Chartres The Disconnected Zodiac

Chartres – The Disconnected Zodiac
By
Richard J Legault
Revised
Copyright  2019, 2018, 2017

By
Richard J Legault
Revised July/August 2019
Abstract - An exploration of the meaning behind the exclusion of Pisces and Gemini
from the main grouping of Zodiac and Labors of the Months images and placement
instead among the images of the Seven Liberal Arts, in the archivolt sculptures of the
Royal Portal of Chartres Cathedral.
Copyright  2019, 2018, 2017 by Richard J. Legault
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The Zodiac and Labors of the Months - Gothic art depicts the yearly calendar cycle of
monthly activities so often in stone, glass and illuminated manuscripts that it is possible
to define an iconography of images known as the Labors of the Months (Hourihane
2007). Figures 1 and 2 show two examples from Chartres Cathedral, one in stone and
the other in glass.
Figure 1 – Ten Zodiac Signs and Twelve Labors of the Months in the two archivolts over the leftmost door of
the Royal Portal (c. 1145) of Chartres Cathedral.
Each month is portrayed by a typical rural activity, for example, pruning in April, hunting
and falconry in May, planting and weeding in June, harvesting in July, threshing in
August, pressing grapes in September, butchering livestock in November and,
inevitably, feasting in December. These activities and the iconography can vary a lot
from place to place with different activities taking place earlier or later in the year
depending on local climate, length of seasons and customs. The Labors of the Months
images are easier to understand when the artists label each month with their names in
letters, as in Figure 2 the Chartres Zodiac window and as on the Cover Page image,
the window pane labeled MAIVS (Latin for May).
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1
2 3
4 5
6
7 8
9 10
11
12 13
14 15
16
17 18
19 20
21
22 23
24 25
26 27
Month Labor of the Month Sign Dates

1 Christ between Alpha & Omega
2 December Feasting 3 Capricorn 22-Dec 19-Jan
4 November Butchering a Pig 5 Sagittarius 22-Nov 21-Dec
6 October Pouring Wine 6 Scorpio 23-Oct 21-Nov
7 Septmber Wine Making 8 Libra 23-Sep 22-Oct
9 August Threshing Grain 10 Virgo 23-Aug 22-Sep
11 July Harvesting Grain 11 Leo 23-Jul 22-Aug
12 June Mowing 13 Cancer 21-Jun 22-Jul
14 April Flowers 15 Tau 20-Apr 20-May
16 May Hunting 16 Gemini 21-May 20-Jun
17 March Pruning Vines 18 Aries 21-Mar 19-Apr
19 February Warming in Front of Fire 20 Pisces 19-Feb 20-Mar
21 January Man with Two Faces 21 Aquarius 20-Jan 18-Feb
22 Donors Vintners 23 Donor Count Thibaut
24 Donor Bell Ringer 25 Donors Vintners
26 Donors Vintners 27 Donors Vintners
Figure 2 - Chartres Calendar-Zodiac Window (c.

1217) - The Labors of the Months and Signs of the
Zodiac are paired in chronological order from the
bottom up and left to right, except that April/Gemini
is transposed with May/Taurus. Christ sits at the top
flanked by the Alpha and Omega. Also depicted are
the donors: Thibault VI count of Chartres, on behalf
of Thomas count of Perche, and Vintners.
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Very often, as in the Zodiac Window, the Labors of the Months are paired with the even
more standardized iconography of the twelve Signs of the Zodiac, a medieval
adaptation of the traditional astronomical lore of late Greek and Roman antiquity.
Astronomy has always been essential to keep calendars on track with the natural cycles
of time – the days, the months, the seasons and the years. In Gothic art, the Labors of
the Months and the Signs of the Zodiac usually appear in the standard chronological
order of the calendar, as shown in Figures 2, 6 and 7.
A major departure from this standard chronological order appears in the sculptures of
the Royal Portal of Chartres Cathedral, shown in Figures 1 and 3. In the mapping
shown in Figure 4, on first inspection, the order appears to be almost random, in
nothing even resembling the proper chronological order of the calendar. This first of two
major apparent anomalies are explored further below.
Figure 3 – Gemini and Pisces (highlighted) and the Seven Liberal Arts are sanctified by angels with censors
surrounding images of the Incarnation over the right door of the Royal Portal (c. 1145).
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11 13 50 51
66 52
9 12 15 49
14 65 67
10
7 48
8 17 64 57a 68 53
16
24
57b 57b
47
5 6 18 19 54
63 69
25 20 58
4 21 46 55
3 70
62
26 45 61 59
1 2 22 23 71 56
Leftmost Door Rightmost Door

1 July Harvest of Cereals. 45 Aristotle (Dialectic)
2 April Pruning Trees Picking Flowers. 46 Dialectic - Personified
3 Cancer 21 Jun - 22 July 47 Cicero (Rhetoric)
4 Aires 21 Mar - 19 April 48 Rhetoric - Personified
5 August Threshing 49 Euclid (Geometry)
6 May Falconry 50 Geometry - Personified
7 Leo 23 July - 22 Aug 51 Arithmetic Personified
8 Taurus 20 April - 20 May 52 Boethius (Arithmentic)
9 September Pressing Wine 53 Astronomy - Personfied
10 June (planting? Weeding?) 54 Ptolemy (Astronomy)
11 Virgo 23 Aug - 22 Sept 55 Grammar - Personified
12 Dove Holy Spirit 56 Priscian or Donato Grammar
13 Sagittarius 22 Nov - 21 Dec 57a Holy Virgin with Christ Child
14 March Pruning Vines 57b Two angels with censors (damaged)
15 December Feasting 58 Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.
16 Aquarius 20 Jan - 18 Feb 59 Annunciation, Visitation and Nativity
17 Scorpio 23 Oct - 21 Nov 60 Dove - Holy Spirit
18 February - keeping warm 61 Pisces
19 November Slaughtering Swine 62 Gemini
20 Capricorn 22 Dec - 19 Jan 63 - 65 Angels with Censor
21 Libra 23 Sept - 22 Oct 66 Holy Spirit.
22 January (Two Faced Janus) Feasting 67-69 Angels with Censor
23 October Harvesting Acorns (Pig Feed) 70 Music - Personified
24 God in a V-shaped cloud 71 Pythagoras (Music)
25 Four Angels
26 Seated Ten, necks craned, with scrolls and books
Figure 4 – Map and Legend of the Sculptures over the Leftmost and Rightmost Doors. (Signs and Months in bold)
Zodiacs at Chartres - There are several sets of Calendar and Zodiac images at
Chartres Cathedral. The most prominent and well-known set is in the archivolts above
two of the three doors of the Royal Portal, where the Signs and Labors are in apparent
disarray. They also have a major disconnect because only 10 Zodiac Signs appear
paired with the Labors of the Months over the leftmost door. Two Signs – Gemini and
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Pisces - are missing from this group and appear separately over the rightmost door, as
seen in Figure 3. There, the central image represents the Incarnation. Angels surround
it, and use censors to sanctify the medieval curriculum of the Seven Liberal arts
represented by seven sages of antiquity and female personifications. The separate
placement of Gemini and Pisces within this group seems oddly out of place - a second
curiosity-arousing anomaly that will be further explored below.
The anomalous chronological order and disconnectedness of the Royal Portal Zodiac
and Labors are not the case with the other, much more typical four sets of calendar and
Zodiac images in the Cathedral. For example the Zodiac Window, shown in Figure 2,
ends with December paired with Capricorn at the top, after working its way up through
the months and the Signs paired and in their proper chronological order with one
exception. The exception is the transposition of the May/Gemini pair with the
April/Taurus pair – a transposition I can understand as neither an error on the part of the
original glaziers nor a botched restoration. As we go along, you will see why I think this
transposition is a later and secondary re-affirmation of the reason for the disconnection
of the stone Zodiac in the Royal Portal.
A third and evidently restored Zodiac cycle in the outermost archivolt of the rightmost
door of the North Transept Porch, shown in Figure 6, is in perfect calendrical sequence.
So is the one in the much later Astronomical Clock (c. 1520s), shown in Figure 7.
An easily overlooked and less well-known fifth Zodiac cycle is on one of the slender
colonnettes behind the statues in the jambs of the Royal Portal. From photographs
shown in Figure 8, it appears to be incomplete with only eight of the 12 Signs. This
colonette is in a suspiciously good a state of preservation, considering the delicacy of its
lacelike tooling is supposed to have withstood some 900 years of weathering in one of
the highest traffic areas of the cathedral. Moreover, the medieval historian Georges
Bonnebas believes that these colonnettes show signs of reuse and incomplete and
patchy installation (Bugslag 2017). The leftmost image in Figure 8 shows joints
between three different sections that make up the colonnette. The incomplete Zodiac
cycle is the bottom section. Above it is an ornately carved shorter section. At the top, an
unadorned section looks like an awkward gap filler in the remaining space. While the
Royal Portal dates from c. 1145, I think the colonnette is a much later addition or
restoration, the style and subject matter of which are out of keeping with rest of the
Royal Portal’s stone and glasswork.
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Figure 5 – Close-ups of the Zodiac Signs in the archivolts of the Royal Portal c. 1145.
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Figure 6 – Chartres North Porch Zodiac - Top -The Signs and the monthly labors in the archivolts of the North
Porch follow the calendar. The cycle starts with January at the left bottom, continues through June at the top
and ends in December, at the right bottom. The two extra figures at each end depict the seasons winter and
summer: men in seasonally appropriate attire (c. 1215 – restored). Bottom - The cut and paste close-ups, in
random order, are from a modern French postcard.
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Figure 7 - The Face of the Zodiacal Clock at Chartres shows the Signs in their proper calendrical
sequence, with the Sun on the cusp between Leo and Virgo and the Moon about ¾ full, c. 1525-28.
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Figure 8 – Zodiac Cycle (incomplete and

restored?) finely tooled on a colonnette in a
jamb of the Royal Portal, c. 1145(?). Close-
ups are, in descending order, Gemini,
Sagittarius, Scorpio and Libra.
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Medieval Knowledge of the Zodiac - I think it is simply out of the question that
ignorance or error is the cause of the highly unconventional ordering and
disconnectedness of the Royal Portal Zodiac. The correct chronological order of the
Signs of the Zodiac was common knowledge to 12th Century medieval culture. Their
cosmology, astronomy and time reckoning methods, inherited from classical Greek and
Roman teachings, were available in the Latin works of medieval natural philosophers
such as Marcobius, Capella, Beothius, the Venerable Bede, Isidore of Seville, Abbo of
Fleury and numerous others. The exceptional interest in and knowledge of astronomy,
especially among the Chartrians, from the days of Bishop Fulbert of Chartres (c. 1006)
up to the chancellorship of Thierry of Chartres (c. 1145) is a well-documented fact of
history. Accordingly, I think that the disarray and disconnectedness of the Royal Portal
Zodiac was a matter of deliberate design. The designers, alas, left no written record of
the reasoning behind their choices, no record of the teaching they intended to convey
with this very peculiar design. We do not even know for sure who they were. It is up to
the sculptures to speak, as it were, for themselves.
Significance of Anomalies - I think the best way to make them speak is to follow the
idea that substantial departures from conventional, well-established norms of iconology
are indicators of an intention to convey unconventional meaning. Major departures from
convention, atypical treatments of otherwise typical images or unexpected anomalies,
arouse curiosity and attract the attention of an alert observer. In the highly conservative
medieval cultural milieu, anomalous departures from convention are, I think, one of the
best entry points to explore and discover significant meaning not previously considered
by art historians. I think this is especially true of the Royal Portal of Chartres Cathedral.
Accordingly, pursuing and exploring these anomalies in the context of medieval culture
in general, and Chartrian culture in particular, is the approach I take in my best effort to
understand the unconventional meaning or teaching that the Royal Portal Zodiac
sculptures were intended to convey.
Cultural Context - We have considerable and reasonably reliable knowledge of the

medieval cultural context of Christian theology, natural philosophy, cosmology and
astronomy that the well-schooled literate classes read about, wrote about and taught in
the twelfth century in their Abbey and Cathedral schools. It is a popular and widely
accepted idea that cathedrals in general and Chartres in particular are stone and glass
records of these teachings. Accordingly, I think the best way to understand the meaning
of the Disconnected Zodiac, to make the sculptures peak, is to look for clues in the
cultural context of Chartrian readings, writings and teachings of which the stone and
glass version is a legible duplicate. Extracting the meaning of the Disconnected Zodiac
in this way is the goal of this paper.
Plato and Ptolemy – At the time the Chartrians built the Royal Portal (c. 1145), their
astronomy and the structure of their cosmos followed the teachings of Plato and
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Claudius Ptolemy. Up to that time, for Plato they had only had the 4th Century
incomplete Latin translation by Calcidius of the Timaeus and for Ptolemy, only second
and third hand summaries, compilations and commentaries from other authors of late
antiquity. Ptolemy’s actual books, however, were just beginning to become available,
arriving in Latin translations from Arabic versions during this period of the twelfth
century: the Tetrabiblos c.1138 from Plato de Tivoli, the Planisphere c.1143 from
Hermann of Carinthia, and the Almagest c.1175 from Gerard of Cremona.
Medieval Cosmos and Zodiac – The stately procession of the fixed stars, including the
constellations of the Zodiac, across the night sky was common knowledge to medieval
philosophers and astronomers. The name Zodiac comes from the Greek zōdiakos
kuklos (ζoδιακoς κύκλος), meaning ‘circle or ring of animals.’ From their readings, they
understood these fixed stars and the constellations never moved with respect to each
other. They also knew their predecessors had grouped the fixed stars into named
constellations. Perhaps the longest lasting game of connect-the-dots of all time, the
constellations in general and the Zodiacal ones in particular are still, to this very day, a
convenient sky mapping and memory tool.
According to Plato and Ptolemy, the fixed stars and constellations resided on the
outermost cosmic sphere that carried the entire stellar panorama in an east-west
direction on a daily revolution around the Earth. The constellations of the Zodiac could
be seen on any clear night rising in the east and setting in the west just like the Sun,
and at just about the same hourly pace.
What made the constellations of the Zodiac so special to medieval astronomers

compared to all the other constellations? From reading Macrobius, and numerous other
sources, they knew the zodiac had been set apart as a zone of sky shaped like a belt, a
strap, or a ring around the sky that sits about 8° wide on either side of the path that the
Sun’s position traces over the course of the year. This strap was the boundary outside
of which none of the seven medieval planets ever strayed. Aside from the odd stray
comet, all of the important things visible by naked eye astronomy took place in the
Zodiac: eclipses of the Sun, eclipses of the Moon, phases of the Moon, appearances of
the planets, planetary conjunctions, occultations, equinoxes, solstices, and so on.
Accordingly, medieval astronomers could see in the belt of the Zodiac the pageantry of
a second heavenly procession. This was the wanderings of seven stars Plato and
Ptolemy had called planets because of their wandering motion visible from night to
night, month to month, and even year to year, from west to east (prograde), inside the
belt of the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. Their seven planets, each on their own
sphere nested one inside the other like Russian Dolls, were the Moon, Sun, Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Week to week and month to month the position of the
Sun, for example, could be seen to advance or ‘process’ through the constellations of
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the Zodiac, its position moving along at the steady rate of one constellation or one Sign
per month. The time it took for the Sun’s position to move once through the entire belt or
ring of the Zodiac is what defined a year. It is from annus/anni/anno, the Latin word for
‘ring,’ that are derived words like ‘annual’ and ‘anniversary.’ Literally, they refer to the
ring of the Zodiac and the quantity of time it takes the Sun to move once through the
ring.
While different planets at different times were seen to sometimes reverse direction and
move backwards or ‘precess’ through the Zodiac for short periods of time, in general,
their movement was seen as an ongoing west-east procession, with each planet
completing its Zodiacal cycle in its own unique period of time. These planetary time
periods, especially of the Sun and the Moon, were considered so regular and so reliable
that astronomers following Plato’s Timaeus regarded them as the ideal keepers or
guardians of time – the years, the seasons, the months and the days.
[the Demiurge] began to think of making a moving image of eternity: at the same time as he
brought order to the universe, he would make an eternal image, moving according to number, of
eternity remaining in unity. This, of course, is what we call “time.” … [The Demiurge] brought into
being the Sun, the Moon, and five other stars, for the begetting of time. These are called
“wanderers” [planêta], and they stand guard over the numbers of time. … And so people are all
but ignorant of the fact that time really is the wanderings of these bodies. (Plato Timaeus)
This Ptolemaic Model, as we now call it, appears frequently in manuscripts using
diagrams of concentric circles as seen in Figure 9. Such diagrams - a sort of cross-
section through the spheres – helped visualize in two dimensions the concept of a three
dimensional spherical cosmos. They show the planetary spheres inside the outer
sphere of the stars represented by Signs of the Zodiac in their correct chronological
order. The order sometimes runs clockwise and sometimes counter-clockwise or
widdershins.
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Figure 9 - Medieval Zodiac Diagrams – Left: From a manuscript compendium of computistical texts
compiled from Bede, Isidore of Seville and Abbo of Fleury. Walters Ms. W.73, England in the late
twelfth century. Right: From the oldest scientific manuscript in the National Library of Whales, in
Caroline minuscule, in two sections, the first copied c. 1000, in the Limoges area of France, probably
in the milieu of Adémar de Chabannes (989-1034), the second from the same region, may be dated c.
1150. See: http://art.thewalters.org/detail/32220/cosmography-2/ and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac#/media/File:F4.v._zodiac_circle_with_planets_-
_NLW_MS_735C.png
Christian Concept of Time – While Plato was all very well, medieval Christians
accepted his concept of repeating time cycles only as a sub-set of a much larger
concept of time that remains to this day fundamental to Jewish, Muslim and Christian
religious teaching. The main idea is that time itself is an artifact, created by God, who
stands back, outside of time. According to these teachings, time begins at a moment of
Creation, flows only in one direction during the history of the world and ends at an
apocalyptic moment on a Day of Judgement. A core teaching of the Christian variation
on this idea is that historical time, between the two end-points of Creation and
Judgement Day, consists of two great periods. In the Christian view, the Incarnation -
God in the flesh entering the created world - represents a pivotal moment in history that
separates the two great periods. The structure of the Christian Bible precisely and most
fundamentally, reflects this idea, divided as it is into the Old Testament (the time before
Christ) and the New Testament (the time after Christ’s arrival on Earth). Like it or not,
this division of historical time is still in worldwide cultural use today in the conventional
Western calendar. Regardless of how forcefully the politically correct may gnash their
teeth and decry the practice, the Western world still counts years in terms of Anno
Domini (literally, Years of Our Lord) with year number one designated, though not
without error, by Dionysius Exeguus in the 6th Century, as the birth of Christ.
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The objective of medieval cathedral builders’ artwork was primarily to record and
transmit their teachings using images in stone and stained glass. Accordingly, it makes
sense to think that their sculpture and stained glass images would show, in possibly
many ways, this most fundamental concept of time and of its three key moments. The
idea, after all, is at the very core of Christian teaching. This concept of linear time, as I
and others have written elsewhere, is precisely the overall theme of the sculptures over
the three doors of the Royal Portal of Chartres Cathedral: Creation/Ascension on the
left, Second Coming in the center and the Incarnation on the right (Legault 2017b, Van
Der Meulen and Price 1981).
Order or Disorder – In the Royal Portal Sculptures, the Signs of the Zodiac (Signs) and
Labors of the Months (Months) are presented in what appears, on first inspection, to be
a horribly disordered sequence. Looking at the Mapping in Figure 4, for instance, and
reading from left to right, the cycle appears to start with July in position 1 at the bottom
and end with October in position 23 on the opposite side. At the top, June in position 10
seems to precede March in position 14. The signs and months run in neither a
systematically clockwise nor a widdershins sequence. The unusual chronological order
of this composition is, as far as I know, unique to Chartres.
Nevertheless, there is order. The composition may be understood, as tabulated and

diagrammed below in Figure 10, as a grouping into 4 Seasons of 3 Signs/Months each,
with time flowing, as is conventional, from the bottom up. Each season begins at the
bottom and ends at the top. The point of the arch, as the place where all four seasons
end, would represent the place of the Equinoxes and Solstices. The two blanks in the
table indicate how the missing Pisces and Gemini ought to logically be paired with their
months March and June, respectively.
To read the two seasons on the left chronologically you go clockwise from bottom to
top. To reading the two seasons on the right, you go widdershins from bottom to top.
This mixing of the two directions in a single image is, on first inspection, a rather messy
confusion of time’s direction, usually depicted as a steady one-way flow.
Moreover, if you try to read the order of the seasons, in the conventional direction, from
left to right, they are chronologically backwards: Summer, Spring, Winter and Autumn.
To get them in the correct chronological order of real time, you have to read them from
right to left: Autumn, Winter, Spring and Fall. This is another unusual reversal and rather
messy disordering of the normal direction of the flow of time. I think the decision to
depict the motion of time as bi-directional and reversed here was deliberate and it
communicates to me the reasoning behind the special treatment of Pisces and Gemini
that will become clearer as we go along.
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Figure 31 - Table and Diagram of the unusual chronological order of the paired Signs/Months,
grouped by Season, over the left door of the Royal Portal.
The Sign/Month pairings in the Royal Portal follow the more rarely
used Duration method, matching the pairings illustrated and described in Un manuscrit
chartrain du XIe siècle (A Chartrian Manuscript of the 11thCentury) by Merlet and
Clerval 1893. This method was preferred at Chartres in the 11th and 12th Centuries.
Modern Sun Sign Astrology and the vast majority of medieval Sign/Month pairings use
the Entry method that shifts everything by one month. Details of the Duration and Entry
methods for pairing the Signs and Months are discussed below. By the time of the 13th
Century Zodiac Window, the Chartrians had abandoned their preference for the
Duration method, in favor of the more common Entry method seen in the Window,
though the Window has anomalies of its own.
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The Disconnected Pisces and Gemini - The sculptures of the Royal Portal include the
twelve Signs of the Zodiac, arranged in a strangely disordered and disconnected
manner. Ten appear, unusually arrayed, over the left door, none over the middle door
and two, Gemini and Pisces, over the right door. The seasons flow backwards. Many of
the authors who describe this arrangement comment on the strange disorder without
offering any satisfactory explanation. In 1964, Adolf Katzenellenbogen said the splitting
off of the two Signs “poses a particular problem for which no definite solution may be
offered.” In 2008, Philip Ball wrote, “We no longer know how to read this code.” In 2009,
John James attempted a mystical New-Age astrological explanation the mumbo-jumbo
of which, frankly, impedes a reasoned understanding. An outstanding exception is
Margot Fassler who wrote in 2010 that Pisces and Gemini over the Incarnation doorway
symbolize March and June, the months of the liturgical calendar in which fall the annual
feast days of the Annunciation on 25 March and of John the Baptist on 24 June. We
have already seen how these are the two months that ought to be paired with Pisces
and Gemini to remain consistent with the Duration method pairings over the left door.
Accordingly, her idea is indeed a meaningful calendrical and elegantly simple semantic
fit with the Incarnation images. The Annunciation, after all, was the moment of
Incarnation, the moment the Virgin Mary conceived and became pregnant by the divine
intervention of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, Fassler reports that Jean Villette wrote in 1994
that there once stood a trumeau statue of the Baptist in the Royal Portal. It is instructive
to review Fassler’s proposed explanation in detail.
Fassler’s View - Margot Fassler’s explanation makes two proposals. First, she
proposes that the Signs of Pisces and Gemini in the archivolts above the Royal Portal’s
Incarnation door are symbolic of the calendar months March and June, respectively.
Second, she proposes that the Chartrians chose these two Signs for placement over the
Incarnation Door to represent these months because of the semantic connection of the
idea of the Incarnation with the liturgical calendar’s feast days of the Annunciation on
March 25 and of John the Baptist on 24 June (Fassler 2010). Here, I review the
evidence supporting these two proposals, in reverse order.
The Feast Days - The feast of the Annunciation commemorates a moment narrated in
the Gospel of Luke (1:26-38) when the Archangel Gabriel appears to the Virgin Mary
and announces to her, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him
Jesus”. Medieval Christians regarded this moment theologically as the moment that
Mary conceived and became pregnant by divine intervention of the Holy Spirit. Since
the Tenth Council of Toledo in AD 656, at the latest, Christians have recognized this
moment in Luke as the moment of Incarnation. It is from the moment of the
Annunciation that, theologically speaking, God in the flesh has entered the physical
world.
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The semantic connection of the Incarnation with the June 24 feast commemorating the
birth of John the Baptist also stems from the Gospel of Luke. It describes, in verses
1:36–56, the visit that the newly pregnant Virgin Mary makes to her cousin Elizabeth
who is already six months pregnant with the Baptist. Christians commonly call this event
the Visitation, an event that did not have its own feast day until the Order of the Friars
Minor (the Franciscans), founded in 1206 by Francis of Assisi, began to celebrate it.
There is no recorded celebration of the Visitation until Saint Bonaventure’s
recommendation of it in 1263. It was not until 1389 that Pope Urban VI officially inserted
the Visitation in the liturgical calendar at 2 July. Its theological importance stems from
the tradition that, after Mary, Christians regarded the fetal Baptist as the first human
being to have perceived the physical presence of the Incarnated Christ as a divine
embryo in the womb of Mary. This perception by John is an interpretation of the words
Luke cites Elizabeth as uttering at the moment of meeting Mary: “For indeed, as soon
as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
(Luke 1:44)”
Thus, the Christian symbolism of these two feast days as representative of the
Incarnation has strong and easily understood semantic connections. The Royal Portal
sculptures emphasize these connections further because they depict both the
Annunciation and the Visitation in the lower lintel over the Incarnation door, along with
the Nativity and the Adoration of the Shepherds. Accordingly, as Fassler proposes, the
semantic connection between the Incarnation and these two feast days is abundantly
clear.
Medieval Pairing of Signs and Months – Medieval art very frequently pairs, one to
one, the 12 Signs of the Zodiac with the 12 months of the calendar, as in the Chartres
Zodiac Window. The Royal Portal sculptures show similar pairing by placing the image
for the Zodiacal Sign directly on top of the image for the corresponding Labor of the
Month. In general, these Sign/Month pairings are always a bit awkward, in that the day
the Sun enters a given Sign is always around the 20th day of a calendar month. The Sun
stays in that Sign for about 30 days and then it enters the next Sign on or about the 20th
of the next month. Accordingly, if you want to use a given Sign to represent a given
month in a visual image, there is a choice to make. One choice is to pair the month with
the Sign the position of the Sun enters in that month – the Entry method. The other
choice is to pair the Sign with the following month because the position of the Sun stays
in that Sign for a longer time during the following month – the Duration method. For
example, the position of the Sun enters the Sign Pisces on (or about) February 19 and
stays in Pisces until about March 20, entering Aries on or about 21 March. The Entry
method pairs Pisces with February, while the Duration method pairs it with March.
The Entry Method – Throughout the medieval period, the vast majority of sculptures,
stained glass, manuscript illuminations, calendars, Books of Hours, breviaries, psalters
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and such, generally use the Entry method. The Zodiac Window, in Figure 2, follows the
Entry method. Another example in Figure 11 from the Hunterian Psalter, a manuscript
dated c. 1170, shows pairings of February/Pisces, March/Aries, May/Gemini and
June/Cancer, following the Entry method.
The use of the Entry method is so predominant in art during all of the middle Ages that
even the best historians of art omit mention of the Duration method for the sake of
simplicity. For example, in 2007 Colum Hourihane published what is possibly the best
currently available inventory of the depiction of the Signs of the Zodiac and the Labors
of the Months in medieval art. His book is an unrivaled visual record of these images. At
the time, he was the Director of Princeton University’s Index of Christian Art, a collection
of comprehensive files that fully document images of this kind. If you were to read only
his introductory summary description of the Signs you would think that medieval artists
only ever used the Entry method and that they used the same dates as in modern Sun
Sign Astrology for the dates on which the position of Sun enters the Signs.
Hourihane’s simplified introductory summary does not even acknowledge that other
methods exist. To be fair, the body of the book does include examples of both methods.
The introduction says that so many variations exist that, “Even within one sequence it is
possible to find many variations from the standard; in compiling this catalogue I came to
expect the unexpected, which is one reason why the subject has taken so long to
document (Hourihane 2007).” In the literature on the Royal Portal sculptures, Adolf
Katzenellenbogen is the only source I have found that does justice to the difference
between the Duration and Entry methods. He writes of the early preference at Chartres
to favor the Duration method:
In medieval art a zodiacal sign is usually related to the month in which the sun seems to
enter the sign, i.e., Aquarius to January, Pisces to February, etc. The [Royal Portal]
zodiacal cycle of Chartres, on the other hand, follows the more unusual pattern of relating a
sign to the month in which the sun still seems to remain in the sign, i.e., Capricornus to
January, Aquarius to February, Pisces to March, etc. There apparently was a predilection
at Chartres for this pattern. It can be found in miniatures of four Missals of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries […] and in the archivolt cycle of the right bay of the north porch.
(Katzenellenbogen 1959, my emphasis)
Page 20 of 49
Figure 11 - The Hunterian Psalter (Circa 1170) with pairings of February/Pisces, March/Aries,
May/Gemini and June/Cancer, based on the month in which the Sun enters the Signs. Images from
Glasgow University Library MS Hunter 229 (U.3.2).
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/images/psalter/H229_0003vwf2.jpg
Page 21 of 49
The Duration Method - The Duration method pairs Pisces with March instead of
February because the position of the Sun spends more time in Pisces during March
than during February. Fassler’s proposal uses the Duration method. If she is correct, it
represents a common departure from typical medieval practice. Moreover, it is
inconsistent with the pairings of the Zodiac Window, which uses the Entry method, as
seen in Figure 20, for example, a close-up of the May/Gemini pane.
Following the Evidence - What trail of evidence does Fassler follow to find out that the
Duration method is the correct one to use to interpret these sculptures, even though
there is no physical pairing of Pisces/March and Gemini/June in their actual placement
in the archivolt sculptures? Fassler cites the 1893 work of René Merlet and Alexandre
Clerval on an exceptionally well-preserved 11th century manuscript from Chartres. The
manuscript is a compilation of numerous documents, some dating from as early as
1070. It includes several layers of additions by several medieval hands up to as late as
the 1150’s. These on-going additions indicate that Chartrians continuously consulted
and updated the document over some 180 years, including the years during which they
built the Royal Portal c. 1145. Merlet and Clerval reproduce the miniature illuminations
from the manuscript that show a complete cycle of pairings of the 12 calendar months
with the 12 Signs of the Zodiac. The manuscript uses the Duration method exclusively,
pairing Pisces with March and Gemini with June, as depicted in Figure 12.
Figure 12 - Duration Method Pairing of March with Pisces and of June with Gemini as
illustrated and described in Un manuscrit chartrain du XIe siècle (A Chartrian Manuscript of the
th
11 Century) by Merlet and Clerval 1893.
Page 22 of 49
Accordingly, there can be no question that in the minds of the Chartrian functionaries
whose duty it was to consult and update this manuscript, as Fassler says, Pisces and
Gemini, respectively, symbolically represented March and June.
The Pisces Image – With only one

exception, all the sculptures of the Zodiac
Signs over the Royal Portal doors
emphasize, in terms of the number, size
and placement of elements in the
individual sculptures, the Signs
themselves. This is clear in the close-ups
in Figure 5. In all cases, it is the Sign itself
that is the largest and most central image
in the sculpture, with the sole exception of
Pisces. Here it is not the traditional two-
fish symbol of Pisces that dominates. For
some reason it is the foliage of three trees
in which two birds are perched that
dominate the image. Moreover, in the
photographs in Figures 5 and 13, only
one of the two fishes of the traditional
Pisces icon is visible, washed ashore at
the foot of the trees. The iconic string that
traditionally binds the two fishes of Pisces
is clearly visible. Traditional star lore has it Figure 13 – The Royal Portal Pisces image with a
that this string represents the Arabic name single fish but dominated by three trees.
of Alpha Piscium, the brightest star in the
constellation Pisces. In Arabic the name is ‫ال ر شآء‬, transliterated as Alrescha
(alternatively Al Rescha, Alrischa, Alrisha), meaning "the well rope."
Pisces and the Fish have a long and well-established tradition of being representative of
Christ. Accordingly, I think the three trees here are an allusion, a symbolic
foreshadowing of a kind, of the three crosses of the crucifixion. Moreover, the two
fishes, one seen and the other unseen, I think symbolize the dual nature of Christ as
both, most visibly, human and, less visibly, divine. Thus, the Pisces imagery and
symbolism are a very good fit with Fassler’s semantic connections to Christ as God
Incarnate.
What is most interesting and telling about the Pisces image is that both it and the
Gemini image are sculpted on a single piece of stone. This indicates that at the time it
was made the two signs were intended to be placed together and not paired with their
Page 23 of 49
respective months as in the paired Sign/Month images of the left door. The
disconnection was deliberate.
The Gemini Image – The Gemini sculpture over the Incarnation door, seen in context in
Figure 3 and closer up in Figure 5 places the twins behind an inordinately large shield.
From as early as the 1st Century, there is a well-documented Christian tradition of the
Shield as a metaphor for Baptism. In a letter to Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Ignatius of
Antioch (c. 35 – c. 107) wrote: “Let your baptism abide as your shield, your faith as your
helmet, your love as your spear, your patience as your body-armour (Srawley 1910, my
emphasis).” The Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians provides a precedent for the
metaphoric imagery of the Armor of God by Ignatius:
Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil
day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and
having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel
of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God. (Ephesians 6:13-17 KJV, my emphasis)
The life and letters of Ignatius of Antioch were widely known from the earliest days of
Christianity by the likes of Eusebius, Jerome, John Chrysostom and Origen. These
days, the letters of Ignatius are under serious challenge as forgeries. However, such
challenges have no bearing on the oral and written transmission of their ideas and
metaphors from generation to generation, country to country, language to language and
medium to medium. If Fassler is right, then it seems that the Baptism-as-Shield
metaphor of Ignatius (or his forgers) found its way into 12th Century Chartrian sculpture,
as a symbol of the Baptist.
Depictions of the Gemini Twins placed behind or flanking a shield are common. In the
Royal Portal, however, the size of Gemini Shield seems exceptionally emphasized. The
shield is so big it reaches from the ground to chest height. The shield tapers to a point
that rests at the feet of the twins. It has an ornate border surrounding what I at first took
to be an eight-rayed starburst, the bottom ray of which reaches downward to the
tapered point of the shield. This star burst is strikingly similar to, if not identical with, the
arms and heraldic insignia of the 10th, 11th and 12th century House of Navarre and to an
almost identical version used by Theobald the Great (1090–1152). He was Count of
Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV from 1102 and Count of Champagne and of Brie
as Theobald II from 1125. Figures 23 to 28 in the Appendix provide images of these
heraldic devices. Considering the political and governance roles played in this region
and at this time by numerous members of the Houses of Navarre and of Blois and much
intermarriage between them, the Shield of Gemini, emblazoned with their arms must
carry the additional symbolic load of representing these families. Moreover, the word
Gemini is an obvious pun on the Spanish surname of García Jiménez I, King of Navarre
Page 24 of 49
and Aragon in the late 9th century and founder of the House of Jiménez, one of the
ruling families of Navarre.
The Arms of Blois (d'azur à une bande d'argent) appear in the bottom pane of the
zodiac window on the shield of Count Thibault, seen in Figure 2, position 23. It is
interesting that the Arms of Navarre and Blois turn up at Chartres paired with these
Zodiac images. I take the pairing as representing an exceptional interest in Astronomy
within these families at the time, an interest evidently shared with the Masters of the
School of Chartres. The Arms represent direct ancestors, only two or three generations
from Alphonse X, of Castille, sponsor of the famous Alphonsine Tables, instrumental to
Copernicus and the scientific revolution his astronomy triggered. An indication of how
very well connected these Chartrians were.
I find additional significance in the Gemini Shield in that its placement, size, extended
bottom ray and tapered shape have the visual effect of drawing the eye downwards
toward the feet of Gemini and to the Pisces image beneath it. Though there is more to
say about the feet of Gemini, here I want to stress three points. First, the Baptism-as-
Shield metaphor of Ignatius, though Fassler does not mention it, is additional evidence
as a precedent that reinforces her idea that the Royal Portal Sign of Gemini with its
inordinately large shield does indeed have a historically verifiable symbolic and
semantic connection to the Baptist. Coupled with Pisces as a symbol of Christ, the
imagery is loaded with connections to the full baggage of the Christian theology of the
Fall, of the Incarnation and of Redemption. Second, the heraldic symbolism on the
shield demonstrates that these images often reach beyond religious symbolism as
multi-valent carriers of multiple meaning. In this case, the symbolic connections are to
important local historical, governance and military significance.
Thus, after reviewing the evidence, I think Fassler’s interpretation makes perfect sense
because of its sound reasoning against the right evidence from the right place and from
the right time. Her religious interpretation is unimpeachable. However, it is also a bit
superficial in that it only scratches the surface by addressing one of several layers of
meaning. Thirdly, therefore, it is important to consider yet more evidence and to explore
additional meaning beyond the religious and political connections.
In spite of all the evidence considered so far, a certain sense of dissatisfaction remains
because Fassler’s religious interpretation, and my own political one, leave several
important questions unanswered and other lines of evidence unexplored. There are
many liturgical calendar dates other than the June feast of the Baptist that could have
been used equally well or with even greater significance to symbolize the idea of the
Incarnation. These include Advent between 27 November and 3 December in
Sagittarius, the Nativity itself on December 25 in Capricorn, Epiphany on 6 January in
Capricorn, the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Candlemas) on 2 February in
Page 25 of 49
Aquarius, or the Transfiguration of Jesus on 6 August in Leo. Among these other dates,
it seems to me that the Nativity itself ought to have outranked the Baptist’s feast day. Is
Jesus himself not more relevant to the Incarnation
than the Baptist? If the objective was only to convey
the idea of March and June, why bother using
Zodiac Signs instead of more explicitly using images
of the months themselves – tree pruning in March
and planting in June? A more complete exploration
of meaning needs to address these questions. To do
that I think it is important to look beyond the
microcosmic day-to-day symbolism of the liturgical
calendar, and the mundane political history.
Accordingly, by turning my attention upward toward
loftier ideas of medieval Natural Philosophy and
Theology, I think it is possible to provide a more
complete understanding of how the Disconnected
Zodiac connects with the larger macrocosmic
concept of the entire Christian cosmos including the
full sweep of Biblical time.
The Science in the Symbols - As seen in Figure 3

and mapped in Figure 4, the two disconnected
Signs are placed among a double set of images that
represent the wisdom in the teaching syllabus of the
Trivium and Quadrivium of late pagan antiquity.
Accordingly, I think it makes sense to look for
additional meaning in readings and texts of Theology
and Natural Philosophy, subjects for which the
Masters of the School of Chartres were then, and
are to this day, most well known.
I propose working with the idea that the

disconnectedness of the uniquely arrayed sculptures
of these Signs and Months intentionally fit with the
overall theme of the entire Royal Portal as a
depiction of the theological concept of time using the
three key moments of time in Christian theology:
Creation, Incarnation and Second Coming. In the
context of the Quadrivium, teachings that deal with
Figure 14– Angels unwrapping astrolabes in
numbers, order, quantity and measurement, it makes the archivolts of the Royal Portal, center
sense that the depiction of the Zodiacal Signs would door c. 1145.
Page 26 of 49
have something to do with using astronomy to measure and quantify time. The
additional depiction over the center door of astrolabes, shown in Figure 14, is
consistent with this idea because astrolabes are scientific instruments of astronomical
measurement and computation associated primarily with orderly observation,
timekeeping and way finding.
Hypothesis - I think the placement of Pisces and Gemini separately over the
Incarnation door represents a quantified estimate of the amount of time from the
moment of Creation to the moment of the Incarnation. The idea is that the Chartrians
may have used the numerical methods of the Quadrivium, the concept of astronomical
precession and what we now call
Zodiacal Ages to represent the Figure 15 – Estimates of the Year of Creation:
by Christian writers from Roman times to the
estimated duration of the Old
early medieval period.
Testament period as spanning from
early in the Age of Gemini to the
beginning of the Age of Pisces. I will Approximate Estimated
now consider the evidence in support Date (AD) Year of
Author
Creation
of this hypothesis.
Birth Death (BC)
Year of Creation - The question of Theophilus of Antioch 181 5529
how old Creation was had preoccupied
Christians from the earliest times. Clement of Alexandria 150 215 5592
Mario Livio writes that, as early as the Sextus Julius Africanus 160 240 5501
year 169, Theophilus of Antioch had
concluded “that the world had been Hippolytus of Rome 170 235 5500
created some 5,698 years earlier,” in
Eusebius of Caesarea 260 339 5228
other words in 5529 BC. Many
estimates of this kind were widely Panodorus of Alexandria - 400 5493
known in medieval times from
Traditional Byzantine date 400 - 5509
numerous writers and traditions that
had used biblical chronologies to Jerome 347 420 5199
calculate the year of Creation. Figure
15 lists over a dozen of these Sulpicius Severus 363 425 5469
estimates. The average of this list puts
Gregory of Tours 538 594 5500
the count from Creation to Incarnation
at 5,449 years with a standard Isidore of Seville 560 636 5336
deviation of about 114 years or 2
Maximus the Confessor 580 662 5493
percent of the average. This is a good
match with the traditional Anno Mundi George Syncellus - 810 5492
(Year of the World) count of 5,500
Average 5449
years.
Page 27 of 49
Texts of many of these authors
Figure 16 – Readings Available at Chartres circa 1145 AD (adapted
and of others who cited them from Knitter 2000).
were available for reading in
Chartres at the time of Thierry of Library of St. Peter's Monastary
Other Libraries
Chartres’ Chancellorship, as Religious (70 Volumes) Secular (20 Volumes)
listed in Figure 16. Old & New Testaments Albinus, Geometry Boethius
Psalters Antidotaria, Medical Prescriptions Cicero
Astronomy and Precession -
Commentaries thereon Aphorismi, Yppocratis Livy
From the known contents of
Conciliar Canons Bede, History Pliny
Thierry of Chartres’ book
Capitularies Boethius, Music and Arithmetic Quintilian on Rhetoric
Heptateuchon, listed in Figure
Lives of Saints Concordia, Yppocratis
17, there is additional good
Amalarius Donatius, Grammar
evidence that knowledge of the
Ambrose Gregory of Tours, History
astronomy of Ptolemy, Hyginus,
Augustine Josephus, History
and Al-Kwarizmi was at hand
Bacharius Podismus, Nipsius
among the Chartrians (Knitter
Cyprian Priscian, Grammar
2000). This knowledge included
Cassiodorus Prophyry, "Isagoge"
the concept of astronomical
Pseudo-Dionysus Fortunatus
precession, understood then as
Flugentius Juvenal
the very slow movement of the
position of the equinoxes Gregory the Great Marcianus Capella
backwards (retrograde) through Gregory of Tours Ovid
the constellations of the Zodiac. Isidore of Seville Virgil

Jerome Cicero
What we now call general Origen
precession in modern Rabanus
astronomy is the observation Mavrus
that the equinoxes – the two Others less eminent
points where the celestial
equator intersects the ecliptic - slowly move backwards relative to the background stars.
Equinox events occur twice annually when the Sun’s position moves onto one of these
two intersection points. Their movement takes place at a rate very close to 50.29 arc
seconds per year. This is equal to one full degree of arc in just over 71.5 years or one
full 30-degree Sign of the Zodiac in about 2,145 years. Professor Roy Bishop provides
an excellent and up to date description of precession in The Royal Astronomical Society
of Canada’s Observer’s Handbook 2017:
As a result of the combined precession of the equator and precession of the ecliptic, the
equinoxes (the intersection points of the celestial equator and the ecliptic) drift westward
(retrograde) about 50.29ʺ per year (a period of approximately 25,800 years. […] The Vernal
equinox was located in the constellation Gemini 7,500 years ago [c. 5483 BC], in Taurus 4500
years ago, and in Aries 3000 year ago. It moved into Pisces from the “first point of Aries” around
Page 28 of 49
the beginning of the Christian era 2000 years ago, at roughly the same time as Hipparchus
discovered the precession of the equinoxes. (Edgar 2016)
Moreover, the entry in a NASA glossary for a Great Year or Platonic Year states, “the
period of one complete cycle of the equinoxes around the ecliptic [i.e. 360 degrees
around the Zodiac] is about 25,800 years.”
Figure 17 - Contents of Thierry of Chartres’ Heptateuchon (Knitter 2000)
Page 29 of 49
Generally, precession is measurable by observation of long-term displacement of the
Sun’s position in the Zodiac on the day of the equinoxes. Considering that precession
involves a displacement the of the Sun’s position, and the medieval Sun was thought of
as a planet, precession may, following Plato’s definition, be taken as a legitimate marker
to measure the passage of time. Today, a Zodiacal Age is the name used for the
amount of time the vernal equinox spends in a given segment of the Zodiac spanning
30 degrees of the ecliptic or about one twelfth of a Platonic Year (360/30 = 12). The
duration of time you assign to a Zodiacal Age or to a Platonic Year depends directly on
the rate of precession you use to calculate it. The inaccurate and excessively slow rate
first found by Hipparchus and used by Ptolemy was challenged in the Middle ages.
The concept of astronomical precession was nothing new to Medieval Christianity. In

the third century, Origen, who was read at Chartres, considered it so well known that he
used it to argue that astrological divination and prognostication were fakery and a
heresy:
There is a well-known theorem which proves that the Zodiac, like the planets, moves from west to
east at the rate of one part in a hundred years, and that this movement in the lapse of so long a
time changes the local relation of the signs […]. We are thus taught that the most learned in these
matters cannot show beforehand what the Lord intends to bring upon every nation.
Origen The Philocalia XXIII, 18, my emphasis
In antiquity, Claudius Ptolemy, following Hipparchus, had put the rate of precession
substantially slower than the modern value, at about 1 degree per 100 years, or one full
30-degree Sign of the Zodiac in 3,000 years. This was the rate known to Origen. Later,
in medieval times, the Arab astronomer Al-Battani (c.855 – 929) found much of Ptolemy
failed to agree with observations and had measured the rate of precession as being
much faster, a value close to 54.5 arc seconds per year, which is one degree in about
66.1 years, or one full 30-degree Sign of the zodiac every 1,982 years. This is much
closer to the modern value of about 2,145 years. Al-Battani wrote about this in his book
Kitab al-Zij. This book appeared in the Latin West in 1116, translated as De motu
stellarum (On the Motion of the Stars) by Plato of Tivoli who is reported to have worked
in Barcelona from 1116 to 1138 (O'Connor 1999 and Minio-Paluello, 2008).
Al-Battani at Chartres - There is solid textual evidence that Thierry of Chartres,

Chancellor at Chartres during the construction of the Royal Portal, was familiar with the
more advanced astronomy of Al-Battani. The evidence appears in Hermann of
Carinthia’s Preface to his translation from the Arabic of The Planisphere of Claudius
Ptolemy. In this Preface, Hermann dedicates his work to his former teacher – Thierry of
Chartres - whom he addresses directly and praises as the greatest living master of the
liberal arts and of natural philosophy in these words:
Quod igitur omnium humanitatis studiorum summa radix et principium est, cui potius destinarem
quam tibi, quem primam summamque hoc tempore philosophie sedem atque immobiliter fixam
varia tempestate fluitantium studiorum anchoram plane quidem, ut novi, et fateor (nec enim diis
Page 30 of 49
placeat me, sicut iners volgus solet, invidia teneat, ut sponte quidem aut mendacio locum
prestem aut veritatem dissimulem) tibi, inquam, diligentissime preceptor Theodorice que haut
equidem ambigam, Platonis animam celitus iterum mortalibus acomodatam.
Hermann of Carinthia 1143
(To whom, therefore, can I dedicate that which is the deepest principle and root of all studies of
humanity rather than to you, who, I know, and therefore plainly confess, hold the first position in
philosophy in these times, and are, as it were, an-unmoveably secure anchor in the turbulent
storms of ever-changing doctrines? If it pleases the Gods, may envy not make me, like the
indolent masses, voluntarily allow myself to lie, or hide the truth before you, most worthy teacher
Thierry, in whom, I am convinced, the soul of Plato has once again been brought down from
heaven and fitted to mortal man.) Translation Burnett 1978, my emphasis
The fact that Hermann and Thierry shared knowledge of Al-Battani’s work in astronomy
is also evident in the Preface in a passage naming Arabic authors and texts of
astronomical science, indicating both of them knew these authors and texts very well:
Ex quibus et duo Ionica lingua collegit volumina, in primam) Sintasim, in sccundam) [sic]
Tetrastim-Arabice dicta Almagesti et Alarba, quorum Almagesti quidem (Hei. p. clxxxv) Albeteni
commodissime restringit, Tetrastim vero Albumasar non minus commode exampliat[…]
(Hermann of Carinthia 1143).
(From these, and in the Greek tongue, he collected two volumes: the Sintasis for the first
discipline, and the Tettastis for the second - in Arabic called the Almagest and the Alarba. 'Al-
Battani has appropriately made the Almagest more concise (?), and Abü Marshar has, no less
appropriately, expanded on the Alarba.) Translation Burnett 1978
The reputation of Al-Battani’s work, from its first arrival in Europe to this day, rests
mainly on its challenges to Ptolemy’s observational accuracy and especially for
improving Ptolemy on the rate of precession. No modern biographer fails to mention it.
Dating Creation Using Precession - Anyone using Al-Battani’s rate of precession,

Biblical traditions dating the time of creation at an average of 5449 BC and working
backwards from the birth of Christ pegged at year AD 1, the dawn of the Age of Pisces,
would calculate the Biblical moment of creation as early in the Age of Gemini.
Accordingly, the interval of time between Creation and the Incarnation may have been
represented over the right door of the Royal Portal using the two Signs Gemini and
Pisces as symbolically quantifying a Biblically estimated interval of time between the
Age of Gemini and the Age of Pisces, as calculated at Al-Battani’s rate in Figure 18.
This explanation of the reason for disconnecting Gemini and Pisces from the rest of the
zodiacal Signs over the left door and placing them separately over the right door is, of
course, a hypothesis. It follows on the facts of cultural context that the Chartrian
community and Royal Portal designers, had access to the absolute most recent Latin
translations of Arabic and Greek works of astronomy. As Peter Ellard says, “They were
on the cutting edge of the natural sciences of their day, and this included the use of
astrology [and astronomy] texts from Islamic sources which were only very recently
made available (Ellard 2007).” Moreover, this hypothesis is also consistent with the
Chartrian interest in, and Royal Portal depictions of the most advanced astronomical
Page 31 of 49
technology, the Astrolabe, which also had just recently arrived from the Andalusian
Arabs.
Figure 18 - Zodiacal Ages Based on Different Rates of Presession

Al-Battani Hipparchus/Ptolemy Modern
54.5 arc sec. per year. 36.0 arc sec. per year. 50.29 arc sec. per year.
Age From To Age From To Age From To
Pisces 1 AD 1982 AD Pisces 1 AD 3001 AD Pisces 1 AD 2145 AD
Aries 1983 BC 1 BC Aries 3000 BC 1 BC Aries 2145 BC 1 BC
Taurus 3965 BC 1984 BC Taurus 6000 BC 3001 BC Taurus 4290 BC 2146 BC
Gemini 5947 BC 3966 BC Gemini 9000 BC 6001 BC Gemini 6435 BC 4290 BC
An estimated year of creation An estimated year of creation An estimated year of creation
of 5449 BC would have of 5449 BC would have of 5449 BC would have
occurred early during the age occurred during the age of occurred during the age of
of Gemini. Taurus. Gemini.
Armillary Sphere and Astrolabe – Certain knowledge of armillary sphere technology

appears in the early twelfth century book of Bernardus Silvestris entitled
Experimentarius. A mid-13th century illuminated copy exists in the Bodleian Library
shown in Figure 19. Moreover, Peter Dronke reports that Bernardus dedicated another
one of his books, the Cosmographia to Thierry of Chartres (Dronke 1978). Both works
are in full keeping with the Chartrian School’s keen interest in Platonic Natural
Philosophy in general and in Astronomy and Cosmology in particular.
The armillary sphere was the educational technology of choice in the middle Ages for
teaching the concepts of celestial motion including precession. It was a mechanical
object representing the celestial globe, made of sliding metal rings arranged around a
spherical framework. A dominant feature was two main rings set at an angle of 23.5
degrees to each other, representing the angle made by the ecliptic intersecting the
celestial equator. The ecliptic ring, representing the annual path of the Sun through the
Zodiac, was a metal band or strap generally divided into 12 equal parts of 30 degrees
each and inscribed with the Signs of the Zodiac. The intersection points of these two
main rings represented the equinoctial points. Using an armillary sphere, a teacher
could demonstrate to a student how the equinoctial points moved and thus convey an
understanding of precession.
Armillary spheres included additional rings, visible in Figure 19, appropriately placed
parallel to the equator to represent the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn as well as the
Arctic and Antarctic circles. A teacher could use these parallel rings, all tilted at a 23.5
Page 32 of 49
degree angle to the ecliptic, to help convey a better understanding of the seasonal
movements of the position of the Sun.
Figure 19 – Armillary Sphere and Astrolabe - Euclid holding sphere and dioptra observing moon
and stars, Hermannus holding astrolabe, Bernardus Silverstris Experimentarius early 12th century,
Image from MS. Ashmole 304 fol. 002v. St. Albans mid-13th century. See:
http://bodley30.bodley.ox.ac.uk:8180/luna/servlet/view/all/what/MS.+Ashmole+304?sort=Shelfmark
As the story goes, teachers had their students imagine a camel crushing an armillary
sphere under its foot. The imaginary result would be a more portable flattened sphere or
‘planisphere’ retaining all of the same information. Thus, the flattened armillary sphere
became the astrolabe. Claudius Ptolemy’s Planisphaerium had fully described the
methods of geometry and trigonometry required to perform this flattening with
mathematical precision. These methods, described today as stereographic projection
are in effect the theory required to understand fully the use of the astrolabe. As we saw,
Hermann of Carinthia translated an Arabic version of Ptolemy’s Planisphaerium in 1143
and dedicated his work to Thierry of Chartres.
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Consider the keen interest in these texts and technologies in a cultural milieu that
fostered and incubated literacy and numeracy like nowhere else in Western Europe at
the time. It should come as a surprise to no one that the unique preoccupation of the
Chartrians in the cultivation and development of the Quadrivium stands out in such
inordinately abundant imagery in the sculptures of the Royal Portal. There is one
compete and one partial Zodiac cycle, a calendar (labors of the months), six or possibly
seven astrolabes, an orchestra of musical instruments in the hands of the 24 Elders of
the Apocalypse, images of Pythagoras, Euclid, Ptolemy and Boethius, the geometrical
symmetry and proportions of the compositions, the list goes on. The inordinate
abundance of emphasis and redundant portrayal of these subjects is unique to
Chartres; you will find it nowhere else in Gothic monuments. It is a reflection of the
Chartrian milieu’s keen intellectual focus on the application of concepts of number,
order, quantity, and measurement to their knowledge of the world and the Cosmos. I
think that in this abundance there is more than enough data or information to trigger in
the mind of an astronomically informed observer, the idea of instrument-aided
observational astronomy as a legitimate and beneficial pursuit and as a matter of
natural philosophy. This connects meaningfully with the sanctification of the Seven
Liberal Arts depicted over the Incarnation door. The idea that Chartrian knowledge and
teachings of astronomy and cosmology, including precession, are the subject of
additional layers of symbolic expression in the sculptures and stained glass of Chartres
Cathedral cannot be ignored.
Astronomical Reversals of Direction - There are only two places in medieval

astronomy where reversal of direction is an important consideration. One arises from
time to time when the tracking of a planet’s positions through the Zodiac reverses
direction and goes retrograde. In medieval times such reversals of direction were
considered temporary and an evil omen. Among devout Christians, like the Chartians,
the practice of divination and fortune telling by sky watching for evil omens was
condemned. Accordingly, I think it is a mistake to read the reversal of direction in the
Royal Portal Zodiac as an allusion to occasional retrograde motion of the planets. The
one other place where reversal of direction is important is in the consideration of
precession. This is where the Sun’s position in the Zodiac moves slowly backwards over
long periods of time. This backwards motion was a very important consideration all
through the Middle Ages as it was the reason behind the failure of the calendar to keep
proper track with the seasons. It was the cause of debate over several centuries on the
need to reform the calendar to bring it back into proper alignment with the seasons.
Precession was one of the most important teachings of medieval astronomy and this is
why I think the reversal of direction evident in the Royal Portal Zodiac points to a
teaching about precession.
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Direction of Time in Gothic Art – Generally, but not always, the direction of time is
evident in a sequence of medieval sculptures or windowpanes. In the Zodiac Window
seen in Figure 2, for instance, time flows from the bottom up: lower means earlier. Time
also flows from left to right: Leftmost means earlier. The scenes of Luke’s nativity
narrative sculpted in the lintels over the Incarnation door, in Figure 3, are temporally
legible in the same conventional manner from left to right and from the bottom up. I think
it makes sense to consider that if departures from this general rule of time’s direction
are intentional then we must read them accordingly. It is incumbent upon the reader to
try to understand the reason for these departures because, if they are intentional, then
the departure itself is part of the meaning the artwork is intended to convey.
An important point, crucial to my hypothesis, that needs to be emphasized about

precession is that the motion of the equinoctial positions through the Zodiac, slowly over
centuries and millennia, is backwards relative to the faster day-to-day, week-to-week,
month-to-month and season-to-season motion of the Sun’s position through the zodiac.
To understand the seasons you need to track time through the Zodiac in one direction.
To understand precession you need to track motion through the Zodiac in the opposite
direction. Thus, complete timekeeping involves tracking in both directions. Accordingly,
it makes sense that reading the 10 Zodiac images over the left door of the Royal Portal
involves reading them clockwise on one side and widdershins on the other. This is also
the reason why I think the Royal Portal sculptures reverse the usual direction of time in
the order of the Seasons. By emphasizing a bi-directional reading, the sculptures
provide instruction about how to measure time reading motion through the zodiac both
forwards and backwards. Accordingly, I am persuaded that because the sculptures
allude to, and refer us to the concept of precession as the method of measuring longer-
term and cosmic periods of time on the scale of millennia, this idea is worth further
exploration.
More on Precession - I will briefly review the modern astronomical and physical
concepts of precession before considering the validity of my hypothesis in more detail
and how it provides a better understanding of the Royal Portal Zodiac artwork and its
cultural milieu.
In modern astronomy and physics, it is a bit unfortunate that the term precession
designates two very different things. In Astronomy general precession is the retrograde
displacement of the position of two equinoctial points in the sky as something
observable from the perspective of a person on Earth – without consideration of
physical causes. In physics, precession designates the gyrating motion of the axis of
any spinning body such as a top or a gyroscope or a planet. For the beginner, this can
lead to some confusion. While it is true that the physical gyration of the Earth is the
main reason we see a movement of the equinoctial points, this is not the whole story.
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A small part of the motion of the equinoctial points arises because of the slow
displacement of the entire orbital path of the Earth, a type of orbital motion known as
apsidal precession. Accordingly, Astronomers now speak of the movement of the
equinoctial points as general precession, and agree that this motion arises from two
separate physical components. One is the physical gyration of the Earth, illustrated in
Figure 20, called the precession of the equator or axial precession.
Figure 20 – Precession of the Equator or Axial Precession – Earth’s equator makes an angle of 23.5
degrees with the ecliptic (the plane of Earth’s orbit). Earth gyrates, much like a spinning top or gyroscope
and the gyrating axis traces a circle of precession, in a retrograde direction on the celestial sphere. The
gyrating equator’s points of intersection with the ecliptic also move along retrograde making a complete
circle of the ecliptic in about 25,771.6 years.
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The other component, called precession of the Ecliptic when referring to the Earth, is
also called apsidal precession when referring to the orbital motion of any body that is
gravitationally bound to another body and this is illustrated in Figure 21. In the case of
Earth, general precession takes place at a rate of 50.3 arc seconds per year,
retrograde. Precession of the equator or axial precession accounts for 50.4 arc seconds
per year retrograde. Apsidal precession or precession of the ecliptic accounts for 0.1 arc
seconds per year prograde.
Apsidal Precession – Since the time of Kepler, astronomers have described the shape
of the orbital trajectory of a planet or moon, not as a circle, but an ellipse or something
very close to an ellipse. A planet such as Earth revolves around the star to which it is
gravitationally bound – the Sun – on a trajectory shaped a lot like an ellipse with the star
situated at one of the two focal points of the ellipse. Such an elliptical trajectory is not
still. It pivots around the focal point and because of this, the trajectory is not a true
ellipse. The curve is not closed.
The two ‘pointy’ ends of an ellipse are called apsides. A line drawn through the focus of
an ellipse and connecting the two apsides is called the line of apsides. In the case of
any gravitationally bound system of more than two bodies, the apsides (and the line that
connects them) of the ellipse-like orbital trajectory of any body will pivot around the
gravitational focal point. The actual trajectory, instead of being a closed curve ellipse, is
more like a multi-petalled rosette, as shown in Figure 21.
Figure 21 – Apsidal Precession – The line of apsides (dotted line) of an orbital trajectory (black
line) pivots about the focus over long periods, changing the orientation in space of the whole orbit.
The orbit never truly achieves the shape of a perfect and closed ellipse (red line).
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The astronomers and philosophers of late antiquity and medieval times understood
nothing of the physics and the gravitational effects that shape these motions.
Nevertheless, they strove to understand the motions, to measure them, to quantify their
rates and to seek models like the armillary sphere and astrolabe to help give a
reasoned and quantified understanding of their structure and their behavior.
Testing the Hypothesis – It is important to ask how well my precession hypothesis for
the meaning of the Disconnected Zodiac stands up to the rigors of falsifiability and
testing against documented facts of medieval history. There are strong opinions out
there about the scarcity of primary sources from the late classical and medieval periods
that show unequivocally that anybody ever used precession or what we now call
Zodiacal Ages as a timekeeping method to delineate historical periods or to measure
and quantify epochs of time. For instance, Nicholas Campion, a respected cultural
historian and specialist in the history of astronomy and astrology, writes:
There is though, not a single extant example of the use of precession of the equinoxes to predict
the future by astrologers until the late nineteenth century. There are indeed arguments that
precession was used by astrologers in the ancient world, but they are based entirely on the
retrospective interpretation of circumstantial evidence and lack any textual support. […] Literary
evidence is not everything but, when it is entirely absent in the works of people who should have
been most concerned with it, the fact does require some attention. Simply, there are no extant
classical or medieval astrological texts which attribute any astrological or historical significance to
precession. […] (Campion 2016, my emphasis)
I think it is certainly true that the idea of Zodiacal Ages, as we know it today in popular
culture and as defined by promoters of prognostication by Sun Sign Astrology, is a
modern invention. Accordingly, my hypothesis here would appear to be in want of
validation based on more solid historical or scientific evidence. I think the hypothesis is
valid for two reasons. One is testability; the other is the on-going presence and role
played by the concept of precession in the medieval quest for more accurate calendar
keeping.
Testability - One of the standard approaches to the scientific testing of hypotheses is to

predict consequences that should be observable only if the hypothesis is correct. On
this score, if my hypothesis is correct then further study of the sources for the curriculum
of the Quadrivium at the Cathedral School of Chartres at the time of Thierry should find
that knowledge of Al-Battani’s book De motu stellarum was a source preferred over
Ptolemy in the matter of precession. On the contrary, if it becomes evident that some
other source was preferred, say Ptolemy or Origen, then that would falsify the
hypothesis and justify its rejection. The kind of evidence to look for would be a telling
statement or comment of the kind later made by Copernicus, cited below. Passing this
test would by no means prove the hypothesis is correct. However, it would justify
retaining it as a tentative explanation, pending further research and the finding of
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additional corroborating or opposing evidence. Until this test can be performed, I turn
my attention to the on-going issue in medieval times of calibrating an accurate calendar.
Calendar Reform and Precession – While Nicholas Campion, cited above, may be
correct about the absence of the treatment of precession in astrological texts, this is
certainly not the case in texts dealing with astronomy and timekeeping.
In October 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar in the papal bull
Inter gravissimas (Latin for: Among the Most Serious). By then, the earlier Julian
calendar had fallen 10 days out of step, due to precession, with the dates the Council of
Nicea had fixed in AD 325 for the equinoxes. The discrepancy arose because
precession made the tropical year shorter than the Julian calendar year by about 11
minutes and 15 seconds. The tropical year, on average, is 365 days, 5 hours, 48
minutes, 45 seconds. This is the amount of time it takes the Sun to return to the same
equinox position. The tropical year tracks the seasons. The Julian year was 365.25
days, approximately. During the 1,257 years from the Council of Nicea to the calendar
reform in AD 1582, the difference had accumulated to 10 days.
In 2009 Ari Ben-Menahem, wrote in his Historical Encyclopedia of Natural and

Mathematical Sciences that the growing calendar discrepancy, caused by precession,
had been well known since the early medieval period, specifically by Bede noting a
three day error in the 8th century. Later Roger Bacon, c.1200, noted a seven or eight
day error. Later still, Johannes Sacrobosco wrote in his book De Anni Ratione (Latin for:
On Reckoning the Years), c.1235, that the Julian calendar was out of step with the
equinoxes by ten days and that some correction was needed. Even Dante Alighieri,
writing c.1300, was aware of the issue and the need for calendar reform. I am not
entirely sure how historians would make sense of historical periods without a reliably
calibrated calendar of one kind or another. Considering the size of calendar
discrepancies that can accumulate over centuries due to precession, I would say the
issue, considered by the likes of Bede, Bacon, Sacrobosco and Alighieri, was indeed of
rather substantial historical significance. Moreover, when resolution of the issue of
calendar reform to correct for precession finally came, it was rather aptly named as
“among the most serious.”
Copernicus and Precession – The Polish priest and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus
lived on the cusp between the middle Ages and Modern times, often pegged at the year
1500. He was born in 1473 and died in 1543. In about 1530 he completed his book De
Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (Latin for: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly
Spheres) that would not be published until 1543. This work shows not only his
knowledge of Al-Battani but expresses a preference for Al-Battani’s rate of precession
over Ptolemy’s rate:
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Venus, although bigger than Mercury, can occult barely a hundredth of the sun. So says Al-
Battani of Raqqa, who thinks that the sun's diameter is ten times larger [than Venus'], and
therefore so minute a speck is not easily descried in the most brilliant light […] I said, however,
that the annual revolutions of the center and of inclination are nearly equal. For if they were
exactly equal, the equinoctial and solstitial points as well as the entire obliquity of the ecliptic
would have to show no shift at all with reference to the sphere of the fixed stars. But since there is
a slight variation, it was discovered only as it grew larger with the passage of time. From Ptolemy
to us the precession of the equinoxes amounts to almost 21°.
Copernicus, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium Book I, my emphasis.
This passage is clear evidence of the use of precession – the displacement of the
equinoxes by 21° - to measure and quantify a defined historical period, “from Ptolemy to
us.” Al-Battani’s precession rate of 54.5 arc seconds per year for the 1,362 years
between Copernicus’ book and the death of Ptolemy in 168 CE gives 20.62 degrees.
Ptolemy’s much slower rate would give only 13.75 degrees. The preference of
Copernicus for Al-Battani is clear. Moreover, the above passage on precession comes
at the beginning of the book. It introduces precession as part of the core evidence that
helps prove the Earth revolves around the Sun. In fact, Book III or fully one sixth of the
entire work is devoted exclusively to a discussion of precession. Considering this is the
book most often credited as terminating the medieval period by triggering the greatest
scientific revolution in history, it is difficult to imagine a discussion of precession in a
context of greater historical significance.
The Data in the Disarray – In addition to explaining the selection of Pisces and Gemini
for special placement in a separate group over a different door, a more complete
understanding of the disconnected Zodiac must address the reason for the highly
unconventional and possibly unique chronological order of the other 10 Signs and of the
12 Labors. Here, I think a meaningful link with two periods of Christian theological time
is most evident. If Pisces and Gemini symbolize and quantify the extremities of the Old
Testament period, that is the duration between Creation and Incarnation, then it makes
sense that the remaining Signs symbolize the extremities of the New Testament period.
This would be the quantity of time between Incarnation (Pisces) and the Second
Coming at the end of time. Here, I find it most meaningful that the data in the sculptures
are in a somewhat messy unconventional chronological disorder. The messiness
conveys perfectly the theological idea of disruption in the Heavens. Disarray of the
heavens in the context of the end of times and of the Second Coming is fully consistent
with Biblical teaching. These teachings and centuries of commentary on the theology
and eschatology of Adventus warn that disruption and disarray in the heavens will be
signs of the Second Coming. A few New Testament quotes illustrate the point:
But in those days, following that distress, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time people will see the
Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. Mark 13: 24-26
Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its
light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Then will appear the sign
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of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son
of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. Matthew 24:29-30
There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity
at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Luke 21:25
I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of
smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and
glorious day of the Lord. Acts 2:19-20
In addition, because the Zodiacal information in the sculptures is in such apparent

disarray it also helps convey the idea emphasized in Scripture that only God and
nobody else could ever know or predict the timing of the Second Coming:
But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the
Father only. Matt 24:36
Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Matt
24:36
Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. Mark 13:33
Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very
well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 1 Thessalonians 5
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the
heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will
be exposed. 2 Peter 3:10
In the language of modern media communications, the Zodiac sculptures are ‘on
message.’ Their apparent chronological disarray is consistent with and reinforces
traditional Christian teaching associated with the end of time. Reading all of the Signs
and the Labors together, one gets, in spite of the disarray, a well-structured and
coherent picture of the complete span of theological time. Gemini and Pisces mark and
quantify the period from Creation to Incarnation. The period from Incarnation to Second
Coming is represented but, in agreement with orthodox Christian theology, it is left
unquantified and unquantifiable.
The Gemini Taurus Transposition - And lastly, why do I think Gemini and Taurus
were deliberately transposed in the Zodiac Window? My answer is really quite simple.
Once he replaced Ptolemy’s rate of precession with Al-Battani’s, it made sense for a
Chartrian to sideline Taurus and emphasize Gemini because now he knew Gemini
marked the beginning of time. He now knew he could numerically map the moment God
created the Cosmos, to a point early, or at the feet, so to speak, of Gemini.
Consider carefully the imagery in the May/Gemini pane in the Zodiac Window, shown in
Figure 22. The labor for May is supposed to be hunting. However, what are we to make
of an equestrian in full chainmail armor, complete with helmet, shield, lance, flag and
saddled horse? Is this the attire and equipment of a hunter or of a combat ready
cavalryman? Moreover, if any hunting was going on in an earlier moment, something
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has interrupted it because the cavalryman has dismounted and placed his lance at rest.
Rather than stalk game, he gazes wide eyed and in rapt attention at a white pole
standing against a blue sky, planted vertically upon the horizon line. This pole splits the
scene vertically with the horse and cavalryman standing on one side in the earthly realm
and the Gemini Twins, on the other in the heavenly realm. The pole intersects at 90
degrees the black line of the pane’s armature. The black line cuts dead center through
the scene. Like a virtual equator, it divides the entire pane into equal upper and lower
halves.
Figure 22 – The May / Gemini Pane in the Chartres Zodiac Window
The cavalryman’s mount has found something worth munching at the point where the
pole intersects the horizon. Moreover, the breeching strap girding the mount’s haunches
is the only element in the image that is the same blue as the sky. The sky blue strap
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intersects the black ‘equator’ line of the armature at what looks to be very close to a
23.5 degree angle. Could the angle of the armature and strap in this image somehow
allude to an important intersection, say of the equator with the ecliptic? The placement
of these two lines at such an angle and on the very spherical hindquarter of the horse is
very suggestive to me of armillary sphere imagery.
The Gemini Twins, standing in the heavenly realm, both gesture with their hands in a
downward direction toward their feet. The horse’s nose pokes past the pole that
separates the two realms, and it is very interested in something just inside the heavenly
realm, at the feet of Gemini. Accordingly, I sense the glazier is using the body language
of the horse and the twins to direct my attention to something important lower, or rather,
earlier, at the feet, so to speak, of Gemini. Could the downward gesturing of the horse
and the Twins symbolically indicate the place of the equinoctial intersection point at the
feet of Gemini? This question connects meaningfully with the inordinately large shield in
the Royal Portal sculpture of Gemini, in Figure 5, that also seems to point to something
of exceptional importance at the feet of Gemini.
As for the cavalry garb of our supposed hunter, is it just a coincidence that equites, the
Latin word for ‘cavalry’ sounds almost exactly like equitas, the Latin word for ‘equality’
that shares its root prefix with ‘equinox’ and ‘equator’?
Connecting the Dots or Dotty Connections- Perhaps I let these fancies of imagery
persuade me too easily. Perhaps my sense of skepticism is too lax, if not even dotty. Be
that as it may, I cannot help but to sense, in spite of a 72-year gap between the
sculpture and the glass, an eloquently subtle allusion in these images that connect
meaningfully with the placement of the equinox at the feet of Gemini. However
interesting this may be and however much fun you can have playing around, connecting
medieval dots between calendars, astronomy, geometry and wordplay, I really think,
that there are three much more serious historical connections to be made in all of this.
The Other Scientific Method - My hypothesis of connecting the disorder and

disconnectedness of the Royal Portal Zodiac to the astronomy of precession and to
numerically measured time keeping is grounded on the keen interest of the Chartrians
in the business of applying the teachings of the Quadrivium to theology and to natural
philosophy. The Chartrians were by no means precursors of the scientific method, as
we now know it. Let nobody think of them as keen observers neither of nature, nor as
formulators and testers of falsifiable hypotheses aiming to discover new knowledge.
Nonetheless, they were scientists. Their procedure was that other scientific method, the
one to which too many scientists these days pay far too little attention. I speak of the
method used to teach science.
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Above all else, the Chartrians were teachers. In the main, their business was not to
discover new knowledge but to seek out, gather and transmit to others the knowledge
and wisdom painstakingly discovered, recorded and taught by their predecessors:
Egypt, Greece and Rome; and by their neighbors: Arabic Andalusia and (later)
Byzantium. Their zeal for science is very much in evidence to me, not only from the
enduring reputation of the School of Chartres, but from the books they kept, the books
they sought out and the books they wrote. I agree fully with the idea first put forward by
Victor Hugo the Chartres Cathedral itself is one of their teaching books. To emphasize
how strongly I feel about this point, I include the Cathedral as an entry in the Reference
section of this article, under the authorship of Thierry de Chartres et al.
Code or Poetry - In 2008 Philip Ball writing about Chartrian artwork, lamented that “We
no longer know how to read this code.” I think he and the likes of Dan Brown and their
followers in popular culture today make a big mistake thinking in terms of ‘deciphering a
code.’ Gothic art is not code. It is poetry.
The idea of code is too simple minded. ‘Code’ implies a much too simple one for one
mapping of one idea upon another. It implies some sort of cryptographic algorithm or
algebraic formula that, applied step-by-step, will automatically convert one set of images
(icons, letters, numbers, etc.) into another, without ambiguity, to deliver a 100% precise
output of some absolutely definitive and provable meaning, some sort of ‘one-and-only
true answer’, to call it that. Moreover, code also implies a desire to conceal, to hide, to
prevent disclosure. Their idea of code fails because Gothic art like any great art is too
multi-valent in meaning. A single symbol too often points in too many different directions
for any simple cryptographic or algebraic formula to determine all of the meanings it can
carry. In the end, the meaning of an artistic symbol is not something you prove. It is
something you strive to understand.
To paraphrase Umberto Eco, the point is not to ask what it says, but what it means.
The Royal Portal imagery cannot be understood by using any mechanical deciphering
code. It must be understood poetically by using allegory, analogy, allusion, integument
and all the tools and techniques of the trivium – grammar, logic and rhetoric – as it was
cultivated in the Middle Ages and converted into the meaning making magic of Gothic
art. The cultural objective of the Chartrain social milieu was exactly the opposite of
concealing things with ciphers and codes. Their objective was to teach, to openly
disclose, to instruct. I find it highly ironic that this objective was identical to that of
modern writers of popular science books, just like Philip Ball, who excel in the modern
genre but fail to appreciate it in its medieval form.
The Mathesis Connection – Today, the concept of ‘numerizing’ or mathematicising

knowledge is known by the word mathesis, derived from the Greek μάθησεως. It is used
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primarily in discussions of the historical quest for a scientia mathematica universalis or a
universal science grounded in mathematics. The historical outline of this quest usually
starts with Pythagoras, Plato, and their late classical followers. Generally ignoring the
middle Ages completely, it then jumps straight to the Italian renaissance with the work of
Marsilio Ficino and Galileo, in a rush to get to Descartes, Leibniz and then to perhaps
the greatest work of mathesis of all time, Newton’s Principia. Its full title is Philosophiæ
Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Latin for Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy.
Make no mistake: it is to the multi-generational journey of mathesis that we owe the

debt of developing what the Chartrians knew as Natural Philosophy into what we know
today as Astronomy, Cosmology, Physics and Science. Moreover, whoever overlooks
the role that the teachers of Chartres played on that long and arduous journey through
time leaves too many dots disconnected.
Richard J Legault
1 August, AD 2017 (Gregorian), Ottawa
Revised: June 2018 and July/August 2019.
Richard J Legault is a freelance journalist who lives with his wife Lynn in Ottawa, Canada. Some
of his astronomical work has appeared in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of
Canada. He posts some of his unpublished work-in-progress on the Academia.edu web site to
solicit questions, comments and feedback at [email protected].
Acknowledgements
Mandorling – In 2017 Mike Klug accepted a simpler version this article as a guest posting on his
blog Mandorlas in our Midst. I owe Mike a debt of gratitude not only for some inspiring work but
also for providing some superb photos for my series of draft papers on Chartres Cathedral. As
much as I love trying, I can never really get to the bottom of sacred images. There is always
another connection to explore, another layer of meaning, another analogy, another allusion. In
homage to Mike’s work, I have taken to using the word mandorling to designate the pursuit of
these meaningful connections.
Order/Disorder: My reading of the disorder or highly unconventional order in the Royal Portal
Zodiac came about thanks to extended email exchanges with Chris Henige and David Critchely
and some members of the British on-line forum Medieval Religion on the jiscmail service in the
UK.
References
Ball, Philip 2008 Universe of Stone–A Biography of Chartres Cathedral Harper Collins New York.
Bede (the Venerable) and Wallis, F. (ed.) 1999 Bede, The Reckoning of Time Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 9780853236931.
Ben-Menahem, Ari 2009 Historical Encyclopedia of Natural and Mathematical Sciences Springer, New
York. Consulted 31 May 2017 at URL:
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https://books.google.ca/books?redir_esc=y&id=9tUrarQYhKMC&q=precession#v=snippet&q=calendar&f=
false
Bishop, Roy L. and Turner, David G 2016 “Astronomical Precession” in Observer’s Handbook 2017,
James S. Edgar, Editor, Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Toronto 2016.
Bugslag, James 2017 Chartres – Zodiac Cycle, private correspondence.
Burnett, Charles S. F. 1978 “Arabic into Latin in Twelfth-Century Spain: the Works of Hermann of
Carinthia”, in Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 13, 1978, pp. 100–34. Consulted 26 April 2017 at URL:
http://www.mgh-bibliothek.de/dokumente/a/a053253.pdf
Campion, Nicholas 2016 Astrology and Popular Religion in the Modern West: Prophecy, Cosmology and
the New Age Routledge, New York.
Copernicus Nicolaus 1530 De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, manuscript digital copy consulted 25
May 2017 at URL: http://pka.bj.uj.edu.pl/bjmanus/revol/plist_e.html
Copernicus Nicolaus 1543 De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly
Spheres) translator Charles Glen Wallis, in Hawking 2002
Dronke, Peter ed. 1978 Bernard Silvestris Cosmographia Brill, Leiden.
Edgar, James 2016 Observer’s Handbook 2017, The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Toronto,
Ontario.
Ellard, Peter 2007 The Sacred Cosmos–Theological, Philosophical and Scientific Conversations in the
Twelfth Century School of Chartres, University of Scranton Press, Chicago Illinois.
Fassler, Margot E. 2010 The Virgin of Chartres – Making History through Liturgy and the Arts Yale
University Press, New Haven.
Hermann of Carinthia 1143 Preface of the Planisphere of Claudius Ptolemy in Burnet 1978.
Hourihane, Colum, 2007 Time in the Medieval World: Occupations of the Months and Signs of the Zodiac
in the Index of Christian Art, ISBN 9780976820222 Princeton University.
James, John 2009: In Search of the Unknown in Medieval Architecture Pindar Press, New York.
Ignatius of Antioch to Polycarp in Srawley 1900.
Katzenellenbogen, Adolf 1959 The Sculptural Programs of Chartres Cathedral W. W. Norton & Co, New
York.
Klug, Mike 2017 Mandorlas in our Midst, Blog at https://mikejklug.wordpress.com/
Knitter, Brian John 2000 "Thierry of Chartres and the West Façade Sculpture of Chartres Cathedral" San
Jose State University Master's Theses, Paper 2052.
Legault, Richard J 2015a Chartres – Adventus, draft monograph posted at URL:
https://www.academia.edu/11801856/Chartres_-_Adventus
Legault, Richard J and Powell, Martin J. 2015b Chartres – The Guardians of Time draft paper posted at
URL: https://www.academia.edu/19747483/Chartres_The_Guardians_of_Time
Legault, Richard J 2017a A Close Encounter of the Medieval Kind draft monograph posted at URL:
https://www.academia.edu/30679872/A_Close_Encounter_of_the_Medieval_Kind
Legault, Richard J 2017b Chartres Royal Portal – Ascension or Creation? draft monograph posted at
URL: https://www.academia.edu/32400373/Chartres_Royal_Portal_Ascension_or_Creation
Page 46 of 49
Lewis, George 1911 The Philocalia of Origen – A Compilation of Selected Passages from Origen’s
Works made by Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea Charles Scribner’s and Sons, New York.
Digital copy consulted 25 May 2017 at URL:
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/origen_philocalia_01_intro.htm
Livio, Mario 2013 Brilliant Blunders from Darwin to Einstein Simon and Schuster New York.
Mâle, Emile 1958 The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the 13th Century, translated by Dora
Nussey, Harper & Row, New York.
Mâle, Emile 1983 Chartres Harper and Row, New York.
e th
Merlet, René M and Clerval 1893 Un Manuscrit Chartrain du XI Siècle (A Chartrian Manuscript of the XI
Century) Garnier, Paris, consulted at URL:
https://ia800503.us.archive.org/6/items/unmanuscritchart00merl/unmanuscritchart00merl.pdf
Minio-Paluello “Plato of Tivoli” Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography 2008. Encyclopedia.com,
retrieved 29 Oct. 2013 http://www.encyclopedia.com.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Aerospace Dictionary, web site consulted 10
May 2017 at URL: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/aerospacedictionary/aerodictall/g.html
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., 1999 "Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī", in
MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, retrieved 29 October 2013 from:
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Al-Battani.html
Origen c. 250 Philocalia in Lewis 1911.
Plato, Timaeus, cited in Ellard 2007.
Silvestris, Bernardus 1147 Cosmographia in Dronke 1978.
Srawley, J. H 1910 The Epistles of St. Ignatius Volume II, Second Edition Revised London: Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, London. Consulted 10 August 2017 at URL:
https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/TheEpistlesofStIgnatiusBishopofAntioch_10668190
Thierry de Chartres et al. La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres (Our Lady of Chartres Cathedral),
lithoscript monument, Cathedral School of Chartres, Chartres, in phases from circa 1145 to circa 1219.
Van Der Meulen, Jan and Price, Nancy Waterman 1981 The West Portals of Chartres Cathedral Volume
1- The Iconology of the Creation University Press of America.
Page 47 of 49
Chartres – The Disconnected Zodiac Appendix
Figure 23 - Arms and Seal Figure 25 - Arms of

of Sancho VI, King of Theobald the Great
Navarre called the Wise, Figure 24 - The Shield of Gemini – (1090–1152), Count of
from 1150 until 1194. He was With the Arms of García Jiménez I, Blois and of Chartres as
descended from the House of King of Navarre and Aragon. The Theobald IV from 1102
Jiménez, on the name of image is an obvious reference to (and and Count of Champagne
which Gemini is an obvious pun on) the name of the House of and of Brie as Theobald II
pun. Arms: “de gueules, aux Jiménez one of the ruling families of from 1125. See:
rais d'escarboucle d'or.” See: Navarre that intermarried with the
House of Blois. See: https://ca.wikipedia.org/wik
https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/E i/Escut_de_Navarra
scut_de_Navarra http://wappenwiki.org/index.php/Hous
e_of_Jim%C3%A9nez
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S
ancho_VI_of_Navarre https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garc%C3
%ADa_Jim%C3%A9nez
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar
morial_de_la_p%C3%A9nins
ule_Ib%C3%A9rique#cite_no
te-Navarre-37 and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K
ings_of_Navarre_family_tree
Page 48 of 49
Chartres – The Disconnected Zodiac Appendix
Figure 26 - Seal of Sancho VI, King of Navarre - See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sancho_VI_of_Navarre
Figure 27 - Thibaud I de Navarre Figure 28 - Arms of García Jiménez I - King

chevauchant (riding) - (30 May 1201 – 8 of Navarre and Aragon in the late 9th century
July 1253), also called the Troubadour and and founder of the House of Jiménez, one of
the Posthumous, Count of Champagne (as the ruling families of Navarre. See:
Theobald IV) from birth and King of Navarre http://wappenwiki.org/index.php/House_of_Ji
from 1234, the first Frenchman to rule m%C3%A9nez
Navarre. See:
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garc%C3%ADa_J
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/CadresFenetre?O=CO im%C3%A9nez
MP-1&M=imageseule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobald_I_of_N Page 49 of 49
avarre#Conflict_with_the_crown

Chartres The Disconnected Zodiac

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What is the main topic being discussed in the document?

What is the main topic being discussed in the document?

What are Labors of the Months?

What are Labors of the Months?

Chartres – The Disconnected Zodiac

Chartres – The Disconnected Zodiac

Copyright  2019, 2018, 2017 by Richard J. Legault

Month Labor of the Month Sign Dates

Figure 2 - Chartres Calendar-Zodiac Window (c.

Leftmost Door Rightmost Door

Figure 8 – Zodiac Cycle (incomplete and

Cultural Context - We have considerable and reasonably reliable knowledge of the

What made the constellations of the Zodiac so special to medieval astronomers

Nevertheless, there is order. The composition may be understood, as tabulated and

The Pisces Image – With only one

The Science in the Symbols - As seen in Figure 3

I propose working with the idea that the

backwards (retrograde) through Gregory of Tours Ovid

the constellations of the Zodiac. Isidore of Seville Virgil

Figure 17 - Contents of Thierry of Chartres’ Heptateuchon (Knitter 2000)

The concept of astronomical precession was nothing new to Medieval Christianity. In

Al-Battani at Chartres - There is solid textual evidence that Thierry of Chartres,

Dating Creation Using Precession - Anyone using Al-Battani’s rate of precession,

Figure 18 - Zodiacal Ages Based on Different Rates of Presession

Armillary Sphere and Astrolabe – Certain knowledge of armillary sphere technology

Astronomical Reversals of Direction - There are only two places in medieval

An important point, crucial to my hypothesis, that needs to be emphasized about

Testability - One of the standard approaches to the scientific testing of hypotheses is to

In 2009 Ari Ben-Menahem, wrote in his Historical Encyclopedia of Natural and

In addition, because the Zodiacal information in the sculptures is in such apparent

Figure 22 – The May / Gemini Pane in the Chartres Zodiac Window

The Other Scientific Method - My hypothesis of connecting the disorder and

The Mathesis Connection – Today, the concept of ‘numerizing’ or mathematicising

Make no mistake: it is to the multi-generational journey of mathesis that we owe the

Figure 23 - Arms and Seal Figure 25 - Arms of

Figure 26 - Seal of Sancho VI, King of Navarre - See:

Figure 27 - Thibaud I de Navarre Figure 28 - Arms of García Jiménez I - King

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