Where did [L3 302 / Gothic architecture] come from? It is obviously not a direct evolution of [L3 301 / Romanesque architecture.] Gothic architecture was first seen in 1140 in the new Abbey of Abbot Suger at Clairvaux and quickly spread to many parts of France, England, Italy and Germany. How did it develop so quickly? Why did it develop as it did?
Louis Charpentier throws some fragments of evidence together and produces an extraordinary hypothesis. He begins with the idea of a temple as a religious monument. A temple was a place where men could receive the spirit of their god and where they could reach the god. In a holy place, men went through a transformation and they were changed in some way. In a simply spiritual sense, this could be the natural uplifting of spirit, feeling of over-awe, feeling of fear or even wonder at the sheer size and beauty of a cathedral such as Chartres.
Progressing from the fact that the architecture and art of a building can produce an emotion in a man, we can move to the idea that man undergoes some spiritual and religious transformation. Charpentier believes there is a reason for this. A religious building is constructed in a very precise and contrived way. The dimensions, the balancing of weight and thrust, have another purpose other than ensuring that the building will remain standing for a very long time. Charpentier believes that religious buildings, such as Gothic cathedrals, Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt, were all built to a very precise formula.
This formula produced a building which, because of its exact measurements to pre-ordained divine numbers and dimensions, could bring about the spiritual transformation of men. It was not men who had decided how these monuments should be built, but some ancient knowledge which had originally been handed down to men through cryptic writings to [G 21 / master masons]. The writings were interpreted by scholars, and then changed into numbers, arches, curves, [G 32 / vaulted] roofs and stained glass windows by master masons.
