From the historian's notes

Chartres, 1220

France · Europe · June 1220 · summer

What it was high

a modest cathedral town — thousands, not tens of thousands — that multiplies during the four great Marian fairs and pilgrimage seasons; the building site is the town's largest industryancient town of the Carnutes; medieval count's town and bishopric on the Eure

That year

• the glazing campaign — roughly 1200-1235, the decades in which almost all the famous windows go up; workshops on site, trade guilds donating windows with their own trades pictured in the corners ongoing in 1220 highthe largest program of colored glass in Christendom
• the relic economy: the Sancta Camisia, the Virgin's garment, survived the 1194 fire — the miracle that financed the rebuild; pilgrims come for it year-round and in floods at the four Marian feasts continuous highthe town's economic engine
• the nave labyrinth is newly laid in the floor within these years c. 1200s-1220s mediumone object, eleven circuits

Who held it high

County of Chartres within the Kingdom of France; the bishop and chapter rule much of daily life in townKing Philip II Augustus (in his last years), the crown ascendant since Bouvines (1214)the cathedral that burned in 1194 has been rebuilt at astonishing speed — by about this year the main structure stands vaulted, and the great campaign of glazing is filling it with color; the town has lived one generation inside a construction miracle

Its name high

Chartres (Old French); Latin documents write Carnotum / ecclesia CarnotensisWritten in Latin

The date, there medium

AD 1220Anno Domini on the Julian calendar; the French year commonly begins at Easter, and daily dating runs by feast days ('the Friday after St John's')Canonical hours rung from the cathedral rule the day — unequal hours that stretch with the June light; work runs dawn to dusk with bells for meals. Nobody owns a clock; the building site is timed by bell, daylight and the master's shout.

Money medium

silver deniers — local chartrain pennies alongside royal coin (parisis, tournois)the denier is the smallest real coin; sous and livres exist as accounting onlya candle or a pilgrim badge: a denier or a few — order of magnitude only

Weather medium

June: mild, long days near 22-24 C, the wheat green-gold; building season at full stretch

Things

Objectslead-tin pilgrim badges sold at stalls (Chartres sells the chemise-shaped badge); wax votives and candles by the pound; masons' templates, compasses, plumb lines; wax tablets for tallies; relic-touched ribbonsFoodbread of the Beauce wheat, pottage, eggs and cheese; salt herring on fast days; thin local wine and better wine carted in; fair-time treats: pies, roasted meats when the calendar allowsClothundyed wool and russet on most; linen shifts; the fairs sell cloth in bulk — this is textile country commerce; a widow's veil and wimple as respectable armorGetting aboutox-carts of stone from the Berchères quarries a few miles out; pack mules, river barges on the Eure; everyone else walks — pilgrimage is on foot on principleIn the airwet lime mortar and stone dust; tallow and beeswax; straw and pilgrim bodies in the nave; bread ovens in the lanes

What she'd hear

Old French (langue d'oïl) in the streets, Latin in liturgy and contract. She cannot 'pass' verbally; she can be plausibly foreign — pilgrim Latin phrases, a rehearsed origin (a convert from beyond the Holy Land routes), and coins do the rest.

Where she could stand

• the nave under working light — vaulted stone, straw on the floor, no pews — pilgrims sleep here; scaffolds and tackle still webbing parts of the upper walls
• the masons' lodge and tracing floor — the loge where templates are drawn full-size and cut
• a glazier's bench — pot-metal glass, dividing irons, lead cames, cartoons — the blue that will carry the town's name
• the crypt with the relic — the long crypt, candle-lit, the reliquary of the Camisia, the healing well tradition
• the treadwheel hoist — a wooden wheel walked from inside to raise stone

Researched for this card · confidence high