The Most Famous Gothic Cathedrals and What Makes Them Special

The most famous Gothic cathedrals are Notre-Dame in Paris, Chartres, Amiens and Reims in France, Cologne Cathedral in Germany, Salisbury in England and Milan Cathedral in Italy. Among the well-known Gothic churches are also Saint-Denis, where the style began, and Westminster Abbey in London. In the Nordic countries Uppsala Cathedral is the largest. Here they are in the order in which they were begun, with what to look for in each.

Facts

France: where the Gothic began

Saint-Denis, north of Paris, was not originally a cathedral but an abbey church, but it was here that Abbot Suger had a new choir built, consecrated in 1144, with pointed arches, rib vaults and large stained-glass windows. It is regarded as the birth of the Gothic. Look for the slender piers in the ambulatory and the glass; most of the French kings are also buried here.

Notre-Dame de Paris, begun in 1163, is among the first churches where flying buttresses were used to carry high vaults. Look for the three rose windows and the west front’s clear division into storeys. After the fire in 2019 the cathedral reopened in 2024. A couple of minutes away lies Sainte-Chapelle, Louis IX’s chapel from the 1240s, where the walls of the upper storey have been almost entirely replaced by glass; it is not a cathedral, but it shows how far the Gothic could dissolve the wall. Chartres Cathedral, rebuilt in 1194–1220 after a fire, has the best-preserved collection of medieval stained glass, with the deep blue known as Chartres blue, and a labyrinth in the floor. The Royal Portal of the west front survived the fire and is older than the rest. The glass is also covered in the art section under the stained glass of Chartres.

Amiens Cathedral, begun in 1220, is the largest cathedral in France and the Gothic classic: the vaults of the nave reach about 42 metres, and the façade is full of sculpture. Reims Cathedral, begun in 1211, was the coronation church of the French kings. Look for the smiling angel at the west portal. The cathedral was badly damaged by shelling during the First World War and has been restored.

England: long, low and bright

English Gothic is longer and lower than French, often with a central tower over the crossing. Salisbury Cathedral was built in 1220–1258 in a single campaign and is therefore unusually uniform. The spire, added in the 14th century, is 123 metres and the tallest in England, and in the chapter house is one of the four surviving original copies of Magna Carta of 1215.

Westminster Abbey in London is a church and not a cathedral, but one of the best-known Gothic buildings. It was rebuilt from 1245 on French models, and the English monarchs have been crowned here since 1066. The late English Gothic reached its peak in King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, 1446–1515, with the world’s largest fan vault.

Germany and Italy

Cologne Cathedral was begun in 1248 on the model of Amiens and the French cathedrals, but building came to a halt in the 16th century. Work was not resumed until 1842, following the medieval drawings, and in 1880 the church was complete with its two 157-metre towers. It is therefore both medieval and 19th-century, something explained in the guide to Gothic and Gothic Revival. Cologne’s towers were the world’s tallest structure until 1884, and in 1890 Ulm Minster received its 161.5-metre tower, which is still the world’s tallest church tower.

Milan Cathedral was begun in 1386 and was not completely finished until 1965. It is built of white and pink marble and is known for its forest of spires and its thousands of statues. The façade was completed in the early 19th century on Napoleon’s orders. You can walk on the roof among the spires, and it is the best way to see how Gothic flying buttresses and pinnacles work.

The Nordic countries: brick Gothic

In the Nordic countries the Gothic was often built in brick, on models from northern Germany. Uppsala Cathedral, built from about 1270 and consecrated in 1435, is the largest church in the Nordic countries. The French master builder Étienne de Bonneuil was engaged early on, and the plan with an ambulatory and a ring of chapels follows French cathedrals. The towers received their tall spires in Helgo Zettervall’s restoration in the 1880s. Vadstena Abbey Church, 1369–1430, was built according to the instructions of St Bridget in grey limestone and is called the Blue Church (Blåkyrkan).

In Norway, Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim is the northernmost medieval cathedral in the Nordic countries, with a west front full of sculpture. The churches of the Swedish Middle Ages as a whole are covered in Swedish history under the Middle Ages.

How to compare them

The French master builders competed for height. The vaults at Amiens reached about 42 metres, and at Beauvais they tried to go higher still, to about 48 metres in the choir. The vaults collapsed in 1284 and had to be rebuilt with more supports, and the nave was never built. You can compare the heights in the diagram below, where Cologne and Ulm stand beside the Pantheon, the Eiffel Tower and Stockholm City Hall.

The parts that all the cathedrals have, from flying buttress to triforium, are on the cathedral diagram, and how they were built is explained in the guide to how a Gothic cathedral was built. The features that distinguish Gothic from Romanesque are in the guide to recognising Gothic architecture, and all the cathedrals are on the map below.

What to look for

Exercise

Which cathedral was completed only in 1880, more than six hundred years after building began?