The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals

 

The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals: A Study of Medieval Vault Erection

John Fitchen

The University of Chicago Press, 1961

ISBN: 0-226-25203-5

(Amazon)

Read by the author in June 2024, purchased for $11.95

"And against the wall of the house he built a side structure round about, against the walls of the house round about, both of the temple and of the sanctuary, and he made chambers he made chambers round about." (I Kings 6:5) 

"There were thirty-eight chambers there, fifteen on the north, fifteen on the south, and eight on the west.." (Middot 4:3)

Descriptions of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem include a series of chambers around the main sanctuary, divided into small rooms. While Middot explains the functions of almost all rooms in the Temple, it is silent on the use of these cells. Josephus in his description omits a function as well. They remain somewhat of a mystery, with the most common explanation that they were storage rooms for Temple vessels or perhaps treasure. 

This is an odd way to kick off a discussion about John Fitchen's book, The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals, but we will circle back to it. This book is a fascinating attempt to understand how the vaults of Gothic Cathedrals were built. It is highly technical, with lengthy footnotes that are even MORE technical. You really have to think your way through the descriptions to understand, which apparently was not something anyone had ever done prior to Fitchen. Other scholars, most notably Viollet le Duc, had tried to explain how these vaults were constructed, and were parroted by later writers, but Fitchen shows how their explanations were not really possible. These vaults were wildly complicated to construct, required incredibly skilled masons, and a well-planned method of execution. Fitchen eventually gives two possible solutions. The whole thing is fascinating, and it seems like there isn't quite anything as complicated in earlier construction, or even simpler domes and vaults. 

This last point is clear when comparing the construction of these cathedrals with the simpler design of the Temple in Jerusalem, a much more conventional edifice. Both Middot and Josephus give details about the flooring and roof, which can be supplemented by descriptions in Vitruvius for how such spaces were spanned at that time. The closest book on the subject is Max Schwartz's The Biblical Engineer: How the Temple in Jerusalem was Built (Ktav, 2002) which while informative and useful is frankly in a different league from Fitchen's book. It mentions arches and vaults, but only in a matter-of-fact way. In a way there is no need for a high level discussion about construction methods, since the construction was more conventional. Another book that comes to mind is Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka's Wooden Synagogues (Arkady, 1959) which discusses the methods used for constructing the soaring roofs of wooden synagogues in Eastern Europe. (This book includes a section on the synagogue that stood in my grandfather's shtetl in Pogebishche.) But here too, one cannot compare the complexity of a masonry vault with a wooden roof. 

The author raises a few tangential points that I found informative. Lamenting the almost absolute lack of medieval descriptions containing technical information, he chalks this up to the fact that important and powerful figures involved in building project "were not master masons, not architects familiar with technical building problems and experienced in the step-by-step constructional operations of building erection." (p.5) This is interesting in light of a debate about how involved Herod was his grand construction plans. Ehud Netzer thought he possessed great technical knowledge and comes close to granting him the status of architect, while other archaeologists have toned down this claim. Fitchen, it seems, would argue that he was not an architect. As Fitchen write about similar figures, they were "tremendously interested in building, to be sure; but not trained in its mysteries." 

Fitchen, who scoured sources looking for technical information about tradition, pre-industrial construction, also declares the need to systematically study "these native methods of non-metallic fastening" before they die out. (p. 133) This brings to mind Shmuel Avitsur's Adam VeAmalo (Karta) which does some of this work for our area of the world. Yitzhar Hirschfeld did a bit of this in his The Palestinian Dwelling in the Roman-Byzantine Period (Israel Exploration Society, 1995) and Tawfiq Canaan has the equally interesting study, The Palestinian Arab house: Its Architecture and Folklore. (Syrian Orphanage Press, 1933).

Returning now to the opening discussion about the chambers, Fitchen breaks down, step-by-step, how these cathedrals were built using minimal scaffolding and frameworks. There was a great economy in the construction methods, and the walls themselves served as scaffolding for workers as the building rose. He writes: 

"If, from this, it is evident that the service galleries provided a built-in scaffolding, as it were, from which constant inspection and ready repair could be made almost everywhere throughout the building, at many levels both without and within, then it is equally evident that these passages of circulation were also of primary utility during the course of erection." 

This, then, may be the answer to the mystery of the cells. While they no doubt were utilized once they were built, their primary purpose may have been to facilitate construction of the high temple walls. The fact that no one has leaned into the actual, detailed, technical methods of construction of the Temple may be why this solution has been generally overlooked.