High Gothic: The Age of the Great Cathedrals Book

Paris, Chartres, Reims, Amiens, Cologne, Westminster, Canterbury: All these places have a magnificent and awesome heritage in common. For they are the sites of the great Gothic cathedrals, those dizzying ladders to God that were built over decades, sometimes centuries, in the early part of this millennium.

It is impossible to imagine now the impact these constructions had on the psychology of those who watched them climb towards the sky. Dwarfing any surrounding architecture, they were both breath-taking hymns of praise in stone to a universally worshipped god, and an unequivocal testament to human ingenuity and vision.

A Northern European movement, High Gothic found its perfect correlation in the developing engineering techniques of the Middle Ages, skills in many ways unmatched today. The vast work sites of these buildings were models of organisation and commitment, with numerous craftsmen working simultaneously on different aspects of the construction. Generations would pass before the finishing touches were put to the spire, and the faith was found to work on something they would not live to see finished is remarkable.

Binding's book enthusiastically describes both the overarching achievement and the actual erection of these still unsurpassed monuments, and is generously illustrated throughout with plans and elevations.