[Sca-cooks] Cathedral building celebrations

[Harris Mark.S-rsve60]

Margali replied to me with:
>>>
LOL, some of the smaller cathedrals did *only* take 20-30 years...not 
every cathedral was a NotreDame de Chartres or Paris...most of them are 
actually smaller. The one in Rouen is about half the size of either 
Chartres or Paris, and it took 25 years to build. It is about the size 
of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, or about the size of a larger mundane 
american catholic church. 
<<<
Okay, yes I was thinking of the bigger ones. Thinking about it more, I guess the size of the cathedral will, and did, depend upon how rich a region is. They would have been the larger church buildings in an area, but when comparing one from one region to another, the size could vary. I believe the cathedral is simply the home base of the bishop, correct? And of course he would want his to be the grandest, and either get an update to his if there was a larger, grander one being built nearby, or perhaps simply move his office to the new building. Since he controlled the purse strings, I guess he could get the money for expanding his church.

I also imagine that a rich region could build their cathedral faster than a poorer region since available money probably caused churches to go up in jumps with lags between times. And how good the bishop was in rallying the people of the bishoperic, both rich and poorer, as well as external events, probably had an effect.

Do we know if they had dedication feasts or other celebrations? Or more likely, celebrations to mark various landmarks along the way? If so, do we know anything about these? Were these just guild events? Were there formal dinners? Or something closer to modern church socials or the harvest feasts given by medieval landholders?

Stefan