Cathédrale de Chartres; Civilization, Medieval; Mont-Saint-Michel (Abbey : France)
Beneath the rose are five long windows, very unlike the twelfth-
century pendants to the western rose. These five windows blaze with
red, and their splendour throws the Virgin above quite into the
background. The artists, who felt that the twelfth-century glass was
too fine and too delicate for the new scale of the church, have not
only enlarged their scale and coarsened their design, but have
coarsened their colour-scheme also, discarding blue in order to
crush us under the earthly majesty of red. These windows, too, bear
the stamp and seal of Blanche's Spanish temper as energetically as
though they bore her portrait. The great central figure, the tallest
and most commanding in the whole church, is not the Virgin, but her
mother Saint Anne, standing erect as on the trumeau of the door
beneath, and holding the infant Mary on her left arm. She wears no
royal crown, but bears a flowered sceptre. The only other difference
between Mary and her mother, that seems intended to strike
attention, is that Mary sits, while her mother stands; but as though
to proclaim still more distinctly that France supports the royal and
divine pretensions of Saint Anne, Queen Blanche has put beneath the
figure a great shield blazoned with the golden lilies on an azure
ground.
With singular insistence on this motive, Saint Anne has at either
hand a royal court of her own, marked as her own by containing only
figures from the Old Testament. Standing next on her right is
Solomon, her Prime Minister, bringing wisdom in worldly counsel, and
trampling on human folly. Beyond Wisdom stands Law, figured by Aaron
with the Book, trampling on the lawless Pharaoh. Opposite them, on
Saint Anne's left, is David, the energy of State, trampling on a
Saul suggesting suspicions of a Saul de Dreux; while last,
Melchisedec who is Faith, tramples on a disobedient Nebuchadnezzar
Mauclerc.
How can we, the common people, help seeing all this, and much more,
when we know that Pierre de Dreux has been for years in constant
strife with the Crown and the Church? He is very valiant and lion-
hearted;--so say the chroniclers, priests though they are;--very
skilful and experienced in war whether by land or sea; very adroit,
with more sense than any other great lord in France; but restless,
factious, and regardless of his word. Brave and bold as the day;
full of courtesy and "largesse"; but very hard on the clergy; a good
Christian but a bad churchman! Certainly the first man of his time,
says Michelet! "I have never found any that sought to do me more ill
than he," says Blanche, and Joinville gives her very words; indeed,
this year, 1230, she has summoned our own Bishop of Chartres among
others to Paris in a court of peers, where Pierre has been found
guilty of treason and deposed. War still continues, but Pierre must
make submission. Blanche has beaten him in politics and in the
field! Let us look round and see how he fares in theology and art!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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