A look back - my brief encounter with Notre Dame

For a medievalist like myself, the past few days have been strongly marked by the reports and updates from the fire at Notre Dame in Paris and its aftermath. Even for someone whose main field of expertise is not French medieval history, the cathedral of Notre Dame has such a towering presence in one's cultural knowledge that it is difficult to witness the unfolding horror and not be moved. I followed the updates from the scene in Paris as they came in, and I read the responses from medievalists on Twitter, scholars whose relationship with, and knowledge of, Notre Dame of Paris far surpasses my own. I was torn between the protective desire of not wanting to see any updates and wanting to know just when the damage had been halted sufficiently for the status quo to be certain. And most of all, I felt a heaviness in my heart when it was reported that the three rose windows from the thirteenth century - however much restored - had been irreparably lost in the firestorm. It was an intensely heavy loss to wrap my head around, and when the extent of the damage was surveyed the following day, I refused myself to give in to relief when the first reports of the survival of at least one of the rose windows started to emerge. I feared it would be wishful thinking. Consequently, when the first photographs from the inside of the damaged cathedral was circulated and showed that at least one of the rose windows had survived, I wept in relief.

Unfortunately, I was not able to visit Notre Dame when I was in Paris for a conference in December 2017, my first and hitherto only visit to the city of lights. I cannot lay as strong an emotional claim to the building as those who have seen it from the inside, who have studied its history, and who have lived in its surroundings. This blogpost is therefore not a personal elegy or a memoir of a shared sense of loss, because others have a greater claim to this, and have expressed it more vividly, more genuinely, more deservedly than I have the right to do. Instead, I wish to share the few pictures of the building I took as I was hurrying through a cold December morning in Paris on my way to a meeting with a friend, yet taking the time to pause at the facade and take pictures.