The royal patron behind the Parisian “court style” of Gothic art and architecture was King Louis IX.  The grandson of Philip Augustus, Louis inherited the throne when he was only 12 years old, or so until he reached adulthood six years later his mother, Blanche of Castile the granddaughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine served as France’s regent.  The French regarded Louis as the ideal king, and in 1297, 27 years after Louis’s death, Pope Boniface VIII declared him a saint.  Louis was revered for his piety, justice, truthfulness and charity.  His almsgiving and his donations to religious foundations were extravagant.  He especially favored the mendicant orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans.  He admired their poverty, piety, and self-sacrificing disregard of material things.  It for these reasons, that we should embrace his philosophies in our time capsule to not lose the lesson on how the Sainte-Chapelle became to be.<!--more-->

Louis launched two unsuccessful Crusades, the Seventh and the Eighth.  He died in Tunisia during the latter, as a crusading knight who lost his life in the service of the Church; Louis personified the chivalric virtues of courage, loyalty and self-sacrifice.  Saint Louis united in his person the best qualities of the Christian knight, the benevolent monarch and the holy man.  He became the model of medieval Christian kingship.

Louis’s political accomplishments were also noteworthy.  He subdued the unruly French barons and between 1243 and 1314 no one seriously challenged the crown.  He negotiated a treaty with Henry III, king of France’s traditional enemy, England.  Such was his reputation for integrity and just dealing that he served as arbiter in at least a dozen international disputes.  So successful was he as peacekeeper that despite civil wars through most of the 13<sup>th</sup> century, international peace prevailed.  Under Saint Louis, medieval France was its most prosperous, and its art and architecture were admired and imitated throughout Europe.  In addition to properly sheltering his holy relics, Sainte-Chapelle was a result of Louis' political ambition to be the central monarch of western Christendom. At the time Louis' royal chapel was constructed, the imperial throne at Constantinople was occupied by a mere Count of Flanders and the Holy Roman Empire was in uneasy disarray.

Sainte-Chapelle was planned in 1241, started in 1246 and quickly completed: it was consecrated on April 26, 1248.  Just as the Emperor could pass privately from his palace into Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, so now King Louis could walk directly from his palace into the Sainte-Chapelle. The king died of the plague on a crusade, was later canonized by the Pope, and is now known as Saint Louis.

During the French Revolution, the chapel was converted to an administrative office, and the windows were obscured by enormous filing cabinets. Their all-but-forgotten beauty was thereby inadvertently protected from the vandalism in which the choir stalls and the rod screen were destroyed, the spire pulled down and the relics dispersed.  Most of Louis' precious <strong>relics </strong>were lost or destroyed in the French Revolution; the few that remain are in the treasury of Notre-Dame Cathedral.

<a href="http://jeanatacc.com/2011/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tcp-pic1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-956" src="http://jeanatacc.com/2011/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tcp-pic1.jpg" alt="" width="195" height="258" /></a>

www.tfpstudentaction.org

The stained glass windows inserted into the portal tympanum of Reims Cathedral exemplify the wall –dissolving High Gothic architectural style.  The architect of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris extended this style to an entire building.  Louis IX built Sainte-Chapelle and joined the royal palace as a repository for the crown of thorns and other relics of Christ’s Passion he had purchased them in 1239 from his cousin Baldwin II, the Latin emperor of Constantinople.

The chapel is a masterpiece of the so-called <em>Rayonnant</em> (radiant) style of the High Gothic Age, which dominated the second half of the century.  It was associated with the royal Parisian court of Saint Louis.  In Sainte-Chappell the dissolution of walls and the reduction of the bulk of supports were carried to the point that some 6,450 square feet of stained glass make up more than three-quarters of the structure.  The supporting elements reduced so much that they are hardly more than large mullions or vertical stone bars.  The emphasis is on the extreme slenderness of the architectural forms and on linearity.  Although the chapel was heavily restored in the 19<sup>th</sup> century after being damaged in the French Revolution, it has retained most of its original 13<sup>th</sup> century stained glass.  Sainte-Chapelle’s enormous windows filter the light and fill the interior with an unearthly rose violet atmosphere.  Approximately 49 feet high and 15 feet wide, they were the largest designed up to their time.

The “court style” of Saint Louis was not confined to architecture.   The elegance and delicacy display in Sainte-Chapelle’s design permeated the pictorial arts as well.  By the early 14<sup>th</sup> century, a mannered elegance that marks late Gothic art in general had replaced the monumental and solemn sculptural style of the High Gothic portals.  The best example of the late French court style in sculpture is the statue nicknamed the Virgin of Paris because of its location in the Parisian Cathedral of Notre-Dame.  Mary is portrayed as a worldly queen decked out in royal garments and wearing a heavy gem encrusted crown.  The Christ Child is equally attired and is very much the infant prince in the arms of his young mother.  The tender characterization of mother and son represents a further humanization of the portrayal of religious figures in Gothic sculpture.

<cite>www.tfpstudentaction.org</cite>

The entrance to the lower chapel is located under a porch. The coronation of Mary is represented on the tympanum. A Virgin with Child decorates the trumeau.  The lower chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, whose statue stands freely next to the central pier of the portal. Low vaulted ceilings rest on fine columns with crocketed capitals, linked by anchor braces made of wood or stone. The walls are decorated with trefoiled arcades and twelve medallions representing the Apostles.

<em>www.discoverfrance.com</em>

We can say that each stained glass window is a prayer, each stone is a prayer, and each Gothic arch is a prayer, surrounding the center of prayer:  the altar, where the Holy Sacrifice of Calvary is renewed.   Above the altar is a reliquary to display the crown of thorns of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Walking barefoot, asking pardon for his own sins, Saint Louis carried the relics with great devotion from the border of France to Paris.  He displayed the contrition of the innocent.  As king, he represented his people and asked God to also pardon their sins.

The story of Gothic art and architecture begins in the Ile-de-France around 1140 at Saint-Denis, Paris, Chartres, and elsewhere.  French architects pioneered a new building style using ribs vaults with pointed arches, flying buttresses, and stained-glass windows, French builders constructed towering cathedrals with statue-lined portals in and interiors flooded with mystical multicolored light that can still be seen today when visiting there.

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;
<p style="text-align: center">Works Cited</p>
Fiero, Gloria. “<em>The Humanistic Tradition”Vol 1 6e.</em>

Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Press, 2011. E-Book

&nbsp;

&nbsp;