The Cathedral “Passionate, Erudite, Living Legend Lecturers
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“Pure intellectual stimulation that can be popped into Topic Subtopic the [audio or video player] anytime.” History Medieval History —Harvard Magazine The Cathedral “Passionate, erudite, living legend lecturers. Academia’s best lecturers are being captured on tape.” —The Los Angeles Times The Cathedral “A serious force in American education.” Course Guidebook —The Wall Street Journal Professor William R. Cook State University of New York at Geneseo Professor William R. Cook has taught thousands of students over the course of more than 35 years at the State University of New York at Geneseo, where he is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History. Professor Cook is an expert in medieval history, the Renaissance and Reformation periods, and the Bible and Christian thought. The Medieval Academy of America awarded Professor Cook the CARA Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Medieval Studies for his achievements. THE GREAT COURSES® Corporate Headquarters 4840 Westfields Boulevard, Suite 500 Chantilly, VA 20151-2299 Guidebook USA Phone: 1-800-832-2412 www.thegreatcourses.com Cover Image: © Sites and Photos Photographer: Samuel Magal. Course No. 7868 © 2010 The Teaching Company. PB7868A PUBLISHED BY: THE GREAT COURSES Corporate Headquarters 4840 Westfi elds Boulevard, Suite 500 Chantilly, Virginia 20151-2299 Phone: 1-800-832-2412 Fax: 703-378-3819 www.thegreatcourses.com Copyright © The Teaching Company, 2010 Printed in the United States of America This book is in copyright. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of The Teaching Company. William R. Cook, Ph.D. Distinguished Teaching Professor of History State University of New York at Geneseo rofessor William R. Cook was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Pattended public schools there. He is a 1966 graduate of Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa). He received Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Lehman fellowships to study Medieval History at Cornell University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1971. In 1970, Professor Cook was appointed Assistant Professor of History at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseo, the honors college of SUNY. He has taught there for 40 years, teaching courses in medieval and ancient history, the Renaissance and Reformation periods, and the Bible and Christian thought, and currently holds the rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor of History. He recently taught a course on Alexis de Tocqueville and freshman seminars that focus on several aspects of African American history and American politics. For two years (2008–2010), Professor Cook returned to teach at Wabash College, his alma mater, as Visiting Professor of Religion and History. In 2010, Wabash conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. In 1992, Professor Cook was named CASE Professor of the Year for New York State. He received the ¿ rst-ever CARA Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Medieval Studies from the Medieval Academy of America in 2003. He was recently named the alternate for the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, receiving a prize of $15,000 plus a substantial award to his department. After publishing several articles on Hussite theology and monastic thought during his early career, Professor Cook has, for the past 30 years, focused much of his research on Saint Francis of Assisi. Since 1989, Professor Cook has published three books about Saint Francis and how he is represented i in paintings in Italy. Professor Cook has also contributed to the Cambridge Companion to Giotto and is the editor of and a contributor to The Art of the Franciscan Order in Italy. Professor Cook spends part of each year doing research and teaching in Italy. From his base in Siena, he works frequently in Florence, as well as Assisi. He has taken students from SUNY Geneseo to Italy on eight occasions and conducts study tours for the public. In recent years, Professor Cook has been a lecturer and site-visit leader for the Young Presidents’ Organization and Chief Executives Organization, groups of corporate leaders from around the world. He has participated in their programs in Florence, Prague, Istanbul, Dublin, Kyoto, and Paris. In 2005, he was invited by the Friends of Florence, a group of philanthropists dedicated to preserving works of art in Tuscany, to make presentations for the group’s fall meeting in Florence; he now presents programs for the group in Florence each February. Professor Cook has directed 11 Summer Seminars for School Teachers for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) since 1983; 7 have had Saint Francis as their subject and were conducted in Siena and Assisi. In 2003, 2006, and 2008, he directed NEH seminars for college teachers in Italy titled Saint Francis and the 13th Century. In addition to his research in Italy, Professor Cook has studied the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville. This interest came about primarily after Professor Cook’s unsuccessful run in 1998 for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has written three volumes of western New York history and writes a weekly column for his local newspaper, The Livingston County News. He was also a frequent contributor to the editorial pages of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in 2004–2005. Ŷ ii Table of Contents INTRODUCTION Professor Biography ............................................................................i Course Scope .....................................................................................1 LECTURE GUIDES LECTURE 1 What Is a Cathedral? ..........................................................................3 LECTURE 2 Early Christian Architecture ................................................................7 LECTURE 3 Romanesque—A New Monumental Style ........................................12 LECTURE 4 Vaulting—A Look at Roofs ................................................................16 LECTURE 5 Romanesque at Its Best ..................................................................20 LECTURE 6 Saint-Denis and the Beginning of Gothic Style.................................24 LECTURE 7 The Urban Context of Cathedrals ....................................................28 LECTURE 8 Notre Dame in Paris .........................................................................32 LECTURE 9 Early Gothic Style—Laon .................................................................36 LECTURE 10 Chartres—The Building ....................................................................40 iii Table of Contents LECTURE 11 Chartres—The Sculpture ..................................................................44 LECTURE 12 Chartres—The Windows ..................................................................49 LECTURE 13 Amiens—The Limits of Height ..........................................................53 LECTURE 14 Amiens—The Facade .......................................................................56 LECTURE 15 Reims—The Royal Cathedral ...........................................................60 LECTURE 16 Cathedrals—Who Builds? Who Pays? How Long? ..........................64 LECTURE 17 New Developments in Gothic France ...............................................68 LECTURE 18 Late Gothic Churches in France .......................................................72 LECTURE 19 Early Gothic Architecture in England ................................................76 LECTURE 20 Decorated and Perpendicular English Gothic...................................82 LECTURE 21 Gothic Churches in the Holy Roman Empire ....................................87 LECTURE 22 Gothic Churches in Italy ...................................................................92 LECTURE 23 Gothic Styles in Iberia and the New World .......................................97 iv Table of Contents LECTURE 24 Gothic Architecture in Today’s World ..............................................101 SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL Cathedral Vocabulary .....................................................................105 Timeline ..........................................................................................106 The Basic Gothic Floor Plan ...........................................................110 Cathedrals and Churches of Note .................................................. 111 Glossary .........................................................................................121 Biographical Notes .........................................................................134 Bibliography ....................................................................................141 v vi The Cathedral Scope: he modern mind cannot comprehend the symbolic—and real—power that the cathedral has held for much of the past 2,000 years of Western Tcivilization. Rising to the heavens, a three-dimensional manifestation of art, science, and religious fervor, a cathedral was the local seat of power, community, worship, and often economics. To understand the deep historical, religious, social, and architectural context that makes a serious study of the cathedral possible, we start at the beginning with the development of cathedrals: Why did they come about and when? Why did they take on a particular shape? Who designed and built them, and for what purpose? After