On the Silent Words of the West Rose Window of Chartres Cathedral
As I began to contemplate the West rose window of Chartres Cathedral, more and more I began to realise that nothing I could ever speak in words would ever come closer than a loose paraphrase of all that is contained therein. What follows, then, is, at best, the briefest of primers on beginning to recognise all that the window has to share. There is no articulation that can ever compare to that of the window itself.
This discussion of the West rose window of Chartres Cathedral will begin by considering its location in the church, and progressively look with more detail a the window and its individual components. Contained in this window is not a story, but rather an icon of the Last Judgement. I say an icon, rather than a picture or a scene, because it stands static outside of time, not fixed in a specific place inside of time.
The first thing to notice is the fact that the window is in the West—the West, where the sun sets, signifying an end: closure and completion. Thus, it is fitting that the window proclaiming the Last Judgement be in the West. And it is past this window that one must progress when exiting the back of the church, just as all must go through the Last Judgement at the end of the world. Beneath the window, set into the floor, is a labyrinth, with its opening on the West side. This allows the person who has arrived at the centre to look up at the window before beginning the journey outward, and to also look up upon exiting the labyrinth and see the Final Judgement before them.
The next thing to notice is that it is a rose window. A rose window is a particularly large window in the form of a circle, just as the labyrinth below this particular one. A circle is a sign of wholeness and completion, as well as a symbol of the world. And further, Alain de Lille, from the school of Chartres in the twelfth century, the same century in which the Cathedral was built, wrote in his Regulae caelestis iuris, "[S]olam monadem esse alpha et omega sine alpha et omega. Ex eo enim quod principio caret et fine, deus spera dicitur."1 So the circle is not just a reflection of the world, but indeed a reflection of God in His infinite being. In this way, then, the West rose window may be said to be an image of the macrocosm: it points to the image of the culmination of the creative act, that is, the creating of the universe.
It also stands apart from the other two rose windows, which bear the Glorification of the Virgin and the Glorification of Christ, in that they each form complete, bounded circles: the perimeter of each is clearly demarcated. In the West window, however, the placement of the component panels gives the impression that the window is expanding outwards, compared to the North and South rose windows which appear to be complete circles with clearly defined edges. This is appropriate for the Last Judgement because its consequences are eternal and without limit. Further, while the labyrinth has only one entrance, one way to the centre, this window has no edges, thus beckoning all people to come unto Christ who is at the centre.
These open boundaries emphasise the enormity of the one at the centre who is larger than the outside. In the window, the outside appears to point to limitlessness, and yet Christ is at the centre, whose limitlessness is assured. As Alain de Lille wrote in same work mentioned above, "Deus est spera intelligibili cuius centrum ubique circumfrentia nusquam."2 Thus Christ, who is God, the beginning and end of all, containing all existence, is shown at the centre, despite having a circumference which is nowhere. And by that same token, all, save for those clearly damned, in that window are fixed on Christ at the centre of all in that limitless circle. As C. S. Lewis adeptly put it, there was once a stable whose inside was greater than the whole world.3
As already stated, Christ is at the centre of the window, and all of the window is focused on Him and pointing to Him. (As a note, the top of the window is presupposed to be East, and the other cardinal and ordinal directions follow from there.) At the cardinal points, in the layer of the window nearest to Christ, we find the four beasts surrounding the heavenly throne signifying the four Evangelists. In the West we have Matthew, in the North is Mark, in the South is Luke, and in the East is John. Both Mark, the lion, and Luke, the ox, have a single forefoot on a book, and all four figures are facing Christ. These two Evangelists with their gospels being portrayed draw us from the Western gospel, that of Matthew, which emphasises the human elements of Christ, up to the Eastern gospel, John, which emphasises the divine elements of Christ. Between each of the Evangelists are two angels, eight in total, completing a circle around Christ, all of whom are looking at Christ in the centre.
Connected to these windows are larger windows, making the combination of the smaller inner window and the larger outer window look like a series of twelve arrows pointing to the centre, or beaming outwards. At the West-most point, there is an image of St. Michael the Archangel weighing souls and devils attempting to tip the scale in their favour. In the window to the North of this one, the one on Christ's right, there is an image of an angel guiding souls away from the scale. On the South side, on Christ's left, demons herd damned souls away from the scale. At the East-most point, there is an image of St. Abraham with three souls in his bosom, a reference to the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.4 At the windows to the right and the left of this are Cherubim. Then, at the North-most point, at the right-hand side of Christ, resides St. Peter holding a key, as well as another apostle, both of whom are looking and gesturing towards Christ in the centre. At the South-most point are two more apostles, also looking and gesturing towards Christ, one of whom is likely to be St. Paul as they hold books (a symbol often associated with St. Paul) and the rose window has a tendency to mirror from North to South. To both the East and West of both the windows of St. Peter and St. Paul are windows each showing two more apostles looking and gesturing to the centre and to Christ, bringing the total number of apostles to twelve. Again, as we saw with the placement of the four Evangelists, with the human in the West and the divine in the East and the gospel books to draw us up to the divine, we see that judgement lies in the West, and that through the teachings of the Church and the apostles, we may be drawn upwards to be higher than the Cherubim, and reside in the bosom of Abraham.
In the outermost ring of windows, at the Western end are two windows depicting the damned. In the Southern of the two are two demons carrying off damned souls, and in the Northern of the two are three souls in the Hellmouth. At the centre is a figure with a sack about his neck, signifying Judas and the thirty pieces of silver. In the two windows to the East of these, in both the North and the South, are images of two souls in each window climbing out of sarcophagi. Above these two sets of two windows are two more windows, one in the North and one in the South, depicting souls, three in each, awaiting judgement. Then there are two more windows, each showing two angels blowing horns. At the top of the window, as a foil to the two windows in the West, are two windows showing angels bearing the instruments of the Passion. In the one to the South, to mirror the demons bearing off souls, is an angel holding the crown, the lance, and the three nails; in the one to the North, to mirror the Hellmouth, is an angel carrying the cross.
Surrounding all of the windows in the outer ring are small images of chrysalises at the ordinal points, surrounded by red which is encompassed by a blue ring, and images of butterflies at the cardinal points, surrounded by blue which is encompassed by a red ring. The chrysalises at the ordinal points signify our state of being betwixt and between. This is emphasised by the red colour surrounding it, red signifying the fire of the Holy Spirit and His divine love,5 and the blue encasing it all, blue signifying the purified life.6 The butterflies at the cardinal points signify our glorified state at the end of time, the cardinal points being pure directions, not in-between ones. In this life the holy are filled with the divine fire as they are changed, and purity shines forth; but, in the glorified state, the divine fire shines out because they have been made pure in all ways.
It is notable that while this window depicts the Last Judgement, there are only three windows that clearly depict the damned. Two of these are in the outer ring at the West-most point, and one is just above and to the left of Christ and the scale where St. Michael is weighing souls. Aside from these three, the fate of the souls in all the rest of the windows is either unclear, but suggested that they are to live in heaven, or is clear that they are to live in heaven. The Last Judgement, then, according to this window, is not about the damning of souls, but the resurrecting of souls for life in Christ. Instead of emphasising fear of Hell, the iconography seeks to draw the viewer further up and further in7 Christ who is at the centre and encompasses the whole of the vastness of eternity.
1 "[A] sole monad is the alpha and omega without alpha and omega. From this indeed, because He lacks beginning and end, God is said to be a sphere." Alain de Lille, Regulae caelestis iuris, ed. N.M. Häring, Archives D'Histoire Doctrinale et Litteraire du Moyen Age 48 (1981) 97-226, at pp.131-132.
2 "God is an intelligible sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." Ibid.
3 Lewis, C. S. The Last Battle. London: Fontana Lions. p.134.
4 The HarperCollins Study Bible : New revised standard version, with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books 1993. , eds. Wayne A. Meeks, Jouette M. Bassler and Society of Biblical Literature. 1st ed. ed. San Francisco, Calif.: HarperSanFrancisco, Lk. 16:19-31
5 Morrisroe, Patrick. "Liturgical Colours." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 30 Mar. 2009
6 Besançon, Alain. 2000. The forbidden image : An intellectual history of iconoclasm. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 97.
7 Lewis, C. S. The Last Battle. London: Fontana Lions, 162.
