Royal

A view over the courtyard of San Juan de los Reyes.

Solemnity, seclusion and sin at San Juan de los Reyes Monastery

Posted on by The Gothic Dispatch

Matthew Lewis’s novel The Monk is full of gothic obscurity. I travelled to Toledo to get as close as possible to the novel’s setting – as long as you don’t mean geographically.

Greetings from San Juan de los Reyes Monastery, where Franciscan monks lived and studied in solemnity and seclusion. Discover the corridors and chapel of the monastery built for Spanish royalty. Wonder at the possible sins and secrets kept behind the many locked doors. And succeed where the monk Ambrosio and I have failed, in staying on the path of virtue.

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A grainy black and white photo of Reims Cathedral from the south-west corner. The towers, excessively decorated, reach into the clear sky and out of the top of the frame.

Losing my way in the labyrinth of Reims Cathedral

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Greetings from Reims Cathedral. While supposedly not an allusion to the disorienting and processional nature of ruling, this site of French coronations was once home to a labyrinth.

In this dispatch, follow me through the winding streets of the city and try not to get lured off-course by the art deco architecture. Lose all sense of scale as you gaze at the 15-foot statues of previous monarchs that line the cathedral’s towers. And discover why a labyrinth that held four masons and an archbishop has become a symbol of France’s historical monuments.

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A 17th century illustration shows a distant view of the town and Basilica of Saint Denis.

Heading to the Basilica of Saint Denis, origin of gothic architecture

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The French town of Saint Denis is named for the bishop who, in 250AD, supposedly walked there from Montmartre – a distance of about seven kilometres – holding his own decapitated head.

Now, when you’re going through something even ever-so-slightly unpleasant, it almost never helps to consider the ways things could be worse. So, say that a thunderstorm has forced you to take refuge in an abandoned violin store. You would no doubt be cold and miserable. And while things could be worse – the violin store could be in business and flooding the world with the sharp and screeching sound of strings – the thought won’t dry your soaked clothes.

So, despite the head still attached to my body, it was with reservations that I took the metro to Saint Denis to see the oldest gothic building for myself.

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A black and white photograph of the Palais de la Cité and Sainte-Chapelle in 1916. A horse and carriage roll by on the otherwise empty street.

Visiting Sainte-Chapelle, the gothic palace French royalty abandoned

Posted on by The Gothic Dispatch

If you’ve ever possessed a fortune large enough to spend a lot of it, you’ll know the sinking feeling that comes when you realise you probably won’t get your money’s worth.

For example, I once spent a month’s salary on a figurehead salvaged from the prow of a very famous pirate ship. I made this purchase because I believed it would bring my companion and I good luck on a perilous voyage of our own. Needless to say, it was one of the first things cut loose when our boat started taking on water – a decision which did nothing to ease my own sinking feeling.

A sinking feeling no doubt familiar to the French royal family. Because little more than 100 years after its completion in 1248, Sainte-Chapelle and the surrounding palace were abandoned. I went to see this gothic gem for myself.

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