50 Fun Facts About Gothic Architecture

What is regarded as the defining design element of Gothic architecture?

Its use led in turn to the pointed rib vault and new ways of bracing the walls from outside.

Gothic architecture was supplanted from the mid-15th century by which style, born in Italy?

Gothic itself had evolved from Romanesque, and lingered on in England and Belgium into the 16th century.

In which region did Gothic architecture originate?

It spread from there across Latin Europe during the 13th century.

What did medieval builders themselves call the style, in Latin?

It was also called opus modernum ('modern work') or novum opus ('new work'); Italians said maniera tedesca, 'German style'.

Which writer popularised the sneering label 'Gothic' in his 1550 Lives of the Artists?

He blamed the Goths, who had sacked Rome, for the 'barbarous German style'.

Christopher Wren argued the pointed manner should be named after which people, its inventors?

He mentioned Europe's debt to the Saracens twelve times in his writings, and refused to put a Gothic roof on St Paul's.

The choir of which abbey near Paris, rebuilt in 1140-44, is considered the first fully Gothic building?

It was the royal funerary abbey of the French kings, and its rebuilt choir first combined rib vaults, buttresses and pointed arches systematically.

Which abbot, adviser to Louis VI and VII, drove the rebuilding of the royal abbey near Paris?

He also installed a circular rose window over the portal, a feature that became standard.

Which external arched structure let Gothic walls become thinner and windows larger?

The builders of Notre-Dame de Paris were among the first to use them.

Which English cathedral, begun in 1093, was the first to use a rib vault?

Its nave was vaulted between 1093 and 1104, before the French had put the pieces together.

Which was the first cathedral built entirely in the new Gothic style, consecrated in 1160?

Its master builder later crossed the Channel to rebuild the choir of Canterbury.

Whose rebuilt choir at Canterbury, begun after a 1174 fire, is considered the first Early English Gothic work?

He fell from the scaffolding in 1178 and was replaced by William the Englishman.

Which cathedral, rebuilt after a 1194 fire, is regarded as the first High Gothic building?

Its windows tell the story of the Virgin, with the donor guilds' crafts illustrated in a corner of each.

Which cathedral has the world's highest Gothic choir and partly collapsed in the 13th century?

After the collapse nobody tried to build higher, and its nave was never constructed at all.

Which French cathedral, with 2,300 façade statues, was the traditional coronation church of French kings?

Clovis was baptised there and Louis the Pious was crowned there in 816.

Which cathedral, built almost entirely between 1220 and 1270, is the largest in France by volume?

Its 200,000 cubic metres are more than double Notre-Dame de Paris; it also claims the head of John the Baptist.

Which style, exemplified by the Sainte-Chapelle, made walls almost entirely glass?

The name comes from the radiating spokes of the great rose windows.

Louis IX built the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris to house which relic?

Consecrated in 1248, it holds one of the world's greatest collections of 13th-century stained glass.

The late French Gothic style named for its flame-like tracery is called what?

It multiplied the decorative vault ribs and favoured the arch in accolade.

Which late Gothic style, with straight vertical tracery and fan vaults, was found only in England?

It first appeared around 1332 at Old St Paul's in London and had no equivalent even in Scotland or Ireland.

Which chapel, begun by Henry VI in 1446, has the world's largest fan vault?

Henry laid the first stone himself on 25 July 1446.

Which English cathedral boasts the tallest spire in England, at 123 metres?

It only became England's tallest after two rival spires collapsed in the 16th century.

Which German cathedral, begun in 1248 and finished in 1880, is the world's tallest twin-spired church?

Work stopped around 1560 and resumed only when the original design drawings were rediscovered.

The great Rhineland cathedral begun in 1248 was planned as a grand home for the reliquary of whom?

It was also meant as a fitting place of worship for the Holy Roman Emperor.

Which German church, whose steeple reaches 161.5 m, is the second-tallest church building in the world?

Its enormous tower was designed by Ulrich von Ensingen from 1377 but only finished in 1890.

Which cathedral's north tower made it the tallest building in the world from 1647 to 1874?

At 142 metres it remains the tallest structure built entirely in the Middle Ages.

Which cathedral, begun in 1386, took nearly six centuries to finish, its last details completed in 1965?

It is the only Italian cathedral that fully followed the canons of French Gothic, and the largest church in the Italian Republic.

Which is the world's largest Gothic cathedral, which displaced Hagia Sophia as the biggest anywhere?

Its Giralda tower, a converted minaret, rises 104.5 m to the weather vane.

What practical job does a gargoyle do?

Many small spouts split the flow into thin streams so it does not erode the mortar.

Rose windows are also known as 'Catherine windows' after which saint's instrument of martyrdom?

Simpler versions with radiating spokes are called wheel windows.

What is the earliest form of window tracery, made by piercing openings through a stone slab, called?

It was used for early rose windows before the freer bar tracery took over.

What is a tall, slender window with a pointed top, named after a weapon, called?

Multiple lancets separated by bar tracery replaced single ones in the High Gothic.

Which 1831 Victor Hugo novel revived interest in the Paris cathedral and led to its restoration?

Victor Hugo's book was published as Notre-Dame de Paris; the restoration ran from 1844 to 1864.

After the fire of April 2019, when did Notre-Dame de Paris reopen?

The blaze had closed the cathedral for more than five years of costly repairs.

The gargoyles of Notre-Dame de Paris were added in about which decade?

They were removed with the lead gutters in 1726 and later replaced during the 19th-century restoration.

Which English Gothic style from the 1320s features ornate curvilinear tracery, as at Exeter and Wells?

It ran from about 1240 to 1350, after Early English.

Which architect's rebuilt Prague cathedral, from 1344, led central Europe into the late Gothic style?

His family worked across Europe: one Parler was architect of Vienna's cathedral.

Whose 13th-century 'sketchbook' of about 250 Gothic drawings survives, though nothing else is known?

Whether he was really an architect is disputed; the drawings contain some inaccuracies.

The Gothic Revival is often dated from which whimsical villa begun by Horace Walpole in 1749?

Walpole also launched the Gothic novel with The Castle of Otranto in 1764.

Which architect won the competition to rebuild the Palace of Westminster after the 1834 fire?

Construction took 30 years and outlasted both Barry and his assistant.

Which Gothic Revival champion argued the style embodied Christian values destroyed by classicism and industry?

He and Carlyle painted pre-industrial medieval society as a golden age.

Which English cathedral's tall lead-encased wooden spire was blown down in a storm in 1548?

Its central tower still stands 271 feet high.

What was the vault height of the first High Gothic cathedral, the benchmark rivals raced to beat?

The race ended when a rival's 48-metre choir collapsed.

Which purely decorative vaulting ribs are recorded as first used at an English cathedral around 1200?

Late Gothic masons multiplied them, along with liernes, to turn ceilings into star patterns.

The flattened arch of late English Gothic, often called the Tudor arch, is drawn from how many centres?

Late English builders paired it with fan vaults at Cambridge and Westminster.

Centuries before Gothic, which architecture used the pointed arch structurally, as at Cairo's Mosque of Ibn Tulun?

Wren's theory that Crusaders brought it home is doubted because European pointed arches predate the First Crusade.

The Gothic cathedral's Latin-cross plan, with nave, transept, choir and ambulatory, came from which model?

Romanesque had itself adapted the plan of the ancient Roman basilica.

Which cathedral, unlike its High Gothic contemporaries, kept using six-part rib vaults?

It was built between 1195 and 1230.

Which building hosted the earliest known English Perpendicular Gothic work, by William de Ramsey around 1332?

Gloucester's chancel of 1337-57 is the best-known early example.

Westminster Abbey has hosted the coronations of how many English and British monarchs since 1066?

It is also the burial place of 18 English, Scottish and British monarchs.