1 00:00:03,200 --> 00:00:05,150 (Plainsong) 2 00:01:11,950 --> 00:01:14,510 There have been times in the history of mankind 3 00:01:14,590 --> 00:01:17,659 when the Earth seems suddenly to have grown warmer, 4 00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:19,709 or more radioactive. 5 00:01:20,709 --> 00:01:23,578 l don't put this forward as a scientific proposition 6 00:01:23,680 --> 00:01:27,030 but the fact remains that three or four times in history, 7 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:30,629 man has made a leap forward 8 00:01:30,709 --> 00:01:34,980 that would have been unthinkable under ordinary evolutionary conditions. 9 00:01:35,069 --> 00:01:38,420 One such time was about the year 3000 BC, 10 00:01:38,510 --> 00:01:41,938 when quite suddenly civilisation appeared. 11 00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:45,269 Not only in Egypt and Mesopotamia but in the Indus Valley. 12 00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:49,310 Another was in the late 6th century BC, 13 00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:52,468 when there was not only the miracle of Ionia and Greece - 14 00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:56,069 philosophy, science, art, poetry, 15 00:01:56,150 --> 00:01:59,620 all reaching a point that wasn't reached again for 2000 years, 16 00:01:59,709 --> 00:02:04,379 but also in India, a spiritual enlightenment that has perhaps never been equalled. 17 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:08,068 And another was round about the year 1 100. 18 00:02:09,150 --> 00:02:12,900 It seems to have affected the whole world - India, China, Byzantium. 19 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:17,908 But its strongest and most dramatic effect was in Western Europe, 20 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:19,949 where it was most needed. 21 00:02:20,030 --> 00:02:22,378 It was like a Russian spring. 22 00:02:23,468 --> 00:02:28,538 In every branch of life - action, philosophy, organisation, technology - 23 00:02:28,628 --> 00:02:32,330 there was an extraordinary outpouring of energy, 24 00:02:32,430 --> 00:02:34,378 an intensification of existence. 25 00:02:35,840 --> 00:02:37,788 Popes, emperors, kings, bishops, 26 00:02:37,870 --> 00:02:42,139 saints, scholars, philosophers - they were all larger than life. 27 00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:47,030 The incidents of history are great heroic dramas, 28 00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:51,628 or symbolic acts that still stir our hearts. 29 00:02:52,710 --> 00:02:54,658 The evidence of this heroic energy, 30 00:02:54,750 --> 00:02:57,818 this confidence this strength of will and intellect, 31 00:02:57,908 --> 00:02:59,860 is still visible to us. 32 00:02:59,960 --> 00:03:01,949 From where I'm standing, 33 00:03:02,030 --> 00:03:07,050 the east end of Canterbury still looks very large and very complex. 34 00:03:10,240 --> 00:03:12,468 In spite of all our mechanical skills 35 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:16,340 and the inflated scale of modern materialism 36 00:03:16,430 --> 00:03:19,860 Durham Cathedral remains a formidable proposition. 37 00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:24,949 These great orderly mountains of stone 38 00:03:25,030 --> 00:03:28,258 rose out of a small cluster of wooden houses. 39 00:03:29,030 --> 00:03:32,860 Everyone with the least historical imagination has thought of that. 40 00:03:32,960 --> 00:03:36,550 What people don't realise is that this happened quite suddenly. 41 00:03:36,628 --> 00:03:38,580 In a single lifetime. 42 00:03:38,680 --> 00:03:43,908 Of course, these changes imply a new social and intellectual background. 43 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:46,669 They imply wealth, stability, technical skill, 44 00:03:46,750 --> 00:03:52,658 and, above all, the confidence necessary to push through a long-term project. 45 00:03:52,750 --> 00:03:55,979 How had all this suddenly appeared in Western Europe? 46 00:03:57,400 --> 00:03:59,348 There are many answers. 47 00:03:59,430 --> 00:04:02,658 But one is overwhelmingly more important than the others. 48 00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:05,788 The triumph of the Church. 49 00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:08,550 It could be convincingly argued 50 00:04:08,628 --> 00:04:12,500 that Western civilisation was basically the creation of the Church. 51 00:04:13,360 --> 00:04:15,919 In saying that, I'm not thinking for the moment 52 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:20,670 of the Church as the repository of Christian truth and spiritual experience. 53 00:04:20,750 --> 00:04:26,379 I'm thinking of her as the 12th century thought of her - as a power. 54 00:04:26,480 --> 00:04:29,389 Ecclesia - sitting like an empress. 55 00:04:30,480 --> 00:04:33,629 And she was powerful for positive reasons. 56 00:04:33,720 --> 00:04:37,189 Men of intelligence naturally and normally took holy orders. 57 00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:42,149 And could rise from obscurity to positions of immense influence. 58 00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:46,709 The Church was, basicall,y, a democratic institution 59 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:52,980 where ability - administrative, diplomatic, sheer intellectual ability - made its way. 60 00:04:56,870 --> 00:04:59,019 And then the Church was international. 61 00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:04,750 The great churchmen of the 11th and 12th centuries came from all over Europe. 62 00:05:04,829 --> 00:05:10,100 Anselm came here from Aosta via Normandy to be Archbishop of Canterbury. 63 00:05:10,189 --> 00:05:13,420 Lanfranc had made the same journey, starting from Pavia. 64 00:05:14,160 --> 00:05:18,110 It couldn't happen in the Church or in politics today. 65 00:05:18,189 --> 00:05:22,540 One can't imagine two consecutive Archbishops of Canterbury being Italian. 66 00:05:23,310 --> 00:05:26,930 But it could happen and it does happen in the field of science. 67 00:05:27,829 --> 00:05:33,819 Which shows that where some way of thought or human activity is really vital to us 68 00:05:34,509 --> 00:05:38,620 then internationalism is accepted unhesitatingly. 69 00:05:40,310 --> 00:05:44,980 This internationalism of the 12th century extended to architecture and sculpture. 70 00:05:45,069 --> 00:05:48,420 The master masons who were both sculptors and architects, 71 00:05:48,509 --> 00:05:50,459 travelled all over Europe. 72 00:05:50,560 --> 00:05:53,588 Canterbury was built by a Frenchman, William of Sens. 73 00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:56,550 The extraordinary thing is that wherever they went 74 00:05:56,629 --> 00:06:00,060 these masters seemed able to recruit a force of skilled workmen 75 00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:06,069 who carried out technical feats which seem infinitely beyond all that we know, 76 00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:09,110 or think we know of the mechanical skill of the time. 77 00:06:09,189 --> 00:06:11,220 (MUSIC) Carmina Burana 78 00:06:48,949 --> 00:06:53,300 They were inspired by the feeling that beyond all their hoisting and hammering 79 00:06:53,389 --> 00:06:57,620 there was some great controlling intelligence based on mathematical laws. 80 00:06:58,310 --> 00:07:02,009 A human reflection of God, the great architect. 81 00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:06,189 This expansion of the human spirit 82 00:07:06,269 --> 00:07:08,699 was first made visible in the abbey of Cluny, 83 00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:11,910 about 250 miles to the southeast of Paris. 84 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:14,949 It was founded in the 10th century, 85 00:07:15,040 --> 00:07:19,189 but under Hugh of Semur, who was abbot from 1049 to 1109, 86 00:07:19,269 --> 00:07:22,019 it became the greatest church in Europe. 87 00:07:22,870 --> 00:07:25,699 A huge complex of buildings, with a famous library 88 00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:29,500 in which was made the first translation of the Koran. 89 00:07:29,600 --> 00:07:32,670 The first attempt to understand the infidel, 90 00:07:32,750 --> 00:07:34,740 instead of merely fighting him. 91 00:07:34,829 --> 00:07:37,860 Well, the buildings were destroyed in the early 19th century, 92 00:07:37,949 --> 00:07:40,100 used as a quarry, like Roman buildings. 93 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:45,470 Only a part of the south transept remains, where I'm standing now. 94 00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:48,709 But we've many descriptions of its original splendour, 95 00:07:48,800 --> 00:07:51,949 the abbey church alone was the size of a large cathedral. 96 00:07:52,040 --> 00:07:55,990 On feast days the whole of the walls were covered with hangings, 97 00:07:56,069 --> 00:07:59,500 the floors were a mosaic with figures, like a Roman pavement. 98 00:08:01,629 --> 00:08:06,899 And of all its treasures the most astonishing was a seven-branched candlestick of gilt bronze, 99 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:10,028 of which the shaft alone was 18 feet high. 100 00:08:10,120 --> 00:08:12,470 A formidable piece of casting, even today. 101 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:15,949 Of all this, nothing remains. 102 00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:20,110 Only a few candlesticks, later and much smaller. 103 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:22,949 This is one of them. 104 00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:24,990 It's only about 18 inches high, 105 00:08:25,069 --> 00:08:29,778 but it's so full of detail that one can imagine it 18 feet. 106 00:08:31,069 --> 00:08:33,700 Although made for the Cathedral of Gloucester, 107 00:08:33,788 --> 00:08:37,019 it's a perfect example of Cluniac elaboration. 108 00:08:44,960 --> 00:08:48,110 This first great eruption of ecclesiastical splendour 109 00:08:48,200 --> 00:08:51,950 was unashamedly extravagant. 110 00:08:53,028 --> 00:08:54,980 Apologists for the Cluniac style 111 00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:59,389 tell us that all the decoration was subordinated to philosophic ideas. 112 00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:01,428 My general impression is 113 00:09:01,509 --> 00:09:06,528 that the invention which boiled over into sculpture and painting in the early 12th century 114 00:09:06,629 --> 00:09:08,580 was self-delighting. 115 00:09:09,269 --> 00:09:11,730 As with the similar outbursts of the baroque, 116 00:09:11,840 --> 00:09:15,269 one can think up ingenious interpretations of the subjects, 117 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:17,308 but the motive force behind them 118 00:09:17,389 --> 00:09:21,220 was simply irrepressible, irresponsible energy. 119 00:09:21,320 --> 00:09:24,389 The Romanesque carvers were like a school of dolphins. 120 00:09:25,548 --> 00:09:28,778 All this we know not from the mother house of Cluny itself 121 00:09:28,870 --> 00:09:32,649 but from the dependencies that spread all over Europe. 122 00:09:33,360 --> 00:09:35,820 There were over 1200 of them in France alone. 123 00:09:35,908 --> 00:09:38,740 I'm sitting in the cloisters of a fairly remote one, 124 00:09:38,840 --> 00:09:41,070 the Abbey of Moissac in southern France, 125 00:09:41,149 --> 00:09:45,379 which was important because it was on the pilgrimage route to Compostella. 126 00:09:46,389 --> 00:09:50,538 The carvings have much that is typical of the Cluny style. 127 00:09:52,440 --> 00:09:54,389 The sharp cutting, 128 00:09:55,080 --> 00:09:57,028 the swirling drapery, 129 00:09:57,120 --> 00:10:01,269 the twisting line, as if the restless impulses of the wandering craftsmen, 130 00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:07,110 the goldsmiths of the Viking conquerors, still had to be expressed in stone. 131 00:10:08,870 --> 00:10:12,058 You can see this on the mullion of the door 132 00:10:12,149 --> 00:10:14,379 with its fabulous beasts. 133 00:10:14,480 --> 00:10:17,750 When one considers that they were once brightly coloured, 134 00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:20,990 because Cluniac ornament seems all to have been painted, 135 00:10:21,080 --> 00:10:23,950 and the manuscripts show, what kind of colour it was 136 00:10:24,028 --> 00:10:29,149 they must have looked even more fiercely Tibetan than they do today. 137 00:10:29,840 --> 00:10:32,070 l can't imagine that even the Medieval mind, 138 00:10:32,149 --> 00:10:35,379 which was adept at interpreting everything symbolically 139 00:10:35,480 --> 00:10:38,350 could have found much in them of religious meaning. 140 00:10:38,440 --> 00:10:42,190 But what has this column to do with Christian values? 141 00:10:42,870 --> 00:10:45,700 With compassion, charity or even hope? 142 00:10:46,960 --> 00:10:50,580 It's not at all surprising that the most influential churchman of his day, 143 00:10:50,668 --> 00:10:52,418 St Bernard of Claireveaux 144 00:10:52,509 --> 00:10:57,259 should have become the bitter and relentless critic of the Cluniac style. 145 00:10:57,360 --> 00:11:00,308 Some of his attacks are the usual puritan objections, 146 00:11:00,389 --> 00:11:02,620 as when he speaks of "the lies of poetry". 147 00:11:02,720 --> 00:11:05,178 Words that were to echo through the centuries 148 00:11:05,269 --> 00:11:08,940 and become particular favourites in the new religion of science. 149 00:11:09,028 --> 00:11:12,980 But St Bernard had an eye as well as an eloquent tongue. 150 00:11:14,200 --> 00:11:18,668 And in the cloisters, he says, "Under the eyes of the brethren engaged in reading, 151 00:11:18,750 --> 00:11:21,899 what business have those ridiculous monstrosities? 152 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:25,308 That misshapen shapeliness and shapely misshapenness. 153 00:11:25,389 --> 00:11:27,820 Those unclean monkeys, those fierce lions, 154 00:11:27,908 --> 00:11:30,940 those monstrous centaurs those semi-human beings'. 155 00:11:31,720 --> 00:11:34,308 Here you see a quadruped with the tail of a serpent, 156 00:11:34,389 --> 00:11:36,340 there a fish with the head of a bird. 157 00:11:36,440 --> 00:11:40,509 In short, there appears on all sides, so rich and amazing a variety of forms 158 00:11:40,600 --> 00:11:44,830 that it is more delightful to read the marbles than the manuscripts, 159 00:11:45,480 --> 00:11:49,149 and to spend the whole day in admiring these things piece by piece, 160 00:11:49,240 --> 00:11:52,548 rather than in meditating on the divine law. 161 00:11:58,149 --> 00:12:03,058 That last sentence shows, doesn't it that Bernard felt the power of art. 162 00:12:03,629 --> 00:12:07,778 In fact, the buildings done under his influence, in the Cistercian style, 163 00:12:07,870 --> 00:12:12,019 are closer to our ideals of architecture than anything else of the period. 164 00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:16,428 Alas, most of them were abandoned and half-ruined 165 00:12:16,509 --> 00:12:19,658 simply because it was part of St Bernard's ideal 166 00:12:19,750 --> 00:12:23,899 that they should be built far from the worldly distractions oftowns. 167 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:26,590 And so, when after the French Revolution 168 00:12:26,668 --> 00:12:29,230 town monasteries were turned into local churches 169 00:12:29,320 --> 00:12:31,778 the Cistercian monasteries fell into ruins. 170 00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:37,548 And yet it's there that the spirit of monasticism has survived. 171 00:12:38,668 --> 00:12:40,620 (Bells ring) 172 00:13:34,320 --> 00:13:37,389 ..quem ponebant quotidie ad portam templi, 173 00:13:37,480 --> 00:13:40,710 quae dicitur Speciosa, 174 00:13:40,788 --> 00:13:45,700 ut peteret elemosynam ab introeuntibus in templum. 175 00:13:47,149 --> 00:13:53,220 Is cum vidisset Petrum et lohannem incipientes introire in templum 176 00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:57,100 rogabat ut elemosynam acciperet. 177 00:13:57,788 --> 00:14:05,139 Intuens autem in eum Petrus cum Iohanne dixit respice in nos. 178 00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:12,788 At ille intendebat in eos sperans se aliquid accepturum ab eis. 179 00:14:13,480 --> 00:14:19,580 Petrus autem dixit argentum et aurum non est mihi 180 00:14:19,668 --> 00:14:23,778 quod autem habeo hoc tibi do... 181 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:30,668 (Plainsong) 182 00:15:16,668 --> 00:15:18,620 (Silence) 183 00:15:49,668 --> 00:15:53,288 These white monks, in their unchanging habit, 184 00:15:54,720 --> 00:16:00,470 this round of work and prayer, which has continued unbroken since the 12th century, 185 00:16:00,548 --> 00:16:03,259 bring the old building back to life. 186 00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:18,389 It's a way of life that is concerned with an ideal of eternity. 187 00:16:19,788 --> 00:16:22,740 And that is an important part of civilisation. 188 00:16:25,320 --> 00:16:31,028 But the great thaw of the 12th century was not achieved by contemplation alone - 189 00:16:31,120 --> 00:16:33,070 that can exist at all times - 190 00:16:33,149 --> 00:16:34,899 but by action. 191 00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:38,788 A vigorous, violent sense of movement, 192 00:16:38,870 --> 00:16:40,820 both physical and intellectual. 193 00:16:40,908 --> 00:16:44,740 On the physical side this took the form of pilgrimages and crusades. 194 00:16:46,509 --> 00:16:51,528 l think they're one of the features of the Middle Ages which is hardest for us to understand. 195 00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:01,470 It's no good pretending that pilgrimages were like cruises or holidays abroad. 196 00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:05,670 For one thing, they took far longer. Sometimes two or three years. 197 00:17:05,750 --> 00:17:09,180 For another, they involved real hardship and danger. 198 00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:12,420 In spite of efforts to organise pilgrimages, 199 00:17:12,509 --> 00:17:15,660 and Cluny ran a series of hostels along the chief routes, 200 00:17:15,750 --> 00:17:19,900 elderly abbots and middle-aged widows often died on the way to Jerusalem. 201 00:17:20,750 --> 00:17:24,019 Pilgrimages were undertaken in hope of heavenly rewards. 202 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:28,150 They were often used by the Church as a form of penitence, 203 00:17:28,240 --> 00:17:30,308 a spiritualised form of extradition. 204 00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:36,000 The point of a pilgrimage was to look at relics. 205 00:17:36,828 --> 00:17:41,098 The Medieval pilgrim really believed that by contemplating a reliquary 206 00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:43,950 containing the head or even the finger of a saint, 207 00:17:44,028 --> 00:17:48,500 he could persuade that saint to intercede on his behalf with God. 208 00:17:52,308 --> 00:17:54,818 How can one hope to share this belief, 209 00:17:54,920 --> 00:17:57,509 which played so great a part in Medieval civilisation? 210 00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:01,390 I'm on my way to the town of Conques. 211 00:18:01,480 --> 00:18:05,098 A famous place of pilgrimage dedicated to the cult of Sainte Foy. 212 00:18:06,028 --> 00:18:10,700 She was a little girl, who in late Roman times refused to worship idols. 213 00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:14,348 She was obstinate in the face of reasonable persuasion. 214 00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:16,390 A Christian Antigone. 215 00:18:17,269 --> 00:18:19,220 And so she was martyred. 216 00:18:19,308 --> 00:18:23,088 Her relics began to work miracles, and in the 10th century 217 00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:27,269 one of them was so famous that Bernard of Angers was sent to investigate it 218 00:18:27,348 --> 00:18:29,380 and report to the Bishop of Chartres. 219 00:18:30,269 --> 00:18:34,338 It seemed that a man had had his eyes gouged out by a jealous priest. 220 00:18:35,880 --> 00:18:40,269 After a year or so, the blind man went to the shrine of Sainte Foy 221 00:18:40,348 --> 00:18:42,298 and his eyes were restored. 222 00:18:42,960 --> 00:18:47,390 The man was still alive. He said that a, t first he had had terrible headaches 223 00:18:47,480 --> 00:18:50,710 but now they had passed and he could see perfectly. 224 00:18:50,788 --> 00:18:52,940 There was a difficulty. 225 00:18:53,028 --> 00:18:57,660 After his eyes had been put out, witnesses said that they had been taken up to heaven. 226 00:18:57,750 --> 00:19:01,420 Some said by a dove, others by a magpie. 227 00:19:01,509 --> 00:19:03,460 That was the only point of doubt. 228 00:19:04,788 --> 00:19:06,420 The report was favourable. 229 00:19:06,509 --> 00:19:09,068 A fine Romanesque church was built at Conques 230 00:19:09,160 --> 00:19:13,828 and in it was placed this strange Eastern-looking figure 231 00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:16,548 to contain the relics of Sainte Foy. 232 00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:19,230 A golden idol studded with gems. 233 00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:26,068 How ironical that this little girl who was put to death for refusing to worship idols 234 00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:28,430 should have been turned into one herself. 235 00:19:29,348 --> 00:19:32,818 That the very head should be a gold mask of a late Roman emperor. 236 00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:38,348 Well, that's the Medieval mind. 237 00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:41,548 They cared passionately about the truth, 238 00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:44,588 but their sense of evidence was different from ours. 239 00:19:44,680 --> 00:19:47,828 From our point of view, nearly all the relics in the world 240 00:19:47,920 --> 00:19:51,269 depend on some completely unhistorical assertion. 241 00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:59,910 And yet, they, as much as any factor, led to that movement and a diffusion of ideas 242 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:03,538 from which Western civilisation derives part of its momentum. 243 00:20:05,750 --> 00:20:09,778 Of course, the most important place of pilgrimage was Jerusalem. 244 00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:11,828 After the 10th century, 245 00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:15,390 when a strong Byzantine Empire made the journey practicable, 246 00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:18,990 pilgrims used to go in parties of 5000 at a time. 247 00:20:19,750 --> 00:20:23,578 And this is the background of that extraordinary episode in history - 248 00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:25,630 the first Crusade. 249 00:20:25,720 --> 00:20:29,390 Because, although other factors may have determined its course, 250 00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:33,509 Norman restlessness the ambitions of younger sons, 251 00:20:33,588 --> 00:20:35,500 economic depression, 252 00:20:35,588 --> 00:20:37,818 all the factors that make for a gold rush;, 253 00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:39,868 there can be no doubt 254 00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:44,028 that the majority of people joined the Crusade in a spirit of pilgrimage. 255 00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:49,740 Among many things they brought back from the East were Persian decorative motives 256 00:20:49,828 --> 00:20:53,058 which were combined with the rhythms of Northern ornament 257 00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:55,509 to make the Romanesque style. 258 00:20:57,028 --> 00:21:02,098 l see these as two fierce beasts tugging at the carcass of Graeco-Roman art. 259 00:21:02,788 --> 00:21:06,259 Very often one can trace a figure back to a classical original, 260 00:21:06,348 --> 00:21:10,130 but it has been entirely tugged out of shape. 261 00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:14,710 Or, perhaps one should say, into shape by these two new forces. 262 00:21:20,480 --> 00:21:25,470 This feeling of tugging, of pulling everything to bits and reshaping it, 263 00:21:25,548 --> 00:21:27,818 was characteristic of 12th-century art. 264 00:21:28,509 --> 00:21:33,818 And was somehow complementary to the massive stability of its architecture. 265 00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:36,868 l see rather the same situation in the realm of ideas. 266 00:21:37,548 --> 00:21:40,818 The main structure of the Christian faith was unshakable 267 00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:45,150 but round it was a play of minds, a tugging and a tension, 268 00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:47,868 that has hardly been seen since. 269 00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:52,630 And was, l think, one of the things that prevented Western Europe from growing rigid, 270 00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:54,990 as so many other civilisations have done. 271 00:21:55,750 --> 00:21:58,210 It was an age of intense intellectual activity. 272 00:21:58,308 --> 00:22:02,940 To read what was going on in Paris about the year 1 130 makes one's head spin. 273 00:22:03,028 --> 00:22:08,940 And at the centre of it all was the brilliant enigmatic figure of Peter Abelard. 274 00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:11,588 The invincible arguer. 275 00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:13,630 The magnetic teacher. 276 00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:16,858 Abelard was a star. 277 00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:19,308 Like a great prizefighter, 278 00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:23,630 he expressed contempt for anyone who met him in the ring of open discussion. 279 00:22:24,509 --> 00:22:28,048 The older Medieval philosophers, like Anselm, had said 280 00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:32,150 "l must believe in order that l may understand." 281 00:22:32,920 --> 00:22:34,868 Abelard took the opposite course;. 282 00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:38,578 "l must understand in order that l may believe." 283 00:22:40,028 --> 00:22:42,460 He said, "By doubting we come to questioning, 284 00:22:42,548 --> 00:22:45,578 and by questioning we perceive the truth." 285 00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:49,750 Strange words to have been written in the year 1 122. 286 00:22:50,588 --> 00:22:52,538 Of course they got him into trouble. 287 00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:57,470 Only the strength and wisdom of Cluny saved him from excommunication. 288 00:22:57,548 --> 00:23:01,088 He ended his days calmly in a Cluniac house 289 00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:04,150 and after his death the abbot of Cluny wrote to Héloise 290 00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:09,910 saying that she and Abelard would be reunited where 291 00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:13,308 "beyond these voices there is peace." 292 00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:23,660 I'm standing in a Cluniac house - the Abbey of Vézelay. 293 00:23:23,750 --> 00:23:27,660 I'm in the covered portico where the pilgrims gathered. 294 00:23:28,269 --> 00:23:32,420 Above my head is the relief on the main door, showing Christ in glory. 295 00:23:34,308 --> 00:23:38,220 He's no longer the judge, as at Moissac, but the Redeemer. 296 00:23:40,828 --> 00:23:45,098 Vézelay's full of sculpture - on the doors, on the capitals, everywhere. 297 00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:47,108 But fascinating as this is, 298 00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:53,108 one forgets about it when one looks through the door at the architecture of the interior. 299 00:23:53,788 --> 00:23:55,740 (Gregorian chant) 300 00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:16,788 It's so harmonious that, surely, St Bernard, who preached the second Crusade here, 301 00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:20,910 must have felt that this was an expression of the divine law 302 00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:23,230 and an aid to worship and contemplation. 303 00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:26,190 It certainly has that effect on me. 304 00:24:26,269 --> 00:24:29,740 Indeed, l can think of no other Romanesque interior 305 00:24:29,828 --> 00:24:34,538 that has this quality of lightness, this feeling of divine reason. 306 00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:36,990 It seems inevitable 307 00:24:37,068 --> 00:24:42,420 that the Romanesque should here merge into a beautiful early Gothic. 308 00:24:43,108 --> 00:24:45,058 (Plainsong continues) 309 00:25:43,788 --> 00:25:46,900 We don't know the name of the architect of Vézelay, 310 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:50,670 nor of the highly individual sculptors of Moissac or Toulouse 311 00:25:50,750 --> 00:25:55,338 and this used to be taken as a proof of Christian humility in the artist, 312 00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:59,190 or, alternatively, a sign of their low status. 313 00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:01,990 l think it was just an accident. 314 00:26:02,068 --> 00:26:06,380 Because, in fact, we do know the names of a good many Medieval builders, 315 00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:08,710 including the architects of Cluny. 316 00:26:08,788 --> 00:26:14,180 And the form of their inscriptions doesn't at all suggest excessive modesty. 317 00:26:15,269 --> 00:26:16,980 One of the most famous 318 00:26:17,068 --> 00:26:20,538 is bang in the middle of the main portal of the Cathedral of Autun. 319 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:23,150 You can see it under the feet of Christ. 320 00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:25,618 "Gislebertus hoc fecit." 321 00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,098 "Gislebertus made this." 322 00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,710 One of the blessed looks up at the name Gislebertus with admiration. 323 00:26:33,750 --> 00:26:36,210 He must have been considered a very important man 324 00:26:36,308 --> 00:26:39,578 for his name to have been permitted in such a prominent place. 325 00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:44,108 At a later date, it would not have been the artist's name, but the patron's. 326 00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:47,588 And, in fact, Gislebertus was important to Autun 327 00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:52,990 because he did something unique in the Middle Ages, and very rare at any time. 328 00:26:53,068 --> 00:26:57,019 He carried out the whole decoration of the cathedral himself. 329 00:26:59,028 --> 00:27:03,140 This extraordinary feat was in keeping with his character as an artist. 330 00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:07,348 He wasn't an inward-looking visionary, like the Moissac master. 331 00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:09,509 He was an extrovert. 332 00:27:09,588 --> 00:27:14,259 He loves to tell a story and his strength lies in his dramatic force. 333 00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:18,430 Look at the row of the damned under the feet of their judge. 334 00:27:18,509 --> 00:27:21,460 They form a crescendo of despair. 335 00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:27,140 They're reduced to essentials in a way that brings them very close to the art of our own time. 336 00:27:27,750 --> 00:27:32,460 A likeness terrifyingly confirmed by these gigantic hands 337 00:27:32,548 --> 00:27:37,298 that carry up the head of a sinner as if it were a piece of rubble on a building site. 338 00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:42,548 The capitals also have this vivid narrative quality. 339 00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:46,470 They contain rich pieces of ornament. 340 00:27:46,548 --> 00:27:49,700 But, in the end, it's the story that counts. 341 00:27:51,308 --> 00:27:53,259 Look at this charming donkey. 342 00:27:54,160 --> 00:28:00,150 And at the protective way in which the Virgin holds the Christ child on their journey to Egypt. 343 00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:03,509 (Plainsong) 344 00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,190 Even in this abstract-looking design 345 00:28:20,269 --> 00:28:24,259 of the three kings asleep under their magnificent counterpane, 346 00:28:24,348 --> 00:28:27,259 what matters is the angel's gesture 347 00:28:27,348 --> 00:28:34,618 and the delicate way he places one finger on the hand of a sleeping king. 348 00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:52,470 Like all storytellers, 349 00:28:52,548 --> 00:28:56,019 he had a taste for horrors and he went out of his way to depict them. 350 00:28:56,108 --> 00:29:00,019 This really horrifying work is the suicide of Judas. 351 00:29:04,788 --> 00:29:09,700 However, l must, in fairness admit that he also did a figure of Eve, 352 00:29:09,788 --> 00:29:16,298 which is the first female nude since antiquity to give a sense of the pleasures of the body. 353 00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:18,348 (MUSIC) Carmina Burana 354 00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:00,788 The work of Gislebertus w, as finished in about 1 135 355 00:30:00,788 --> 00:30:05,019 and by that time a new force had appeared in European art... 356 00:30:05,108 --> 00:30:07,460 the Abbey of St Denis. 357 00:30:07,548 --> 00:30:09,500 (Gregorian chant) 358 00:30:41,548 --> 00:30:46,618 The royal abbey of St Denis had been famous enough in earlier times. 359 00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:49,278 But the part it played in Western civilisation 360 00:30:49,348 --> 00:30:54,368 was due to the abilities of one extraordinary individual, the Abbot Suger. 361 00:30:55,680 --> 00:31:00,028 He was one of the first men of the Middle Ages whom one can think of in modern - 362 00:31:00,108 --> 00:31:02,980 l might almost say transatlantic terms. 363 00:31:04,028 --> 00:31:07,808 His origins were completely obscure and he was extremely small, 364 00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:10,588 but his vitality was overwhelming. 365 00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:15,868 It extended to everything he undertook - organisation, building, statesmanship. 366 00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,230 He was Regent of France for seven years, and a great patriot. 367 00:31:19,308 --> 00:31:23,180 Indeed, he seems to have been the first to pronounce those now familiar words;. 368 00:31:23,269 --> 00:31:26,970 "The English are destined by moral and natural law 369 00:31:27,068 --> 00:31:30,180 to be subjected to the French and not contrariwise." 370 00:31:31,108 --> 00:31:34,460 He loved to talk about himself without any false modesty. 371 00:31:34,548 --> 00:31:37,700 And he tells the story of how his builders assured him 372 00:31:37,788 --> 00:31:41,019 that beams of the length he needed for a certain roof 373 00:31:41,108 --> 00:31:45,180 could never be found because trees just weren't as tall as that. 374 00:31:46,068 --> 00:31:49,180 Whereupon he took his carpenters into the forests. 375 00:31:49,269 --> 00:31:52,858 "They smiled," he says, "and would have laughed, if they had dared." 376 00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:54,710 And in the course of the day, 377 00:31:54,788 --> 00:31:59,778 he discovered 12 trees of the necessary size and he had them felled and brought back. 378 00:31:59,880 --> 00:32:02,868 You see why l used the word "transatlantic". 379 00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:05,990 And, like several of the pioneers of the New World 380 00:32:06,068 --> 00:32:09,380 he had a passionate love of art. 381 00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:13,019 One of the most fascinating documents of the Middle Ages 382 00:32:13,108 --> 00:32:17,500 is the account he wrote of the works carried out at St Denis under his administration. 383 00:32:17,588 --> 00:32:20,618 The gold altar, the crosses, the precious crystals. 384 00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:24,108 There they are, seen through the eyes of a 15th-century painter, 385 00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,308 who has, no doubt made his figures much too large in proportion. 386 00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:31,308 Actually, Suger's great gold cross was 24 feet high 387 00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:33,348 and it was studded with jewels 388 00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:38,348 and inlaid with enamels made by one of the finest craftsmen of the age, Godefroy de Claire. 389 00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:40,390 All destroyed in the Revolution. 390 00:32:42,068 --> 00:32:46,980 All that is left of Suger's treasures is a few of the sacred vessels. 391 00:32:47,068 --> 00:32:49,778 Like this Egyptian porphyry jar, 392 00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:52,750 which he tells us he found forgotten, in a cupboard. 393 00:32:54,108 --> 00:32:58,778 Suger's feeling for all these objects was partly that of a great collector - 394 00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,950 love of brightness and splendour and antiquity - 395 00:33:02,028 --> 00:33:03,980 and a love of acquisition. 396 00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:09,630 But he was not merely a collector. He was a creator. 397 00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:14,740 His work had a philosophic basis that is very important to Western civilisation. 398 00:33:14,828 --> 00:33:19,578 Suger accepted the belief that we could only come to understand the absolute beauty, 399 00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:21,430 which is God 400 00:33:21,509 --> 00:33:26,019 through the effect of precious and beautiful things on our senses. 401 00:33:27,108 --> 00:33:32,818 He said, "The dull mind rises to truth through that which is material." 402 00:33:33,750 --> 00:33:37,500 Well, this was really a revolutionary concept in the Middle Ages. 403 00:33:37,588 --> 00:33:42,778 It was the intellectual background of all the sublime works of art of the next century, 404 00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:48,000 and in fact has remained the basis of our belief in the value of art until today. 405 00:33:50,068 --> 00:33:52,220 In addition to this revolution in theory, 406 00:33:52,308 --> 00:33:56,660 Suger's St Denis was also the beginning of many new developments in practice - 407 00:33:56,750 --> 00:34:00,019 in architecture, in sculpture, in painted glass. 408 00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:05,818 But one can still see that Suger introduced - perhaps really invented - 409 00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:07,868 the Gothic style of architecture. 410 00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:12,190 Not only the pointed arch, but the lightness of high windows - 411 00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:14,550 what we call the clerestory. 412 00:34:14,630 --> 00:34:17,340 "Bright," he says, "is the noble edifice 413 00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:19,710 that is pervaded by new light." 414 00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:22,030 And in these words he anticipates 415 00:34:22,110 --> 00:34:26,739 all the architectural aspirations of the next 200 years. 416 00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:32,789 Alas, the exterior of St Denis doesn't look too bright today. 417 00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:35,469 It's been knocked about and restored 418 00:34:35,550 --> 00:34:39,219 and is now engulfed in a squalid industrial suburb. 419 00:34:40,150 --> 00:34:43,340 To form any notion of its first effect on the mind, 420 00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:45,949 one must go to Chartres. 421 00:34:51,030 --> 00:34:54,460 In some miraculous way, Chartres has survived. 422 00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:58,510 Fire and war, revolution and restoration 423 00:34:58,590 --> 00:35:00,889 have attacked it in vain. 424 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:05,190 One can still climb the hill to the cathedral in the spirit of a pilgrim. 425 00:35:06,030 --> 00:35:09,570 Even the tourists have not destroyed its atmosphere, 426 00:35:09,670 --> 00:35:12,900 as they have in so many temples of the human spirit 427 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:17,150 from the Sistine Chapel to the Todaiji in Japan. 428 00:35:18,190 --> 00:35:20,139 (Plainsong) 429 00:35:31,230 --> 00:35:38,340 The south tower is still more or less as it was when it was completed in the year 1 164. 430 00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:42,550 It's a masterpiece of harmonious proportion. 431 00:35:43,590 --> 00:35:46,820 Was this harmony calculated mathematically? 432 00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:53,710 Well, ingenious scholars have produced a system of proportions based on measurements, 433 00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:58,030 but it's so complex that l find it very hard to credit. 434 00:35:59,030 --> 00:36:04,940 However, Chartres was the centre of a school of philosophy, devoted to Plato, 435 00:36:05,030 --> 00:36:10,420 and in particular to his mysterious book called the Timaeus, from which it was thought 436 00:36:10,510 --> 00:36:14,860 that the whole universe could be interpreted as a form of measurable harmony. 437 00:36:15,670 --> 00:36:20,940 So, perhaps, the proportions of Chartres reflect a more complex mathematics 438 00:36:21,030 --> 00:36:23,329 than one is inclined to believe. 439 00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:39,190 Chartres contained the most famous of all relics of the Virgin, 440 00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,949 the actual tunic she had worn at the time of the Annunciation. 441 00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:46,429 From the first, this relic had worked miracles 442 00:36:46,510 --> 00:36:48,099 but it was only in the 12th century 443 00:36:48,190 --> 00:36:51,659 that the cult of the Virgin began to appeal to the popular imagination. 444 00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:55,710 l suppose that in the earlier centuries life was simply too rough. 445 00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:01,110 At any rate, if art is any guide - and in this series l am taking it as my guide - 446 00:37:01,190 --> 00:37:05,460 the Virgin played a very small part in the minds of men 447 00:37:05,550 --> 00:37:08,539 during the 9th and 10th, and even the 11th, centuries. 448 00:37:08,630 --> 00:37:10,860 The Romanesque churches we've been looking at 449 00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:13,670 were dedicated to saints whose relics they contained - 450 00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:17,110 St Etienne, St Lazarus St Denis, St Mary Magdalene - 451 00:37:17,190 --> 00:37:19,300 none of them to the Virgin. 452 00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:25,150 Then, after Chartres, almost every great church in France was dedicated to her - 453 00:37:25,230 --> 00:37:27,659 Paris, Amiens, Rheims, Rouen, Beauvais. 454 00:37:28,630 --> 00:37:31,460 What was the reason for this sudden change? 455 00:37:31,550 --> 00:37:35,659 Well, l think the cult of the Virgin must have come from the East. 456 00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:40,389 Because all the early representations of the Virgin as an object of devotion 457 00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:43,268 are in a markedly Byzantine style. 458 00:37:44,030 --> 00:37:48,619 This is a page from a manuscript from Citeaux, the community of St Bernard. 459 00:37:48,710 --> 00:37:54,539 And St Bernard was one of the first men to speak of the Virgin as an ideal of beauty 460 00:37:54,630 --> 00:37:57,380 and a mediator between man and God. 461 00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,909 But certainly a strong influence in spreading the cult of the Virgin 462 00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:04,829 was the beauty and splendour of Chartres. 463 00:38:08,110 --> 00:38:10,409 The main portal of Chartres 464 00:38:10,510 --> 00:38:15,139 is one of the most beautiful congregations of carved figures in the world. 465 00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:17,750 The longer you look at it, 466 00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:22,070 the more moving incidents, the more vivid details, you discover. 467 00:38:23,110 --> 00:38:27,539 l suppose the first thing that strikes anyone is this row of pillar people. 468 00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:31,980 In naturalistic terms, as bodies they're impossible, 469 00:38:32,070 --> 00:38:35,690 and the fact that one believes in them is a triumph of art. 470 00:38:36,550 --> 00:38:40,420 The sculptor was not only a man of genius but one of great originality. 471 00:38:40,510 --> 00:38:41,860 He must have begun carving 472 00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,989 when style was dominated by the violent, twisting rhythms of Cluny. 473 00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:51,739 And he's created a style as still and restrained and classical 474 00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:55,230 as the Greek sculptors of the 6th century BC. 475 00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:09,510 But was it really Greek? 476 00:39:09,590 --> 00:39:11,539 l mean Greek in derivation. 477 00:39:11,630 --> 00:39:17,969 Were these reed-like draperies, the thin, straight lines, the fluted folds, the zigzag hems, 478 00:39:18,070 --> 00:39:23,010 and the whole play of texture which so obviously recalls the Greek archaic figure, 479 00:39:23,110 --> 00:39:25,340 arrived at independently 480 00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:29,429 or had the Chartres master seen some fragments of early Greek sculpture 481 00:39:29,510 --> 00:39:31,018 in the South of France? 482 00:39:31,110 --> 00:39:35,260 Well, for various reasons I'm quite certain that he had. 483 00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,309 But the most important thing about the central doorway, 484 00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,429 more important even than its Greek derivation, 485 00:39:43,510 --> 00:39:47,619 is the character of the heads of the so-called kings and queens - 486 00:39:47,710 --> 00:39:49,980 no-one knows exactly who they are. 487 00:39:50,070 --> 00:39:57,179 These heads seem to me to show a new stage in the ascent of Western man. 488 00:39:57,280 --> 00:40:04,750 Indeed, l believe that this refinement this look of selfless detachment and spirituality, 489 00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:08,460 is something entirely new in art. 490 00:40:08,550 --> 00:40:14,420 Beside them, the gods and heroes of ancient Greece look arrogant, soulless - 491 00:40:14,510 --> 00:40:16,579 even slightly brutal. 492 00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:20,710 l fancy that the faces which look out at us from the past 493 00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:25,510 are perhaps the surest indication we have of the meaning of an epoch. 494 00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:28,949 And the faces on the west portal of Chartres 495 00:40:29,030 --> 00:40:33,500 are amongst the most sincere and the most aristocratic 496 00:40:33,590 --> 00:40:36,050 that Western Europe has ever produced. 497 00:40:37,030 --> 00:40:38,699 From the old chronicles 498 00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:42,829 we know something about the men whose states of mind these faces reveal. 499 00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:46,630 In the year 1 144, we are told, 500 00:40:46,710 --> 00:40:49,940 when the towers seem to be rising as if by magic, 501 00:40:50,030 --> 00:40:53,980 the faithful harnessed themselves to carts which were bringing stone 502 00:40:54,070 --> 00:40:57,900 and dragged them from the quarry to the cathedral. 503 00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:01,030 The enthusiasm spread throughout France. 504 00:41:01,110 --> 00:41:03,340 Men and women came from far away, 505 00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:08,909 carrying heavy burdens of provisions for the workmen - wine, oil, corn. 506 00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:12,070 Amongst them were lords and ladies, 507 00:41:12,150 --> 00:41:14,610 pulling carts with the rest. 508 00:41:14,710 --> 00:41:19,260 There was perfect discipline and a most profound silence. 509 00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:24,630 All hearts were united and each man forgave his enemies. 510 00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:30,309 (Plainsong) 511 00:41:34,670 --> 00:41:37,179 Its very construction was a kind of miracle. 512 00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:42,219 The old Romanesque church had been destroyed by a terrible fire in 1194. 513 00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:45,429 Only the towers and the west front remained. 514 00:41:47,070 --> 00:41:51,219 And the people of Chartres feared that they had lost their precious relic. 515 00:41:53,550 --> 00:41:56,260 Then, when the debris was cleared away, 516 00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:59,230 it was found intact in the crypt. 517 00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:02,070 And the Virgin's intention became clear - 518 00:42:02,150 --> 00:42:07,860 that a new church should be built even more splendid than the last. 519 00:42:12,190 --> 00:42:15,460 The building is in the new architectural style 520 00:42:15,550 --> 00:42:21,099 to which Suger had given the impress of his authority at St Denis - what we call Gothic. 521 00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:23,309 Only at Chartres, 522 00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:27,989 the architect was told to follow the foundations of the old Romanesque cathedral, 523 00:42:28,070 --> 00:42:33,260 and this has meant that the Gothic vaulting had to cover a space far wider than ever before. 524 00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:36,469 It was a formidable problem of construction, 525 00:42:36,550 --> 00:42:43,300 and in order to solve it, the architect has used the device known as flying buttresses - 526 00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:49,789 one of those happy strokes where necessity has lead to an architectural invention 527 00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,030 of marvellous and fantastic beauty. 528 00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:21,949 Since the beginning of settled life, say, the Pyramid of Sakara, 529 00:43:22,030 --> 00:43:27,050 man had thought of buildings as a weight on the ground. 530 00:43:27,150 --> 00:43:32,500 He'd always found himself limited by problems of stability and weight. 531 00:43:33,710 --> 00:43:36,300 In the end, it kept him down to the earth. 532 00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:40,349 Now, by the devices of the Gothic style - 533 00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:45,190 the shaft with its cluster of columns passing without interruption into the vault 534 00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:49,510 and the pointed arch - he could make stone seem weightless. 535 00:43:49,590 --> 00:43:52,579 The weightless expression of the spirit. 536 00:43:53,510 --> 00:43:58,219 By the same means, he could surround his space with glass. 537 00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:03,150 Suger said that he did this in order to get more light, 538 00:44:03,230 --> 00:44:05,610 but he found that these areas of glass 539 00:44:05,710 --> 00:44:10,900 could be made into an ideal means of impressing and instructing the faithful. 540 00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:16,860 "Man may rise to the contemplation of the divine through the senses." 541 00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:24,469 Well, nowhere else, l think, is Suger's favourite saying so convincingly illustrated 542 00:44:24,550 --> 00:44:26,500 as it is in Chartres Cathedral. 543 00:44:27,510 --> 00:44:31,289 As one looks at the painted windows which completely surround one, 544 00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:35,670 they seem almost to set up a vibration in the air. 545 00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:15,710 Chartres is the epitome of the first great awakening in European civilisation. 546 00:46:16,670 --> 00:46:19,230 It's also the bridge between Romanesque and Gothic, 547 00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:23,070 between the world of Abelard and the world of St Thomas Aquinas, 548 00:46:23,150 --> 00:46:27,780 the world of restless curiosity and the world of system and order. 549 00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:32,150 Great things were to be done in the next centuries of high Gothic - 550 00:46:32,230 --> 00:46:36,300 great feats of construction, both in architecture and in thought - 551 00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:40,829 but they all rested on the foundations of the 12th century. 552 00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:45,590 That was the age which gave European civilisation its impetus... 553 00:46:46,630 --> 00:46:50,780 ..our intellectual energy, our contact with the great minds of Greece, 554 00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:53,260 our ability to move and change, 555 00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:56,710 our belief that God may be approached through beauty, 556 00:46:56,800 --> 00:46:58,789 our feeling of compassion, 557 00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:01,550 our sense of the unity of Christendom - 558 00:47:01,630 --> 00:47:07,219 all this and much more appeared in those hundred marvellous years 559 00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:11,099 between the consecration of Cluny and the rebuilding of Chartres.