Current building
Chartres Cathedral, built of limestone, is around 34 m high and 130 m long internally. It has a four-bay choir with double aisles and a double ambulatory with six radiating chapels, of which three are shallow and three, reflecting the surviving crypt chapels, are deeper.
The transepts have three bays with east and west aisles; the six-bay nave has single aisles and a western block with two towers.
The elevation is three storeyed, with piliers cantonnés for the main piers, a narrow triforium and a clerestory that was unprecedently high.
Prior to the current gothic cathedral, there was another church standing on the current site.
The oldest surviving part of the building is a chamber in …
Apart from Fulbert’s crypt the earliest part of the Chartres Cathedral is the west end. Architecturally, its most prominent features are the two towers. These …
The damage inflicted by the fire of 1194 is hard to assess today, although contemporary chroniclers indicated that it was total.
It is possible that the …