thout transepts and ambulatory, according to the traditionsand desires of each community. It had no predetermined proportions or number ofparts, like the Roman temple or the centrally planned church of the Renaissance.Its social and liturgical obligations demanded a main altar at the end of achoir where the chapter and the various dignitaries would be seated, a numberof minor altars, and an area for processions within the building.7 There wererarely more than about two hundred persons participating in the service, eventhough the smallest Gothic cathedral could easily contain that number. The restof the building simply supplemented this core and provided space for the laity,who were not permitted to enter the choir or sanctuary. Still, after the middleof the twelfth century, the choir was usually isolated by a monumental screenthat effectively prevented laymen from even seeing the service, and specialdevotional books came into use to supply the congregation with suitable subjectsof meditation during mass.8The program of the Gothic church fulfilled iconographical as well associal requirements. The intellectual centers of the Middle Ages had long beenassociated with the Church, and the tradition of learning that had beenpreserved in monastic and cathedral schools gave rise to universities such asParis and Oxford in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Such anassociation obviously had an effect on the arts, which were still primarilyreligious in nature. Scholarly clerics, for instance, were appointed to arrangethe intricate, theological programs for the sculpture and the stained glass thatdecorated the church. The relationship is thought by some historians to havebeen even closer, for scholastic thinking first took shape in Paris early in thetwelfth century, at the very time that Gothic architecture came into being there.It is possible that architects, who were "abstract" thinkers in their own right,may occasionally have absorb...
