Chartres

PROLOGUE of this paper is an extreme detail analysis of Chartres Cathedral's the symbolism embedded into the three Rose Windows. The whole purpose of this paper is to illustrate how Ezekiel's Merkabah is symbolized by the North and South Rose Windows. This analysis will demonstrate the pivotal esoteric teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The history of Chartres will be discussed along with some of its sculpture. This is the second paper in a three part series on the analysis of Ezekiel's Merkabah. Part-One of the series will be on Ezekiel's Merkabah in the first chapter of Genesis and Part Three will be on Ezekiel's Merkabah laid out symbolically in the Sistine Chapel. Part-Two of the series is published first; because, I was well into writing it and; because, I had already written a paper on Ezekiel's Merkabah in the first chapter of Genesis; however, that second version has to be revised to incorporate other interpretations of the texts of the first chapter of Genesis in order for the initiate to envisage the symbolism laid out in Chartres Cathedral and the Sistine Chapel.

Chartres Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres (French: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres), is a Roman Catholic church in Chartres, France, about 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Paris and is the seat of the Bishop of Chartres. Mostly constructed between 1194 and 1220, it stands at the site of at least five cathedrals that have occupied the site since the Diocese of Chartres was formed as an episcopal see in the 4th century. It is in the High Gothic and Romanesque styles.

800 years later in 2020 we have Schumann Resonators which are little boxes you plug into the wall that produce electromagnetic radiation tuned to 7.83 Hz.
This is the frequency that the earth/atmosphere system “rings” at when the Earth is struck by lightning. It is also a common frequency your brain “ticks” at.
If we are out of sync with Earth's Frequency (Schumann Resonance) we begin to exhibit signs of discomfort that can range from anxiety, insomnia, illness, suppressed immune etc… Conversely we have discovered that when we humans are in sync with 7.83hz the body is able to heal and increase its vitality. I use PEMF (pulsed electro magnetic field) therapy devices by Swiss Bionics with Schumann resonators. 

It seems the ancients knew about this too.

The cathedral is known as "the high point of French Gothic art" and a "masterpiece" and is well-preserved for its age: the majority of the original stained glass windows survive intact, while the architecture has seen only minor changes since the early 13th century.
The building's exterior is dominated by heavy flying buttresses which allowed the architects to increase the window size significantly, while the west end is dominated by two contrasting spires – a 105-metre (349 ft) plain pyramid completed around 1160 and a 113-metre (377 ft) early 16th-century Flamboyant spire on top of an older tower. Equally notable are the three great façades, each adorned with hundreds of sculpted figures illustrating key theological themes and narratives.


At least five cathedrals have stood on this site, each replacing an earlier building damaged by war or fire. The first church dated from no later than the 4th century and was located at the base of a Gallo-Roman wall; this was put to the torch in 743 on the orders of the Duke of Aquitaine. The second church on the site was set on fire by Danish pirates in 858. This was then reconstructed and enlarged by Bishop Gislebert, but was itself destroyed by fire in 1020. A vestige of this church, now known as Saint Lubin Chapel, remains, underneath the apse of the present cathedral.
It took its name from Lubinus, the mid-6th-century Bishop of Chartres. It is lower than the rest of the crypt and may have been the shrine of a local saint, prior to the church's rededication to the Virgin Mary.

In 962 the church was damaged by another fire and was reconstructed yet again. A more serious fire broke out on 7 September 1020, after which Bishop Fulbert (bishop from 1006 to 1028) decided to build a new cathedral. He appealed to the royal houses of Europe, and received generous donations for the rebuilding, including a gift from Cnut the Great, King of Norway, Denmark and much of England. The new cathedral was constructed atop and around the remains of the 9th-century church. It consisted of an ambulatory around the earlier chapel, surrounded by three large chapels with Romanesque barrel vault and groin vault ceilings, which still exist. On top of this structure he built the upper church, 108 meters long and 34 meters wide.
The rebuilding proceeded in phases over the next century, culminating in 1145 in a display of public enthusiasm dubbed the "Cult of the Carts" – one of several such incidents recorded during the period. It was claimed that during this religious outburst, a crowd of more than a thousand penitents dragged carts filled with building supplies and provisions including stones, wood, grain, etc. to the site.

In 1134, another fire in the town damaged the facade and the bell tower of the cathedral.
Construction was begun immediately on a new tower, the north tower, which was finished in about 1150. It was just two stories high and had a lead roof. The south tower, begun in 1144, was much more ambitious; it had a spire atop the tower, and, when finished in about 1160, it reached a height of 105 metres or 345 feet, one of the highest in Europe. The two towers were joined on the first level by a chapel devoted to Saint Michael. Traces of the vaults and the shafts which supported them are still visible in the western two bays.
The stained glass in the three lancet windows over the portals dates from some time between 1145 and 1155, while the south spire, some 103 metres high, was also completed by 1155 or later. The Royal Portal on the west facade, between the towers, the primary entrance to the cathedral, was probably finished between 1145 and 1245.

Cette communication présente les méthodologies de fouille et de prélèvement d'enduits peints fragmentaires mises en oeuvre sur quatre sites chartrains fouillés entre 2005 et 2014 (Sites du Cinéma, de Gellainville - Les Beaumonts, de la Courtille et de Casanova) . Les choix effectués révèlent une adaptation à la situation de la conccurence dans le sectueur de l'archéologie préventive, avec une dégradation de conditions d'intervention et d'étude.

The Margaret and Catherine window (c.1225-1240) at Chartres Cathedral is a subject about which surprisingly little has been written, especially given its location within one of the best-studied cathedrals of medieval France. While much of the existing scholarship debates the circumstances and date of its donation, this paper focuses on the unusual iconography of the window.

The Margaret and Catherine window is the only surviving narrative stained glass window at Chartres dedicated to female saints other than those depicting the lives of Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary. The window bears some marked differences from contemporary depictions of the hagiography of Margaret and Catherine at other houses of worship, most striking of which is the absence of nudity and lengthy torture scenes at Chartres. Instead of physical torment, the Chartres window focuses on the agency of the two female saints, their roles as intercessors, and their strength of faith, character, and intellect. I argue that the Margaret and Catherine window differs because its female patron, Marguerite de Lèves, may have wanted to present the saints in a way that would resonate with female viewers.

The Kundalini is a strange and unfamiliar concept to the monotheistic religions in modernity; nonetheless, the Judeao Christian Scriptures and the Roman Catholic Church’s artworks have a number of examples that I am aware of symbolizing and conveying the concept of the Kundalini mythoi.  In addition there is plenty of evidence that Catholicism built Chartres Cathedral as a monument to the Kundalini Serpent.  None of this symbolic evidence has ever been exposed overtly to any great lengths to the laity.  That evidence is of course covertly placed in plain sight for all to partake of; however, few recognize that symbolic artwork for what it is.  In this paper I will laid out all the evidence of the mythoi of the Kundalini that I am aware of, which is extensive seeing modernity know nothing about this spiritual concept in the Judeao Christian traditions.  There may be some scholars that know something about this spiritual concept; however, it seems that they have chosen to keep silent about it.

A l'occasion de l'exposition du musée de Cluny, Musée national du Moyen Âge, "Naissance de la sculpture gothique. Saint-Denis, Paris, Chartres 1135-1150", le n° 66 d'Art de l'enluminure est consacré à une grande bible du milieu du XIIe siècle, probablement exécutée à Chartres pour Saint-Denis. Son luxuriant décor ornemental et figuré fait ici l'objet d'une étude pluridisciplinaire qui la met au cœur du renouvellement stylistique que connaissent l'architecture, le vitrail et la sculpture de cette époque.

Rares sont les grandes bibles complètes enluminées qui nous sont parvenues des décennies 1140-1160, l’époque où furent entrepris de grands chantiers de construction d’édifices religieux comme la cathédrale de Chartres et l’abbaye de Saint-Denis, dotés d’importants programmes iconographiques sculptés et peints sur vitrail. Par leur format imposant, leur mise en page soignée, leur style raffiné et leur iconographie élaborée, ces bibles s’imposent comme des monuments incontournables dans le paysage artistique de ce moment de transition entre l’art roman et l’art gothique. Fruits d’un milieu intellectuel riche et singulier, elles sont le reflet d’un mode de pensée, d’un système de représentation du monde où toutes les catégories du monde sensible sont convoquées au service de l’expression du divin et où le corporel est soumis à un processus de spiritualisation . La Bible dont il est question dans ce numéro n’échappe pas à cette règle ; elle en est même l’une des plus éminentes représentantes. Produite peu avant le milieu du XIIe siècle, d’après l’écriture et le style du décor, et conservée aujourd’hui à la Bibliothèque nationale de France en deux volumes sous les cotes BnF latins 55 et 116, elle présente toutes les caractéristiques d’une production d’apparat dont l’origine et la destination sont inconnues, comme c’est le cas pour nombre de bibles de l’époque romane . Un faisceau d’hypothèses permet d’en situer l’exécution à Chartres et de contextualiser sa production, en établissant des rapprochements avec les autres médias artistiques. Sa numérisation et sa restauration dans le cadre du programme « France-Angleterre, manuscrits médiévaux de 700 à 1200 » mené par la Bibliothèque nationale de France et la British Library grâce à un mécénat de la fondation Polonsky et sa présentation au musée de Cluny dans le cadre de l’exposition « Naissance de la sculpture gothique, Saint-Denis, Chartres, Paris, 1135-1150 » (10 octobre 2018-31 décembre 2018) offraient l’occasion d’en mener une étude multidisciplinaire.

This paper will conduct a detail analyze on Freemasonry's symbolism codified to The Great Seal of the United States obverse and reverse sides, The Apotheosis of George Washington, The Centennial Great Seal of 1882, The Capitol Building and the mapping out of Washington DC.

Here I analyze Freemasonry ongoing enterprise of codifying esoteric symbols into the streets and monuments of Washington DC.  Most of the symbols I discuss have never been videoed or written about by previous authors or film makers.

The spiritual sages of antiquity have already archived in the texts of the sacred scriptures of the world THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING by esoterically amalgamating Celestial and Quantum Mechanic to Esotericism: i.e. The Esoteric Science.  The argument that only mathematics can be use to transmit complex conceptual data modules across the epochs of time and space is debunked by the extraordinary complexities that are enshrouded in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING as envisaged by the ancient esoterists.  Mathematics is too limited a branch of science to convey to the human psyche the complexities of the world around it; thus, physics is wrong in believing that THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING can be brought down to a single algebraic equation unless of course physics can convey through it algebraic equation that everything, bar nothing, defines and explains the singularity.  Just as modern physics breaks down Einstein equation E=MC², which is a symbolic and alphanumeric algebraic equation denoting that ’Energy equal matter times the square of the speed of light” so too does the sacred scriptures cram pack every indigenous letter of the texts symbolically and alphanumerically for the sole purpose of transmitting to the soul (the lone individual) THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.  In other words the soul: i.e. the MONAD self-defines itself.  The singularity can only be defined by everything, for that is its inherent nature.  In every sense physicists are unknowingly trying to define God, which cannot be iconically classified by a single algebraic equation; rather, the singularity can only be defined and understood through the mythoi of incalculable esoteric examples for to limit the Theory of Everything to a one or an assortment of examples is to limit conceptually its overall theme.

From the outset of this paper, let me declare that I will be introducing empirical evidence of abstract spiritual laws that literally defy the so-called laws of materialistic physics and it is through these abstract laws that I will prove THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.  It should effectively bring down the house of cards that physics has built for itself under the rubric of Celestial and Quantum Mechanics: i.e. The Theory of the Big and Small.  This paper is all about the Theory of the Big and Small; however, this thesis is about the spiritual and the transcendent.

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING is the main focus of this paper; however, the reader has to be somewhat educated into the sophisticated mathematical and grammatical sciences: i.e. Seven Liberal Arts: Arithmetic, Music/Harmony, Geometry, Astronomy/Astrology, Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic/Dialectics: the Esoteric Science  (mystically hidden) symbolically integrated as one unified system of thought into the textual materials of the Judeao Christian Scriptures in order for the reader to have a sense of my theses on this subject matter.  I have no intentions of proselytizing anyone into believing in the existence of God and the transcendent; though, I will have to prove the existence of the transcendent in order to prove THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.  This Esoteric Science that I will be introducing in this paper is relatively new to modernity at least in the modern format that I present it.  This Esoteric Science has been known by the spiritual elite since time immemorial: thus, The Theory of Everything has always been known by those with the mental acuity to understand and intellectually grasp spirituality and esotericism.  These two themes are not interchangeably the same concept.  Spirituality is exclusively Christ-consciousness; whereas, one can have knowledge of the Esoteric Science and be years into researching it never acquiring Christ-consciousness.

Over a period of forty years I have self-taught myself, somewhat, the Esoteric Science that is exuded symbolically and alphanumerically from the texts of the Judeao Christian Scriptures from a scientific point of view.  In no way have I fully developed this Esoteric Science; however, I have developed esotericism enough to demonstrate definitively its existence, which will become clear as this paper unfolds.
For the reasons of the numerous complexities of the subject matter: i.e. The Theory of Everything and the complex concepts that have to be envisaged by the reader I will have to present a great deal (overabundance) of my empirical research via my analysis of the esotericism of the sacred scriptures accompanied with sacred geometry to augment those interpretations.  I believe wholeheartedly in demonstrable evidence and this is the reason that I put forth so much material.  If the Esoteric Science was known to modernity I could easily reference these materials, as I will reference my published books and those papers that I published online (in modernity there are no other reference materials on esotericism worth discussing); however, in this case I have to be absolutely certain that I am not vague in my presentation of these spiritual and transcendental concepts.  I feel it is best that I produce an overabundance of my research to augment my theses then to discuss too little of it and not get my point across.

What physics calls the universe I would suggest is the generic archetypal image of the singularity itself.  Another conceptual understanding of that statement is that all, bar nothing, is derived from the MONAD: i.e. the number one (#1) or the all.  I care nothing for materialistic physics for it deals solely with what PHYSICISTS BELIEVES is Celestial and Quantum Mechanics as the end all and be all of human understanding of existence: i.e. The Theory of the Big and the Small, which is solely from a materialistic perspective.  Physics, literally, throws the baby (singularity) out with the bathwater.  From my perspective, and this is not intended in any way as an insult, the science of physics is analogous to looking at a single atom via a microscope (tunnel vision) totally oblivious of everything around it.  It is very much like being in a room reading a book totally oblivious of the people and/or the conversational noise around you.
Actually, there is no material world other than the phantasmagoria of the mind.  Each individual psyche is a separate autonomous universe , in and of itself, that’s a given.  Physicists will never be able to wrap their minds around this real-time and symbolic argument; for the reason that, their intellectual egos will not allow them to go there.  This will become an extremely important factor in my overall theses both in real time and esoterically. Each solar system, with a sun and its planets is, actually, for all intent and purpose, a separate universe.  Each solar system is, merely, the tip of the iceberg; because, there is an infinite universe behind each star system that neither can be seen with human nor technological senses; though, there are other empirical factors (spiritual and material) that infer an infinite universe behind each star system.  Each star system is analogous to the psyche: ego-consciousness and the unconscious mind.  In proportion to humanity’s knowledge of the unconscious mind in that proportion will it understand THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING: Celestial and Quantum Mechanics: The Theory of the Big and the Small in relationship to the singularity and the transcendental reality.

The Sphinx and the Giza Plateau's Pyramid Complex has had numerous unsolved mysteries for thousands of years. Both Robert Bauval (1994) and Andrew Collins (1999) put forth their individual theories on how to solve those mysteries; however, neither had any idea that it would take the unanimity of their theories to aid in explaining those ancient Egyptian mysteries.

To understand the unanimity of these theories there are two other major factors that have to be understood: the MATRIX OF WISDOM (10²) and the TRINITARIAN PARADIGM: Trinity to understand the esoteric dynamics of the Giza Plateau's Pyramid Complex mysteries.

Four decades of esoteric and symbolic researches has given me a unique perspective of the MATRIX OF WISDOM and the TRITARIAN PARADIGM: Trinity in the world's religions and mystery schools, which enabled me to tackle and solve these awesome mysteries.

The Sphinx is the key to solving these mysteries. When modernity first observed the Egyptian Sphinx it was just a skull lying on the sands of the desert. Life is lived between the ears. The Giza Plateau's Pyramid Complex's spiritual paradigm takes place between the ears.

Solving the Sphinx and Giza Plateau's Pyramid Complex mysteries opens up all the mystical doors of esotericism and symbolism in all the major religions around the world.

Only five figurative capitals of Romanesque style still exist in Chartres Cathedral – all in its North-West-Tower, probably sculptured in the late 1130ies. Overshadowed by the splendor of Gothic architecture and art at Chartres, they have not received the attention they deserve by their artistic qualities. Three of them show intriguing scenes of combat, in dynamic composition but of doubtful meaning. Do they illustrate established narrations, possibly from antique mythology retold in medieval times? If not: Do they echo visual models of the time, e.g. from Vézelay? And/or do they reflect a spirit of mind common to the Romanesque époque, in which all this-worldly phenomena are sensed against the background of the eternal combat between Good and Evil? Their placement at a lateral, now internal double entrance to the tower is also revealing as to the building history of what is now the West front of Chartres with its famous Portail Royal. - See also the "Post Scriptum 2022" (second file). - French translation: „Fantaisie savante“. Chapiteaux historiés, tour nord de la cathédrale de Chartres, in: Cahier de la Société Archéologique d’Eure-et-Loir, Nr. 3/2017, pgs. 153–184, also on Academia.

Like many twelfth-century works, Bernardus Silvestris’ "Cosmographia" revolves around the problem of the restoration of the lost cosmical order, and tries to solve it by an innovative usage of the artes, or «techniques». By leaning on the cyclical nature of the cosmos and mirroring it, the artes become capable to renew the world. This in turn implies the existence of triadic analogies (between truth, nature and the techniques, and between God, the world, and man), which are the distinctive mark of cosmic perfection.

La "Cosmographia" di Bernardo Silvestre affronta il problema, centrale nel pensiero del XII secolo, del ristabilimento dell’ordine cosmico perduto, che cerca di risolvere attraverso il potere delle artes, ossia della tecnica: basandosi infatti sulla naturale ciclicità del cosmo, Bernardo riesce a trasformare la semplice capacità innovativa delle tecniche in un vero e proprio rinnovamento cosmico. Questo permette la costruzione di un edificio teorico di triadi analogiche tra loro (verità, natura, tecnica; Dio, mondo, uomo), nel quale consiste e insieme si rispecchia la perfetta armonia del cosmo.

The burial site and fragments of the tomb of Queen Gertrude of Andechs-Meran, first wife of King Andrew II
(1205–1235) and a victim of assassination in 1213, were discovered during the excavations carried out in the Cistercian church of
Pilis between 1967 and 1982. Her tomb was found along the central axis of the church, in the crossing. The present study, which
includes the complete catalogue of the known fragments, attempts to establish the typology, iconography, and stylistic context of
the artwork. New reconstructions are proposed for the two short sides of the sarcophagus-shaped tomb, which each bore distinct
forms: one contained a wide, shallow niche, while the other depicted two standing figures under a double arcade. The figural ornaments
on the sides of the tomb and the gisant with angels on the lid occupy an important place in the history of funerary art. In
fact, the tomb displays one of the first examples of this type of decoration. The seated figures on the side relief probably represent
the choir of saints in heaven, who provided companionship for the soul of the deceased queen. Gertrude herself is represented
not only on top of the tomb, but also appears as a donor in one of the reliefs.
Stylistic analysis of the figures proves that their master came from the workshop responsible for the Last Judgment and Callixtus
portals of the cathedral of Reims. He must have left the workshop around 1220, before the portals were completed and
installed in the façade of the northern transept. At about this time, Villard de Honnecourt also embarked on his travels that took
him from Reims to Hungary. The style of Gertrude’s tomb bears similarities to the Villard’s drawings, even if we do not wish to
attribute the sculptures to him. A team of masons from Reims also arrived in Pannonhalma during this time frame and worked
on the abbey church there. Their most important work in Pannonhalma is the southern portal of the new church, the Porta Speciosa.
The complicated nature of these construction histories reminds us of the need for caution when attributing one work of art
to one person.
Both Gertrude’s tomb and the Porta Speciosa are prime examples of the cultural and artistic period that began in the late
12th century, when the Kingdom of Hungary was a leader in the region in the reception of French Gothic.

This paper is an attempt to offer a contribution to the study of feminine archetypes through the figures of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. Although part of the Christian tradition, these two figures have also come to represent universal aspects of the Feminine. Therefore, while investigating the historical figures of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene is of indisputable interest, the paper focuses on their role as symbolical characters, arguing that their relevance as symbols is of primary interest. As a consequence, the paper proposes that the role we assign to both of them and to Jesus, the main representative of the Masculine in the Christian world, directly influences our idea of the relationship between Masculine and Feminine. The paper explores the delicate issue of Jesus’s sexuality, and ends by proposing a vision that welcomes many forms of the Feminine, and that can support in restoring the richness of the feminine archetypes from the limitations imposed on it by organized religion. The paper draws profusely on Carl Gustav Jung’s understanding of religious figures and motifs as archetypal products of the collective psyche.

In this new and revised edition of Chartres and the Birth of the Cathedral, the reader is guided as a pilgrim through the noble sanctuary that is Chartres and the lofty intellectual and spiritual ambiance that conceived the marvel that is Gothic architecture. The art historian and philosopher of religion Titus Burckhardt (1908–1984), who explores Chartres in all its glory with us in this book, was one of the twentieth century’s most renowned experts on sacred art. Medieval Christianity, on the foundation of its metaphysical, psychological, and cosmological principles, understood the human being to be a “little world” (microcosmos) consisting of spirit/intellect, soul, and body, which is at the heart of the spheres of the “big world” (macrocosmos). The medieval world understood that there is a hidden geometric “governing pattern” that harmoniously unites the seen and unseen realms of reality. This transpersonal knowledge is both discriminative and unitive, allowing for the discernment of the eternal essences of forms without confusing them. This vision creates a much more expansive view of what it means to be human and of the theophanic nature of the cosmos.

The aim of present paper is to demonstrate the iconographical interpretations of the
north rose window of the cathedral of Chartres. In the centre of the upper section Virgin Mary is enthroned, with prophets and kings from the Old Testament depicted around her. Between the rose and the five lancets underneath, the Capetian lilies and Castilian castles encompass the whole window. The lower part presents kings and prophets from the Old Testament, with Saint Anne holding the Virgin in their midst. The hardly explicable program suggests that the regent-queen, Blanche of Castile donated the windows. This presumption raises the question: how could the iconographical program can be read in the light of the Capetian lilies and the Castilian castles? After the reconstruction of the architectural chronology, I propose an iconographical interpretation comparing the transept- and choir windows. One part of the stained glass window, the five lancets, could be placed in the iconographical tradition of the virtues and vices. The complex relationship of the royal family in the representations of choir and transept could help to identify the queen’s role in the donation. It is well-known that in the French Kingdom that kings defined their ideal role as that of successors to the Old Testament kings. The north stained glass window could be an early instance of Capetian royal ideology.

According to the mythoi of the New Testament and Christianity’s traditional mythological histories and storylines, Christ was born on December 25th 7BC and John the Baptist was born six months earlier on June 24th 7BC. Those that are attentive as to what the scriptural texts are conveying will backtrack, calendar-wise, to both of their conception dates October 1st 8BC (John the Baptist) and April 1st 7BC (Jesus Christ) and forward to their circumcision dates July 1st 7BC (John the Baptist) and January 1st 6BC (Jesus Christ). Such a contemplative meditational analysis will reveal numerous nuances concerning Jesus Christ’s and John the Baptism’s mythoi that would not have been so readily available to consciousness if this kind of contemplative active meditational thought was not put into play.

Then the initiate will have to go further into his or her contemplative meditational analysis by questioning why John the Baptist was conceived and birthed at all if Jesus Christ was the main focus of the New Testament mythoi.

This paper is a sequel to a previous paper: THE BIRTH OF CHRIST  and it will augment it by answering those contemplative meditational questions. Something psychically significant had to take place prior to the conception of John the Baptist in order to instigate the Dawn of Christianity.

Le projet de PCR "Les peintures murales romaines de Chartres - Autricum" vient d'être accepté par la Commission territoriale de la récherche archéologique. Ce document présente ce projet ambitieux qui débute par une année probatoire. Si vous êtes intéressé pour y participer votre aide sera la bienvenue.

The doctoral thesis here presented aims to propose a profile, so far absent in the history of studies, of the role played by color in medieval culture, by means of the analysis of medieval aesthetic theories combined with two case-studies taken from the art-historical domain. This work focuses on the historical-chronological moment of the 12th and 13th centuries (ca. 1100-1250) for a twofold reason: the increase in theoretical production (especially in the 13th century, which sees the appearance of the first optical treatises) and the large-scale diffusion of a new artistic medium: the stained glass, which flourished in European Gothic cathedrals and abbeys starting from the twelfth century. As for the centuries before the 12th, however, stained glasses are almost only known in the form of archaeological findings, which can hardly be recomposed together. This work investigates the role played by color in the 12th and 13th century culture through the analysis of a large array of medieval written sources (theological writings, with particular reference to the corpus of work by pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite; technical treatises, with particular reference to the Schedula Diversarum Artium by Theophilus; lapidaries, encyclopaedic works, literary texts), through the discussion of some of the main themes and problems related to the subject “color” (the debate on its status of light or matter, the concept of varietas, the names of colors, the concepts of hue, luminosity and saturation, all discussed in chapter 1) and through the analysis of two case-studies: the stained glass windows of the abbey choir of St. Denis, near Paris, linked, as is well known, to the patronage of abbot Suger (discussed in chapter 2), and the stained glasses (lancets and rose windows) in the transept of the cathedral of Lincoln (East Midlands, UK), discussed in chapter 3. Lincoln cathedral was characterized by the presence, in the second quarter of the thirteenth century, of bishop Robert Grosseteste, theologian, philosopher and author of the De colore, the first medieval treatise on color, as well as other philosophical-scientific studies pertaining to several different domains (astronomy, geometry etc.) dedicated to phenomena such as light and rainbow. Grosseteste was also a scholar of the pseudo-Dionysian neoplatonic philosophy (which affected also abbot Suger’s writings), whose corpus he presented in a new Latin translation. Grossteste’s writings are here analyzed in order to establish a comparison between the stained glasses (especially those of the rose windows in the transept and the lancet with Moses scenes) and the bishop’s theoretical production around the topic “color”. Furthermore, within this research, a third case-study, is represented de facto by the investigation on the color “blue” (its names, its role, its function and symbolism) which spans through chapter 2 and 3 and has been applied to the study of St. Denis and Lincoln stained glasses. During the 12th and 13th centuries this color knew a different appreciation and ever-increasing diffusion. The technical analyses on the Saint-Denis stained glasses, placed in parallel with those of similar contemporary French windows, have highlighted, the possibility that the blue vitreous material, so characteristic of the sugerian choir windows, may have been affected by an unprecedented phenomenon of chromatic antiquarian reuse. Suger's “saphirorum materia” might well derive, at least in part, from the reuse of the glass of old late-antique, Byzantine or Carolingian mosaics (esp. the latter), as well as from the colouring agent called “saffre”, namely cobalt oxide from the Saxon ore. Finally, the analysis of the case-studies undertook the task of verifying which aspects of the medieval theoretical elaboration on colors and which technical achievements in the art of stained glasses can find a correspondence in the two work of arts investigated.

This study seeks to clarify the date, nature, and probable origin of a noted breviary that is currently preserved as part of a greatly misunderstood manuscript, Lucca, Biblioteca Arcivescovile MS 5. The purpose of this study, and particularly its ultimate aim of correctly dating and localizing the breviary, is to lay the essential foundation for further use of Lucca, Bib. Arc. MS 5 in the service of understanding the past, and especially the way in which the rituals of the book may have shaped the inner lives and self-perceptions—the identities—of those who used it. This is because the effect of any ritual on its participant, especially the ritual’s transformative power over beliefs, hopes, expectations, and identity is historically particular, shaped by the environment in which the ritual is performed. Therefore the first task of any scholar working with a liturgical manuscript must be to correctly understand the period and place in which the book was created for use, and second, to understand if and how it was used, if possible.  This study argues from a close study of the manuscript’s many hands and codicological structure that the breviary of Lucca, Bib. Arc. MS 5 was once an independent manuscript, not part of the rest of the liturgical material now appended to it, but created sometime between 1125-1150. The notation of the breviary, taken together with the breviary’s primary hand and curious red neumes added by the rubricator, suggests that the breviary may have been compiled by a musician trained at Saint-Père-en-Vallée in Chartres, probably a cantor. As will be shown here, no obvious feature of the breviary connects it to the Crusader Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, but a painstaking comparative study of the breviary’s contents, both the liturgy of the temporale and sanctorale, show that its liturgy was drawn from diverse European sources, a circumstance which points to the breviary’s composition outside of Europe itself, where it would have likely represented the use of a single house or diocese. Furthermore, methodical study of the breviary’s liturgy in the context of known manuscripts representing the liturgy celebrating in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in the twelfth century demonstrates that breviary’s creators drew upon the early twelfth century use of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, a circumstance which limits the breviary’s production to somewhere in the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. However further comparative analysis of the breviary’s liturgy, sometimes indirectly carried out, shows that the breviary does not represent the pre-1149 office of the church of the Holy Sepulchre itself, an office for which there are in fact no direct and complete witnesses.  Instead, by excluding other major churches of Jerusalem for various reasons as the breviary’s probable point of origin, this study argues that the breviary of Lucca, Bib. Arc. MS 5 most likely represents the use of one of the cathedrals of the patriarchate. Finally, archaeological and prosopographical research, and especially a study of the identity and career of Fulcher of Angoulême, Archbishop of Tyre, is used alongside the contents of the breviary’s liturgy to argue that out of all the cathedrals of the patriarchate, the breviary of Lucca, Bib. Arc. MS 5 most likely represents the use of the cathedral of Tyre as it existed sometime between 1135-1150, though the breviary itself must have been copied for the personal use of someone associated with the cathedral, probably the cantor.

An excursion through the Royal Portal of Chartres Cathedral to explore medieval cosmology, astronomy and eschatology. The hypothesis that astrolabe images in the Royal Portal record actual astronomical data about planetary positions is considered, tested and falsified. The imagery is nevertheless found to be consistent with the theology of Adventus.

Le diagnostic du site de la Courtille a eu lieu à Chartres du 15 mars au 16 avril 2010 à l’emplacement d’une piscine et d’un gymnase sur une parcelle de 6 611 m2. À l’origine un diagnostic classique avec des tranchées linéaires était envisagé car les opérations archéologiques réalisées, à l’est et à l’ouest (C271, C80), avaient livré des vestiges peu profonds et arasés qui ne permettaient pas d’appréhender la physionomie antique du site. Lors de la démolition de la piscine un important remblais du XIXe s a été observé sur une épaisseur de 6 m rendant le mode opératoire initial impossible. Il fut donc décidé de procéder à la réalisation de trois fenêtres profondes terrassées par paliers. Ce terrassement particulier impliquait une ouverture en surface suffisamment importante pour une observation satisfaisante des vestiges à grande profondeur, limitée de fait par le stockage in situ des déblais. D’évidence, au regard de ces fortes contraintes, il n’était pas possible d’échantillonner le terrain à 10% comme le demandait la prescription. In fine, le substrat géologique n’a pas pu être atteint et l’accès aux vestiges a été limité à seulement 247 m2 (pour 2 251 m2 de surface ouverte) en raison de l’exiguïté des fenêtres d’observation, à laquelle se sont ajoutées des résurgences aquifères dans la première fenêtre. Malgré ces difficultés techniques, la densité et l’épaisseur stratigraphique des vestiges ont pu être appréhendées bien que des incertitudes demeurent sur les occupations les plus anciennes. Ainsi, deux voies antiques, un habitat médiéval et des zones de terres noires ont pu être caractérisés. Le diagnostic de la Courtille fournit un exemple des difficultés techniques rencontrées sur les chantiers qui font obstacle à une évaluation satisfaisante de potentiel d’un terrain et ainsi complexifient l’élaboration du projet scientifique des fouilles qui en découle.

In this article, I share my experience of participating in the shooting of the episode "Visions of God" in the third season of “The Story of God with Morgan Freeman” (http://natgeotv.com/ca/the-story-of-god-with-morgan-freeman ). The show aired in the National Geographic channel on Tuesday 19 March (2019) in the U.S. and Canada -- and April 27 in France and later in other places around the world. In the episode, I am taking Mr. Freeman through the Chartres Cathedral (France) and discussing how sacred architecture may be a gate to God. The program was shot in early November 2018. The article provides another perspective on the episode/program. Here is a link to the website version of the article : https://faithandform.com/feature/talking-with-god/ 

“The Story of God With Morgan Freeman” is available on natgeo.com/tv, Amazon, iTunes, Netflix, and other streaming media providers.

The article discusses the reception of the Platonic concept of memory of ancient deeds in twelfth-century historical writing in the 'younger Europe'. It focuses on the myth of Atlantis, as described in the translation of Timaeus by Calcidius, illustrating the manner in which two twelfth-century chroniclers – Master Vincentius Kadłubek and Theodoricus Monachus – used the said myth as a structural basis for their accounts of the past of Poland and Norway, respectively. Both chroniclers invoke Plato's idea of a memory of ancient past that survives through centuries without recourse to scripture and is the province not of the people whose history it concerns, but rather of one that is closely related, or, at times – of an older generation.

* New artwork connected to this research @ daphne Indigenous Art Centre, Montréal, Nov. 3, 2023 - Jan. 13, 2024. / Lecture accompanying a series of art installation projects in progress. It relates to the 1670s wampum belt made by Wendat converts at the Jesuit mission of Lorette near Québec City, and bearing a prayer to the Virgin Mary written in Latin. I analyse the beads, design and context, to explore the resistance of Wendat ancestral spirituality, diplomacy and social principles, subtly encoded in the belt. Behind the surface of Catholic devotion in the written phrase, "the medium" of wampum belts IS "the message". (recording unavailable)