Hidden Masterpiece of Medieval Stained Glass in the Heart of Paris: King Louis IX’s Private Chapel

Hidden Masterpiece of Medieval Stained Glass in the Heart of Paris: King Louis IX’s Private Chapel

Today we’re visiting one of the most  glorious things to see that maybe is a   little less well-known in Paris. It is the amazing  Sainte-Chappelle on the Ile de la Cite, and there   is a lot to see and learn here, so grab a coffee  and let’s jump into this amazing Chapel that was  

Built in 1248 by Louis the 9th. He was building it  as his own private Royal Chapel, so the upper part   was for him and his select guests, and the lower  Chapel was for his staff, but Sainte-Chappelle was   also entirely built as a reliquary to hold  the amazing holy relics that he collected  

Throughout his reign, at great expense to France.  In 1239 he spent half of France’s annual income   securing the Crown of Thorns from the Emperor  of Constantinople, after 2 years of negotiating,   and by 1241 his collection included up to 22 other  holy relics, including a piece of the True Cross,  

Christ’s blood, the Holy Sponge and the Lance.  After Louis’s death, his son actually added his   skull in a golden casket to be added to the  list of holy relics housed here. They were   all in individual you know decorated reliquaries  of their own, but they were also housed inside  

One larger reliquary that held all of them, and  that was sadly melted down during the Revolution,   and most of the relics have disappeared, although  the Crown of Thorns was preserved and added to the   treasury at nearby Notre Dame Cathedral in 1806,  where it still resides to this day. So basically  

This was like a giant treasure chest, and Louis  purposely had it built to echo the dimensions of   King Solomon’s Hall of Justice as mentioned in the  Book of Kings in the Bible, thus drawing obvious   comparisons between himself and that wise king of  old. Louis himself was an interesting character.  

He was a great-grandson of the famous Eleanor of  Aquitaine, who traveled from England to Spain in   1200 at the age of around 77 to select his mother  (her granddaughter, Blanche of Castile) to be the   Bride of Louis VIII and escort her back to France.  Blanche would go on to be revered by Louis,  

As she was his Regent twice, when he ascended  the throne at age 12, so she was Regent between   1226 and 1234, and then again during one of his  Crusades later in life, so her coat of arms can   be seen all throughout this chapel. And Louis  was actually ahead of his time politically. When  

He returned from the seventh crusade in 1254, he  established what was called the Great Ordinance,   which included some very modern ideas, such  as: 1) Justice was to be rendered to all,   regardless of personal distinction. 2) Royal  officials were forbidden to accept gifts for  

Themselves or their families. 3) Fines were not  to be imposed without judgment, establishing the   presumption of innocence and the need for rational  evidence by witnesses. 4) He established moral   rules regarding blasphemy, prostitution, gambling,  and also forbade interest-bearing loans, and 5)  

Wives couldn’t be punished for their husband’s  faults. So in other words, a ruler who would be a   hero in in today’s political climate. You can see  a statue of him in the lower Chapel here, but the   main thing people come for is the magnificent  upper chapel and the stained glass. This is..  

“glorious” is really the only word I can think  of to describe it, awe-inspiring in every sense   of the word. This place is just a hidden marvel  right in the heart of Paris from the 1200s. People  

Walk by it just like “yeah, no big deal, chapel,”  it’s so incredible! It’s not that big, but it is   amazing that it’s still here. Most of these pieces  of glass are still original, about two thirds   of them are original from the 1200s. There are  15 bays of original stained glass that measure  

Anywhere from 13 to 15 meters high, for a total of  670 square meters of stained glass. There are 1113   individual scenes in this stained glass, and they  tell the story of The History of the World as told   throughout the biblical account, from the Creation  right up into Louis’s time of accepting the Crown  

Of Thorns and bringing it in procession to Paris.  You can actually see the Creation in one of the   pieces of glass. You can see Moses breaking  the golden calf. There’s Christ’s Passion,   and then the stunning Rose window sort of shows  the culmination of the story with a depiction of  

The Apocalypse. This type of stained glass was  very important in cathedrals of the era, because   throughout the middle and medieval ages, most  common people were not literate, so they could   not read the Bible, and the stained glass was a  way for them to see the pictures of the stories  

That they couldn’t read. So this amazing space is  where they could come and see the pictures of the   story and be just floored right to their socks  at the magical play of light coming in through   this incredible artwork. All of this is, it just  literally will take your breath away. The walls,  

The uprights, the decorations, the windows,  the floor. It’s just amazing to see it and to   imagine how many people from history have walked  through this space–it is just mind-boggling,   and it’s hard to get your head around someone  building, they built this in the 1200s when you’re  

Thinking of you know middle-ages people living  in like dirt floored huts, and yet we had the   skill to put this level of artistry together.  You will also see statues of the 12 apostles.   You will see over 100 different plant motifs in  the carvings here, so the fact that it’s still  

Standing and you can still see this is just about  miraculous, it’s astonishing just to see the light   coming in through here and to see this whole  space– it will just take your breath away.   Sainte-Chappelle did suffer some damage. There  were two fires that damaged it in 1630 and 1776,  

And then during the Revolution it was actually  used as a flour warehouse, and then as storage   for archives between 1803 and 38, after which  some of these magnificent windows were walled up   and the glass was dismantled or destroyed, and  some of it actually went onto the art market,  

Especially into England. It was saved from  entire destruction by sort of a public movement,   and the project lasted between 1840 and 1863 to  reconstruct and restore it to its current glory.   To visit here, it is an easy walk if you’re in  the Ile de la Cite or the Ile Sainte Louis area  

Or the Marais or the Latin quarter, definitely  do not skip this. When we visited, we actually   got the uh PassLib, I believe, which was a pass  you could buy that would include basically all   the museums and monuments in Paris, and some  of them even outside of Paris, so look into the  

Different passes that you can get or a timed entry  ticket so you don’t have to stand in the long line   to get in.You walk up sort of to the front and  get right in through the already-ticketed line,  

And once you get in, I don’t know if it’s better  marked now, when we were here the signs were not   obvious that there was an upper Chapel, so we  walked in, and you come into this lower Chapel  

With the gorgeous royal blue ceiling and the  motifs, and we thought that was all there was,   and it wasn’t obvious that there was more, and we  were like, “Well we’re here to see stained glass,   but…?” And there was even a girl behind us  I heard who must have been American, and she  

Was like…”So…like, is this the whole thing,  cuz this isn’t very cool..” and we were kind of   thinking this, like “Well you know, this is neat,  but it’s not, you know, I thought it was going to  

Be stained glass..?” And there was a little door  at the back that you would go up through this   little like antique ancient spiral staircase that  takes you up to this glorious upper Chapel, so if  

You go and you go into the bottom, make sure you  go up find the little stairs and go up into this   glorious upper Chapel. If you’d like to make a day  out of it, for our day on this particular trip,  

We went to the Clunt Museum first, then walked  over to the Sainte Michel Fountain, and met my   French tutor at the time. We walked through the  bird market near Notre Dame and did some shopping,   and then we went into the Sainte-Chappelle  and on from there to a lovely lunch, before  

Wandering back to our apartment in the city. Let  us know if you’ve ever been to this masterpiece   of stained glass in the heart of Paris! Thanks  for watching and we’ll see you in the next video.

More glorious than the Notre Dame Cathedral nearby, this lesser-known but visually stunning ancient treasure has survived on the Ile de la Cité since 1248!

If you’ve never been here or heard of it, don’t skip it, it’s literally breathtaking inside, plus its history is pretty cool, too!

Our favorite travel things on Amazon:
CAN’T Travel Without my Cross-body bag (I have this in two colors): ➡️ https://amzn.to/3PmeokT

Love this RFID wallet ⬇️ https://amzn.to/46bgpac

Perfect mini flat iron for hair: https://amzn.to/3tk1v3U

REALLY nice travel umbrella ⬇️ https://amzn.to/3sX62J5

Cute lightweight trench coat: ⬇️ https://amzn.to/3t4iS86

USB 1TB flash drive for ALL the travel pics ⬇️ https://amzn.to/3PWgycF

MUST HAVE, AC ADAPTER for European plug-ins (or nothing will work) ⬇️ https://amzn.to/3rs8E0S

CAMERA I’m using for future trips ⬇️ https://amzn.to/3QdWPFq

TRAVEL STROLLER FOR CARRYON: https://amzn.to/3tTpqaq

Memoire of Queen Hortense on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/3NRea5l

As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a little commission on items ordered via my links (at no expense to you 😀) thank you!

PHOTO CREDITS:
Building by Bococo, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Chapelle basse wide view Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Outside façade, no attribute needed
Interior full windows gnosne, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Glass detail Harmonia Amanda, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Common
Columns Conxa Roda, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Upper chapel Artmch, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Podium and windows Taltyelemna, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Creation scene https://picryl.com/media/sainte-chapelle-god-creates-plants-and-trees-36c1f1
Detail Randi Hausken from Bærum, Norway, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
St Louis Britchi Mirela, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Stained glass detail https://picryl.com/media/sainte-chapelle-flagellation-of-jesus-christ-5f15ab
Stained glass detail2 https://picryl.com/media/sainte-chapelle-moses-breaks-the-golden-calf-949aa5
St Chapelle panorama https://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrosz/42015393332
Rose window Mark Mitchell, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons