Day 13. Chartres- Bible stories and product placement.

At the start of Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code the protagonist is in Paris to give a lecture on the labyrinth in the floor of the cathedral in Chartres.  At the start of Day 13 we set out from Paris to explore the town of Chartres and its famous cathedral.

As far as cathedrals go, this one is rather special. The stained glass windows, which were removed during WW2 and reinstated after the war, are famous for their glorious colours especially the blues. On a beautiful sunny day they are truly magnificent. They proclaimed the wonderful stories of the Bible, in a period when most people were illiterate. They still speak today. However, not all of the windows depict Bible stories.  Many windows simply depict the agrarian world of the time. One window paid for by the local blacksmiths is said to be a very early example of product placement.

 The cathedral is also home to thousands of statues. A series of forty intricate sculptures around the choir stalls dramatically tells the story of Jesus.  We enjoy testing our Bible knowledge as we try to interpret each scene. See if you can work out which part of the story is depicted in the photo.

At the entrance to the cathedral are two huge spires one built in the 16^th century and the other in the 12^th. We climb the 300 or so steps up the inside of the younger spire to look down not only on the cathedral and the town but also the vast district that surrounds it. This vantage point was important in another chapter of the cathedral’s history.

During the Allied advance through France the decision was made to bomb and destroy the ancient cathedral for fear it was a German observation tower (which would have made sense). One American soldier was so disturbed by this plan that he volunteered to scout ahead into enemy territory to find out if the spire was being exploited, which it wasn’t. His dangerous mission saved the church from destruction. Tragically for the American soldier his gallantry was not rewarded as he lost his own life in battle a few weeks later.