Description
The Miracles of the Virgin Window
Delaporte no. 9, Deremble-Manhes no. 38
Panel 6: Men pull a cart laden with sacks
A large four-wheeled cart is parallel to the plane of the panel, heading towards the right (panel 6). It contains large sacks roped to the cart. Two men ride on the wagon. The one to the left may be disabled since he draws his legs in front of him and there is a staff behind him. The man to the right up holds a staff with a banner. The cart is being pulled by men rather than by animals. Some of them are seen in panel 4 to the right.
This may depict building activity at Chartres, when the faithful were said to have pulled carts full of building materials and provisions for the builders up the hill toward the building site. In a letter, Haymo, Abbot of St.-Pierre-sur-Dives which describes how, in Chartres in 1144, children helped adults to drag the carts bearing construction material for the Cathedral and brought building supplies and provisions to the site of the Cathedral to aid the reconstruction. (Porter, Medieval Architecture, p. 151-5). (See also Adams, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, p. , Branner, Chartres Cathedral, p. 93-94, and Coulton, p. 339-341, for Haymo's letter, and those of Hugo of Amiens and Robert of Torigny)
Alternatively, it could show sacks of grain being transported later, possibly as an encouragement of the giving of offerings to the cathedral.
If the sacks held grain, this panel, along with the wine barrel in Panel 7, would have expressed a Eucharistic theme-JV
Delaporte suggests that this forms one composition with panels 4, 5, and 7.
Subject
Cathédrale de Chartres--Pictorial works.;Church decoration and ornament--France--Chartres--Pictorial works.;Church architecture--France--Chartres--Pictorial works.;Christian art and symbolism--France--Chartres--Medieval, 500-1500--Pictorial works.
