12.65b FYI France Resource List: Chartres, la ville

by Jack Kessler, kessler@well.sf.ca.us

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! New since December 15:

• Malcolm Miller, the bibliography...
• Universe of Stone: A Biography of Chartres Cathedral, Philip Ball, 2008
• The Sacred Cosmos: Theological, Philosophical, and Scientific Conversations in the Twelfth Century School of Chartres, Peter Ellard, 2008

! New since August 15:

• Chartres Cathedral, Malcolm Miller, 1997
• Bread, Wine, & Money : The Windows of the Trades at Chartres Cathedral, Jane Welch Williams, 1993
• Chartres Cathedral : Illustrations, Introductory Essay, Documents, Analysis, Criticism, ed. Robert Branner, 1996
• Notre Dame de Chartres, Emile Mâle, 1992
• The 'Headmaster' of Chartres and the Origins of 'Gothic' Sculpture, C. Edson Armi, 1994
• Sculptors of the West Portraits of Chartres Cathedral : Their Origins in Romanesque and Their Role in Chartrain Sculpture, Whitney S. Stoddard, 1992
• The First Crusade : The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials, Edward Peters, 1998
• Mont-Saint Michel and Chartres, Henry Adams, 1989
• The World of Chartres, Jean Favier, John James, Yves Flamand, Jean Bernard, 1990

Versions of what appears here have appeared online regularly, since 1992, as a feature of the FYI France ejournal, ISSN 1071-5916, which is distributed for free via email every month except August. Ejournal subscriptions may be obtained via email request to: kessler@well.sf.ca.us. The list contains a selection only: additional online digital information resources develop in France every week, on the Minitel and the Internet -- one can be sure only that there are more, not fewer, than what follows online in France now.

Here this file is one of a number made available -- hopefully attractively, all in one place, and relevant to libraries and online digital information work in France and Europe -- as part of FYI France (sm)(tm), an online service to which anyone can subscribe by postal mailing a check for US $45, payable to Jack Kessler, to PO Box 460668, San Francisco, California, USA 94146 (site licenses also are available): please write your email address on the front of your check. Please email suggestions for improvements to me at kessler@well.sf.ca.us

Chartres, la ville

Several books and other resources of bibliographic / librarianly / "informational" interest about Chartres:

Malcolm Miller, the bibliography...

As explained below, Malcolm Miller has been a prodigious and inspiring presence in Chartres for many years: herewith, then, a modest beginning at explaining why, and at providing some bibliographic detail --

* Chartres Cathedral / by Malcolm Miller (New York : Riverside Book Co., 1997) Paperback : 96 pages, 2d revised edition, ISBN 1878351540, 978-1878351548.

Order Chartres Cathedral (1997), by Malcolm Miller

• Malcolm Miller is English, erudite, and passionate -- a rare combination which makes his one-man performances in and around Chartres Cathedral one of the incomparable cultural events of anyone's Grand Tour of Europe. Rarely does any lecturer possess Miller's precise ability to titillate the intellect and rock the emotions of his listeners simultaneously. That he does so politely and urbanely in an impeccable English accent makes him a special treat for Americans and other British colonials. That he succeeds with audiences combining Japanese schoolgirls, Russian businessmen, African diplomats, and art students from Spain and Finland and Hong Kong -- along with the hordes of US Americans and Australians and Canadians who descend upon him continuously all year -- makes him something of an international treasure.

• Miller's books are beautifully written and sumptuously illustrated. He is a difficult man, by his own admission: during his talks and tours he describes nearly apologetically the unreasonableness which he visits regularly upon various long-suffering Chartres and Paris bureaucrats, he protests always on behalf of the cathedral and its beautiful windows -- his demanding nature no doubt descends upon his publishers as well, and probably accounts for the general excellence of any reproductions of his beloved windows which appear in his printed works.

• Miller is his own worst bookseller, moreover. Valuable though his books might be, invaluable for anyone planning a visit to Chartres, they are no substitute for the windows themselves, the cathedral itself, and for Miller. Good art books -- great art books, perhaps -- are the best refutation of Hugo's "ceci tuera cela": in Malcolm Miller's case, his own or any other fine "book" can provide a wonderful introduction, but only an introduction, to the magnificent cathedral. The place really must be seen and experienced in situ, at best through one of the walking-tours hosted by Miller himself, in order to be believed and understood.

Malcolm Miller: further bibliography --

(another edition) Chartres Cathedral / by Malcolm Miller ([London] : Pitkin Guides, 1996) Hardcover : 96 pages, 3rd revised edition, ISBN 0853727376, 978-0853727378.

Order Chartres Cathedral (1996), by Malcolm Miller

(another edition) Chartres Cathedral / by Malcolm Miller ([Chartres] : Houvet, 1976) Paperback, ref. B000OGX098.

Order Chartres Cathedral (1976), by Malcolm Miller

(see also) Chartres, Guide of the Cathedral / by Etienne Houvet, revised by Malcolm Miller ([Chartres] : Houvet-La Crypte, 1991) Paperback, ref. B0010SUCIQ.

Order Chartres, Guide of the Cathedral (1991), by Etienne Houvet, revised by Malcolm Miller

(see also) The Cathedral Chartres Revised / by Jean Villette, E. Houvet (Illustrator), Franceschi (Illustrator), Laniepce (Illustrator), Malcolm Miller (Translator) (Saint-die : Imprimeries Loos, 1972) Paperback, 125 pages, ref. B000KG8H7W.

Order The Cathedral Chartres Revised (1972), by Jean Villette, E. Houvet (Illustrator), Franceschi (Illustrator), Laniepce (Illustrator), Malcolm Miller (Translator)

(see also) Chartres Cathedral / by Malcolm Miller ([London] : Pitkin Guides, 1995) Paperback: 36 pages, 3rd revised edition, ISBN 0853727376, 978-0853727378.

Order Chartres (1995), by Malcolm Miller

(see also) Chartres Cathedral / by Malcolm Miller, Sonia Halliday & Laura Lushington (Illustrators) ([London] : Pitkin Pictorials, 1993) Hardcover: 96 pages, ISBN 0853723966, 978-0853723967.

Order Chartres Cathedral (1993h), by Malcolm Miller, Sonia Halliday & Laura Lushington (Illustrators)

(another edition) Chartres Cathedral / by Malcolm Miller, Sonia Halliday & Laura Lushington (Illustrators) ([London] : Pitkin, 1993) Paperback, ref. B000UD3EAK.

Order Chartres Cathedral (1993p), by Malcolm Miller, Sonia Halliday & Laura Lushington (Illustrators)

(another edition) Chartres Cathedral / by Malcolm Miller, Sonia Halliday & Laura Lushington (Photographers) ([London] : Garrod and Lofthouse International, 1975) Paperback, ref. B000KGH9OO.

Order Chartres Cathedral (1975), by Malcolm Miller, Sonia Halliday & Laura Lushington (Photographers)

(see also) Chartres Cathedral : Being an Extract of a Work Honoured By the Académie Des Beaux-arts / by Malcolm Miller ([Chartres] : Editions Houvet, 1972) Paperback, ref. B000P7T47S.

Order Chartres Cathedral : Being an Extract of a Work Honoured By the Académie Des Beaux-arts (1972), by Malcolm Miller

(see also) Chartres Cathedral: The Medieval Stained Glass and Sculpture / by Malcolm Miller, Sonia Halliday (Photographer), Laura Lushington (Photographer) ([London] : Pitkin Pictorials, 1980) Paperback, ref. B000HH8XN2, ISBN 0853722706.

Order Chartres Cathedral: The Medieval Stained Glass and Sculpture (1980), by Malcolm Miller

(another edition) Chartres Cathedral: The Medieval Stained Glass and Sculpture / by Malcolm Miller ([London] : Pitkin Pictorials, 1978) Hardcover, ref. B000RDXWPK.

Order Chartres Cathedral: The Medieval Stained Glass and Sculpture (1978), by Malcolm Miller

Other good books about Chartres, non-Miller:

* Bread, Wine, & Money : The Windows of the Trades at Chartres Cathedral / by Jane Welch Williams (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1993) 394 pages, 4 color plates, 119 halftones, 26 line drawings, 6 maps 6-1/4 x 9-1/4, ISBN: (h) 0226899128, 978-0-226-89912-1, (p) 0226899136, 978-0226899138.

	Order (hardcover) Bread, Wine, & Money : The Windows of the Trades at Chartres Cathedral, by Jane Welch Williams
	Order (paperback) Bread, Wine, & Money : The Windows of the Trades at Chartres Cathedral, by Jane Welch Williams

• Anyone as flamboyant as Malcolm Miller, described above, benefits from the efforts of others on his own topic: or at least his readers and his theories do. Chartres and its windows have received the close attention of numerous scholars and other admirers for nearly a millenium. One book, even one so excellent as Miller's, never is enough.

• Publisher's description:

  At Chartres Cathedral, for the first time in medieval art, the lowest register of stained-glass windows depicts working artisans and merchants instead of noble and clerical donors. Jane Welch Williams challenges the prevailing view that pious town tradesmen donated these windows. In Bread, Wine, and Money, she uncovers a deep antagonism between the trades and the cathedral clergy in Chartres; the windows, she argues, portray not town tradesmen but trusted individuals that the fearful clergy had taken into the cloister as their own serfs.

  Williams weaves a tight net of historical circumstances, iconographic traditions, exegetical implications, political motivations, and liturgical functions to explain the imagery in the windows of the trades. Her account of changing social relationships in thirteenth-century Chartres focuses on the bakers, tavern keepers, and money changers whose bread, wine, and money were used as means of exchange, tithing, and offering throughout medieval society. Drawing on a wide variety of original documents and scholarly work, this book makes important new contributions to our knowledge of one of the great monuments of Western culture.

* Chartres Cathedral : Illustrations, Introductory Essay, Documents, Analysis, Criticism (Norton Critical Studies in Art History) / by Robert Branner (Editor) (New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 1996) ISBN 0393314383.

Order Chartres Cathedral : Illustrations, Introductory Essay, Documents, Analysis, Criticism

* Notre Dame de Chartres / by Emile Mâle, (Paris : Flammarion, 1992) Hardcover : 188 pages, in French, Collection : Grammaire, ISBN 2080120093, 978-2080120090.

Order Notre Dame de Chartres

• Extrait:

  Mieux que tous les livres, la cathédrale de Chartres ressuscite notre Moyen Age, nous le fait toucher de la main. Le passé ressemble toujours un peu à un rêve ; à Chartres, nous sommes en présence de la réalité. Ce Moyen Age, qui nous fuit si souvent dans l'histoire, se livre à nous, nous révèle sa pensée profonde, nous confie ce qui alors faisait vivre les hommes. En contemplant avec lui la majesté du plan divin, qu'il met sous nos yeux, nous entrons avec lui dans le monde de la certitude, de l'ordre, de la paix.

* The 'Headmaster' of Chartres and the Origins of 'Gothic' Sculpture / by C. Edson Armi (State College, Pennsylvania : Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994) ISBN 0271010509.

Order The 'Headmaster' of Chartres and the Origins of 'Gothic' Sculpture

* Sculptors of the West Portraits of Chartres Cathedral : Their Origins in Romanesque and Their Role in Chartrain Sculpture : Including the West Portals / by Whitney S. Stoddard (New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 1992) ISBN 0393300439.

Order Sculptors of the West Portaits of Chartres Catherdal

* The First Crusade : The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials / by Edward Peters, ed. (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998) Paperback: 336 pages, 2d edition, Middle Ages Series, ISBN 0812216563, 978-0-8122-1656-1.

Order The First Crusade : The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres

• Publisher's description:

  The First Crusade received its name and shape late. To its contemporaries, the event was a journey and the men who took part in it pilgrims. Only later were those participants dubbed Crusaders, 'those signed with the Cross'. In fact, many developments with regard to the First Crusade, like the bestowing of the cross and the elaboration of Crusaders' privileges, did not occur until the late twelfth century, almost one hundred years after the event itself.

  In a greatly expanded second edition, Edward Peters brings together the primary texts that document eleventh-century reform ecclesiology, the appearance of new social groups and their attitudes, the institutional and literary evidence dealing with Holy War and pilgrimage, and, most important, the firsthand experiences by men who participated in the events of 1095-1099.

  Peters supplements his previous work by including a considerable number of texts not available at the time of the original publication. The new material, which constitutes nearly one-third of the book, consists chiefly of materials from non-Christian sources, especially translations of documents written in Hebrew and Arabic. In addition, Peters has extensively revised and expanded the Introduction to address the most important issues of recent scholarship.

• Note: The "mood" of Chartres... of the people who built it, who worshipped in it, who believed in it... so very far, in important respects, from the "mood" of 21st c. people today, yet so very close in others... It is far easier to understand the medieval mood standing on the porch at Chartres -- or perhaps better inside, gazing up at the windows on a sunny day and considering Malcolm Miller's strange stories of them -- than it is sitting in a library, far away, reading a book. Yet one also must have a bright-polychrome Chartres, and the strange sounds, and the smells, and the pressing hordes of people on a feast-day: easier to imagine all that in modern Madurai, perhaps, than any time nowadays at Chartres. So, first-person accounts of "the times" are a must: if only to realize how different, if occasionally how similar, we and they truly are. JK.

* Mont-Saint Michel and Chartres / by Henry Adams (Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, 1989) ISBN 0691003351.

Order Mont-Saint Michel and Chartres

• Sine qua non of any attempt to understand Chartres, particularly from a foreigner's point of view... Adams' 19th c. prose is timeless.

* The World of Chartres / by Jean Favier, John James, Yves Flamand, Jean Bernard (New York : Harry N. Abrams, 1990) ISBN 0810917963.

Order The World of Chartres

• Jean Favier was for a time président of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and he has been for a longer time, and is still, one of France's leading historians, and he accomplishes everything which he undertakes with much energy and style.

And, a few very recent books about Chartres: entries appearing here may not even have been published yet, so caveat lector --

* Universe of Stone: A Biography of Chartres Cathedral / by Philip Ball (New York : HarperCollins, forthcoming 2008) Hardcover: 320 pages, ISBN 0061154296, 978-0061154294.

(no foto, yet)

Order Universe of Stone

* The Sacred Cosmos: Theological, Philosophical, and Scientific Conversations in the Twelfth Century School of Chartres / by Peter Ellard (Scranton, Pennsylvania : University of Scranton Press, forthcoming 2008) Hardcover: 320 pages, ISBN 1589661400, 978-1589661400.

Order The Sacred Cosmos

Publisher's description:

The School of Chartres was a bold intellectual movement of the twelfth century that introduced the World Soul and the Chartrian cosmology to Christendom. In his controversial book, The Sacred Cosmos, theologian Peter Ellard analyzes the most radical aspects of Chartrian thought and traces their relation to classical and late-antique philosophers such as Boethius and Plato. In addition, Ellard investigates the Cathedral of Chartres as an important proof and example of Chartrian theology in this essential volume for anyone interested in the intersection of spirituality and philosophy.

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