For nearly four hundred years Gothic style dominated the architecture of Western Europe.

It originated in northern France in the twelfth century, and spread rapidly across England and the
Continent, invading the old Viking empire of Scandinavia. It confronted the Byzantine provinces
of Central Europe and even made appearances in the near East and the Americas. Gothic
architects designed town halls, royal palaces, courthouses, and hospitals. They fortified cities and
castles to defend lands against invasion. But it was in the service of the church, the most prolific
builder of the Middle Ages, that the Gothic style got its most meaningful expression, providing the
widest scope for the development of architectural ideas.1
Although by 1400 Gothic had become the universal style of building in the Western world,
its creative heartland was in northern France in an area stretching from the royal domain around
Paris, including Saint-Denis and Chartres, to the region of the Champagne in the east and
southward to Bourges. Within this restricted area, in the series of cathedrals built in the course of
the 12th and 13th centuries, the major innovations of Gothic architecture took place.2
The supernatural character of medieval religious architecture was given a special form in
the Gothic church. 'Medieval man considered himself but an imperfect refraction of Divine Light
of God, Whose Temple stood on earth, according to the text of the dedication ritual, stood for the
Heavenly City of Jerusalem.'3 The Gothic interpretation of this point of view was a cathedral so
grand that seems to belittle the man who enters it, for space, light, structure and the plastic effects
of the stonework are made to produce a visionary scale. The result of the Gothic style is
distortion as there is no fixed set of proportions in the parts. Such architecture did not only
express the physical and spiritual needs of the Church, but also the general attitude of the people
of that time. Gothic was not dark, massive, and contained like the older Romanesque style, but
light, open, and aerial, and its appearance in all parts of Europe had an enduring effect on the
outlook of succeeding generations.4
Gothic architecture evolved at a time of profound social and economic change in Western
Europe. In the late eleventh and twelfth centuries trade and industry were revived, particularly in
northern Italy and Flanders, and a lively commerce brought about better communications, not only
between neighboring towns but also between far-distant regions. Politically, the twelfth century
was also the time of the expansion and consolidation of the State. Along with political and
economic developments, a powerful new intellectual movement arose that was stimulated by the
translation of ancient authors from Greek and Arabic into Latin, and a new literature came into
being. Gothic architecture both contributed to these changes and was affected by them.5
The Gothic style was essentially urban. The cathedrals of course were all situated in
towns, and most monasteries, had by the twelfth century become centers of communities which
possessed many of the functions of civic life. The cathedral or abbey church was the building in
which the people congregated on major feast days. It saw the start and the end of splendid and
colorful ceremonies, and it held the earliest dramatic performances. The abbey traditionally
comprised at least a cloister, a dormitory and a refectory for the monks. But the cathedral also
was around a complex of buildings, the bishop's palace, a cloister and the house of canons, a
school, a prison, and a hospital. However the cathedral dominated them all, rising high above the
town like a marker to be seen from afar.6
The architectural needs of the Church were expressed in both physical and iconographical
terms. Like its Romanesque predecessor, the Gothic cathedral was eminently adaptable. It could
be planned larger or smaller, longer or shorter, with or without transepts and ambulatory,
according to the traditions and desires of each community. It had no predetermined proportions or
number of parts, like the Roman temple or the centrally planned church of the Renaissance. Its
social and liturgical obligations demanded a main altar at the end of a choir where the chapter and
the various dignitaries would be seated, a number of minor altars, and an area for processions
within the building.7 There were rarely more than about two hundred persons participating in the
service, even though the smallest Gothic cathedral could easily contain that number. The rest of
the building simply supplemented this core and provided space for the laity, who were not
permitted to enter the choir or sanctuary. Still, after the middle of the twelfth century, the choir
was usually isolated by a monumental screen that effectively prevented laymen from even seeing
the service, and special devotional books came into use to supply the congregation with suitable
subjects of meditation during mass.8
The program of the Gothic church fulfilled iconographical as well as social requirements.
The intellectual centers of the Middle Ages had long been associated with the Church, and the
tradition of learning that had been preserved in monastic and cathedral schools gave rise to
universities such as Paris and Oxford in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Such an
association obviously had an effect on the arts, which were still primarily religious in nature.
Scholarly clerics, for instance, were appointed to arrange the intricate, theological programs for
the sculpture and the stained glass that decorated the church. The relationship is thought by some
historians to have been even closer, for scholastic thinking first took shape in Paris early in the
twelfth century, at the very time that Gothic architecture came into being there. It is possible that
architects, who were 'abstract' thinkers in their own right, may occasionally have absorbed some
of the habits of thought of the philosophers. In the absence of written documents, however, it
cannot be proved whether these habits were consistently embodied in the design of the buildings.9
The Gothic age, as has often been observed, was an age of vision. The supernatural
manifested itself to the senses. In the religious life of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the
desire to behold sacred reality with bodily eyes appeared as the dominant theme. Architecture
was designed and experienced as a representation of an ultimate reality.10 The Gothic cathedral
was originated in the religious experience and in the political and even physical realities, of
twelfth-century France. It was described as an illusionistic image of the Celestial City as evoked
in the Book of Revelation. The essence of Gothic style was most fully developed in its conquest
of space and its creation of a prodigious, visionary scale in the cathedrals of the twelfth century.11

Bibliography

Branner, Robert. The Great Ages of World Architecture: Gothic Architecture. New York:
George Braziller, 1967.

Gimpel, Jean. The Cathedral Builders. New York: Grove Press, 1983.

Mitchell, Ann. Great Buildings of the World: Cathedrals of Europe. Feltham: The Hamlyn
Publishing Group, 1968.

Panofsky, E. Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism. Latrobe: Faber and Faber Limited, 1951.

Simson, Otto von. The Gothic Cathedral. New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1956.

Worringer, Wilhelm. Form In Gothic. New York: Alec Tiranti Limited, 1957.