Today was a travel day... and Normandy roads are focused on commerce... getting goods from point A to point B in the fastest possible time... not the basis for sharing good stories... so on such days, you have to take your stories without being too choosy.
Our lunchtime stop today was at Chartres... a town of 40,000 citizens... but graced by a cathedral that puts the efforts of Sydney and Melbourne to shame... two towering spires... grand architecture that makes you gasp for breath upon first seeing its wonder... the big question is... why is this Cathedral so grand? .. and who paid for it?
Even before Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres... the Gothic cathedral.... was built, Chartres was a place of pilgrimage... on a much smaller scale. It had a drinking well... on the outskirts of town... down which were thrown the bodies of some early Christian martyrs (including saints Piat, Cheron, Modesta and Potentianus). Of course, pilgrims all wanted to drink water from that well... in the belief that they were consuming the goodness of the martyrs... in the hope of tricking God into thinking they too were good... bit of a long shot... if you ask me.
In 876, Charles the Bald gave to the church a cloak... the Sancta Camilla... believed to be the tunic worn by the Blessed Virgin Mary at the time of Christ's birth. For 200 years, the church paid no attention to such an outlandish claim. By the mid 12th century, the pilgrim business was getting to be big business. But there was competition... in another town a couple of days walk away priests found drops of Jesus's blood on the steps of their church... this was starting to take market share away from Chartres. Chartres fostered the legend that the Sancta Camilla was given to the cathedral by Charlemagne who received it as a gift from Emperor Constantine VI during a crusade to Jerusalem... however this legend was pure fiction (Charlemagne never went to the Holy Land). Clearly, a cloak worn by the Blessed Virgin... while giving birth to the Lord Jesus... trumped a few drops of blood... Chartres became the biggest pilgrim site in Europe.
Before the relic became known, Chartres had a church quite large enough for its needs... but the local bishop saw development opportunities... and massively increased the size and status of the church. Rome supported the move and recognised the church as a cathedral. The bishop declared four great fairs in Chartres... coinciding with the main feast days of the Virgin: the Presentation, the Annunciation, the Assumption and the Nativity... adding further incentives... pilgrims were allowed to see the cloak of the Virgin. Seeing still further potential, Chartres called on people to make a pilgrimage to Chartres whenever there was an outbreak of a disease. When ergotism (more popularly known in the Middle Ages as "St. Anthony's fire") afflicted many victims, the crypt of the original church became a hospital to care for the sick. Money poured in... quickly paying for the big building project... leaving enough left over to allow the clergy to maintain the lavish lifestyle to which they had become accustomed.
These marketing campaigns should be case studies in every business school course.
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