In building his new church, the first Catholic cathedral, the mastermind behind the project Abbot Suger, created a building such that the whole would shine with the wonderful and uninterrupted light of most luminous windows. Nor was Abbot Suger timid about describing the objects on which the new light of God would shine in a pervading, interior beauty. The abbey glorified in glittering objects and materials. Here we see in a painting by the Master of Saint Gilles from around 1500, a panel and altarpiece that has since been lost, but which Suger depicts in words in some detail. Into this panel which stands in front of his most sacred body, we have put, according to our estimate, about 42 marks of gold. Further, a multifarious wealth of precious gems, hyacinths, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and topazes, and also an array of different large pearls, a wealth, as great as we had never anticipated to find. You could see how kings, princes, and many outstanding men, following our example, took the rings off their fingers and ordered, out of love for the Holy Martyrs, that the gold, stone, and precious pearls of the rings be put into that panel. Suger cataloging the gems of St. Denis sounds like a miser hoarding his gold, and in a fashion analogous to the miraculous finding of just the right timbers for the roof in the forest of Yvelines, and marvel for the pillars at nearby Pontoise. He describes the remarkable way in which he acquired gems for the new abbey church. When I was in difficulty, he says, for want of gems and could not sufficiently provide myself with more, for their scarcity makes them very expensive, then, lo and behold, monks from three abbeys of two Orders, that is, from Citeaux and another abbey of the same order, and from Fontevrault, entered our little chamber, adjacent to the church and offered us for sale an abundance of gems, such as we have not seen in ten years, hyacinths, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, topazes. Freed from the worry of searching for gems, we thanked God and gave four hundred pounds for the lot, though they were worth much more. One of the characteristics of the age of cathedrals is the return of commercial activity. Money begun to circulate along with the rise of long and short range trade routes, markets, fairs, and cities. And Suger's interest in things is partially commercial. He appraises the value of the gems at one amount and the seller at another, neither revealing to the other what that is. The prudent Abbot is adept at the art of the deal. Suger was a great collector and restorer of powerful and dazzling objects to fill the treasury of Saint-Denis into the glory of the cathedral. Here we see drawings of the rich objects that belonged to the Abbey of Saint-Denis before they were scattered and lost at the time of the French Revolution. But not everything was lost. And here we see in the drawing the abbey's copy of the celestial hierarchies of Pseudo-Dionysius, which ended up in the Louvre along with one of the most significant objects of state. The throne on which sat the original founder of the abbey in the 7th century AD, Dagobert's throne, of which Suger speaks in his account of the building of the Cathedral of Saint-Denis. Further, he tells us, we saw to it, both on account of its so exalted function and of the value of the work itself, that the famous throne of the glorious King Dagobert, worn with age and dilapidated, was restored. On it, as ancient tradition relates, the kings of the Franks after having taken the reigns of government, used to sit in order to receive, for the first time, the homage of the nobles. The throne as you can see could use a little upholstery work. Among the liturgical objects that belong to Saint-Denis are a series of precious vases, valuable for their symbolism, their history, and their use in the service of the mass. Here we see a picture of the famous, Justavase, which Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine acquired on her wedding voyage to the city of Toledo in 1137, and which Eleanor's husband King Louis VII presented to the abbey where it is used at the divine table for libation. It, too, is currently in the Louvre. And here we see a chalice used for mass at Saint-Denis, and which is now in the National Gallery in Washington D.C.. Notice how in his description of this incredibly gleaming vase, Suger is captured by the play of light upon it's glittery surface. We also procured for the services, he tells, at the altar a precious chalice out of one solid sardonyx, which word derives from sardius and onyx, in which one stone the sard's red hue, by varying its property, so keenly vies with the blackness of the onyx that one property seems to be bent on trespassing upon the other. Note, too, the resemblance of the image of Christ on the medallion of the vase's base, with eastern images of Christ the Pantocrator, the all-powerful, found on similar vases and on coins from Byzantium. I mention only one more such liturgical object, known as the Eagle Vase, which is also in the Louvre. And further, Suger tells us, we adapted for the service of the altar, with the aid of gold and silver material, a porphyry vase, made admirable by the hand of the sculptor and polisher, after it had lain idly in a chest for many years, converting from a flagon into the shape of an eagle. The Eagle Vase also clearly shows the influence of the East, as can be seen on the eagles on Byzantine silks from the 10th and 11th centuries. Suger was anxious in building the Cathedral of Saint-Denis. That it lived up to the reputation for richness of the eastern churches. And he interrogate those who had returned from travels to the Middle East as to whether the things here could claim some value in comparison with those there. By there, he meant the church of Hagia Sophia, as well as the palaces in Constantinople. Reports of which had returned to Western Europe with participants in the First Crusade, some 40 years earlier.
