The labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral

Anyone who enters the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres and walks down the nave meets, on the floor, a large circular design in light and dark stone. It is the most famous labyrinth of the European Middle Ages, most probably made in the first decades of the thirteenth century, during the rebuilding of the church after the fire of 1194. It is not a puzzle with dead ends: a single path, long and winding, leads without any chance of error from the entrance to the centre.

Shape and measurements

The labyrinth is about thirteen metres in diameter and takes up almost the full width of the nave. The path unfolds over eleven concentric rings, divided into four quadrants, and those who follow it make a long series of turns before reaching the six-petalled central rose. The total length of the path exceeds two hundred and fifty metres, while remaining enclosed in a relatively small space.

At the centre there was once a metal plaque which, according to later descriptions, depicted Theseus, the Minotaur and perhaps Ariadne. It was removed and melted down during the French Revolution, around 1792. What remains are the holes of the pins and the memory of an explicit link with the Cretan myth of the labyrinth, reinterpreted in a Christian key as victory over evil.

A Christian symbol

In the Middle Ages the labyrinth was not a new invention. Similar designs appear in manuscripts and in older churches, such as the one in the portico of Lucca Cathedral. In Christian interpretation the winding path could represent human life, with its apparently pointless turns, and the centre salvation. The name «road to Jerusalem», often associated with these labyrinths, is however documented mainly in modern times.

Much has also been written about dances and processions in labyrinths. The best-known testimony concerns Auxerre, where the canons performed a ritual dance with a ball at Easter, not Chartres. Other evidence of devotional use, such as the path walked on the knees by penitents, is attested only in later periods and in fragmentary form. It is therefore wise to distinguish between what the sources document and the many evocative hypotheses that flourished around the labyrinth in the twentieth century.

The other labyrinths of France

Chartres was not alone. Amiens Cathedral preserves an octagonal labyrinth of 1288, rebuilt in the nineteenth century, which celebrated the names of the architects at its centre. The one at Reims, which also commemorated the builders, was destroyed in the eighteenth century because children's games disturbed the services. These floors were thus also a signature of the workshop and of the geometric knowledge of the master masons.

Today the Chartres labyrinth is often covered by the chairs of the nave, but on certain days of the year it is cleared and anyone can walk it. Many visitors cross it in silence, at a slow pace, like a pilgrimage in miniature. The cathedral, a World Heritage Site since 1979, also keeps the relic of the Virgin's veil and stained glass windows famous for their blue. According to tradition, the relic was given to the church by Charles the Bald in 876 and made Chartres one of the great Marian shrines of Europe.