The Gothic Enterprise by Scott Robert A.;

Author:Scott, Robert A.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2012-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

Creating Sacred Space

We have seen how, in the minds of those who designed and built them, Gothic cathedrals were intended to mirror heaven as medieval theologians imagined it to be. The cathedral was supposed to be a setting in which humans could glimpse heaven, thereby experiencing a foretaste of the hereafter. It served to draw people toward heaven. Durkheim’s ideas about the sacred, however, suggest a different, almost opposite view of the cathedral’s purpose—in which the cathedral is a place designed to draw the divine down among people.6 We might say this is done by creating a congenial habitat for the divine. Working within the limits imposed by ordinary materials, builders aim to erect a setting reminiscent of the place from which the divine emanates. People then enact rituals in this space that they believe will please God, encouraging the divine spirit to enter the building and occupy it. In this sense, the Gothic cathedral is akin to a great lens created to gather the diffuse ambient light of the divine spirit and focus it to a particular geographical location, where it becomes available for human worship and supplication.

These two views may seem antagonistic, but I do not believe they are. Each appears plausible yet incomplete. A fuller understanding of the Gothic cathedral requires us to view it both as a place where humans were meant to cast their eyes toward heaven and as a setting in which humans endeavored to lure the divine into their midst. The second endeavor is actually reflected in the building’s design and layout, as well as in what transpired within it.

To people in the Middle Ages, it was obvious that sacred spaces had to be created and that the act of creating them demanded the highest forms of artistic expression of which human beings were capable. The medieval worldview did not lend itself to the idea, present in other cultures, that natural places—caves, tree hollows, or forest glens—might be suitable settings for attracting the divine into the human midst. On the contrary, they believed that fashioning a sacred space in a setting of God’s very own creation might be viewed by Him as demeaning or a slight. It was taken for granted that sacred spaces had to be built. Moreover, such spaces had to be constructed of materials that could be seen as suitable to the purposes at hand. In theory, all that is required to create a sacred space is a place apart and separate from the secular world; the boundary lines between secular and sacred realms could be marked by mud, twigs, or mounds of dirt, and processional ways designated with chalk or pebbles. But in the mind of the medieval cathedral builder sacred spaces demanded substantiality. Stone, whenever available, seemed required, and, in its absence, wood or brick. Of all natural materials available during the Middle Ages, stone was preferred because it alone had the requisite qualities of durability, heft, timelessness, and permanence that a house meant for the sacred demanded.

The philosopher John Sallis captures the nub of this sentiment in his fascinating book Stone.

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