The Story of Chartres

by Cecil Headlam

And at Reims several of the statues would seem to be from the same chisel as those at Chartres. The characters represented are Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, Samuel and David on the left, and on the right, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Simeon, S. John the Baptist and S. Peter. S. John is introduced as the link between the old and the new, the prophecy and its fulfilment. He stands close to S. Peter, for he was the immediate precursor of Christ and S. Peter, shown here in the garb of a thirteenth century Pope, the immediate successor.

Melchizedek is the first and one of the best statues. He wears a priestly garment bound at the waist by a knotted girdle, and on his head a Papal tiara of the thirteenth century, the lower part suggestive of a crown, for both as king and priest he prefigures Christ.

In one hand he holds a censer, in the other the bread which he offered to Abraham. His grave features and absorbed mysterious gaze admirably shadow forth that most enigmatic personage, Melchizedek, King of Salem, the Priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning after the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave tithes; Melchizedek, the King of Righteousness as his name implies, and the King of Peace also, without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, who was the forerunner and prototype of Jesus ‘made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.’

Christ, as the Son offered by the Father and the sacrificial Ram, is prefigured in the neighbouring statue of Abraham with his son Isaac, whom he holds ready bound for the sacrifice. Beneath his feet is the ram caught in the bush. His face, which, with its flowing beard and prolonged nose, is distinctly of the Jewish type, is averted, for he is looking up at the angel who bade him stay his hand. Moses, trampling on the golden calf and carrying in his left hand the table of the law and a column about which the brazen serpent entwines, stands next to Abraham, and likewise symbolises Christ, the Deliverer and the Law-Giver. His right hand points to the serpent and suggests the words of our Lord himself, ‘Even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life.’ Next comes Samuel, clad in a garment which resembles the taled of the Jews, preparing to sacrifice and to anoint Saul, who is represented by the small kneeling figure beneath. This statue illustrates 1 Samuel ix. Lastly David, crowned in royal majesty, carries the lance and crown of thorns, instruments of that passion which he had so minutely prophesied in the Psalms. The lion at the base alludes to David’s answer to Saul when he beheld Goliath, or else is the ramping and roaring lion of the Messianic psalms. Equally with David, Isaiah foretold in detail the events of the Gospels, and he, clad, like most of the other personages that remain, in a long robe and mantle, occupies the niche of the right bay facing David. The stem which was to come forth from Jesse rises at his feet, and the prophet points to the flower which should grow from that root.

Jeremiah is at his side, the sublime chanter of lamentations, bearing a beautifully-wrought Greek cross and recalling to mind his own words, ‘Is it nothing to you all ye who pass by? behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.’

Next to him the aged Simeon caresses the young Christ whose sufferings he had foreseen.

S. John the Baptist, the prince of monks, is the link between these forerunners of Christ and His Apostles. His ascetic figure is revealed beneath his rough raiment of skins, for, in accordance to the usual practice of the Middle Ages, but not of former or more recent times, he is represented in the Apostolic costume of tunic and mantle, and as with the Apostles his feet are bare. He tramples under foot a dragon which typifies Vice, not a locust as some suppose. The extraordinary tenderness with which he clasps to his breast the lamb, which is Jesus, the lively expression of his worn and wrinkled countenance and his emaciated body, proclaim this to be one of the finest statues of the Cathedral porches. Lastly comes S. Peter, as we have described him above. He stands upon a rock in reference to the words of our Lord, ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build My Church.’

All the details, the costumes and ornaments of these statues are wrought with extraordinary skill and minuteness, so that, like that of the western porch, the work might almost seem that of a jeweller, not a mason.

To the right of Melchizedek and to the left of S. Peter are two large figures which are related to the scheme of the central doorway. For they are Elijah and Elisha, who were the types of the ascension and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Elijah is shown mounting to heaven in his chariot of fire; Elisha, promising to the Shunamite the son whom he afterwards raised from the dead.

In the tympanum of the doorway we have the Death, the Resurrection and the Crowning of the Blessed Mary, a subject which has received its most perfect treatment at Reims. It will be noticed that the Virgin is represented as quite young, for, as Michelangelo finely explained, when he had painted his Lady of the Seven Sorrows, virtue confers an eternal youth. Above are angels censing. The figures have been sadly mutilated. In the splay of the vaulting the first row contains a multitude of angels with halos, bearing censers, torches, books and palms, witnesses of the triumph of the Virgin. The next four rows exhibit the ancestors of Mary according to the flesh and according to the spirit—the prophets, that is, who announced her. Together they form a tree of Jesse growing from between the feet of Jesse below on the left. Compare it with the tree in the twelfth-century Jesse window of the Porte Royale and you will see that, though it follows the same order, the stone tree is even more complete. It includes the greater and minor prophets, with Judith, Esther and Deborah, and, beginning from the fourth row, the twenty-eight ancestors of the Virgin, mostly as described in the first chapter of the Gospel of S. Matthew. The last two rows translate into stone the first chapter of Genesis, giving the story of the Creation of the World and of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in a series of admirable tableaux which explain themselves sufficiently. In the gable is Christ surrounded by angels.