Edward Cairns, Ph.D.: "Christianity Through the Centuries:" Ch.13--Medie...

Cathedrals are called the “Bible in stone” with many arising in Northern and Western Europe between 1150 and 1550; there were Norman and then there was Gothic; the best examples of Gothic were built within a 100-mile radius of Paris. If not a Cathedral, then a parish—center for baptism, confirmation, teaching, marriage and burial in the churchly cemetery. With all the conflicts, confusions, contradictions and failures within the Church from 590-1305, it yet produced Bede, Alcuin, Anselm and others, mitigated the issues of slavery, elevated marriage, provided hospitality, advanced and preserved learning, and provided a unifying and rallying point of social, political, cultural and theological coherence.