reputed
to have taken place elsewhere but in this version are set in Chartres,
while only one of the miracles explicitly takes place outside of Char-
tres, at Soissons, although the supplicant is told to thank "la Dame de
Chartres,"Kunstmannand Marchant, in Marchant33-35, 58.
36. Andre de Ch6deville, Chartres et ses campagnes (XIe-Xllle sicle)
(Paris, 1973), 516.
37. Marchant,Miracle 6, pp. 94-99.
38. For miracles concerning peasants working, Marchant,Miracles 2, 25,
26, pp. 61-65, 190-205, 206-12; for miracles concerning the "cult of
carts," Marchant, Miracles 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, pp. 112-17, 118-23,
124-26, 136-39, 145-48. There are also three other miracles explic-
itly referring to pilgrims and distinct from either the "cult of carts"
type above or the type of women pilgrims which will be discussed be-
low: Miracles 21 and 24, Marchant, pp. 162-66, 183-89, concern
knights, and Miracle 20, following a very different story line than any
of the other miracles, involves two companions, one blind and one
mute, Marchant, pp. 155-61.
39. Marchant,Miracles 18, 24, 28, pp. 149-50, 183-89, 217-21.
40. "Dicta ecclesia fundata fuerat, antequam Christus nasceretur, in hon-
orem Virginis Pariture, et regebatur per pontifices ydolorum," L6pi-
nois and Merlet, Cartulaire, I, 1-2.
41. Jusselin, "Dernieres recherches sur les traditions de l'6glise de Char-
tres," extract Mimoires de la Soci t archeologique d'Eure-et-Loir
(Chartres, 1917), 4; Joly, Histoire de Chartres (Roanne/Le Coteau,
1982), 215.
42. Yves Delaporte, "L'Ordinairechartrain du XIIIe siecle," Mimoires
de la Societd archdologique d'Eure-et-Loir,XVIII (1947-1951), 1-2.
43. Delaporte, "Ordinaire,"53, 56-57.
44. R. Merlet, The Cathedral of Chartres (Paris, n.d.), 5; Delaporte, "Or-
dinaire," 24.
45. B6t6rous points out that the term cathedral is never used in the Mira-
cles, Paule V. B6t6rous, "Contribution a l'histoire du pelerinage de
Notre-Dame de Chartres'atravers la collection de miracles de Jean le
Marchant (1262)," Bulletin philologique et historique du comite des
travaux historiques et scientifiques, annie 1975 (1977), 57.
46. Ch6deville, Chartres et ses campagnes, 509-12; Ch6deville, Histoire
de Chartres et du pays chartrain (Toulouse, 1983), 93.
47. Ch6deville, Chartres et ses campagnes, 511, fig. 26.
48. Ch6deville, Chartres et ses campagnes, 515, 519. On the other hand,
Otto von Simson cites the national and international sources of dona-
tions, The Gothic Cathedral; Origins of Gothic Architecture and the
Medieval Concept of Order (New York, 1956), 171-80.
49.
Ch6deville, Chartres et ses campagnes, 509.
50. For the miracles involving two knights and a noble woman from Sully-
sur-Loire, see Marchant, Miracles 19, 21, 22, pp. 151-54, 162-66,
167-69.
51. B6t6rous, "Contribution,"56, 61-62.
52. B6t6rous, "Contribution,"55; Marchant;L6pinois and Merlet, Cartu-
laire, I, 1-2.
53. Clerval identifies an anomalous passage written by a twelfth-century
English monk at Bosham in his collection of the Miracles de Notre-
Dame (Toulouse, Bibliotheque Municipale, Ms 482) concerning how
the Virgin at Chartres should be invoked. According to this author,
supplicants at Chartres cannot simply refer to the Virgin as "Sainte
Marie" but must add "Notre-Dame," A. Clerval, "Deux manuscrits de
Toulouse," Mimoires de la Societe archdologique d'Eure-et-Loir, IX
(1889), 441-42, 448. This is not consistent with the way she is re-
ferred to in the collection of Jean le Marchant, where she is often
called the "la dame de Chartres,"and following that in frequency, is
invoked as "la douce dame."
54. For miraculous cures, Marchant, Miracles 1, 2, 4, 5, 12, 14, 15, 20,
30, 32, pp. 53-60, 61-65, 79-87, 88-93, 124-26, 132-35, 136-39,
155-61, 226-35, 238-41. For resuscitations, Marchant, Miracles 6-
8, 13, 16, 19, pp. 94-99, 100-103, 104-7, 127-31, 140-44, 151-54.
55. Marchant, Miracles 10-12, 15, 17, pp. 112-26, 136-39, 145-48. In
one of these miracles a pilgrim explicitly described as ill is healed
but this is subsidiary to the main plot of the story, Marchant,Miracle
12, pp. 124-26. For other texts describing the cult of the carts, see
Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed., A Documentary History of Art, 2 vols.
(New York, 1957), I, 49-51. For mention of pilgrims coming individ-
ually to Chartres,see Marchant,Miracles 20-21, 24, 27, pp. 155-61,
162-66, 183-89, 213-16.
56. L6pinois, Histoire de Chartres (1854; rep. Brussels, 1976), 225;
Marchant, Miracles 1, 30, 32, pp. 53-60, 226-35, 238-41. However,
in the Vieille Chronique the hospital in the crypt is specifically asso-
ciated with the mal des ardents, L6pinois and Merlet, Cartulaire, I, 58.
The miraculous cure of Bishop Fulbertis not retold in the Miracles but
is mentioned in the Vieille Chronique, L6pinois and Merlet, Cartu-
laire, I, 14. The full miracle is recounted by a twelfth-century English
monk at Bosham in a Latin manuscript (Toulouse, Bibliothbque Mu-
nicipale, Ms482) published by Clerval, "Deux Manuscripts,"448, for
a partial French translation, pp. 441-42. Another interesting associa-
tion between the Virgin and motherhood is suggested by this miracle
in which the Virgin nurses Bishop Fulbert back to health by squeezing
milk from her breast. For analysis of the image of the nursing Virgin,
see Warner,Alone of All Her Sex, 192-205.
57. Marchant,Miracles 1, 30, 32, pp. 53-60, 226-35, 238-41.
58. GerardGros, "Le Theme de l'enfant sauv6 dans les miracles de Notre-
Dame de Chartresde Jean le Marchant (XIIIe siecle)," Memoires de
la Socite' archeologique d'Eure-et-Loir, LXXXV (1981), 146. For
supplicants as mothers, see Marchant, Miracles, 6-9, 13, 16, 19,
pp. 94-99, 100-103, 104-7, 108-11, 127-31, 140-44, 151-54.
59. The child trappedin a burning house appears in Miracle 9; Miracle 6
concerns the piece of glass, described above; the others all concern
drownings; in Miracle 19 the Virgin is invoked not by the birth-
mother but by the child's noble god-mother, described as her devoted
guardian.
60. For the model of medieval women's pilgrimages upon which my im-
age of the Chartrescult is based see, Alain Guerreau,"Les pilerinages
du Maconnais: une structure d'organisation symbolique d'espace,"
Ethnologie frangaise, XII (1982), 7-30. Guerreaudescribes medieval
women's pilgrimages as unrelatedto the Churchcalendar of feast days
since they are generally in response to illness.
61. With hesitation I use the term "women's concerns" to refer to a range
of problems relating to fertility and childrearing because of their his-
torical association with women. Although both parents are undoubt-
edly concerned about the health of children, the Miracles and
available ethnographicinformation for France suggest that women are
more often responsible for the care and cure of children who are sick
or whose lives are threatened by accidents. Similarly, while male in-
fertility was acknowledged in medieval medical circles, according to
Shulamith Shahar, in popular belief women were more often blamed
for childlessness, Shulamith Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages
(London, 1990), 37.
149
62. Under Fulbert,Chartresbecame the first churchin the west to celebrate
this event. See Delaporte, "L'Ordinaire,"56-57. Or, as noted in the
Vieille Chronique,"Hic Fulbertus,gloriosus in vita sua, maximus doc-
tor in ecclesia, speculum fidei christiane, devotissimus beate Marie,
multos tractatusde ipsa et legendas multas eleganciores utpote de Nav-
itate que incipit Approbate Consuetudinis, composuit; quam Nativi-
tatem primus in Gallia celebrari procuravit," L6pinois and Merlet,
Cartulaire, I, 14.
63. Marchant,Miracle 28, pp. 217-18. According to Ch6deville, the tunic
probably was kept in the crypt of St. Lubin, the central axial chapel of
the subterraneanchurch and the oldest part of the building, below the
hemicycle of the Gothic upper church and the main altar, Ch6deville,
Histoire, 101.
64. F. M61y, "Les Chemises de la Vierge," Memoires de la Societe'
archeologique d'Eure-et-Loir,IX (1889), 107-18. The chemises were
also given to men in the fourteenth century to wear into battle, L6pi-
nois and Merlet, Cartulaire, I, 59. For a knight wearing a shirt blessed
by the Virgin of Chartresinto battle as armor, see Marchant,Miracle
21, pp. 162-66. For pilgrimage badges with images of the chemise,
see Ad. Lecocq, "Recherches sur les enseignes de phlerinages et les
chemisettes de Notre-Dame-de-Chartres,"Mimoires de la Societe'
archeologique d'Eure-et-Loir,VI (1876), 222.
65. For the suggestion that Chartres'scult of the Virgin grew out of pagan
pre-christianculture, see Male, Notre-Dame, 7-8; R. Merlet, The Ca-
thedral, 5; van der Meulen, Hoyer, and Cole, Chartres: Sources, 1-2.
For discussion of other cults of the Virgin focusing on the Virgin's
fertility and obstetric functions, see Warner, Alone of All Her Sex,
273-84. For the relationship of the cult of the Virgin and paganism
from a different perspective, see J. Danielou, "Le culte marial et le
paganisme," in du Manoir, Maria: Etudies, I, 159-81. For pre-chris-
tian cults in France, see Alexandre Bertrand,La Religion des Gaulois
(Paris, 1897), 44-46. For the study of medieval Maconnais pilgrim-
ages for women in which cults concerned with women's reproductive
health focused on fountains, see Guerreau,"Pelerinages," 7-30.
66. L6pinois and Merlet, Cartulaire, xvij.
67. See n. 2 above.
68. M. de Boisvillette, Statistique archdologique d'Eure-et-Loir(Chartres,
1864), xxxj.
69. Boisvillette, Statistique, lxxix. This strategy of evangelisation is gen-
erally acknowledged but the implications for the relation between
pre-Christian folkloric culture and the institution of the Church are
currently debated. For this debate and bibliography see, John Van
Engen, "The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Prob-
lem," American Historical Review, XCI (1986), 519-52.
70. Boisvillette, Statistique, xxxj. The full name by which it is known to-
day, sanctus-locus-fortium, is first recorded in the twelfth century al-
though the site is mentioned in an eleventh-century text of the Monk
Paul as miraculous and as a site of pilgrimage; the name locus-fortium
derives from the placement of the well next to the remnantsof a Gallo-
Roman wall from an earlier sanctuary,R. Merlet, The Cathedral, 5-6,
8-9.
71. See Ch6deville, Chartres et ses campagnes, 405.
72. See n. 70. For the most recent analysis of the archaeology of the sub-
terraneanchurch, see R. Joly, "Permanence,"1-18. For more bibliog-
raphy on the crypt, see van der Meulen, Hoyer, and Cole, Chartres:
Sources, 685-691.
73. Cited in Delaporte, Les Trois Notre-Dame de la cathddrale de Char-
tres, 2nd ed. (Chartres, 1965), 85, as Bibl. Hagiographica latina
1313-1319.
150
74. The charter is cited in L6pinois and Merlet, Cartulaire, I, 70; also
cited in Delaporte, Les Trois Notre-Dame, 85. The text of the conse-
cration of the church to the Virgin is cited by Jusselin, "Dernibresre-
cherches," 3-4.
75. Marchant, Miracle 28, 45-46; B6t6rous, "Contribution,"57.
76. "In dictis autem criptis est hospitale quod dicitur Sanctus-locus-
Forcium ... Locus enim iste mirabilis sanctitatis hactenus est habitus,
nam ad illum ex omni parte concurruntinfirmi qui ardentes vocantur
et sacro igne qui ignis Beate-Marie dicitur infirmantur;sed per [Dei]
et ejus genitricis graciam, infra novem dies quibus ibi manere con-
sueverunt, omnino sananturvel, ut in paucis, cicius moriuntur,"L6pi-
nois and Merlet, Cartulaire, I, 58. Although it remains at the level of
speculation, I wonder if the first evidence of the intersection of the po-
tentially originally pre-Christianwater cult in the crypt and the Virgin
might come from the eleventh century when Fulbertis reportedto have
been cured of the mal des ardents by a visitation of the Virgin who
cured him by squeezing milk from her breast into his mouth, see n. 56
above.
77. See Nolan, "Narrative,"177-78.
78. "In dictis autem criptis est hospitale quod dicitur Sanctus-loctls-
Forcium, eo quod pridem multitudo martirumibi passa fuerit martir-
ium, quorum corpora in magne profunditatisputheum ibidem factum
de tyrannorummandato, projecta sunt." "Cum Modesta virgine, filia
sua, ad fidem catholicam jam conversa, in magne profunditatis pu-
theum, apud dictam ecclesiam, in loco qui locus Sanctorum Fortium
nunc nominatur,precipitavit," L6pinois and Merlet, Cartulaire, I, 58;
I, 41.
79. For drowningin wells, see Marchant,Miracles 13, 16, pp. 127-31, 140-
44. For other drownings, see Marchant,Miracles 7-8, 19, pp. 100-103,
104-7, 151-54. For rescue before drowning, see Marchant,Miracle 22,
pp. 167-69.
80. Boisvillette, Statistique, xxxj.
81. Joly, "Permanence,"2-3, 6, 12; R. Merlet, "Les Fouilles de la crypte
et du choeur de la cath6dralede Chartres(1901-4)," extract (Vannes,
1905), 5; R. Merlet, The Cathedral,37; Etienne Houvet, Petit guide pra-
tique et complet du touriste dans la cathidrale de Chartres (Chartres,
n.d.), 9; Jusselin, Chartres dans le passe suivi d'une introduction a'
l'itude de L'Eure-et-Loir(Chartres,1937), 7. The authenticityand ven-
erability of the crypt is clearly an issue in the Miracles where it is re-
counted as intact after the 1194 fire, Marchant,Miracle 3, 35.
82. See Warner,Alone of All Her Sex, 273-82. See, however, Male, Mer-
let, and van der Meulen, n. 65.
83. For example, see Katzenellenbogen, The Sculptural Programs, 10-15;
Delaporte, Les Trois Notre-Dames.
84. Gros, "thbme," 157.
85. Riidiger Hoyer, "Compte-rendude lecture," Mimoires de la Socidtd
archdologique d'Eure-et-Loir,XI (1987): 35, 42. Hoyer refers in par-
ticular to the discussion on page 225 of van der Meulen and Jiirgen
Hohmeyer, Chartres: Biographie der Kathedrale (Cologne, 1984).
86. Van der Meulen, Hoyer, and Cole, Chartres: Sources, 1.
87. Joly, "Permanence,"9; Delaporte, Les Trois Notre-Dame, 27; A. Cler-
val, Petite Histoire de Notre Dame de Chartres d'apres les quatorze
gravures du Triompe de la Sainte Vierge dans l'dglise de Chartres
(Rennes, 1908), 12.
88. Chatel, Le Culte, 319.