Cathedral-towns One of the ways that rich merchants spent their money was by making donations to churches. From the twelfth century, large churches – called cathedrals – were being built in France. These belonged to monasteries, but different groups of people contributed to their construction with their own labour, materials or money. Cathedrals were built of stone, and took many years to complete.
As they were being built, the area around the cathedrals became more populated, and when they were completed they became centres of pilgrimage. Thus, small towns developed around them. Cathedrals were designed so that the priest’s voice could be heard clearly within the hall where large numbers of people gathered, and so that the singing by monks could sound beautiful and the chiming bells calling people to prayer could be heard over a great distance. Stained glass was used for windows.
During the day the sunlight would make them radiant for people inside the cathedral, and after sunset the light of candles would make them visible to people outside . The stained glass windows narrated the stories in the Bible through pictures, which illiterate people could ‘read’. Salisbury Cathedral, England. ‘Because of the inadequacy which we often felt on feast days, for the narrowness of the place forced the women to run towards the altar upon the heads of the men with much anguish and noisy confusion, [we decided] to enlarge and amplify the noble church… We also caused to be painted, by the exquisite hands of many masters from different regions, a splendid variety of new windows… Because these windows are very valuable on account of their wonderful execution and the profuse expenditure of painted glass and sapphire glass, we appointed an official master craftsman for their protection, and also a goldsmith…who would receive their allowances, namely, coins from the altar and flour from the common storehouse of the brethren, and who would never neglect their duty, to look after these [works of art].’ – Abbot Suger ( - ) about the Abbey of St Denis, near Paris.