82 - “Millions, millions of tons of stone. Between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries more stone was excavated than in Egypt. The eighty cathedrals and five hundred churches built in this period, if gathered together, would effect a mountain range erected by human hands. In one of my books I saw a drawing of a façade of a Greek temple imposed on the façade of a Gothic cathedral. It was clear that many an Acropolis could be contained, as in a suitcase, inside cathedrals like Amiens or Reims. However, little results from such comparisons, at least little that would tell us about the functions of sacred buildings in different periods. The temples of antiquity housed the gods; cathedrals house the faithful. The immortals are always less numerous than their believers.”
83ff - Even courtesans donated to the construction of cathedrals. Materials were brought from afar, by ships chased by pirates. Cathedrals primarily built by volunteers. Scaffolding hung from the walls like swallows’ nests.
86 - “Medieval man felt at home in the church.”
90 - “Those who worked in stone were covered by a single French term tailleurs de pierre, referring to those who cut stone as well as those who made rosettes, arches, even sculpted statues. One of the mysteries of Gothic architecture is the fact, unimaginable to us, that these sculptors were not considered artists. They merged with the anonymous mass of stonemasons. Their personalities were bridled by the architect and the theologian. The Council of Nice decided in 787 that art was the matter of the artist, but the composition — or content, as we would say today - belonged to the Fathers. The sentence must have had more than declarative value since in 1306 a sculptor named Tideman was forced to remove from a London church his figure of Christ, which was found to be contrary to tradition, and even to return his fee.”