Quoted By:
not my OC:
Bourges.
When this cathedral was being built, Mayans were sacrificing their captives, the Anasazi were eating their children, Turks were getting annihilated by the Mongols, who were depopulating Asia. The Japanese had only just started forging swords using pattern welding, a technique already 2,000 years old in Europe.
The cathedral opened in 1230. By this time, Europeans had already developed the moldboard plow, the common market, private property, rule of law, trial by jury, the Magna Carta, laws against usury, the Peace and Truce of God, chivalry, epic and romantic poetry, full-body steel armor, old age pensions, laws to protect widows and orphans, monasteries that connected every country in Europe via banking and communication.
It was a world where Jews were confined to ghettos and nonwhites had hardly been heard of in Europe. Educated men all spoke Latin, women were chaste or officially licensed prostitutes, and Englishmen were legally required to be armed.
These are things to think about if you ever walk into the church pictured here and start to contemplate the things worth saving.