This book has explored how modern men and women are to understand the remarkable medieval effort to build Heaven on earth. Technical, sociological, and political motivations have entered into discussions in each of the chapters, but my main interest has been the religious motivations that stood behind the architecture of revelation in the medieval west. By studying some of the most important philosophical, theological, and liturgical traditions; by visiting some of the extant buildings themselves; and by becoming familiar with some of the great literature of the period, we come closer to understanding the spirituality that inspired these medieval achievements.

Sometimes one arrives at a greater understanding by accident. On 11 June 2002, the feast day of Saint Barnabus, I attended a noon liturgy in the Chapelle Mansart in the church of Saint-Séverin, located in one of the few remaining sections of Paris’ Latin Quarter that retains the medieval pattern of streets. Later that afternoon, I studied at the Bibliothèque of the Institut d’Études Augustiniennes. This library is located in what was the medieval Abbot’s Palace of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The collection of approximately 45,000 volumes is dedicated to the study of Saint Augustine, including all aspects of the Augustinian theological tradition and, more broadly, to the history of Christianity from late antiquity. The readers’ work areas are all in one small room and placed adjacent to open stacks of reference materials. There is space enough for only about twelve readers, but most desks are situated so that one may look out at eye-level to the church’s famous Romanesque bell tower, the oldest in the city, and onto the church’s nave. The Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés was, of course, one of the most important intellectual communities in western medieval Europe, and historians of art and architecture make the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés one of their priorities when visiting Paris to see its medieval achievements.

One of the books I pulled from the shelves that day was the Histoire de L’Abbaye Royale de Saint-Denys en France. In it I read (and was reminded) that the great consecration of Abbot Suger’s new church had taken place on 11 June 1144, exactly 858 years before, on the feast of Saint Barnabé.