The fame of these and other wonders of the sort, narrated by the pilgrims and repeated by the inhabitants of the town, soon filled the countryside and spread to the more distant provinces. The renown of the Church of Chartres filled the land and reached beyond the seas. In La Beauce every hamlet was eager to contribute something to its glory. Those who had no possessions to offer gave their services loading and drawing vehicles: the roads were crowded with these humble servants of the Lord. The blind, the dumb, the lame and the halt awaited in each village the passing of the pilgrims and besought to be allowed to join their company. Rich and poor, all came to Chartres with their offerings, so that, in the words of the chronicler, money came to support the workmen, rather from the hand of Providence than human purses.[69] The deduction of the historian from the legends of our Trouvère is one which we shall find illustrated by the Cathedral windows. It is, that this Cathedral is a popular and national monument, built by the free labour of the people gathered together freely from all parts of France, joining and rejoicing in the new democratic movement of the Communes, and recording, therefore, in stone and glass their new aspirations, their new dignity. CHAPTER VI _Mediæval Glass and Mediæval Guilds_ ‘I gaze round on the windows, pride of France! Each the bright gift of some mechanic guild, Who loved their city and thought gold well spent To make her beautiful with piety.’ JAMES RUSSEL LOWELL. ‘Fine coloured windows of several works.’ FRANCIS BACON. There are in the Cathedral one hundred and seventy-five stained-glass lights, ‘storied windows richly dight,’ and of these almost all date from the thirteenth century. Remembering the glass of the following century in S. Père and the later windows of S. Aignan, we shall not care to dispute the claim of Chartres to be the _locus classicus_ of mediæval glass.