There is a statement in the beginning Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament, vanity of vanities; all is vanity, which may in fact be the seed for what has become known as the Gothic Cathedral. Though one interpretation of the phrase could suggest the pathetic anguish of a life devoid of meaning, someone architect, having a vision wishing to celebrate the almost limitless vanity of God, might have turned the phrase on its head to imagine the Westminster Abbey or Notre Dames of the world. The idea being, that nothing could be too fine, too ornate, too breath-taking, for God, His castle, His vanity. Also, as long as the majesty was created for that higher being, as opposed to a very vain robber baron, say, as long as these elaborate realms were created for the Creator, then the designs for these cathedrals became untrammeled by earthly modesty and, quite literally, the sky was the limit in manifesting the Power of God.
Built of stone, primarily, the citizens of the town first had to square away a momentous rock quarry to satisfy the appetite of the builders. Although bricks might have sufficed, few Cathedral-builders deigned to use them, as it would seem they were looking for a material closer to the immorality and loftiness of God. There are some exceptions to this in France and Germany, but by and large the true cathedral was made of stone. The stones were cut to fit together and also glued together by mortar, a precursor of cement.
To achieve soaring rooflines and to create extreme reaches vis-Ã -vis their flying buttresses, and for things like the tremendous doors, wood was integral to the construction as well.
Of the many prominent features of the Gothic Cathedral, the sand-drip-like spires, the flying buttresses, the incalculable arches, one is transported to another realm once and for all by the stained glass windows. Beginning with raw sand, which was heated up by huge furnaces until melted, it was then collected in a tube and blown into a sphere. The sphere was then spun endlessly until it became flat, whereupon a zillion pieces were cut from it, pieces designed to fit into an intricate metallic framework that held each fragment of glass in place, edge by edge. Before the installation into the framework, each piece of the glass was either dyed or hand-painted, in keeping with the grand design of the greater picture being created. In general, the visual narratives are biblical, and if one is well versed he can recognize the stories of the Old and New Testaments captured forever in stained glass.
In literature, for example, City of God by Saint Augustine, it is exhaustively argued that the most every facet of the great Cathedrals was culled forth from the scriptures themselves. In other words, the designs were in the parchment, and the facile architect need only humble himself to the ambition of translating so many octagons, hexagons, squares, and aligning so many diagonal lines to agree with a universal geometric matrix. Thus ego, vanity, and anything other than presenting the glory of the Creator's master plan was removed from the need to build these great Cathedrals.