
The Romance of Chartres

by John Simon-Ash


 The "Age of Light," a period of
enormous importance to Western Civi-
lization, extended from the second half
of the 12th century to the first half of the
15th (roughly 1130 to 1492). This era
was a turning point for a Europe
emerging from a long and troubled time
of invasion and destruction. The Age of
Light was a rebirth of learning: a great
pooling of philosophical and practical
knowledge derived from many sources.

The final years of the 11th century
were relatively peaceful. But Constanti-
nople, seat of Eastern Christendom,
was repeatedly besieged by Turkish
forces. The Byzantine Empire appealed
to the Christian West for mercenaries to
combat the Turks, and the city was
successfully defended. This victorious
campaign, coupled with the decay of the
Seljuk sultanate, offered incentive for a
limited Western reconquest of the
Middle East. Thus was the First
Crusade launched: a military expedi-
tion to free the " Holy Places" of
Palestine from the Turks and thus per-
mit safe access to Christian pilgrims
and merchants.

Overland through France and Spain
and North Africa, or across the Medi-
terranean via the port of Marseilles,
Crusaders (and later, European intellec-
tuals) journeyed to and from the Near
East. Particularly in France, an imme-
diate effect was the elimination of
rivalry among petty princelings whose
squabbles had ravaged the land for the
preceding centuries. The First Crusade
was a disaster; some 600,000 never
made it to the holy land. But a second
wave launched by ruthless European
barons succeeded in capturing
Jerusalem in 1099. Subsequent
Crusades led by European kings
brought temporary control of the whole
surrounding region. Though the
Crusaders' reign was short-lived, other
benefits lasted. One of these benefits
was to clear some of the most quarrel-
some warlords out of Europe.

Perhaps the most profound of these
benefits was the enrichment of
European culture through contact with
the Moslem world. The Arab architec-
ture, medicine, arts and sciences had
absorbed much from the ancient cul-
tures which preceded them. Jerusalem,
the "Holy City," was a great crossroads
of the Near East. Here the learning of
Moslem, Jew, and Greek converged;
exposure to this richly mixed Near
Eastern heritage had a profound in-
fluence on the European mind.

Those Crusaders who survived to re-
turn came home profoundly changed by
their sojourn in Moslem lands. Fasci-
nated by the commercial treasures of
the East: silks, spices, precious stones,
exotic fruits and vegetables unknown in
Europe, the Europeans soon established
sea trade routes. Arab architecture,
medicine, arts, and sciences had ab-
sorbed much knowledge from the an-
cient Greco-Roman traditions, and had
a tremendous influence. All of this had
the effect of releasing a huge pent-up
energy.

In the wake of the Crusades, a re-
ligious fervor sometimes known as the
"Gothic Crusade" spread over Europe.
A major manifestation of this was the
cathedral-building era, which has had
no equal before or since. Beginning
around 1137 with St. Denis Abbe
Paris, under Abbot Suger, the great
cathedrals were erected by itinerant
stonemasons, known as the ' compag
nons' or companions. These cathedrdals
displayed an extraordinary union of
mystical vision and practical craftsman
ship.

During the Crusades, many orders of
Christian warrior-monks flourished.
The greatest of these were the Poor
Knights of the Temple of Solomon,
founded in 1118 to defend pilgrims to
the " Holy Land . " More commonly
known as the Knights Templar, this
Order established its headquarters
the Temple Mount at Jerusalem.
Guardians of trade routes to and from
Palestine, the Templar Order became
fabulously wealthy in internatitional
banking, which they practically in-
vented. It is very likely that Temlar
money was a major factor in the financ-
ing of many, if not most, of the great
cathedrals.

Among Moslems, the Sufi Mystery
Tradition extended its influence
throughout the Middle East. The
Knights Templar seem to have had
many contacts with the Sufi Brother-
hoods, mystical orders within Islam
which preserved many secrets of the an-
cient world. Sufi mystics had developed
and retained the ideas of Sacred
Geometry over many centuries. It was
from the Sufis that much knowledge of
harmony and proportion of Sacred
Geometry was derived, which in in turn
went into the building of the cathedrals
of Europe.

The Knights Templar negotiated with
the Arabs for permission to do consttuc-
tion work in Damascus, Jerusalem, and
Cyprus. After years of experimentan-
tion, stonemasons employed by the
Templars developed the flying buttress.
It was the flying buttress, along with the
Near Eastern ribbed vault (replacing
the old barrel or groin vault) which rev-
olutionized the design of cathedrals.
These innovations enabled cathedral
walls to be built both much thinner and
much higher. The new type of construc-
tion also permitted vast openings in
which huge stained glass windows could
be placed.

The craft of constructing sacred build-
ings was initiatic in the sense that crafts-
manship has frequently been associated
with spirituality. The idea of the physi-
cal Temple or Cathedral naturally lends
itself to the concept of "sacred spcace".
and therefore the spiritual Temple that
each of us has the power to build within
our own lives. The willing apprentice
submits himself to the material in which
he works, and, at the same time, to his
own transformation. There is in this a
three-way process between the crafts-
man, the tool, and the material.

Geographically the Age of Light origi-
nated in the Parisian Basin: a region
known as the Ile de France which ex-
tends roughly a hundred miles around
the city of Paris. Situated on the river
Seine, Paris is surrounded by rich farm-
land. Crossroads of important trade
and pilgrimage routes and the seat of
French royal power, Paris was the ad-
ministrative center of medieval France.

One of the first of the many great
cathedrals built in this area was the
Cathedral at Chartres, which in turn
became one of the greatest centers of
learning in Europe. And it is about
Chartres that I intend to speak. Accord-
ing to researchers Rudolph Steiner and
Rene Querido, the Chartres Masters
and their pupils practiced a path of ini-
tiation with roots in the pre-Christian
past. Early Celtic Christians (as well as
the Knights Templar) held St. John of
Patmos, author of the Book of Revela-
tion, as their great exemplar and long
maintained the Greek liturgical calen-
dar as well as independence from
Rome.

Christianity inherited many European
Pagan customs; like many a great
cathedral, Chartres was constructed on
the remains of an ancient sacred site.
The word Chartres itself derives from
the Celtic word CAIRN, meaning
'place of the Altar'. More than two
millennia prior to the erection of the
Cathedral, Pagan Druidic priests knew
of the telluric (volcano or vortex-like)
powers which converged at this spot.
Beneath an altar-like dolman was a
grotto used as a Druidic temple; a well-
spring within it was thought to be en-
dowed with healing properties.

To the Druids and other Pagan believ-
ers, wells and caves symbolized the
realm of Death and Birth, and were
thus connected with Initiation. The
subterranean waters were said to focus
those telluric energies which favor al-
tered states of consciousness, divina-
tion, healing, and initiation. Like most
ancient Mystery Traditions, the Celts
never wrote down their sacred teach-
ings. Wisdom during the pre-Christian
era was passed by word of mouth
through the Bardic Colleges. Surely the
first Christian clerics of Europe must
have been converted Pagan holy men
and women.

An interesting feature of the interior
of Chartres is a huge circular labyrinth
in the pavement of the Nave. Pilgrims
could follow the labyrinth on their
hands and knees, and thus perform a
symbolic pilgrimage. It may be that this
labyrinth was used in initiatory rites.

Over the ages, thousands had come to
the sacred well at Chartres for healing
and other ceremonies. From antiquity
such springs also represented the flow of
life from the womb of Mother Earth,
the healing force of Divine feminine
energy. This well was in use right up to
the time of the French Revolution,
when it was desecrated.

Interpreting the Bible for the illiterate
common man of the Middle Ages re-
quired the use of symbols illustrating
Biblical history and the central myster-
ies of life. The artwork of Chartres
depicts Biblical stories as an allegorical
initiatic process, a shift in one's sense of
time to the timeless, symbolized
through the medium of its stained glass
windows and stone carvings.

In Medieval thought, the Virgin
Mary, by the innate purity and perfec-
tion of Her soul, symbolized all human
wisdom. Most of the European cathe-
drals, including Chartres, were dedi-
cated to. 'Notre Dame' or Our Lady.
The most treasured relic at Chartres
was a veil that Mary was supposed to
have worn. This veil drew thousands of
pilgrims from all over Europe, turning
Chartres into a thriving city full of mer-
chants.

Another treasure of Chartres which
survived until the Revolution was a
"Black Madonna" -- one of many
"dark-skinned" statues of the Virgin
Mary found elsewhere in southern
France and Italy, areas where Christian
Gnosticism once flourished. It seems a
strong possibility that many of these
statues began as Goddesses of the old
Pagan religions, or were inspired by
them. The essential Divine Female
power had been Christianized.

In the eyes of the medieval world the
individual human being was seen as
being contained in finite space and
time. To experience initiatic "union
with God," is to be outside Time. This
means connecting with timeless Truth
by shifting to a reality beyond linear
time. The feminine energy is essentially
cyclistic. Cyclicity, the idea of Time as
an eternal circle connecting all through
the process of cycles, is the underlying
principle behind many schools of mysti-
cism.

The Black Madonna of Chartres was
carried from the grotto every spring
around May 1st, which coincides with
the ancient Celtic feast of Beltaine. Her
triumphal progress into the light of the
sun celebrated the cyclic rebirth and re-
newal of all life. The Black Madonna
remained above ground until the end of
October. At Hallowmas (formerly the
ancient Pagan feast of Samhain) Her
ceremonial return to the underground
grotto marked the in gathering of the
crops of summer against the darkness of
the winter months.

These notions of cyclicity, balanced
harmony, and union with the Divine
Feminine were linked at Chartres with
the symbolism of the Black Madonna.
The entire architectural plan of the
cathedral is geometrically linked to the
form of its beautiful South window, "La
Dame de la Belle Verriere, " which
depicts the Black Madonna.

There are no dead bodies in the crypt
at Chartres, and there are few crosses.
This is because Chartres has always
stood for the triumph of life over death.
The image of Virgin and Child per-
vades the entire cathedral.

By coincidence, or perhaps by design,
the alchemical and Platonic metaphys-
ics of light and sound as active prin-
ciples entered into the mainstream of
thought from the 12th to the ideas of the
philosophers of ancient Greece had a
strong appeal. Eventually however, a
severe conflict developed between the
rational approach of Greek philosophy
(the way of logic) and the Fundamental-
ist dogma of the Roman Church. Reac-
tion and repression arose; many books
and people were burned. Such was the
fate of the Knights Templar, whose
wealth, learning, and power brought
envy and eventual charges of heresy.
Jacques DeMolay, Grand Master of the
Templar Order, was peeled alive, and
roasted to death on a slow flame in 1314
by the Inquisition.

Other rich and powerful nobles were
beyond reach, however, and some
championed the new learning. The
Medici family of Florence were power-
ful bankers, traders, and patrons of the
Arts. In Florence they established a
Neo-Platonic school to preserve the
heritage of the Classical Greco-Roman
-world. After the Fall of Constantinople
in 1453, many of its Hermetic manu-
scripts found their way to the court of
the Medici.

Medieval Jewish thought ran a some-
what parallel course, striking a balance
between the Greek rational/philosophi-
cal method and the dogmatic tenets of
blind faith. The Jewish Kabbalists'
sacred symbol was the Tree of Life. This
portrays the evolution of consciousness
into matter within time and space, sym-
bolized by a series of Sephiroth or
"spheres" representing various phases
and aspects of reality and the human
psyche. Each Sephira is a stage or level
of manifestation of spirit into the mate-
rial world.

Around 1100 a Kabbalistic school was
founded in the Jewish quarter of
Lunelle, near Montpellier in southern
France. Other such schools had arisen
in Moslem Spain, where Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam met. These in-
cluded a Kabbalistic school at Verona in
Catalonia and the great University of
Toledo in Castille, where Jewish
Kabbalists and Sufi Masters mingled
and exchanged knowledge.

Many Christians became interested in
Kabbalah, which appealed especially to
those who had been exposed to the
Greek philosophers. The ideas of the
Jewish "Tree of Life" in turn in-
fluenced European sacred art. At
Chartres, a "Tree of Jesse" window (lo-
cated below the West Rose) clearly
depicts the Sepharothic Tree of Life.
The Three Pillars (later borrowed by
the Freemasons and incorporated into
their ritual work) derive also from the
Kabbalistic Tree.

In southern France arose the Albigen-
sian heretics, who dared to claim that
human beings could evolve spiritually
and aspire to become Godlike. Another
group, the Trouveres or Troubadours,
originated in southern France. Like the
wandering bards of Celtic times, they
sang of legendary heroes, combining
Arthurian legends with Pagan and Sufi
themes in their tales of the Celtic
Knights.

This Celtic oral tradition is faintly
echoed in the 'mouth to ear' traditions
of Freemasonry and other Crafts. In
order to teach the unlettered, a practical
non-written system of passing knowl-
edge from Master Craftsman to ap-
prentice had to be developed. It was
vital that the apprentice submit himself
to the will of his Master in the Craft. He
learned the great Craft secrets by work-
ing alongside more experienced men
under the guidance of the Master.

The ideas and designs of the Sufis, the
Neo-Platonists, and the Hebrew
Kabbalists all combined with pre-Chris-
tian ideas. All of these in turn were
taught in the great Cathedral schools,
and entered, or in some cases, re-
entered the mainstream of scholasticism
in Europe.

The Cathedral School at Chartres was
founded in the year 1000 by Fulbertus.
At this, the greatest of the Cathedral
Schools, wisdom was taught in the form
of the Seven Liberal Arts. The school's
great teachers and students exerted an
influence which extended from England
to Sicily.

The "Royal Porchway" at Chartres
was completed in the year 1145. On the
right-hand door of the Royal Porchway,
the Seven Liberal Arts emblematically
surround a sculpture of Mary. These
Seven Liberal Arts were divided into
the Trivium of Grammar, Logic, and
Rhetoric, and the Quadrivium of Arith-
metic, Music, Geometry, and
Astronomy. Thus we have "threeness"
and "fourness. "

On the Royal Porch at Chartres alle-
gorical representations of the Seven
Liberal Arts are depicted in connection
with the great scholars of Classical
times. Pythagoras is represented both
writing at the feet of Music, and teach-
ing at the feet of Arithmetic. Euclid is
seen at the feet of Geometry, while
Ptolemy is the figure below Astronomy.
C icero is below Rhetoric, Aristotle
below Logic, and Donatus below Gram-
mar.

The Trivium is connected with the
Word which all Masons are said sym-
bolically to seek: the "Logos." We de-
fine our universe through words; words
are the handles by which we grasp and
manipulate Reality. Words as Sound are
also connected with the idea of Space,
emptiness, the Plenum Void which con-
tains all things. Logos itself is the Greek
word for the point of origin from which
all proportion is derived. Logos, the
creative Word or principle of the Uni-
verse, is connected to absolute reason
and is active in everything from stars to
snowflakes. The Word unites all things,
the finite and the infinite, the Square
and the Circle. It is the absolute dimen-
sionless essence of being.

The study of the Quadrivium was inti-
mately connected with the metaphysical
and mystical speculations of the Py-
thagorean tradition. To run briefly
through the Quadrivium: Arithmetic
gives us an understanding of Number;
Geometry shows us Number in Space.
Sacred Geometry not only concerns
geometric figures obtained with ruler
and compass, but deals with the har-
monic proportions of human anatomy
and theories of correspondences be-
tween the human body, the construction
of sacred space, and the proportions
and harmony of the Universe itself.

Astronomy is the knowledge of
Cosmic Rhythm: charting the cycles of
Sun, Moon, Stars and the year. Medi-
eval Astronomy was closely linked with
Astrology and the Twelve Planetary
Signs. (three times four). To Christian
mystics Christ was both the Sun and the
Son; Mary was the Moon. And finally,
Music as harmonics give us an under-
standing of number in Time, as well as
of harmony and proportion.

So the construction of cathedrals ex-
pressed the harmonic proportions of
Geometry and Number, especially the
numbers three and four, the Square and
the Circle. These were also embodied in
rose windows, which incorporated
number and light. Many of the archi-
tectural proportions of Chartres are
based on the Septogram (seven-pointed
star) and the Pentagram (five-pointed
star), both ancient magical symbo
Another inspiration was the intervals
the harmonic musical scale, with its in-
terleaving of fours and threes. Chartes
itself was laid out "Ad Quadratum. "

Finally, the metaphysics of musical
harmonics were incorporated into the
proportions and sacred geometry of
Chartres and many other great cathe-
drals. The leader of the Cistercian
Order, Bernard of Clairvaux, was
among the greatest influences on

Chartres; the Cistercians led the musi-
cal mysticism of the NeoPlatonic Tradi-
tion.

The birth of the Gothic Cathedral is a
result of the blending of many ideas.
The Pagan, the Sufi, the Greek, and the
Jew all made unique contributions. The
Gothic cathedrals were the finest ex-
amples of Sacred Geometry ever pro-
duced in Europe, and they remain so
this day.

"I asked a child walking with a candle

'From whence comes that light? '

Instantly he blew it out.

'Tell me where it is gone--

Then I will tell you where it came from. '
Sufi

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The Philalethes, December 1996
