The Abbot Reaches for the Sky
1140-1144 AD
1140 1140
02.21E48.56N
ARC

ST. DENIS, FRANCE
	If you have ever been to a cathedral you probably remember spending a lot of time looking up toward the ceiling, stained glass windows and spires. If you did that, it was just what Abbot Sugar wanted you to do -- look up toward heaven.
	In 1140 AD, Abbot Sugar of St. Denis was the most influential churchman in France, and he longed to create a church that would rival the legendary Hagia Sophia Church in Constantinople.
	And he was successful. Sugar and an unknown architect created not only the Abbey Church of St. Denis, near Paris, but also the model for a new, vertical style of architecture that spread quickly throughout Europe -- a style called "Gothic."
	One major development that helped create the Gothic style was the discovery that stone could carry far greater weight than had previously been imagined.
	Working with that knowledge, Gothic architects broke away from the low, Romanesque style to design cathedrals of dazzling height, but displaying a graceful lightness of construction that put the weight on a few pillars and left the intervening space for colorful stained glass windows.
