CATHEDRAL. Early in the Middle Ages when Latin was the only language used by educated people, the church which contained the official " seat" or throne (cathedra) of the bishop was known as the ecclesia cathedralis or " church of the seat." As time went on this term was shortened and today we call the church over which the bishop presided the it cathedral." In those days everyone belonged to the Roman Catholic church and the whole community united in the effort to build a church which should not only glorify religion but which should also be a credit to the city. The bishop's church usually was the largest, finest, and most richly adorned church building in the diocese, or bishop's district. This is not always true, however. The Church of St. Peter's at Rome is the most glorious church building in Christendom, but the pope's " cathedral" is the older but less splendid church of St. John Lateran.
As a result of those efforts of medieval men we have today all over western Europe great gray stone ca thedrals whose roofs and towers dominate the whole countryside. In the magnificent Gothic cathedrals of northern France, dating from the 12th to the 15th centuries, the tall pointed window openings are filled with pictures in stained glass, whose rich and varied colors add to the splendor of the interior. Every where, within and without, the sculptor's art has scattered figures of men, animals, and plants. Artists and sculptors have vied with one another in repre- .
senting the history of humanity and of Christianity, and scenes from the Bible, figures of the saints, and representations of the Virtues and Vices " make up a kind of layman's Bible that appealed to the eye and was understood by all." These memorials to the faith and spiritual aspira tions of the Middle Ages were not built in a day.
The construction of such cathedrals as Notre Dame of Paris, St. Mark's of Venice, and Canterbury in England was protracted through hundreds of years.
So well, however, were the great medieval cathe drals built that many of them still stand in Europe today, firm and secure. Others, such as the beautiful ones of Amiens, Reims, and Antwerp, were seriously damaged or reduced to heaps of ruins by the Germans during the World War of 1914-18.
St. Paul's in London is a later structure of the Church of England, dating from a period following the Reformation. Like St. Peter's in Rome, it is built in Renaissance style. America, too, has her cathedrals, of which Notre Dame of Montreal and St. Patrick's in New York City are among the most notable. They will probably be surpassed, however, by the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in New York City, which was begun in 1892 and will cost when finished more than $10,000,000. (See Architecture for illustrations of famous cathedrals.)