Seven centuries dissolve and vanish away,
being as they were not, and the thirteenth century lives less for us
than we live in it and are a part of its gaiety and light-
heartedness, its youthful ardour and abounding action, its childlike
simplicity and frankness, its normal and healthy and all-embracing
devotion.
And it is well for us to have this experience. Apart from the
desirable transformation it effects in preconceived and curiously
erroneous superstitions as to one of the greatest eras in all
history, it is vastly heartening and exhilarating. If it gives new
and not always flattering standards for the judgment of contemporary
men and things, so does it establish new ideals, new goals for
attainment. To live for a day in a world that built Chartres
Cathedral, even if it makes the living in a world that creates the
"Black Country" of England or an Iron City of America less a thing
of joy and gladness than before, equally opens up the far prospect
of another thirteenth century in the times that are to come and
urges to ardent action toward its attainment.
But apart from this, the deepest value of Mont-Saint-Michel and
Chartres, its importance as a revelation of the eternal glory of
mediaeval art and the elements that brought it into being is not
lightly to be expressed. To every artist, whatever his chosen form
of expression, it must appear unique and invaluable, and to none
more than the architect, who, familiar at last with its beauties,
its power, and its teaching force, can only applaud the action of
the American Institute of Architects in making Mr. Adams an Honorary
Member, as one who has rendered distinguished services to the art,
and voice his gratitude that it has brought the book within his
reach and given it publicity before the world.
Whitehall, Sudbury, Massachusetts, June, 1913.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
I. SAINT MICHIEL DE LA MER DEL PERIL
II. LA CHANSON DE ROLAND
III. THE MERVEILLE
IV. NORMANDY AND THE ILE DE FRANCE
V. TOWERS AND PORTALS
VI. THE VIRGIN OF CHARTRES
VII. ROSES AND APSES
VIII. THE TWELFTH-CENTURY GLASS
IX. THE LEGENDARY WINDOWS
X. THE COURT OF THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN
XI. THE THREE QUEENS
XII. NICOLETTE AND MARION
XIII. LES MIRACLES DE NOTRE DAME
XIV. ABELARD
XV. THE MYSTICS
XVI. SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS
Preface
[December, 1904.]
Some old Elizabethan play or poem contains the lines:--
. . . Who reads me, when I am ashes,
Is my son in wishes . . . . . . . . .
The relationship, between reader and writer, of son and father, may
have existed in Queen Elizabeth's time, but is much too close to be
true for ours. The utmost that any writer could hope of his readers
now is that they should consent to regard themselves as nephews, and
even then he would expect only a more or less civil refusal from
most of them.
