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At Notre-Dame cathedral, discover the medieval past

The great church as its builders intended, the esplanade's enigma, glimpses of power now
  • Notre-Dame dominated the town
... and dominates the town.

 

Its colossal size let it be used for all activites that required vast space – major  celebrations, processions of pilgrims, guild meetings, university meetings and until the 17th century, even a horse fair.

 

Every-day religious services took lace in Innumerable parish churches.

 

We visit two that remain, a few minutes' walk away.

 

 

  • In spite of its size, the church was impossible to view as we do today, because houses crowded

    almost up to its facade

Houses crowd up to the church, toward 1485
In 1853, they still do.

 

  • But in the 1850's, the houses were torn down. A vast esplanade replaced them. It encourages us to view the cathedral from afar... to see it in the way that medieval people did, one must come close to it and peer up.  

 


Modern view
Medieval view

The colossal edifice becomes far more imposing and is a reminder of eternity.



  • Why create a space that makes the cathedral seem relatively small? Clues –

 

 

• The Île de la Cité was one of the city's most poverty-stricken areas. A famous 19th-century crime novel opens with a fight in an alley near the church. (Les mystères de Paris, par Eugene Sue, 1843)

 

We narrate that opening scene and read the neighborhood's terrifying description.

• The space in front of City Hall, (just across the river) was widened and two huge Places (République and Nation) were built in Paris. All these areas were working-class. No such spaces were created in the wealthy west.

 

• These changes came a few years after a major insurrgency (in 1848). The wide   avenues that are part of the city's elegance today were built immediately afterwards.

 

Can you guess what was going on?

 

  • We go back to the basics of Gothic architecture as a whole... 

 

 

Light always shines through.

 

• Key to the architecture: "Gothic", that is, "barbarian", was a term of contempt. which dates from a change of taste in the 16th century. "Pointed-arch architecture" would be a better term...

 

• Key to the symbolism: All walls have openings, because with God there are no dead ends.

 

We give other keys.

 

 

  • We show this celebrated edifice as a place that remains un full use...

 

 

Priests enter Notre-Dame on Ash Wednesday

 

  • We continue with the majestic edifices of authority a few steps away, for glimpses of the City in action

 

 

• Works of art and photos of the time illustrate our ideas.

 

 

• Costs: please CLICK

 

 

Credits: painting, "Exorcism" / Jean Fouquet ; drawing, "Fifteenth-century Paris" / in V. Hugo, "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame", 1854 edition;  man in top hat / Charles Nègre (photo taken in 1853), Wikipedia ; priests / Catherine Aubin; other modern photos / Claude Abron

 

 

Unexpected Paris guided tours