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Notre Dame de Paris Facts & Worksheets

The Catholic cathedral Notre Dame de Paris is one of the most outstanding examples of French Gothic architecture devoted to the Virgin Mary.

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The Catholic cathedral Notre Dame de Paris is one of the most outstanding examples of French Gothic architecture devoted to the Virgin Mary. Its creative use of the rib vault and flying buttress, its immense, vibrant rose windows, and the realism and profusion of its sculptural embellishment are only a few characteristics that set it apart from other Romanesque constructions.

See the fact file below for more information on Notre Dame de Paris, or you can download our 31-page Notre Dame de Paris worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

HISTORY

  • Notre Dame de Paris, usually known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Parisian cathedral. It is the most well-known Gothic cathedral of the Middle Ages, notable for its size, history, and architectural appeal.
  • Home to the Crown of Thorns relic, the cathedral stands on the Île de la Cité, a small island in the center of the Seine River.
  • Pope Alexander III laid the foundation stone in 1163, and the high altar was consecrated in 1189.
  • The town thrived as a result of its advantageous location for managing the movement of goods along the river. 
  • By the tenth century, Paris was the center of a burgeoning new European power.
  • Trade was significant to the city’s expanding fortunes, but Paris was also becoming known as a spiritual center. 
  • A holy cult had sprung up around a local martyr, Saint Denis of Paris.
  • Saint Denis was decapitated on the top of Montmartre (“martyrs’ mount”) in the mid-to late-third century, following which he traveled six or so kilometers while carrying his severed head, according to legend. In a place north of the city where he is claimed to have stopped walking, a basilica was built in the 12th century as a tribute to him.
  • Maurice de Sully, the 12th-century Bishop of Paris, was one of the witnesses to the construction of the Basilica of Saint-Denis. 
  • He loved the pioneering architects who created buildings in the new Gothic style with towering ceilings and plentiful light. Sully intended to build a competing monument in the center of Paris: a cathedral devoted to the Virgin Mary that would be the marvel of Christendom.
  • De Sully’s project was influenced by the current times. 
  • This period of the High Middle Ages was characterized by an economic boom throughout Europe, particularly in France. 
  • De Sully commissioned an architect (whose name is unknown) to create the new church in 1160, thanks to the substantial financial support offered by the crown. 
  • Its construction necessitated the demolition of several dwellings in the congested medieval neighborhood, including two existing churches on the Île de la Cité, erected over an ancient pagan temple of the day. 
  • In June 1163, Pope Alexander III presided over the laying of the first stone.

CONSTRUCTION

  • From conception to finish, the construction of Notre Dame took approximately two centuries. De Sully made the cathedral his life’s work. 
  • The sanctuary and nave were completed first. 
  • The high altar was consecrated in 1182, under the reign of the new monarch, Philip II. De Sully was present for the first Mass, although he passed away in 1196, some 150 years before the main structures of the cathedral were finished in the 1300s.
  • The high roof required strong, solid walls to support it when the church was first erected, which restricted the size of the windows and the amount of natural light in the structure. 
  • Around 1220, rib vaults were built onto the roof, one of the great developments of Gothic architecture that strengthened the structure with crossed stone ribs.
  • More windows could be added since the supporting walls were not under as much stress.
  • The main (west) façade’s nave and two towers were completed in the 1240s by the Head of Works, Jean de Chelles, the cathedral’s first identified architect.
  • Work on the transept façades commenced and was completed by his successor, Pierre de Montreuil.
  • During his tenure, De Montreuil oversaw the construction of new, larger windows, including the three rose windows on the northern, southern, and western sides.
  • The monument’s finishing touches were added in the 1300s by master builder Jean Ravy, who was among the first to use another famous Gothic architectural innovation, namely flying buttresses or outer bracing of the roof and walls. 
  • The power exerted by the high ceiling is transferred to the outside through these arches, leaving the inner walls devoid of support and increasing the building’s grandeur and elegance. These buttresses along the sanctuary, have become one of Notre Dame’s most recognizable features. 

FAMOUS FEATURES

  • THE BELLS– The cathedral’s massive bells, each with its own name, are renowned. 
  • The main bell, Emmanuel, is housed in the South Tower. Recast in the 17th century, it weighs 13 tons, including the clapper, which weighs 1,100 pounds.
  • HEAVEN’S QUEEN- The Portal of the Virgin on Notre Dame’s west front, carved in the 1200s, portrays prophets foretelling the Virgin’s role (bottom), her death (middle), and ascension to heaven, where she is proclaimed queen (top).
  • FLYING BUTTRESSES- Notre Dame was among the earliest Gothic structures to use flying buttresses.
  • By supporting the weight of the roof and walls, these braces allowed the walls to extend higher.
  • CEILINGS WITH VAULTS- The central nave, which can hold up to 9,000 people, took 12 years to finish after construction began in 1178.
  • Each of the ceiling vaults in the structure is a sexpartite vault, a ribbed vault divided into six bays.
  • GARGOYLES- Many of Notre Dame’s monstrous gargoyles and chimeras were designed in the 1800s by architect Viollet-le-Duc and sculptor Victor Pyanet. 
  • The monstrous figures, one of Notre Dame’s most recognizable aspects, represent 19th-century beliefs about human nature.

PHILOSOPHY

  • Notre Dame was never culturally significant to French royalty. They opted to be crowned in the Cathedral of Reims, about 80 miles northeast of Paris, and buried at the Basilica of Saint-Denis. 
  • The only medieval monarch crowned at Notre Dame Cathedral was not French at all: Henry VI of England was declared king there in 1431 as part of England’s (by then, increasingly disastrous) bid to expand governmental authority over France during the Hundred Years’ War.
  • Instead, Notre Dame became an urban landmark and the backdrop to generations of Parisians’ lives.
  • It hosted the yearly Feast of Fools throughout the Middle Ages. This feast, possibly a throwback to ancient pagan rites, was based on a noisy ceremony in which a poor member of society was anointed a counterfeit pope or archbishop and presided over the day’s celebrations.
  • Notre Dame also became a landmark around which France’s intellectual life began to grow. 
  • Many students came to Paris unable to pay for their educations and turned to begging and criminality to make ends meet. 
  • These folks were referred to as goliards. They visited the pubs and bordellos that surrounded the magnificent cathedral.
  • Finally, the bishops of Paris agreed to put an end to student excesses. 
  • Cardinal Robert de Courçon ordered a decree to be read out from the entryway of Notre Dame in 1215, outlining different legislation aimed at establishing order in the academic community. 
  • The cathedral was a magnet for all kinds of meetings and spectacles, but it was also the site of trials and executions. 
  • On an island next to Notre Dame’s apse, Jacques de Molay, the last supreme leader of the Templars, was set ablaze at the stake in 1314.

REVOLT AND RANSACKING

  • Architectural taste altered dramatically in the 18th century. 
  • The historic cathedral underwent a major and contentious makeover in the midst of Louis XIV’s reign, a “restoration” that succeeding generations thought did more harm than years of wear and tear. 
  • The rood screen with its many sculptures was destroyed. 
  • Clear glass was used to replace the windows with stained glass from the 12th and 13th centuries. 
  • Only the three rising windows have a large percentage of their original glass remaining. To allow large processional wagons to pass through, a central entrance pillar was demolished.
  • In 1789, much more damage was on the way. During the French Revolution, the cathedral was looted as a symbol of the power and violence of the church and monarchy. 
  • The public believed the 28 sculptures in the Gallery of Rulers on the great gateway represented the detested royal bloodline of France, but in reality, were the ancient rulers of Judea and Israel. The sculptures decorating the doors, as well as the reliquaries and bronze statues within, were also destroyed. Lead from the roof was stolen to make bullets. 
  • The bronze bells were used to construct cannons. Only the massive Emmanuel bell, which hung in the southern tower and weighed around 13 tons, escaped destruction.
  • The cathedral was de-Christianized during the Revolutionary War, and the firebrand Robespierre devoted the church to the worship of the Supreme Being. 
  • When the Terror passed, the cathedral resumed its old function, although it was only a ghost of its former self. 
  • Many of its windows had been smashed, and many of its artifacts had been stolen or desecrated. 
  • Birds nesting high in the galleries and overhangs and flying in and out of the broken windows were quickly causing a vast mess.
  • Finally, in 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte’s administration concluded a treaty with the Holy See under which the Catholic Church regained ownership of Notre Dame. 
  • Work on cleaning up the building and repairing the windows began right away. 
  • By 1804 it had improved enough for Napoleon to be crowned Emperor there.

CATHEDRAL REVIVAL

  • Notre Dame was restored to grandeur in the mid-nineteenth century, largely thanks to author Victor Hugo. 
  • Hugo, a key figure in French romanticism, was instrumental in rekindling interest in the medieval past and Gothic art. In his 1831 blockbuster book, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” Hugo imagines the medieval tumult of Paris “mingled, combined, amalgamated in Notre Dame.”
  • Hugo’s French audience was captivated by the suffering of Quasimodo, the cathedral’s hunchbacked bell ringer, and the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda, which took place in and around the cathedral.
  • Parisians and civic officials rallied behind the deteriorating structure as a gem worthy of restoration.
  • “It is difficult not to wax indignant, before the countless degradations and mutilations which time and men have both caused the venerable monument to suffer,” Hugo wrote.
  • In the 1840s, work on repairing the cathedral began. In 1844, architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was chosen to oversee the project.
  • He worked for almost 25 years to restore Notre Dame’s vigor and beauty. 
  • A tall spire, statues of the Twelve Apostles, and the now-famous gargoyles and chimeras perched on the stone walls were among the additions, including restoring the west front and the Gallery of Kings.
  • The historic cathedral would benefit from modernizations in Paris that started in the 19th century.
  • Napoleon III hired Baron Haussmann, an urban planner, to oversee a vast urban renewal project in Paris in the 1850s, during which many of the city’s outdated structures were torn down to make way for boulevards and sizable open spaces. 
  • In order to create a new plaza in front of the cathedral on the Île de la Cité, Haussmann ordered the demolition of nearby homes and other structures. 
  • Parisians were able to admire the cathedral in all its splendor for the first time. 
  • Since then, Paris and Notre Dame have become synonymous in the public’s mind. Picasso and Matisse paid tribute to the structure in their paintings, and numerous movies were based on Victor Hugo’s novel  “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Hugo, who referred to Notre Dame as “a central mother church,” would not have been shocked by the structure’s appeal to people all over the world.

Notre Dame de Paris Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about Notre Dame de Paris across 31 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about Notre Dame de Paris. The Catholic cathedral Notre Dame de Paris is one of the most outstanding examples of French Gothic architecture devoted to the Virgin Mary.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

  1. Notre Dame de Paris Facts
  2. Track the Past
  3. Gained Knowledge
  4. Truth be Told
  5. Gothic Architecture
  6. My Style 
  7. Fire Outbreak Report
  8. Gargoyles
  9. Spot the Difference
  10. The Epic Cathedral 
  11. Recreate 

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Notre Dame de Paris built?

Construction of Notre Dame de Paris began in 1163 and was completed around 1345.

What architectural style is Notre Dame de Paris?

Notre Dame de Paris is a prime example of French Gothic architecture.

What is the significance of the rose windows in Notre Dame de Paris

The rose windows in Notre Dame de Paris are renowned for their intricate stained glass designs and symbolize the union of heaven and earth.

Has Notre Dame de Paris undergone any major renovations?

Yes, Notre Dame de Paris has undergone several renovations throughout its history, with notable ones taking place in the 19th century under the direction of architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.

What happened to Notre Dame de Paris in 2019?

In April 2019, Notre Dame de Paris suffered a devastating fire that severely damaged the roof and spire of the cathedral. Efforts are underway to restore and rebuild the structure to its former glory.

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