[6] "[O]ne of the most beautiful and historically significant cathedrals in all of Europe,"[7] it was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979, which called it "the high point of French Gothic art" and a "masterpiece".

He appealed to the royal houses of Europe, and received generous donations for the rebuilding, including a gift from Cnut the Great, King of Norway, Denmark and much of England.

It was claimed that during this religious outburst, a crowd of more than a thousand penitents dragged carts filled with building supplies and provisions including stones, wood, grain, etc.

The cathedral was formally re-consecrated in October 1260, in the presence of King Louis IX of France,[15] whose coat of arms can be seen painted on a boss at the entrance to the apse, although this was added in the 14th century.

[citation needed] Early in the French Revolution a mob attacked and began to destroy the sculpture on the north porch, but was stopped by a larger crowd of townspeople.

[27] Another architectural innovation at Chartres was the design of the massive piers or pillars on the ground floor which receive the weight of the roof through the thin stone ribs of vaults above.

The portals are richly decorated with sculptures, which rendered biblical stories and theological ideas visible for both the educated clergy and layfolk who may not have had access to textual learning.

Opening on to the parvis (the large square in front of the cathedral where markets were held), the two lateral doors would have been the first entry point for most visitors to Chartres, as they remain today.

[34] The harmonious appearance of the façade results in part from the relative proportions of the central and lateral portals, whose widths are in the ratio 10:7 – one of the common medieval approximations of the square root of 2.

As well as their basic functions of providing access to the interior, portals are the main locations for sculpted images on the Gothic cathedral and it is on the west façade at Chartres that this practice began to develop into a visual summa or encyclopedia of theological knowledge.

Surrounding the tympanum, as a reminder of the glory days of the School of Chartres, the archivolts are carved with some very distinctive personifications of the Seven Liberal Arts as well as the classical authors and philosophers most closely associated with them.

Most obvious are the jamb statues affixed to the columns flanking the doorways – tall, slender standing figures of kings and queens from whom the Portail royal derived its name.

Although in the 18th and 19th century these figures were mistakenly identified as the Merovingian monarchs of France (thus attracting the opprobrium of Revolutionary iconoclasts) they almost certainly represent the kings and queens of the Old Testament – another standard iconographical feature of Gothic portals.

The two rows of alternating octagonal and round pillars on either side of the nave receive part of the weight of the roof through the thin stone ribs descending from the vaults above.

The architecture of the cathedral, with its innovative combination of rib vaults and flying buttresses, permitted the construction of much higher and thinner walls, particularly at the top clerestory level, allowing more and larger windows.

This window is actually a composite; the upper part, showing the Virgin and Child surrounded by adoring angels, dates from around 1180 and was probably positioned at the center of the apse in the earlier building.

The Virgin is depicted wearing a blue robe and sitting in a frontal pose on a throne, with the Christ Child seated on her lap raising his hand in blessing.

[43][44] The central oculus shows the Virgin and Child and is surrounded by twelve small petal-shaped windows, four with doves (the 'Four Gifts of the Spirit'), the rest with adoring angels carrying candlesticks.

The south transept rose (10.5 m diameter, made c. 1225–30) is dedicated to Christ, who is shown in the central oculus, right hand raised in benediction, surrounded by adoring angels.

[46] The subjects depicted in these windows, made between 1205 and 1235, include stories from the Old and New Testament and the Lives of the Saints as well as typological cycles and symbolic images such as the signs of the zodiac and labours of the months.

The medieval glass largely escaped harm during the Huguenot iconoclasm and the religious wars of the 16th century although the west rose sustained damage from artillery fire in 1591.

The true extent of the damage is unknown, though the fact that the lead cames holding the west windows together survived the conflagration intact suggests contemporary accounts of the terrible devastation may have been exaggerated.

Canon Delaporte argued that building work started at the crossing and proceeded outwards from there,[67] but the evidence in the stonework itself is unequivocal, especially within the level of the triforium: the nave was at all times more advanced than ambulatory bays of the choir, and this has been confirmed by dendrochronology.

"[70] He also noted that the bright white walls made it more difficult to appreciate the colours of the stained glass windows, and declared that the work violated international conservation protocols, in particular, the 1964 Charter of Venice of which France is a signatory.

These men were at the forefront of the intense intellectual rethinking that culminated in what is now known as the twelfth-century renaissance, pioneering the Scholastic philosophy that came to dominate medieval thinking throughout Europe.

In 1258, after a series of bloody riots instigated by the count's officials, the chapter finally gained permission from the King to seal off the area of the cloître and lock the gates each night.

[citation needed] Some research suggests that depictions in the cathedral, e.g. Mary's infertile parents Joachim and Anne, harken back to the pre-Christian cult of a fertility goddess, and women would come to the well at this location in order to pray for their children and that some refer to that past.

[79] However, the widespread belief[citation needed] that the cathedral was also the site of a pre-Christian druidical sect who worshipped a "Virgin who will give birth" is purely a late-medieval invention.

You know it might be just this one anonymous glory of all things, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand choiring shout of affirmation, which we choose when all our cities are dust, to stand intact, to mark where we have been, to testify to what we had it in us, to accomplish.

It's a place for meditation, just walking around, just sitting, just looking at those beautiful things.Joris-Karl Huysmans includes detailed interpretation of the symbolism underlying the art of Chartres Cathedral in his 1898 semi-autobiographical novel La cathédrale.