Chartres Cathedral

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Since 876, when Charles the Bald gave it the veil believed worn by Mary at the birth of Christ, Chartres has belonged to the Mother of God. On a June night in 1194 lightning set the cathedral ablaze and the town despaired, certain the relic was lost, until priests emerged from the crypt three days later carrying the veil unharmed, and the papal legate declared that Mary herself desired a more magnificent house. In just twenty-six years the masterpiece of French Gothic rose above the wheat plains, its three-tiered elevation flooding the interior with the light of stained glass whose depth of blue has never been matched. On the nave floor a labyrinth of pale stone, laid around 1200 and nearly the width of the great west rose window above it, still invites pilgrims to walk its winding path to the center as a journey of the soul, and the veil itself remains, displayed in its chapel after more than eleven centuries.