page_title: Building a Gothic cathedral
section_title: Finance
hierarchical_section_title: Building a Gothic cathedral / Finance
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Fenster der Kathedrale Saint-Étienne in Bourges
context_page_description: Building a Gothic cathedral was the most ambitious, expensive, and technically demanding construction project of the Middle Ages. It required high-level sponsorship, substantial funding over decades, a large number of highly skilled workers, and finding solutions to unprecedented and very complex technical problems. Completion of a cathedral usually took at least half a century, and many took much longer, involving several generations of architects and workers. Since the construction took so long and was so expensive, Portions of many cathedrals were built in several successive styles, and many were left unfinished.
context_section_description: The Bishop himself, like Maurice de Sully of Notre Dame de Paris, usually contributed a substantial sum. Wealthy parishioners were invited to give a percentage of their income or estate in exchange for the right to be buried under the floor of the cathedral. In 1263 Pope Urban IV offered Papal indulgences, or the forgiveness of sins for one year, to wealthy donors who made large contributions. For less wealthy church members, contributions in kind, such as a few days labor,the use of their of oxen for transportation, or donations of materials were welcomed. The sacred relics of Saints kept by the cathedral were displayed to attract pilgrims, who were invited to make donations. Sometimes the relics were taken in a procession to other towns to raise money.
  The guilds of the various professions in the town, such as the bakers, fur merchants and drapers, frequently made donations, and in exchange small panels of the stained glass windows in the new cathedral windows illustrated their activities.
caption: A window at Bourges Cathedral showing carpenters, barrel makers and wheelwrights (lower panels) the windows' likely sponsors
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