The History Of Notre Dame

The Notre Dame cathedral's construction began in 1163 AD. There were many reconstructions of the Notre Dame due to fires, but its final construction was completed in 1345 AD. The Chartres cathedral's construction began in 1100 AD and was completed in twenty-five years. Both of these cathedrals lie in Paris, France. Notre Dame was built on the sight of a much older cathedral. Chartres is in southwest Paris on the Eure River in a forest that is sacred to Christians. The medieval construction and design of the Notre Dame, with its flying buttresses, incredible height, and perfect scale, and the Chartres, with its complex spires, beautiful stained glass, and ornamented portals, was and is important in the evolution of French Gothic style cathedrals.
Both the Notre Dame and Chartres were dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Bishop Mauricede Sully planned for Notre Dame to be built. He also raised funds for its construction, hired the architect that designed it, selected artists, and bought materials to adorn it. People called masons supervised the construction of Notre Dame while keeping their calculations of the building closely guarded. They would only pass these calculations on to new masons working on the project. There were so many people working on Notre Dame that, as Great Cathedrals states on page 91, “Tents, work sheds, dormitories, dining halls, foundries, kilns, piles of timber, stone, sand, pulleys, and winches filled the streets.”
One mystery about the Chartres is who built it. Names of the artists and sculptors who built Chartres were never found. The Chartres was financed by donations and taxes. Both the rich and poor donated and the taxes were collected on citizens' property. People provided labor in exchange ...

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...e Dame and the Chartres were amazing and ornate in their design. Their tall designs drew peoples' eyes to the heavens. Their extensive use of stained-glass is still used as a design feature in churches today. To think about it, a lot of work, money, and time were put into these two structures for strictly spiritual reasons. They were mainly dedicated to the Virgin Mary and several sections of them were dedicated to various saints. This definitely showed their ample faith and commitment to God. These two buildings were and are very important in French Gothic style cathedrals. The Notre Dame was the first cathedral that was built perfectly to scale. These techniques were used in construction of later cathedrals. Finally, later constructed cathedrals of French Gothic style were modeled after these two magnificent pieces of art known as Notre Dame and Chartres.