Universe of Stone
A Biography of Chartres Cathedral
Introduction
In 1204 some of the finest churches in Christendom were ransacked and the precious icons and relics were divided up among the plunderers. They snatched reliquaries from altars, forced open chests filled with holy treasures, stripped gold and silver metalwork from church fixtures. In their haste they spilled the sacramental wine over the marble floor, where it might mingle with the blood of any priest who stood in their way.
But these marauders were not infidels. They were Christian knights of the West, the flower of Europe's chivalry, bearing the sign of the cross that identified them as Crusaders. For this expedition, the Fourth Crusade, went not to the Holy Land and Jerusalem but to Constantinople, the capital of the eastern Holy Roman Empire, where the schismatic Greek rulers refused to recognize the authority of Pope Innocent III.
This was not the only crusade underway at that time. There was another afoot in Europe itself, and it was concerned not with sacking churches but with building them. Just as the knights of F ... read full excerpt from: Universe of Stone ebook
