Why nearly every French king was crowned in one Gothic cathedral
Reims Cathedral rose unusually fast after a fire in 1210, partly because its builders used stones cut to standard sizes. The church already had centuries of royal prestige behind it: Clovis had been baptised on the site, and it became the place where France crowned its monarchs, Joan of Arc's dauphin among them.
Christianity arrived early in Durocortorum, the Gallo-Roman town of a tribe called the Remes, with a first church founded between 250 and 300. In the early 5th century Bishop Nicasius moved the cathedral onto the site of a bath built by Constantine and dedicated it to the Virgin Mary. Around 496 Saint Remigius baptised Clovis I, king of the Franks, there, the event that later justified coronations at Reims. The altar has stood above the same crypt for 15 centuries.
The building was replaced again and again. After Louis the Pious was crowned in 816, the old church looked cramped, so Archbishop Ebbo began a larger one, dedicated by Hincmar on 18 October 862. Samson of Mauvoisin extended it in the 12th century in the new Early Gothic manner. The coronation habit became fixed with Henry I in 1027, helped by the Holy Ampulla, the vial of myrrh used to anoint kings; only seven later kings were crowned elsewhere.
On 6 May 1210 fire destroyed that church, and exactly a year later Archbishop Aubrey laid the first stone of its successor. A clash between clergy and townspeople over taxes and jurisdiction halted work from 1233 to 1236, and the nave roof waited until 1299, when the king lifted a tax on lead. Four master masons, including Jean d'Orbais and Bernard de Soissons, were named in a floor labyrinth, destroyed in 1779 but known from drawings. Its towers reach 81 m, short of the planned 120 m.
The most famous coronation came in the Hundred Years' War. The English had held Reims since Agincourt until Joan of Arc took it in 1429, letting the dauphin be crowned Charles VII on 17 July that year; two statues of her honour the feat. Since 1905 the French state has owned the building, which was badly damaged in the First World War, restored, listed by UNESCO in 1991, and now draws about a million visitors a year.
Source: Reims Cathedral
