Notre-Dame the most famous Cathedral of France. Everyone knows your massive double towers and grotesque figures. This Notre-Dame is the main Church. For style and for the Church to reform the Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy was crucial for the French royalty, the Cathedral of Saint-Denis. There, the Merovingian, Chlothar I., and Dagobert are buried. The founder of the dynasty of the Carolingians, the huge house Meier Charles Martel, and later the “Hammer” of God – was there buried. Since Hugo Capet, almost all of the French kings took place in Saint-Denis. Crown they were not in Notre-Dame, but in the Cathedral of Reims. Only Napoleon made an exception, he crowned himself in 1804, the Emperor of the French in the Cathedral of Paris.
in Paris
But Notre-Dame is the Church of the city of Paris, it was not built as a monastery Church far away in the Wilderness. It is located in the historic centre of Paris on the Eastern tip of the Seine island Île de la Cité. Their massive 69-Meter-high towers dominate the city, the crashed now four of a kind storm was enough even in the height of 93 meters. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame is today the most visited Monument of Paris, around 13 million tourists admire every year – more than the Eiffel tower.
the Cathedral was built on the site of a previous building, which had already emerged at the time of child Ebert I. in the years around 540 to 550. The Work on it began in 1163, at the time of the high middle ages. 200 years of the Church. The process started in the turn from Romanesque to Gothic. This was not without consequences. In the course of the construction elements of the first stages of construction were demolished again, because of the Romanesque style fit in with the Gothic West facade. The ongoing construction of the Grand Church that accompanied the rise of Paris to the top of France. With the disintegration of the Empire of the Carolingians, and the Power of the kings of France was crumbling. Only in a very long and laborious process, they were able to extend their dominion over the Île-de-France.
your biggest importance is the Church in the middle ages. Ironically, in their darkest hour, the Church marked a historical turning point. In the French Revolution, Notre Dame was desecrated, like many other churches and monasteries and destroyed. A short time the Church acted as a “temple of the Supreme being”, later it was demoted to wine storage.
The middle ages, was re –
However, in 1831, appeared the novel “The hunchback of Notre-Dame” by Victor Hugo. This book had meaning for literature and culture, you can’t imagine today, if one only knows the Disney adaptations. Victor Hugo’s novel the love of the misshapen Glöckners Quasimodo to the beautiful Gypsy Esmeralda is embedded in a story filled with life in the Paris of the late middle ages. A Central and recurring motif in the description of the Cathedral. Forming the anchor of the story.
Hugo advanced the beauty of the construction. In the dress of the historical novel of the middle ages was rediscovered. Shortly before that, the age between appeared to be ruled for the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance as a dark period in a dark superstition. The buildings and district were considered to be outdated, musty, dark and cold – as a case for the wrecking ball.
The romantic view of Hugo’s created an image of the middle ages, as popular culture maintains, even today. After that, the whole of Europe transfigured the time of the knights, and discovered their roots in this time. For the Cathedral of the success of the book had very practical consequences. In 1844, it was decided to leave Notre-Dame de Paris not expire, but to restore the Cathedral complex.
The unfortunate hunchback and the beautiful Gypsy has since become one of the couples that establish the reputation of Paris as the city of love.
in the See also
