15 Facts About Reims Cathedral

Reims Cathedral church is thought to have been founded by the bishop Nicasius in the early 5th century.

Reims Cathedral was the first Frankish king to receive this sacrament.

Construction of the present Reims Cathedral began in the 13th century and concluded in the 14th century.

Prestige of the Holy Ampulla, the sacred vial filled with myrrh with which French Kings were anointed, the fact that Clovis I had been baptised there, and the political power of the archbishop of Reims Cathedral led to Reims Cathedral becoming the regular site of the coronation of the French monarch.

Reims Cathedral preserved the existing nave and transept but rebuilt and enlarged the two ends of the cathedral.

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Reims Cathedral demolished the west front and adjoining tower in order to build two matching flanking towers, in imitation of the Royal Abbey of Saint Denis outside of Paris, whose choir dedication Samson himself had attended a few years earlier.

The work on the new cathedral moved with exceptional speed, because Reims was one of the first buildings to use stones and other materials of standardised sizes, so each stone did not have to be cut to measure.

Reims Cathedral's is memorialized at Reims Cathedral with two statues: an equestrian statue outside the church and another within the church.

In 1380, Reims Cathedral was the location of Charles VI's coronation and eight years later Charles called a council at Reims in 1388 to take personal rule from the control of his uncles.

Reims Cathedral was overthrown in the Revolution of 1830 and replaced by a Constitutional monarch, Louis Philippe I, who was sworn in at the Parliament in Paris rather than crowned in Reims.

Reims Cathedral was succeeded by two more architects, Eugene Millet and Victor Ruprich-Robert, who took considerable liberties in remaking the galleries of the nave in a more imaginative 13th-century Gothic style.

Reims Cathedral executed a statue of St Thomas for the north tower.

On 8 October 2016, a plaque bearing the names of the 31 kings crowned in Reims was placed in the cathedral in the presence of the archbishop Thierry Jordan and Prince Louis-Alphonse, Duke of Anjou, one of many pretenders to the French throne.

One distinctive feature of Reims Cathedral not found in other High Gothic cathedrals is the wall of sculpture on the inside of the west facade.

Reims Cathedral treasury contains an important collection of precious objects, particularly reliquaries, some of which were used in coronations or donated by French monarchs at the time of their coronation.