• DOI:10.2307/2849842
• Corpus ID: 162629090

Historical Aspects of the Reconstruction of Reims Cathedral, 1210-1241

@article{Branner1961HistoricalAO,
  title={Historical Aspects of the Reconstruction of Reims Cathedral, 1210-1241},
  author={Robert Branner},
  journal={Speculum},
  year={1961},
  volume={36},
  pages={23 - 37}
}

• Robert Branner
• Published 1 January 1961
• History
• Speculum

THE cathedral of Notre-Dame at Reims ranks among the largest and most imposing monuments of the Middle Ages. In view of the number of studies devoted to this Gothic church, it is astonishing to note that the early history of its construction is still very imperfectly known.' Most students of Reims have been preoccupied by the famous lost labyrinth, which once contained the names of the first architects, their tenures of office, and the parts of the edifice they worked on. But the information now available from the labyrinth, far from clarifying the dates of the work, has obscured them and has in fact given rise to more interpretations than there are authors.2 The way out of the impasse seems obvious: the history of the Gothic construction should be examined exclusively from documents other than the labyrinth; the relative chronology of the monument must also be established and tied to the historical dates, and ultimately the secret of the labyrinth may be disclosed.3 The first of these endeavors forms the subject of the present essay. There are only three precise and indisputable dates for the Gothic work at Reims in the first half of the thirteenth century. On 6 May 1210 the cathedral burned "through carelessness," according to the chronicler Alberic des TroisFontaines.4 A new building was undertaken at once and on 6 May 19211 the first