As displays of the culture of Europe in the Middle Ages, nothing compares with the great cathedrals. They are true wonders of the world. They tower over the Continent, from mighty Durham to serene Chartres, from Cologne’s battling buttresses to Seville’s exquisite vault, the last ordered to be so vast ‘that men will think us mad’. Nowhere equalled the reckless engineering of Beauvais. Lincoln in its prime was taller than the great pyramid of Cheops. Yet few of these buildings appear as they did to those who made them because all have lost their colour.
Colour in piers, ribs and murals naturally faded with the decline of Catholic supremacy from the 16th century onwards. For worshippers, churches were no longer the exclusive illustrators of the Bible story. It is hard for us to imagine how coloured west fronts and interiors must have looked to those who never saw painted images anywhere else in their lives.
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