Name ______________________________________________________________________
Per. ________________
Cathedral Movie Notes
This movie mixes real documentary footage of cathedrals with an animated story of a fictional (not real) cathedral being
built. Don’t bother writing the names of any characters in the fictional story, or the name of the town.
As you watch the movie, take notes on anything that fits in the following categories (each has its own section on this page):
1. Reasons why cathedrals were built / what purposes did cathedrals serve in their communities?
2. Building the cathedral: Construction techniques, problems to overcome, engineering tricks, materials used
3. Parts of the cathedral: What are the architectural features called? What are the names of areas inside?
4. Design and decoration: What kind of art and decorations can be found inside and outside the cathedral?
Reasons why cathedrals were built / what purposes did cathedrals serve in their communities?
 Persuade people that Catholicism is the right and true religion
 Convince people that Church is powerful and grand, so they want to be
associated with it
 To humble Christians and show glory of God and smallness of Man
 To educate Christians who were illiterate with pictures and sculptures
 To symbolize the power of God in everyday life
 To profit and make money: Grand cathedrals & relics drew thousands of
religious pilgrims annually who spent and donated money
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Building the cathedral
 Used cranes and windlasses to lift heavy stones high in the air
 Used wooden scaffolding to hold up arches and walls while they were built
 Engineers laid out floor plan for cathedral while army of masons, carvers, and carpenters
worked on site
Parts of the cathedral
Romanesque:
 Rounded arches
 Thick, fortress-like walls
 Wooden roofs that don’t soar too high
 Small windows embedded in thick walls
 Dark inside
Gothic:
 Pointed arches
 Towers and pinnacles that reached for the sky
 Buttresses (attached to the wall) and flying buttresses (built outside the wall) to support
taller walls
 Thinner walls than Romanesque
 Large windows, usually with colorful stained glass
 Grotesques and gargoyles (statues of frightening creatures or devils on the outside of the
cathedral. Gargoyles also served as downspouts to channel rain water away from the walls)
______________________________________________________________________________
Design and Decoration
 Artwork used to teach illiterate Christians
 Stained glass windows tell Christian stories, tale of crucifixion, lives of saints
 Gargoyles and grotesques show damnation of Hell, carvings show god and saints in Heaven