In his eulogy to the baroque splendour of the church of the Val de Grâce in Paris, Molière contrasted it with "... the dismal taste for gothic monuments, hateful monstrosities vomited up in torrents by barbarians throughout the centuries of ignorance." That, in 1669, was still the popular opinion of gothic architecture.
The word "gothic" was initially a term of propagandist disdain. Though he did not coin it, gotico, like rinascimento (Renaissance), was popularised in the mid-16th century by Giorgio Vasari – urbanist, architect and eloquent champion of the classical aesthetic derived from Greece and Rome.
Gothic – in its multiple variations the predominant European architectural idiom between about 1150 and 1500 – was made to stand for everything that Renaissance architecture (between 1400 and 1600) wasn't. Thus it was supposedly disordered, accretive, fantastical, superstitious, uncouth, violent and symbolic of the dark ages. It had only a figurative connection to the Goths, who came from Scandinavia or Pomerania or somewhere else in the benighted north and who attacked Rome in the fifth and sixth centuries. But it was a connection that stuck, and its legacy was an art-historical bias towards southern Europe and, particularly, Italy.
A later aesthete, also besotted by Roman grandeur and pomp, Adolf Hitler, derided the gothic as "Asiatic". A near miss: the earliest efforts in what would in the 12th century become the quintessential architecture of Christendom are in the ruined city of Ani in Armenia, in Muslim north Africa, in Andalucía and Sicily. The last is the most significant in the gothic style's development, for the Normans invaded Sicily soon after they had conquered England.
The Normans' attempt to foist their language on their subjects would eventually result in the mongrelism of Middle English (which explains modern English's glut of synonyms). Similarly, the gothic architecture synthesised in the Ile de France (primarily Saint Denis) 60 years after the invasion, flourished only briefly in England before its "purity" was contaminated by local influence.
The rapidity of the gothic's mutations are testimony to the energy and ingenuity of its makers. The notion of the dark ages' barbarism is quashed by the sheer invention and disparity of its great cathedrals: Salisbury's chapter house and spire, Exeter's and Wells's west front, Gloucester's cloisters, the mighty bulks of Ely and Lincoln. But perhaps that notion of barbarism is equally reinforced by these monuments to the vast and corrupt power of the unreformed church. The gothic may be a gamut of disparate architectural styles, but what ties it together is its sacred purpose.
The majority of gothic buildings that have survived were built to the glory of God. The homes of the church's flock, on the other hand, were built of less staunch materials than limestone, flint and brick: they often literally dissolved. Grander dwellings, while better made, were still constructed according to regional precedent and resource; the first great era of unfortified, style-conscious domestic architecture occurred in the wake of the dissolution of the monasteries, by when the taste for the gothic had passed.
Extant gothic buildings other than churches are rare. And they were nearly all connected to churches: the link between gothic and God is stubborn. The purpose of (the much altered) Vicar's Close at Wells is self-evident. It was, probably, unprecedented – and is very likely the origin of the English terrace. The precincts, closes and liberties of cathedrals abound in subsequent detached houses, which take their cue from the great house of God in their midst. Hospitals and almshouses – supreme among them St John's Hospital, Lichfield – also borrowed ecclesiastical devices and symbols. Even tithe barns of the period – the finest of these, at Tisbury, Bradford on Avon and Great Coxwold – feel like sacred structures that acknowledge God's provisions of rain and sun.
It was not for nothing that the 19th-century religious revival was entwined with the gothic revival (a lot more of the stuff was built that time round, including holy town halls and sacred railway stations).
The link between these great medieval buildings and their purpose is inescapable. Every exquisite rib vault proclaims a theological idea; every blind arcade a shrine to faith. Perhaps best to think of it as just another instance of that human perennial: enlightened technology serving a questionable end.
Jonathan Meades is a writer and broadcaster, and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society. He is currently making a three-part series for BBC4 about the seldom-seen side of France
Three era-defining events
1215: Signing of the Magna Carta
King John's despotic rule leads powerful barons to revolt. They force John to put his seal to a document that restricts the powers of the monarchy in return for renewed loyalty. The Magna Carta becomes the first, if embryonic, bill of rights.
1337–1453: The hundred years war
The prolonged battle for supremacy between England and France. Both reach their pinnacles of nationalistic architectural design between the battles of Crecy (1346) and Agincourt (1415).
1347–1351 :The black death
A third of Europe's population is wiped out. Peasants seek work wherever available, leading to wage inflation and whisper ofnascent social liberation.
