Mont-Saint-Michel & Chartres

by Henry Adams

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres is a record not of a literal jouney but of a meditative journey across time and space into the medieval imagination. Using the architecture, sculpture, and stained glass of the two locales as a starting point, Adams breathes life into what others might see merely as monuments of a past civilization. With daring and inventive conceits, Adams looks at the ordinary people, places, and events in the context of the social conventions and systems of thought and belief of the thirteenth century turning the study of history into a kind of theater.As Raymond Carney discusses in his introduction, Adams' freeedom from the European traditions of study lends an exuberance—and puckish wit—to his writings.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Travel, Art, France, Architecture, Classics

455 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1904

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Noted Henry Brooks Adams wrote his nine-volume History of the United States during the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison (1889-1891) and also The Education of Henry Adams , a famous autobiography, in 1918.

This oldest and most distinguished family in Boston produced John Adams and John Qunicy Adams, two American presidents, and thus gave Henry the opportunity to pursue a wide-ranging variety of intellectual interests during the course of his life. Functioning in the worlds of both practical men and affairs as a journalist and an assistant to his father, an American diplomat in Washington and London, and of ideas as a prolific writer, as the editor of the prestigious North American Review, and as a professor of medieval, European, and American history at Harvard, Adams of the few men of his era attempted to understand art, thought and culture as one complex force field of interacting energies.

He published Mont Saint Michel and Chartres , his masterwork in this dazzling effort, in 1904. Taken together with his other books, Adams in this spiritual, monumental volume attempts to bring together into a vast synthesis all of his knowledge of politics, economics, psychology, science, philosophy, art, and literature to attempt to understand the place of the individual in society. They constitute one of the greatest philosophical meditations on the human condition in all of literature.

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

He was......intimidating. The smartest guy in the room intimidating. Henry Adams, whose grandfather and great-grandfather were both American Presidents. There were plenty of troubled failures in the family, but not so Henry. Like his illustrious forebears, he went back in time, to Europe. Unlike John and John Quincy, he stayed there, at least scholastically, being an historian and 'intellectual'. He had, oh, opinions. If he were political, he might have been the smartest man ever to be President. And like the other Adamses, he would not have served a second term. Smart as he was, he was often wrong. Some believe his adultery was a cause of his wife's suicide. And his published views on Jews are not softer than Hitler's.

But I just want to talk about this book, which is unlike anything I have ever read. There is a structure to it that is not really apparent until near the end. It starts as a tourist guide, if you will, Henry taking us first to Mont-Saint Michel and then to Chartres, the former a warm-up for the latter. Look at this buttress, this nave, this window. It's a class in architecture, but never just that. Tourists want as few dates as possible; what they want is poetry. And so, through the roses and apses, Adams concludes:

You may, if you really have no imagination whatever, reject the idea that the Virgin herself made the plan; the feebleness of our fancy is now congenital, organic, beyond stimulant or strychnine, and we shrink like sensitive-plants from the touch of a vision or spirit; but at least one can still sometimes feel a woman's taste, and in the apse of Chartres one feels nothing else.

Hey, I got an imagination. And that's nice, about the woman's taste. But then overcome by the beauty of the glass of Chartres, he challenges (to the point of insult) the reader:

You had better stop here, once for all, unless you are willing to feel that Chartres was made what it is, not by the artist, but by the Virgin.

I pressed on anyhow, annoyed instead of sold, hoping, as an excuse, that he stared too long through the rosettes, straining his neck and thus his pen into hyperbolic ecstasy.

As it turned out, all this -- the tour of French cathedrals -- was a base for Adams' exploration of Christian thought. See, the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Acquinas was like the converging lines inside the nave of Chartres. Thomas, Adams says, was a theological architect. It takes a long time to get there.

As I'm writing this, I'm wondering how I could have liked reading such gibberish. All I can say, in my defense, is that Adams can write as well as anyone I've read. There are times when he refuses to translate from the Latin or French - (the whole Trinity, with the Virgin to aid, had not the power to pardon him who should translate Dante and Petrarch) - on the basis of the words being too beautiful or too sincere for translation. Perhaps it's best to read Adams like that as well, as too lush to be weighed down with sense or translation.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Henry Adams is the type of author, and an author, whom every educated American once read and discussed. Now, he and his type have been replaced by stupid studies of so-called “white privilege,” and the triumphant martryologies of the past have been replaced by the mewling victimologies of the present, much to the detriment of everyone involved, and most of all to the detriment of any useful intellectual discourse, as can be seen from a cursory view of the comments section of any article in the New York Times. But by reading Adams, we can at least educate ourselves, and educate the Remnant, as Isaiah did before the renewal.

Adams, who lived from 1838 to 1918, and was descended from both John Adams and John Quincy Adams, also wrote the more famous The Education of Henry Adams. That book covers the second half of the 19th Century, through which Adams lived and onto which he turned an analytic eye. The Education also overlaps Mont St. Michel in some ways, for it contrasts the modern industrial world, symbolized by the dynamo, with the ancient world of Chartres and the Virgin Mary. Primarily, though, it’s an autobiography. The Education is a fairly straightforward book; Mont St. Michel is more elliptical and philosophical.

What makes Mont St. Michel particularly interesting today is that Adams wrote in 1905 from the perspective of modernity, contrasting that to the totally different world of 12th- and 13th-century France. We, of course, see both Adams and Chartres as elements of the distance past, before the 20th-century erased so much, and we see much more in common between Adams and Chartres than Adams did himself. This makes reading Mont St. Michel doubly interesting.

Adams starts from the premise that the 12th- and 13th-centuries in France were a time of unprecedented, and since unduplicated, explosion of striving, creativity and social ferment, creating works of wonder and laying the groundwork for future progress. He takes this as a combination of social and spiritual behaviors, and analyzes the architecture of the time through this lens. (He is also free from modern day cant; for example, he sees the Crusades as part of this flowering, not some sort of original sin of Christendom, as our current dullard President would have it.)

Adams spent much time in France, and this book was a privately circulated combination of travelogue and philosophy. The first 10% or so is a description, both historical and then-present day, of the Abbey of Mont St. Michel, emphasizing its dedication to the militaristic Michael the Archangel in the context of the Abbey’s history. The next 40% or so is a description of Chartres, liberally interspersed with philosophical asides, and in particular a keen appreciation for and focus on how the people of that time viewed the cathedral and the Virgin Mary who reigned there. This is the most interesting section of the book. Nowadays the usual view is that religion is stupid and useless, except to the extent it services transgender rights, and that no thinking person could possibly believe what they did in a cathedral village in the 12th Century. Adams is a useful corrective to this—no believer himself, it appears, he understood how they thought, though he probably overstates the permanent death of the religious impulse, as we can see in history since 1905.

On the visceral belief of the time, my favorite passage is, talking of the 10,000 people or so at a usual Mass:

“How many women are there, in this mass of thirteenth century suppliants, who have lost children? Probably nearly all, for the death rate is very high in the conditions of medieval life. There are thousands of such women here, for it is precisely this class who come most; and probably every one of them has looked up to Mary in her great window, and has felt actual certainty, as though she saw with her own eyes—there, in heaven, while she looked—her own lost baby playing with the Christ-Child at the Virgin’s knee, as much at home as the saints, and much more at home than the kings. The earth, she says, is a sorry place, and the best of it is bad enough, no doubt . . . but there above is Mary in heaven who sees and hears me as I see her, and who keeps my little boy till I come; so I can wait with patience, more or less! Saints and prophets and martyrs are all very well, and Christ is very sublime and just, but Mary knows!”

The physical descriptions of Chartres are excellent, and with the Internet easy to view along with modern images. Without some images, it’s hard to follow the details of the art description, though. Adams’s discussion is only partially travelogue—a discussion of any particular stained glass window, for example, is the occasion of a discourse on French royal politics of the time, and, in some cases, how that affected the window itself.

What all this meant to a modern of Adams’s time, or means to a modern of our time, probably varies by reader. Adams clearly thought we had lost much, and a thinking reader probably endorses that, and thinks it even more so now, for all that we have gained much since 1300 and since 1905. Those with a Whig view of history think that history is continual progress from worse to better, and what is left behind is justly left behind, but perhaps past is prologue, and a time will come when Western society once again unites behind a transcendent idea and produces art and thought for the ages, as Adams demonstrates convincingly this society did.

The remainder of the book is a more obscure discussion of poetry of the time, including Adams’s translations (only in most cases, though, in case you don’t know Latin or medieval French!), as well as discussion of various key Churchmen of the age (Abelard and his opponents like William of Champeaux; St. Francis; Bernard of Clairvaux), and their arguments and consequences (realism as a descent to pantheism; nominalism as the road to doubt). This is probably, as Lincoln apocryphally said, “for people who like that sort of thing, just about the sort of thing they’d like.” It is fantastically well written, but it is probably not the type of thing that compels most people.

All this may make the book sound like a hard read. But Adams writes extremely well and the book flows; it is not a slog, and it is well worth reading, regardless of your approach to history, philosophy, or religion.

[Eric Byrd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wonder if in The Bible of Amiens and The Stones of Venice Ruskin is as dramatically ekphrastic, as dreamlike and visionary as Adams is here; probably, as Proust venerated him; though I can’t imagine that Ruskin ever called himself an amateur and a tourist, as Adams called himself (disingenuously, of course). Among Adams’ flights of fancy one of my favorites is the opera in which the Virgin imperiously oversees the builders of her palace – Chartres – as though they were couturiers and decorators (and in which the sponsors and the figures of the famous windows come alive to frolic and frown). The Virgin holds court in Adams’ book because to him she’s the center of everything; as he declares, wresting a famous phrase from (the?) Pope, “The proper study of mankind is woman.”

Why were all the Protestant churches cold failures without her help? Why could not the Holy Ghost—the spirit of Love and Grace—equally answer their prayers? Why was the Son powerless? Why was Chartres Cathedral in the thirteenth century— like Lourdes to-day—the expression of what is in substance a separate religion? Why did the gentle and gracious Virgin Mother so exasperate the Pilgrim Father? Why was the Woman struck out of the Church and ignored in the State? These questions are not antiquarian or trifling in historical value; they tug at the very heart-strings of all that makes whatever order is in the cosmos. If a Unity exists, in which and toward which all energies centre, it must explain and include Duality, Diversity, Infinity—Sex!

One hilarious expression of this “separate religion” is the literature of Mary’s miracles. I laughed aloud at Adams’ quotation of one commentator’s exasperation with Gautier de Coincy’s early thirteenth century Les Miracles de Notre-Dame, wherein the devotion to Mary, the man fumes, “is presented as a kind of infallible guarantee not only against every sort of evil, but also against the most legitimate consequences of sin and even of crime.” Among the rebellious humanity Mary favored and rescued is a nun

who has quitted her convent to lead a life of sin, returns after long years, and finds that the Holy Virgin, to whom, in spite of all, she has never ceased to offer every day her prayer, has, during all this time, filled her place as sacristine, so that no one has perceived her absence.

Haha, after long years, that’s great. But for Adams it’s not all about raffish coups and scapes; the Virgin was the necessary angel, an indispensable buttress to the Church:

Whatever the heretic or mystic might try to persuade himself, God could not be Love. God was Justice, Order, Unity, Perfection; He could not be human and imperfect, nor could the Son or the Holy Ghost be other than the Father. The Mother alone was human, imperfect, and could love; she alone was Favour, Duality, Diversity. Under any conceivable form of religion, this duality must find embodiment somewhere, and the Middle Ages logically insisted that, as it could not be in the Trinity, either separately or together, it must be in the Mother. If the Trinity was in its essence Unity, the Mother alone could represent whatever was not Unity; whatever was irregular, exceptional, outlawed; and this was the whole human race. The saints alone were safe, after they were sainted. Every one else was criminal, and men differed so little in degree of sin that, in Mary's eyes, all were subjects for her pity and help.

[...]

She was not in the least a prude. To her, sin was simply humanity, and she seemed often on the point of defending her arbitrary acts of mercy, by frankly telling the Trinity that if the Creator meant to punish man, He should not have made him. The people, who always in their hearts protested against bearing the responsibility for the Creator's arbitrary creations, delighted to see her upset the law, and reverse the rulings of the Trinity.

If Chartres is the palace of the Queen of Heaven, Mont-Saint-Michel is a militant monastery, protected by the sword-wielding Archangel. Another of Adams’ flights is the entourage of William (not yet) the Conqueror “assembled at supper in the old Refectory” at Mont-Saint-Michel in 1058, a scene enchanted by the recitation and pantomime of La Chanson de Roland by William’s jongleur Taillefer. The evocation is spooky, and so good it gave me goosebumps (“Duke William's barons must have clung to [Taillefer’s] voice and action as though they were in the very mêlée, striking at the helmets of gemmed gold. They had all been there, and were to be there again”); and Adams’ analysis of the chanson’s Old French met my impression of Adams’ own style, in his history of Jefferson’s presidency; an Emersonian style, terse, compact, at once suave and blunt, and musically monosyllabic.

...any one who will take the trouble to catch the metre…can follow the feeling of the poetry as well as though it were Greek hexameter. He will feel the simple force of the words and action, as he feels Homer. It is the grand style,—the eleventh century:—

Ferut vus ai! Kar le me pardunez!

Not a syllable is lost, and always the strongest syllable is chosen. Even the sentiment is monosyllabic and curt:—

Ja est co Rollanz ki tant vus soelt amer!

And:

The interest of these details lies not in the scholarship or the historical truth or even the local colour, so much as in the art. The naïveté of the thought is repeated by the simplicity of the verse. Word and thought are equally monosyllabic. Nothing ever matched it. The words bubble like a stream in the woods:—

Co sent Rollanz de sun tens ni ad plus.

Try and put them into modern French, and see what will happen:—

Que jo ai fait des l'ure que nez fui.

The words may remain exactly the same, but the poetry will have gone out of them. Five hundred years later, even the English critics had so far lost their sense for military poetry that they professed to be shocked by Milton's monosyllables:—

Whereat he inly raged, and, as they talked,
Smote him into the midriff with a stone
That beat out life.

This all brought to mind a letter of Adams to a fellow historian in 1879, about his projected history of the United States 1801-1817, in which he wrote that “to compress [his research] into three volumes [nine in the end] and expunge every unnecessary syllable, will be my great labor for several years. To make it readable is the great hope of my life.” The History is very readable – even the congressional debates are tight dramas – and the pages of Mont Saint Michel and Chartres more so: clean and laconic with no loss of passion, humor, or extravagance. His curt monosyllables slide together to punch, or expand strung on semicolons, in paratactic reveries. A new favorite. Mood mates: the Goncourts’ Eighteenth Century Painters, Michon's Masters and Servants, and Calasso’s Tiepolo Pink.

[Roy Lotz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saint Thomas did not allow the Deity the right to contradict Himself, which is one of man's chief pleasures.

I read this book in preparation for my visit to Chartres, which was just last week. I had not been very fond of Adam’s most famous book, his Education, but I had high hopes that his writing would improve when his focus shifted to something other than his own life. Yet I have found the two books discouragingly similar.

As a stylist Adams appears, at least superficially, quite strong. His sentences are clear and mostly elegant, occasionally epigrammatic. But stylistic problems appear on a higher level of organization. Both Adam’s autobiography and this book were not originally written for publication, but for his close circle of family and friends; and as a result, Adams seems to explain everything except what most needs to be explained. His ideas float against a background that he does not provide, making his train of thought appear out of context. In this he reminds me of George Santayana, who similarly omits to signal where he is going and why he is going there, though Adams lacks the philosopher’s occasionally forays into sublimity to compensate. The result is rather irritating, superficially clear but actually opaque, like overhearing an eloquent old man talk to himself.

But my gravest complaint about Adams, both here and in his autobiography, is his tendency to organize his books around central ideas that I find vague and vapid. In the Education, this takes the form of his armchair theorizing about “force,” the Dynamo, and the laws of physics as applied to history, and even more prominently in his main theme of “education,” his conception of which remains unclear to the very end. In this book it mainly takes the form of his insistence that “The Virgen” was personally involved in the construction of Chartres Cathedral. To be fair, he tends to treat these ideas (and himself) with a considerable amount of irony; but the irony does not amount to full satire, leaving it unclear whether he is merely kidding or if he intends these ideas to be somehow insightful.

Again, just as in his autobiography, here the dominant mood is notalgia. Though extremely successful, Adams apparently felt out of harmony with his world and yearned for a time when society was simpler and more unified. This leads him quite naturally to the Middle Ages, to the poetry, to the great cathedrals, and to the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, which unite art and science into a seamless whole. Consequently this book, far from being historical analysis, is more of a personal appreciation of the French Medieval period, spinning off into fantasy or speculation wherever it suits him. This self-indulgent tone is grating to somebody trying to learn about Chartres.

Now that I have gotten all this criticism out of the way, I must admit that the book, like his autobiography, has its merits and charms. He is obviously fond of this period, and so writes in a tone of enthusiastic admiration that proves quite infectious. This keen appreciation for the “spirit” of the Medieval period is the book’s most useful attribute, helping to put the reader in the mindset to appreciate the epoch’s art, poetry, and thought. I found Adams’s chapters on architecture, specifically on Chartres, to be stuffy and difficult to follow—for here, as in his chapters on British politics in the Education—he assumes a level of familiarity (specifically about the French royal family) that the reader is unlikely to possess. But when context is provided by an external source, Adams can be quite pleasant. When I visited Chartres, and saw its magnificent stained glass for myself, his chapters ceased to be so vexing.

The chapters I most enjoyed were the final three, about philosophy—specifically, Abelard, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Thomas Aquinas—since here my background was not so lacking. Yet even here it must be said that Adams’s comments are more in the spirit of an amateurish aficionado rather than a serious student. He interprets Aquinas as an “artist” rather than a thinker, repeatedly disqualifying himself from passing sentence on Aquinas’s arguments (though he says some perceptive things in spite of this).

By contrast I thought the chapters on poetry were the worst, since they mainly consisted of excerpts of poetry, in Latin or Medieval French, with repeated assurances of their high quality and their untranslatable beauty. (His mostly bland translations serve to prove his point.) But in general Adams’s approach to poetry is the same as his approach to architecture and theology, mostly confined to passionate declarations of affection, without much attempt at analysis or insight.

[Andrew]

My European history class in high school began with our much-loved teacher quoting Henry Adams, pointing out how the dynamo, unlike the virgin, could not have built Chartres, and then asking us if we thought Chartres would still stand in 500 years. Our hands all raised. He then asked us if the newly built Los Angeles cathedral would still stand in 500… you can probably guess how we responded…

And reading Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres brought me back to what it’s hard to believe was a small-town Midwestern classroom, that heady world of ideas we were being introduced to by our teacher, delightful old commie that he was. Few still bear Henry Adams’ torch. That great big Library of America volume of the man’s work? That’s a sign that Adams is nothing more than a museum piece, condemned to obscurity, other than the occasional trotting out of his name by some National Review bowtie dipshit.

Which is a shame. When you read this hopelessly out of fashion text, what you get above all else is Adams’ nerdy enthusiasm for each arch, each pointed window. For his love of their place in the narrative, for their clues into the worldview of a different time with a different set of aspirations and conceptions of the good, into a world in which theology was still the queen of sciences. I can already imagine the protestations – Eurocentrism, elitism, the privileging of certain grand narratives, a privileging of the decidedly aristocratic authorial gaze. And all of that is unquestionably true. And yet the text is a fucking rapture.

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an old classic that I first read over thirty years ago. I recently reread it as part of a family vacation to Belgium and France, during which we spent at day at each of these two wonderful places - along with the Bayeux Tapestry. James provides a good history and description of the key portions of each building along with particular highlights of interest - such as the links between Mont Saint-Michel and the Song of Roland. Adams' prose is wonderful and easy to follow and most of the information in the book is still applicable - after all, these buildings have generally been kept up, apart from the constant need for renovation (such as at Chartres now). If you want to use it as a tour book, you should read it ahead of time, since the Abbey is filled with tourists and Chartres is fairly dark inside on many days - such as when we visited.

[Ben Dutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The abbey at Mont-Saint Michel and the cathedral at Chartres are the subject of Henry Adams’ history, self-published in 1904 for the education of his nieces and “nieces in wish” but later released by Ralph Adams Cram with the support of the American Institute of Architects. This history takes in not only the architecture of these two buildings, but a detailed examination of poetry, religion, science, art and philosophy. It is a precise and understanding deconstruction of life in twelfth century France. By taking just two buildings as his focal point, Adams was better able to reveal the spirit of the century, and with more erudite skill than almost everyone since.

Mont-Saint Michel’s importance in history is evident in every step one takes within it. The weight of history is accumulated here, it is breathed in everywhere. Made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, Mont-Saint Michel is now protected against invasion, development and rivalry. The town of Chartres, south of Paris, is another place enveloped in history – there has been settlement there since Roman times – but unlike Mont-Saint Michel which withstood many invasions and attacks, Chartres suffered frequently, and greatly, especially during the Second World War. Remarkably the religious buildings at both sites survived these onslaughts almost intact, though both suffered at the hands of successive generations that wrought upon them their own distinct style.

As we can ascertain from The Education of Henry Adams (1907), Henry Adams first visited France in the late 1850s, following his graduation from Harvard University. He said of time in France in that book:

“He squandered two or three months on Paris. From the first he had avoided Paris, and had wanted no French influence in his education. He disapproved of France in the lump… He disliked most the French mind. To save himself the trouble of drawing up a long list of all that he disliked, he disapproved of the whole, once for all, and shut them figuratively out’ of his life. France was not serious, and he was not serious in going there.” (p.81, Education of Henry Adams)

The Education of Henry Adams is a book of his education in all things and of how his mind becomes changed, and so sometime between 1857 and the opening of the twentieth century, Adams came to respect France.

Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres takes the form of a monologue from “uncle” Adams to his “niece”, and as such has at times a very conversational tone. His introduction is such like:

“The party, then, with such variations of detail as may suit its tastes, has sailed from New York, let us say, early in June for an entire summer in France. One pleasant June morning it has landed at Cherbourg or Havre and takes the train across Normandy to Pontorson, where, with the evening light, the tourists drive along the chaussee, over the sands or through the tide, till they stop at Madame Poulard’s famous hotel within the Gate of the Mount.” (Preface, Mont-Saint-Michel)

Despite this tone, Adam’s work contains a wealth of detail. He refers to the reader as “tourist” and says he does not need to go into great detail for tourists never do: but he does, and frequently. It is the detail of the place that most excites him. It is a work engaged with the history of the place at every level, and Adams manages to bring to life a long forgotten world. His version of Pierre Abelard (whose letters to Heloise were examined earlier on this blog) comes to life on the page, as does St. Francis and all the other figures of twelfth century life that circle around Mont Saint Michel and Chartres. There is even poetry in his detail.

“For seven hundred years Chartres has seen pilgrims, coming and going more or less like us, and will perhaps see them for another seven hundred years; but we shall see it no more, and can safely leave the Virgin in her majesty, with her three great prophets on either hand, as calm and confident in their own strength and in God’s providence as they were when Saint Louis was born, but looking down from a deserted heaven, into an empty church, on a dead faith.” (P.197, ibid)

This also points to one of the most interesting contradictions in Adams work. As we saw in his novel Esther (1884) the debate between science and religion has been a crux of Adams’ life. In his Education he says of his youth, “but neither to him nor to his brothers or sisters was religion real.” (P.27, Education) By 1904 it is a “dead faith” and yet the debates of religion and of church construction are of deep fascination to this man of knowledge.

Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres is also engaged with another subject, explored also in Esther, and that is the position of women. Adams was very much for women’s liberation – his life had been dedicated to freeing those who suffered repression – and this work, dedicated to his “nieces” shows a deep understanding of the role of women in twelfth century society – from the Virgin Mary to Heloise:

“At any time of her life, Heloise would have defied society or church, and would at least in the public’s fancy have taken Abelard by the hand and gone off to the forest much more readily than she went to the cloister; but Abelard would have made a poor figure as Tristan. Abelard and Christian of Troyes were as remote as we are from the legendary Tristan; but Isolde and Heloise, Eleanor and Mary were the immortal and eternal woman.” (P.221, Mont-Saint-Michel)

Adams continues to rhapsodise upon this issue, culminating in one of his most eulogist passages:

“The fact, conspicuous above all other historical certainties about religion, that the Virgin was by essence illogical, unreasonable and feminine, is the only fact of any ultimate value worth studying, and starts a number of questions that history has shown itself clearly afraid to touch. Protestant and Catholic differ little in that respect. No one has ventured to explain why the Virgin wielded exclusive power over poor and rich, sinners and saints, alike. Why were all the Protestant churches cold failures without her help? Why could not the Holy Ghost the spirit of Love and Grace equally answer their prayers? Why was the Son powerless? Why was Chartres Cathedral in the thirteenth century like Lourdes to-day the expression of what is in substance a separate religion? Why did the gentle and gracious Virgin Mother so exasperate the Pilgrim Father? Why was the Woman struck out of the Church and ignored in the State? These questions are not antiquarian or trifling in historical value; they tug at the very heart-strings of all that makes whatever order is in the cosmos. If a Unity exists, in which and toward which all energies centre, it must explain and include Duality, Diversity, Infinity Sex!” (P.261, ibid)

His engagement with philosophy is also of deep fascination. Adams frequently displays his knowledge but is not condescending of excluding with it.

“If God is everywhere; wholly; presiding, sustaining, embracing and filling, “sursum regens, deorsum continens,” He is the only possible energy, and leaves no place for human will to act. A force which is “one and the same and wholly everywhere” is more Spinozist than Spinoza, and is likely to be mistaken for frank pantheism by the large majority of religious minds who must try to understand it without a theological course in a Jesuit college.” (p.286, ibid)

His expositions take in the most diverse of subjects, from Spinoza, to the Chanson de Roland and the writings of other deep thinkers. His work shows a willingness to engage with life, to debate its intricacies. Adams says, “Freedom could not exist in nature, or even in God, after the single, unalterable act or will which created.” (P.369) This becomes the nexus of art borne of religion. He goes on to say:

“The theology turns always into art at the last, and ends in aspiration… All they saw was the soul vanishing into the skies. How it was done, one does not care to ask; in a result so exquisite, one has not the heart to find fault with “adresse.”” (p.379)

There are many other exquisite ideas contained within Adams work and is worth tracking down a copy. History can only be glad that Ralph Adams Cram saw fit to rescue this work from its relative obscurity and bring it forth to a grateful public. It is a work of such education and erudition that to sum it up successfully is impossible. All I can do is urge you to read it yourself. If you have any interest in religion, architecture, history, poetry, or philosophy Adams’ Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres is essential.

[Edoardo Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover photo gives, as much as is possible, some idea of what is inside this most extraordinary of books. Look at it carefully. Rising from surrounding water a ziggurat of stone rendered into yearning patterns of ascent points to the overarching sky. It is a medieval rocket to heaven, a union of all the different worlds, a place that, seeing it, grabs the breath and awes the eye. The French refer to part of it as 'La Merveille' but it is all a marvel, almost impossible to comprehend. That the men of the eleventh century were able to make such a place seems scarcely credible, and yet they did, raising a work greater than any of the wonders of antiquity. Although the medievals revered the classical past, in truth they outdid it in what they built, in stone and thought and culture.

This book, faced with such marvels, answers with its own, for it is, without doubt, one of the three or four most extraordinary books I have ever read. The author, Henry Adams, was the great grandson of John Adams, the second president of the United States; his grandfather, John Quincy Adams, was the sixth president; his father, Charles Francis Adams, was US ambassador to Britain during the American Civil War. So, not much to live up to there then!

What must it be like to grow up in such a milieu? Henry Adams went on to become a historian and journalist, but in terms of obvious accomplishment, he did not match his forbears. Yet he wrote two books, The Education of Henry Adams and this volume, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres, that rank as classics, although each are strange members of that class of literature. The Education is an autobiography, of sorts, while Mont Saint Michel is ostensibly a travel guide. But when I was working as a travel writer for publishers such as Time Out, I'd have had my copy spiked if I'd submitted anything like Mont Saint Michel (oh, if only I could write so well!). Perhaps the best comparison, in terms of style, is John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua, although that would not be obvious from the playful preface, where Adams dedicates this book to 'nieces in wish', willing to read the musings of an uncle on the strange and distant land of France and the stranger and more distant lands of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Adams, with a mix of erudition and wit (he assumes his reader is fluent in French, Latin and reasonably conversant in Greek), leads his niece in wish upwards through Mont St Michel, ascending it in thought and learning, placing it within the compass of the society and times that created it and, in doing so, he does something that I would have thought impossible: despite being something of an Anglo-Saxonist, he makes me appreciate the Normans. Then, by way of the birth of Gothic, Adams takes the visitor to the pinnacle of Gothic architecture, Chartres Cathedral, and sings the hymn of its inspiration and, in truth, its maker, the Virgin herself. No where else have I read such an intense and lived encounter with the medieval mind, such an appreciation of its peculiar and particular genius.

Yet, it was an appreciation born in a nihilism that, occasionally, shatters the stained glass and leaves the reader face to face with the dark cold at the heart of Adams' world.

It was very childlike, very foolish, very beautiful, and very true,- -as art, at least:—so true that everything else shades off into vulgarity... For seven hundred years Chartres has seen pilgrims, coming and going more or less like us, and will perhaps see them for another seven hundred years; but we shall see it no more, and can safely leave the Virgin in her majesty, with her three great prophets on either hand, as calm and confident in their own strength and in God's providence as they were when Saint Louis was born, but looking down from a deserted heaven, into an empty church, on a dead faith.

Few saints have seen as clearly into the mystery of Chartres and Mont St Michel as Adams, yet he sees it all as shadow play, and a play of shadows, the footlings of earnest and talented children before they shuffle into the dark.

It is a bleak vision.

But it only breaks through briefly and, for most of the book, Adams is content to walk in the vivid colours of the medieval, letting its bright, primary colours light his prose.

There are other points where the book comes to a juddering, jarring halt, however, and this is wherever Adams mentions Jews. He was, to put it simply, an anti-semite, and on paper at least a vicious one. Reading him, as complete a product of civilised 19th-century culture as one could wish to find, it becomes a little clearer how the 20th century could produce the Holocaust.

For some, these sudden eruptions of nihilism and hatred into this most civilised and civilising of texts might serve to render it beyond reading, and I would have no objections to that. But they are part of what makes this book extraordinary, for they serve to help to define how precious and rare a man of truly civilised culture is, and how even the best of these may be distorted by the culture they embody. This book is a 19th-century understanding of the High Middle Ages and it enlightens the modern reader about both in a way no other book I've ever read does. Do read it.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres” is clearly a work of love by Henry Adams. To be sure, Adams can come off as a bit pompous with his repeated declarations of quotes which can only be read in French and not translated (which are probably best read that way, but impossible for many people who don’t read French at all), but his love of the subject is key, as his enthusiasm is infectious and the reader is likely to start to plan their trip to see these incredible structures for themselves.

Though not divided that way by the author, I felt that the book had two sections. The first is the architectural discussion of Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, which focuses on the history of their construction, the architectural decisions, and the relative historical events which shaped the structures. It should also be pointed out that while those two structures dominate the discussion, it is not limited to just those two. In fact, Adams is looking at the structures built by the Normans in the 11th century and moving forward into the 12th and 13th centuries. Adams starts with the Abbey Church at Mont-Saint-Michelle in 1020, going through Coutances, Caen, Bayeux, Palermo, Île-de-France and eventually to Chartres.

Of course, some features have been destroyed over the years, and Adams seeks out examples to replace those as well, such as the central tower at Mont-Saint-Michel where he looks at Cérisy-la-Forêt, Lessay, and Falaise. Adams also adds flavor to this journey that he is taking us on, with discussion of verses, art, and history of the time and in those areas. In most cases he provides the needed translations, but as I indicated earlier, there are times he withholds all translation because he believes it must be read in French. The result of all this is a fairly rich experience of these historical treasures and an appreciation for the people of the times.

The second section changes slightly becoming focused on history, but it also changes in another way. The first section has purpose, it feels almost like a quest for Adams to visit those grand pieces of architecture. The second section, by contrast, almost feels like a stream of consciousness collection of historical stories and figures. However, while there are interesting stories here, the lack of a purpose detracted from this part of the book. I also did not feel the same energy and enthusiasm on the part of Adams during this section.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but there isn’t enough here for me to give it four stars. There is no doubt reading the first section had me planning a trip in my mind, but that enthusiasm waned in the end. I would certainly revisit this if I ever have the opportunity to do a tour of these churches and abbeys, but I can’t go above three stars on this one.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am slowly working my way through this paperback that I bought back in the 70s and never managed to finish. Now that I have been to France and seen many of the cathedrals, it is making more sense to me, and if you need visuals you can always google for photos. Adams connects the building style to the style and character of the culture and since I particularly love Romanesque and the earliest Gothic churches, I am delighted by his insights.
I still have not seen Mont-Saint-Michel or Chartres, but when I go, this will go with me.

[Liam Murray · Rating 2 out of 5]

A travel book of sorts, Adams travels in time (to the 11th century and thereabouts) and space (to, urm, Mont St. Michel and Chartres). If the measure of success of a travel book is how much it makes you want to visit  somewhere, then this book is a roaring success: over and again I found myself thinking 'I wish I was standing in front of this building right now'. 

The depth and breadth of his knowledge is impressive, so it must have been a stimulating experience walking beside him, benefitting from his insights into the 13th Century theologians, rulers, philosophers, builders and the faithful, all those people for whom these buildings were sources of life, inspiration and spiritual nourishment, and so much more than the quick selfie to which they have been reduced. 

I'll have this book on hand when I visit Chartres and Mont Mt. Michel.

[Ludmila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't escape Bernard of Clairvaux

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful idiots

In the ancestral shadow of Adams's great study of these two cathedrals of France, which he extends to amplify the doctrines of the 11th and 13th centuries in which they were built, we who live today must look on as thoughtful idiots. We think we understand God and man, theology and science, in deeper modern ways than available to Abelard and Aquinus, Francis and Bernard. We may be thoughtful, but we stand as idiots (Adams writing in the fin de seicle of the 19th century calls us, more politely, "tourists") before the monumental architecture of these ancients.

So how to classify Mont Saint Michel and Chartres? The first is to consider it an architectural study of the cathedrals for laymen, which is the nominal topic. But Adams quickly lets the reader know with a wink and a nod that this will be about more--or more accurately, about the architecture as a mirror of the living (in the stones) theology of the age. Particularly in the study of the cathedral at Chartres, Adams finds the driving influence of the Virgin Mary in the architecture, even to the level of the engineering and project management, as we know these disciplines in the vulgar vernacular (surely there is nothing of theology in project management!) of our day. "At Chartres, one sees everywhere the Virgin, and nowhere any rival authority; one sees her give orders, and architects obey them, but very rarely a hesitation as though the architect were deciding for himself." (p. 108 of this edition).

Mariolatry--the worship of Mary--drives the architecture of the age (a drive and a worship that Adams will famously and with precise accuracy later predict to be utterly replaced by "the Dynamo", the electric generator, in the 20th century). "All this is written in full, on every stone and window of this apse, as legible as the legends to anyone who cares to read," writes Adams on p. 154. As Adams ventures into the theology of grace, the Trinity, Mary, and sin, he summarizes the dilemma this way:

"The fact, conspicuous above all other historical certainties about religion, that the Virgin was by essence illogical, unreasonable and feminine, is the only fact of any ultimate value worth studying, and starts a number of questions that history has shown itself clearly afraid to touch. Protestant and Catholic differ little in that respect. . . Why were all the Protestant churches cold failures without her help? Why could not the Holy Ghost,--the spirit of Love and Grace,--equally answer their prayers? Why was the Son powerless? Why was Chartres Cathedral in the thirteenth century--like Lourdes today--the expression of what is in substance a separate religion? Why did the gentle and gracious Virgin Mother so exasperate the Pilgrim Father? Why was the Woman struck out of the Church and ignored in the State? These questions are not antiquarian or trifling in historical value; they tug at the very heartstrings of all that makes whatever order is in the cosmos." - p. 246

Unfortunately, Adams continues for another 110 pages wading away from the architecture and luminous insights like these deep into the swamps of doctrinal disputes that attempted to answer these great questions he posed here, and the book loses its momentum and its fifth star. Nevertheless, this is prose worth tasting and savoring from the first (and still) great historian and writer of the unfolding 20th century.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is clear to me that I simply was not equipped with enough knowledge -- philosophical, theological, historical -- to begin to fully appreciate, or even understand, this book. A meditation on a time whose philosophy and architecture are now esteemed only as relics of a curious era a millennium-gone, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres is both playful and mournful, deeply conscious of the the glories of man's (and God's) creation, while simultaneously heavy with skepticism. Adams concludes by linking the height of medieval philosophy -- Thomas Aquinas -- with the pinnacle of the age's architecture -- the Gothic cathedral, in structure, in method, in beauty, symmetry, and unity. His book itself reflects this parallelism: the foundation is laid by a visit to the shrines of Saint Michael and Chartres, the buttresses and other adornments and supports subsequently manifest themselves in an almost otherworldly interpretation of Marion devotion and the great personalities of the age. Finally, unity is achieved, through the study of the great thinkers and ultimately Aquinas. Or so I think. Only when I have immersed myself in the Middle Ages, digested all its works of scholasticism, romanced in its poetry, visited all of its shrines and been schooled in its architecture -- and then, having done so, when I have learned the history and philosophy of all that has happened from that time until that of Adams -- only then will I be able to say for sure.

This was a challenging book to read. There are moments when Adams becomes so lost in his own sensations that he forgets to bring the reader with him....that may be partially the point, but it can also border on incoherence. As a synthesis of art and metaphysics, though, too much coherence would have probably robbed the book of its tremendous insight and freedom.

There is a lot going on here that I don't understand, I am acutely aware of that, but this was a uniquely rewarding read. Like the shrine of the Archangel, this book is only a starting point.

[Tom Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

o fully appreciate Adams's book the reader is required to know the general parameters of the author's life. While Adams's autobiography, "The Education of Henry Adams" , was written after this volume it is nevertheless necessary to read it first and to also acquaint oneself with the details of Adams's marriage to Clover Hooper and her suicide which are not mentioned at all in the book. Mont Saint Michel and Chartres is personalized history. If you want a more objective history look elsewhere. Some people are put off by its subjectivity. But in my view that subjectivity is exactly what makes the book so great. It's about tremulous, perilous striving of an age, of religion, of faith, and finally of one's personal life. It's about the stress between unity and multiplicity. The book is profound in its exploration of these themes. It's learned, it's funny, it's ironic, and, in the end, profoundly moving. Reading these two books will provide any reader wiling to put in the effort with some of the wisest and most trenchant observations in all literature all put forth in some of the most elegant prose ever written.

[Bobby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating, personal exploration of 12th century French culture. I wish I could read an edition of this book with more illustrations, since many of his descriptions of medieval church architecture are very difficult to follow for someone who has never seen the buildings he is writing about. One almost needs to be standing in front of the building itself to appreciate what the author has to say about it.

One negative thing I have to mention is that the author in two or three places lapses into some startlingly ugly anti-Semitic remarks that seem jarringly out of place in a work that is otherwise very tolerant and open-minded. They seemed so out of place that I had to read the passages several times to make sure I wasn't misinterpreting what they said.

[othryswhisper · Rating 4 out of 5]

A magnificent read I couldn’t put the book down.
The description of the architecture combined with the insight in the mind of the time and the tales of knights,queens, saints and peasants is wonderful.
I really like Adams style and the way he embeds contemporary writings and poetry in the text.
The parts I enjoyed the most where the two last chapters about St Francis and St Thomas and there different approaches as well as the chapter about the glasswork of Chartres. There he illuminated the ordinary life of the workers and the conception of the twelfth and thirteen century that where more liberal than we think.
I would recommend the book to anyone who is interested in architecture and the life of medival Europe

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and very personal mediation on French architecture and theology in the 12th and 13th centuries centered around the "militant" Mont St. Michel; the cult of the Virgin in Chartres; and the battles between the Church and the scholastics. Many interesting anecdotes. A knowledge of gothic architecture helps in following his description; I could not follow his discussion of medieval scholastic philsophy very well, so I can't tell if the failing was mine or that Adams made his discussion intentionally obscure to prove a point about the philosophy he was discussing.

[John Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry Adams gets at the life of an entire age by way of examining two buildings, which, if you think about it, is quite an accomplishment. Having read it decades ago, I still find myself wondering now and then what constitutes a Mont-Saint-Michel or Chartres for our age. My current inclination is to regard celebrities as the creation of our time that speaks best for our beliefs and aspirations (and no compliment does that do us), but the thought pales in comparison to what Adams achieves here.

[Dionysius the Areopagite]

By golly,
Golly by,
A bag of bricks,
Falls from the sky.
Hit head,
Head hit,
I've no idea how I got there
Tho I liked it.

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adams casts this book as a vade mecum addressed to a “niece” (one of the charming young ladies in his social circle) about to make her first visit to these two monuments of medieval construction. Adams is a sensitive responder to architecture; he “reads” Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres with a perceptive eye. His intelligence probes deeper, though: these are not merely skillful arrangements of piles of stone; the great cathedrals and abbeys are the input of wealth, the result is an expression of energy. Why did eleventh-century Normans and twelfth-century French rulers make this investment?
What I admire about Adams, aside from the elegance and intimacy of his prose, is this grasp of the grand arc of history. When, after two centuries, the donors realized little return on their outlay—prayers accompanied by donations didn’t seem more efficacious than those without—the funds dried up. Indeed, Adams even sees the French Revolution a half-millennium later as taking back the wealth that went into the cult.
Adams also points out the significance that the coastal abbey is dedicated to the warrior-archangel Michael, and connects this to the Normans, who built it, as the dominant power of the eleventh century. They sat on the throne of Sicily, and while the abbey was a-building, William realized his ambition of conquering England.
Chartres, on the other hand, represents the apogee, in the twelfth and thirteenth century, of devotion to the Virgin, which Adams terms the “least reasonable” of “the unexpected revelations of human nature.” This seems to be a dismissal, but the way he describes this “almost fanatical frenzy” reveals that it resonated deeply in him, though he is the spawn of Puritans. The essence of the book, to me, was Chapter 13, “Les Miracles de Notre Dame.” This culminates what he has said in the previous chapters describing the cathedral. Throughout, he speaks of Mary not only as an object of devotion, but as a queen who loves, who knows, and who can have her will carried out. She is the pattern for the great queens of the time.
While there were exceptional men then—Abélard, Richard the Lion Heart, for example—Adams is fascinated by the strong women and their imposition of courtesy, the manners of the court. Foremost, Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom he refers to as Eleanor of Guienne, but also Blanche of Castille and Héloïse.
At the time Adams wrote this, his fellow historians saw history as the chronicle of great men. In the century since, this has often been balanced or replaced by attention to the role of economic forces and social movements. Adams predates this in his Autobiography with his ruminations on the role the dynamo played in his time. He sees the cult of Mary in similar terms of wealth and energy, but by relating it to the power of remarkable women, he is unique. I’m not aware of another historian of his time depicting an era as a chronicle of great women.
Adams charms the reader throughout with feigned ignorance in many fields, such as architecture, about which he clearly knows more than he lets on. But the limit of his understanding does show when he tackles theology. He claims to see no difference between Gregory the Great’s classic formulation of God’s omnipresence and garden-variety pantheism. And when Saint Bernard has Abélard condemned without a hearing, Adams seems to accept Bernard’s grounds: any effort to reach God by reason was “futile and likely mischievous,” as Adams puts it. Adams elides the crucial difference between attempting to prove God’s existence through reason and attempts to use it to understand God. Perhaps it is because he possessed a probing intellect that he is sensitive to its limits, and writes sympathetically of mystics — not so much Bernard, but Francis, whom he calls “the nearest approach the Western world ever made to an Oriental incarnation of the divine essence.”
The final chapter, devoted to Thomas Aquinas, closes the book by portraying his vast output as the intellectual equivalent of the soaring spires and broken arches of the gothic cathedral. In Thomas, the aspirations of medieval times rose as far as they could. Adams’s response to the Summa is similar to his response to Chartres: he is a tourist, overwhelmed by the beauty, moved to feel yet not to understand.
I enjoyed this book greatly, regretting only that Adams mars his account, so sensitive and penetrating in every other way, with gratuitous grumblings about Jews. It’s a shame that someone who could think so creatively was, on this point, captive to the prejudice of his time.

[Harrison Glaze · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a travel book, yes, but a good deal more than that. It is the record of a modern American man’s, if we are to take his own account in the Education I think at once an archetypal and a remarkably atypical modern American man’s, stirringly intimate, dizzyingly comprehensive approach to the mind, the heart and soul even, of the Middle Ages. Adams takes the buildings of Mont-Saint-Michel and (at much, much more length) Chartres as synecdoche for the whole tenor of the eleventh and twelfth, and the start of the thirteenth, centuries, starting from them to ambitious, and richly rewarding, explorations of the architecture, history, poetry (some of the most compelling writing here, to me at least, is on the Song of Roland and the Roman de la Rose), spirituality, and thought of the ages that produced them. The prose here is a joy to read; like G. K. Chesterton, Adams is perched on the edge between nineteenth-century rhetorical flourish and twentieth-century exactitude and economy, and like him (though Adams, while sometimes whimsical, is not nearly as funny) he marries the virtues of both in a tight, leaping, vigorous language wanting neither for charm nor for clarity. This book has flaws, and real ones: Adams sometimes flits off into heights of abstrusity, or simple fancy, that the reader has some difficulty following, and more gravely, a nasty, gratuitous antisemitism pokes through at odd, though mercifully brief and relatively infrequent, intervals. But Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres is so thorough, so moving, so absolutely magisterial and yet richly personal an account of a place and of an age, one has trouble calling it anything less than a masterpiece.

[David Zubl · Rating 4 out of 5]

How on earth to categorize, much less describe, this book?

The back cover lists the category as “Art/History”. Not wrong, but so incredibly insufficient. Art and History, yes, but also Architecture, Literature, Philosophy, and Theology, with extensive treatments of kings, queens, philosophers, saints, the Virgin Mary…

Adams’ premise is “a search for unity in an age of conflict” (the thirteenth century). His central image for this unity is the evolution in style of French cathedrals, from Romanesque to Gothic, and focusing on Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres Cathedrals as symbols of medieval society and thought. Not an everyday aspiration.

A summary of topics feels rather exhausting (though they are worth the effort, if you pace yourself and take a few naps along the way):

The first ten chapters dwell on the intricacies of cathedral architecture, and how the move towards the Gothic style reflected corresponding evolutions in medieval society. Subsequent chapters focused more on (or wandered widely afield to, depending on one’s viewpoint) the history of France, and a couple of seminal works of French literature. The final chapters ventured into detailed examinations of medieval philosophy and theology, culminating in a resounding closing chapter on St. Thomas Aquinas.

To repeat… How on earth does one categorize this?

Whether or not the reader feels that he adequately supported his premise, with this book Henry Adams undoubtedly wrote a masterwork of thought. In addition to an astounding knowledge of all the topics mentioned above, he is also a true master of metaphor. Throughout, he returns over and over again to cathedral architecture as his unifying image. Surprisingly (and thankfully), this creative technique is really, really effective, most particularly in the thundering final paragraphs of the last chapter. I can’t imagine how this idea occurred to him.

In spite of his penetrating (truly) insights, this would still be a fatiguing book to read if it weren’t for Adams’ wit - all the more surprising and welcome in a book of this type. For example, in a section examining various theologies’ intellectual conceptions of the universe (um… yep), he writes:

“An economic civilization troubles itself about the universe much as a hive of honey-bees troubles about the ocean, only as a region to be avoided.”

Forgive me, but HA! A welcome reprieve in a rather intense section.

There were two drawbacks to this book. First, access to the internet is a must for full enjoyment. There are some photographs (of cathedral exteriors, black-and-white of course - this was written in 1913), but Adams’ descriptions and interpretations of architectural details are so interesting that I took many internet detours to look at close-up images of specific windows, statues, friezes, etc, that he was writing about.

Second, and more annoyingly, there are many quotations and excerpts in French or Latin that he doesn’t bother to translate. (Neither did I. Modern technology is a wonderful thing, but… no.) Apparently, he was writing for an audience that was the product of a late-18th/early-19th century classical education. My high school Latin was not up to the task, and my college German was useless.

In spite of these drawbacks, this is the masterful, complicated, insightful product of a highly educated and imaginative author. Few people will want to read this book (only 114 current readers on Goodreads as of this writing), but for those who appreciate the rare combination of Gothic architecture, medieval history, and the eternal conversation between theology and science (yes, all 114 of you!), this book offers a rewarding (if time-consuming) reading experience.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The architects of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries took the Church and the universe for truths, and tried to express them in a structure which should be final. Knowing by an enormous experience precisely where the strains were to come, they enlarged their scale to the utmost point of material endurance, lightening the load and distributing the burden until the gutters and gargoyles that seem mere ornament, and the grotesques that seem rude absurdities, all do work either for the arch or for the eye; and every inch of material, up and down, from crypt to vault, from man to God, from the universe to the atom, had its task, giving support where support was needed, or weight were concentration was felt, but always with the condition of showing conspicuously to the eye the great lines which led to unity and the curves which controlled divergence; so that, from the cross on the fleche and the keystone of the vault, down through the ribbed nervures, the columns, the windows, to the foundation of the flying buttresses far beyond the walls, one idea controlled every line..."

This is Henry Adams' thesis and this is what his prose is like. I liked his analysis of the architecture of Mont Saint Michel and Chartres best; his essays on medieval romance were among the most helpful I've read; his criticism of scholasticism and praise of Thomas Aquinas due; yet, at the end of the day, Adams is still a skeptic! I don't know what to do with the man!

[Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Traveling to France with Henry Adams is to journey on the pilgrim's way in the company of one's favorite uncle. And not just any uncle, but an uncle who knows everything under heaven. Like someone said below, Adams was always the smartest guy in the room. And this uncle always endeavors to enchant --rather than merely educate, so Henry Adams tells tales of miracles. And using this book as a guide to the two great monuments in northern France, that is exactly what we found there: The miracle of Mont Saint-Michel and the Miracle of Chartres Cathedral.

The fairy island with its fortress abbey, in days past reached across deadly mudflats and quicksand (known as the path to paradise) is a monument, he declares, to masculinity. The Archangel Michael, weigher of human souls was, of course, the great commander of the armies of God. And this fortified island abbey was his command center.

And Chartres. How could anyone resist seeing it as the castle of the Queen?

More on Mont Saint-Michel here: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksda...
And Chartres here:

[Red · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the recent fire at the Paris cathedral in mind this book becomes more relevant. What is the significance of the medieval cathedrals in and around Paris? The book explains in great detail what made man built them. The first part of the book concerns the buildings and the latter part the ideas behind them. It is realy information that should not be lost and be handed down from generation to generation. The buildings are the magna carta for our relation to grace as humans.

[Cynda Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to Follow.

[Carol Bakker · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took 9 months, and, finally, stubborn perseverance to get through Henry Adams' work. I relied heavily on the glossary of architectural terms, but could not progress until I Binged (Googled) images and videos of the cathedrals while I read.

I hadn't known one thing about Chartres: that the two towers are different in size, style and age; that the cathedral is a shrine for worship of the Virgin Mary; that the stained glass built in the eleventh century is unique among stained glass. Artisans have tried and failed to reproduce it.

I had never heard about St. Anne, the Virgin's mother, and St. Joaquim, the Virgin's father. Adams posits that the Virgin disposes of Hell, that she is more permissive and forgiving than the Trinity, that the assertion of her divinity is necessary to understand Chartres. I don't subscribe to any of this; I skimmed through many pages. The irony of a very secular Adams writing about the Queen of Heaven made me chuckle.

The architecture bits--the plans of the apses (semicircular space where the altar is) with the pillars and supports compared to several other cathedrals -- this was fun. And the Nervures, the ribs of groined (intersecting) vaults, captured my imagination. More education on what constitutes Gothic.

But with the last page of this book, I believe I've come to the end of the road for the Adams family. I soldiered through The Education of Henry Adams, and I have no desire to read another sentence by him. I loved McCullough's John Adams, Joseph Ellis' First Family, Unger's John Quincy Adams.

I am not, however, done with medieval times. A heavy book on Cathedrals sits on my desk. Ann Baer's Down the Common: A Year in the Life of a Medieval Woman moved to the top of my bedside stack.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange and wonderful compendium of knowledge regarding two of the greatest architectural achievements of the Middle Ages, paired with the social and philosophical achievements of the day. Adams finds a vast array of connections that surprise and sometimes confound, and in the process of examining two structures of stone and glass, paints a portrait of a civilization struggling not to fall back into the Dark Ages yet rekindling once more the the wars of faith that brought them so low. Especially interesting is his portrayal of women in the Middle Ages, arguing that the patriarchy of church and monastery painted them as meaningless and thus created the basis for more secular historians doing the same. The art of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Adams posits, show that Western Europe's distaste with the severity of the Trinity and the militant nature of Its church (exemplified by the citadel of Mont Saint-Michel) led them to embrace the Virgin in a sort of Goddess worship whose respect extended to the fairer sex, allowing governmental rule, patronage, and even the rare military endeavor by said women, the evidence of which all survives in the walls and windows of the Cathedral of Chartres. The account is colored only by Adams' vehement antisemitism and antipapism, which, were one not aware of them before reading, would stand out as totally bizarre to the modern reader in an otherwise thoughtful and reasoned work. To be sure, Adams was writing privately for the students of Harvard Divinity School in 1904, but even if he never meant for the work to gain a wider audience, it does not forgive the illogical and offensive remarks that punctuate some of his thoughts.

[gwayle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book was a revelation--insightful, playful, energizing. I didn't know a thing about it, having happily stumbled upon it on a $1 sidewalk rack of an Oakland bookstore. I loved learning about the architecture of Mont St. Michel and Notre-Dame de Chartres (and a whole host of other cathedrals and abbeys by way of comparisons), the history of their construction, and the atmosphere of their milieu. All of the stuff about Chartres-as-shrine to the Virgin got to be a bit heavy-headed, though, and the book petered out after that, into rambling, quote-heavy history. It's worth reading that first half or so, though, which it simply magical. The amazing thing about places like Mont St. Michel and Chartres is that you are amazed by them without knowing a thing about them; half a lifetime has passed since I visited them, but they loom large in my memory, and it's a pleasure finally to flesh out their stories.