Editing Rose window (section)

=== St Denis, Chartres, Mantes, Laon and Paris ===
[[File:20050921CathChartresB.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Chartres Cathedral]]]] 
[[File:060806-France-Paris-Notre Dame.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Notre Dame, Paris]]]]

The transition from the Romanesque style to the Gothic was not clear cut, even at the [[Saint Denis Basilica|Abbey of St Denis]], to the north of Paris, where the [[Abbot Suger]], between 1130 and 1144, gathered the various newly emerging features of Gothic into a single building, thereby “creating” the [[Gothic architecture|Gothic style]].<ref>Nikolaus Pevsner, ''An Outline of European Architecture''</ref>

Suger's original rose window in the prototype Gothic façade of St Denis probably pre-dates many of the remaining circular windows in Romanesque buildings such as those in England, at Trebic and Spoleto and that in the façade at Speyer.

Suger's window was not distinctively Gothic in its appearance. It no longer has its original form, but a mid-19th-century drawing by the restorer [[Eugène Viollet-le-Duc|Viollet-le-Duc]] indicates that it had a very large ocular space at the centre, the glass supported by an iron hoop, and surrounded by simple semicircular [[wikt:cusped|cusped]] lobes cut out of flat stone in a technique known as "plate tracery".  The window now has Gothic tracery in it, possibly added by [[Eugène Viollet-le-Duc|Viollet-le-Duc]] who was very concerned about the lack of stability of the whole façade, and having restored the towers, was impelled to demolish the northern one when it suddenly subsided.

Along with the simple wheel windows of the late [[Norman architecture|Norman period]] in England, Germany and Italy, a large late 12th-century window still exists at [[Chartres Cathedral]]. This remarkable window combines a large roundel at the centre with the radiating spokes of a wheel window, surrounded by a ring of smaller “plate tracery” lights with scalloped borders. The window, depicting the [[Last Judgement]], contains its original scheme of glazing and retains much of the original glass of 1215, despite suffering damage during [[World War II]].<ref>Lawrence Lee, George Seddon, Francis Stephens, ''Stained Glass''</ref>

Following the west window of Chartres, more daring Gothic windows were created at the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame in [[Mantes]] and in the dynamically sculptural facade of [[Laon Cathedral]] (which also, unusually, has a rose window in its eastern end as well as in it transept ends). These windows have large lights contained in tracery of a semicircular form, like overlapping petals.
[[File:Reims Cathedral, exterior (4).jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Reims Cathedral]], France]]
The window that is central to the well-known Gothic façade of [[Notre Dame, Paris]], is of more distinctly Gothic appearance, with mullions in two bands radiating from a central roundel, each terminating in pointed arches. It was this window, completed about 1255, that set the pattern for many other rose window including those of the transepts at St Denis and the gigantic and complex window in the south transept at Notre Dame.<ref>Wim Swaan</ref>

At [[Chartres Cathedral|Chartres]], the transepts roses follow the style of the original 12th-century rose, elaborating on the theme of contrasting forms. The south rose combines the wheel with circles and semicircles, while the north rose introduces square lights which, rotating around the centre, are all set at different angles, creating a [[Kaleidoscope|kaleidoscopic]] effect of  great energy.<ref>Henry Adams, ''Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres''</ref>