Chartres’ history is outlined up to the ‘Golden Age’ (c. 1000-1200) when the cathedral rose on the site where three thousand years ago. Druids worshipped the sun. In the Golden Age there were thousands of students of the renowned School led by the greatest minds of Europe. There was still awareness of the healing cosmic and earthly forces at this limestone and granite site, and the Celtic Black Madonna was the focus of seasonal rites of death and becoming, og birth and sacrifice. This tradition was added to from the Holy Land and from Greece. Legend tells how Joseph of Arimathea arrived at Chartres, moved by the worship of the Black Madonna he dedicated the place to the Mother of Jesus. So from the first century, a Grail community arose. Renè Querido describes the symbolism of figures, their relation and placements. He focuses on the best-known teachers. First is Fulbertus, who orientated the cathedral on the site of the little church of Mary.

Then Bernardus Silvestris, Whose Cosmographia depicts the creation and unity of the world. His vision is said to underlie some of the medieval romances and also Dante’s Divine Comedy.

John of Salisbury, friend of Thomas à Becket, and a gifted and original writer, brings his Seven Keys for the fusing of Christianity and Platonism. Little is known of the last and greatest Master, Alanus ab Insulis beyond his nine books subtitled Saga of the Creation of the New Man and the Redemption of the Earth. Final chapters are allotted to the working, together of Platonist and Aristotelian influences in our time.