THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES HIDDEN BENEATH A MODERN EXTERIOR: FROM THE [L3 401 / MYSTERY OF THE DRUIDS] TO THE 20TH CENTURY.
Today, a 20th-century lifestyle exists side by side with the [P 021 / beautiful old town] which surrounds the famous cathedral. A modern shopping center is built up against houses which date back five centuries or more. Main streets are busy with people rushing from the bank to the post office and the supermarket. Chartres is a small active place, which feels both industrious and yet serene. Modern life goes on in the shell of a much older past. In today's cathedral, there are unexplained phenomena, for example [L3 402 / the mystery of the illuminated stone].
Go back 1,000 years and you would find a cathedral on a hill, much smaller than the one we can see today, at the center of a simple early medieval town; a few stone houses surrounding the cathedral and the beginnings of the cathedral school which was to become famous throughout [G 09 / Christendom] in the 12th and 13th centuries. The city walls would act as fortification against the frequent attacks by raiders. The lives of most of the inhabitants would revolve around their small piece of land, the struggle to feed themselves and the church on the hill.
If you arrived in Chartres towards the end of 1194, the talk would all be of the new cathedral which was being built after the terrible fire of that same year. The townspeople would all be involved in dragging the stones from the quarry at Bercheres to the site of the new cathedral, and they would undoubtedly have told you about [L3 403 / the Miracle of the Virgin's Robe]. Just under 30 years later, you could have seen the new Cathedral of Chartres, built in the Gothic style, to honor the Virgin and more glorious than any other cathedral in Christendom. You might have asked how such a church was built so quickly? Was there a [L3 404 / mystery about the origins of Gothic architecture? ] It was at this time that the first [G 18 / Knights Templar] returned from Jerusalem, possibly with [L3 405 / tales of the Ark of the Covenant]. Could these knights throw some light on [L3 406 / the reason why the cathedral was built so quickly], and [L3 407 / the mystery of the towers] whose dimensions fit so exactly with the dimensions of the new cathedral which was built much later?
A book by Louis Charpentier entitled `The Mysteries of Chartres Cathedral', first published in 1966, offers some fascinating insights into the invisible side of Chartres. On first sight, Chartres Cathedral is a beautiful monument, towering above the Beauce plains, glowing with light and color from its exquisite stained glass windows. After spending some time examining the interior, visitors will notice a mass of details in the stone and glass, not obvious at first sight. However, there is another dimension to Chartres, which Charpentier examines in his book. His findings suggest a far greater mystery: that there seems to be [L3 408 / a link between Chartres Cathedral, Solomon's Temple and the Pyramids of Cheops]. Chartres Cathedral evidently seems to have had some miraculous powers, as illustrated in [L3 409 / the Mystery of Edward III and the siege of Chartres].
There are oddities in the Chartres story that go back even further. Another thousand years back in time would take us to an early Roman town, recently established during the Roman sweep across Gaul and the conquest of the tribes who lived there. Celtic people around Chartres would be beginning to accustom themselves to these new invaders from lands to the East, who came with their strange clothes, their chariots, and their elaborate towns and houses. There was possibly a Roman fort. There may have been a center of administration. We know for sure that Chartres did become a Roman town of some importance.
But before the Roman conquest, on the hill where the cathedral now stands, it is believed that there was an oak forest, and that in this forest, sacred rituals were performed. Behind the modern town, the medieval town and the Roman town, there may have been a much older past: a sacred center as important to the people then as Chartres would later become to Christians. It is believed that the town was once a sacred center of the Druids, where the Black Virgin of Chartres may have been worshipped.
