At the heart of the great cathedrals of France there is an object everyone has seen and almost no one can describe: the rose. This disc of stone and glass, opened in the façade or at the end of the transept, is one of the boldest inventions of the Middle Ages — and one of the most beautiful. For many years now, Manufacture Mayaud has been transposing it into medals, in mother-of-pearl or openwork gold. This guide tells where roses come from, what they say, and how a thirteen-metre rose becomes a twenty-millimetre jewel.
What is a rose window?
The word is misleading. In architecture, the rose is the circular opening itself, pierced in the wall; the rosace (rosette) was originally a carved flower-shaped ornament. Only from the sixteenth century did "rosace" also come to mean the great round window, and everyday usage has confused the two ever since.
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who restored Notre-Dame de Paris in the nineteenth century and drew the finest roses of France in his Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française, gives its origin: "The oculus of the early Christian basilica, pierced in the gable above the entrance, appears to be the origin of the medieval rose." Until the end of the twelfth century, it is only a small opening of fifty centimetres to a metre, with no stone frame. Then, from the second half of the twelfth century, first in the Île-de-France, roses grow, fill with a stone network — the tracery — and reach, by the middle of the thirteenth century, dimensions that nothing had ever allowed before.
What a rose says
A rose is not only a window. Its perfect form, the circle, speaks of eternity and the unity of creation; its spokes, all leaving from the centre, say that everything proceeds from God. At the heart of the rose one places Christ or the Virgin — the rose is, in Marian tradition, one of the figures of Mary, the "mystic rose". Around, in concentric circles, prophets, kings, apostles, saints: the whole history of salvation ordered around a single point.
Numbers matter here. Most French roses divide into twelve spokes or petals — the apostles, the months, the tribes of Israel. The south rose of Notre-Dame de Paris is built on four, twelve and twenty-four: four circles, eighty-four panels. Strasbourg is the exception with sixteen petals, a multiple of eight, the number of divine perfection and of resurrection.
And then there is the light. The rose is the place where the wall disappears: the stone does no more than draw, the glass does the rest. In the evening the west rose receives the sunset; at noon the south rose burns. It is this light, more than the geometry, that medieval people came to seek.
Rayonnant, Flamboyant: two ages of the rose
Historians distinguish two great families. Rayonnant Gothic, in the thirteenth century, takes its name from the very form of these roses: straight spokes radiating from the centre, like those of Notre-Dame de Paris or, originally, the Sainte-Chapelle. This is the golden age of the rose, that of the great royal building sites of Saint Louis.
Flamboyant Gothic, from the end of the fourteenth century, bends the lines. The term was coined in the nineteenth century by the Norman antiquarian Eustache-Hyacinthe Langlois to describe these flame-shaped motifs, the soufflets and mouchettes, which ripple through the tracery. Flamboyant roses are of dizzying complexity: that of the Sainte-Chapelle, remade at the end of the fifteenth century, or that of Saint-Jean in Lyon, created in 1394, are two masterpieces.
The great roses of France — and their medals
Notre-Dame de Paris: three roses, eight centuries
Notre-Dame has three roses, and each has its story. The west rose, cut around 1220 above the portal, is the oldest; Viollet-le-Duc measures its opening at 9.60 metres and admires a network so well conceived that it had barely moved in six centuries. The north rose, raised around 1250 by Jean de Chelles, spans nearly 13 metres in diameter and keeps its original glass: at the centre, a Virgin and Child, surrounded by prophets, kings and judges of the Old Testament. The south rose, given by Saint Louis and completed around 1260 by Pierre de Montreuil, answers it with Christ in glory and the apostles; poorly built, it had to be repaired in 1725, then entirely rebuilt in 1854.
On 15 April 2019, the three roses withstood the fire. They found their light again at the cathedral's reopening, in December 2024, in a nave cleaned of eight centuries of soot.
The Notre-Dame de Paris rose window was the first that Manufacture Mayaud transposed into a medal, and the first cathedral rose window ever offered in mother-of-pearl and 750/1000 gold. It exists in mother-of-pearl rimmed in gold, in openwork solid gold, in openwork solid silver and in mother-of-pearl rimmed in silver.
Chartres: the Rose of France
At Chartres, the north rose is called the "Rose of France": it was given around 1230 by Queen Blanche of Castile, mother of Saint Louis, and its spandrels bear the fleurs-de-lys of the kingdom and the castles of Castile. It is dedicated to the Virgin, with Saint Anne at the centre of the lancets. The south rose, facing it, shows the Christ of the Apocalypse surrounded by the elders: the old Law to the north, the new to the south, answering each other across the cathedral. Mayaud offers both: the north rose and the south rose in mother-of-pearl and gold, as well as in mother-of-pearl and silver.
Strasbourg: Master Erwin's rose
The west façade of Strasbourg was built from 1277 to 1318 to the plans of Erwin von Steinbach, and its great rose, completed around 1320, still bears his name. It is extraordinary: 13.60 metres in diameter, sixteen petals instead of twelve, set within a square studded with fleurs-de-lys. Damaged by the storm of 1840 and the siege of 1870, it remains one of the largest roses of the Gothic world. As a medal: the Strasbourg rose window in mother-of-pearl and gold.
The Sainte-Chapelle: Flamboyant in Paris
The Sainte-Chapelle, shrine of Saint Louis's relics, originally had a Rayonnant rose. It was replaced at the end of the fifteenth century, under Charles VIII, by the Flamboyant rose admired today, whose glass unfolds the Apocalypse. It is one of the most complex traceries in France — and one of the hardest to transpose. Mayaud offers it in mother-of-pearl and gold, in openwork gold and in openwork silver.
Lyon: the rose of the Lamb
The west rose of the primatial cathedral of Saint-Jean, called the sunset rose, was created in 1394 by Henri de Nivelle; it is nicknamed the rose of the Lamb. Central quatrefoil, six large heart-shaped petals, six narrow petals, a crown of trefoil lobes: an early, legible Flamboyant that lends itself admirably to openwork. As a medal: mother-of-pearl and gold, openwork solid gold, openwork solid silver, mother-of-pearl and silver.
And twenty other cathedrals
The collection does not stop at the most famous. It follows the map of the great roses of France, and beyond: Reims, Amiens, Saint-Denis — where, from the middle of the twelfth century, under Abbot Suger, a first rose opened in the façade —, Saint-André of Bordeaux, Saint-Ouen of Rouen, Le Mans, Tours, Angers, Metz, Sens, Senlis, Soissons, Bourges, Orléans, Clermont-Ferrand, Toulouse, Saint-Malo, Marseille and Milan — all gathered in our collection of cathedral rose windows.
From a thirteen-metre rose to a twenty-millimetre medal
How does one fit Gothic tracery into a circle two centimetres across? This is Manufacture Mayaud's own know-how, and it is unique in the world.
Everything begins with the survey: the exact drawing of the tracery, spokes, lobes, soufflets, mouchettes, as the master builders traced it. Our sculptor takes it up without simplifying anything — that is the rule of the house — and transposes it to the scale of the medal, making sure every lobe remains legible.
Then comes the material. In mother-of-pearl, the tracery is carved and engraved in natural extra-white mother-of-pearl of jewellery grade, selected for the uniformity of its colour and the fineness of its grain. The translucency of the mother-of-pearl renders something of the light of stained glass; the rim of 18-karat gold or solid silver closes the rose. Manufacture Mayaud is the only workshop in the world to make cathedral rose windows in jewellery-grade mother-of-pearl.
In openwork solid gold or silver, the rose is entirely pierced: the voids of the tracery become real voids, and light passes through the medal as it passes through the cathedral. Mayaud was the first House to offer a cathedral rose window pierced in solid 18-karat gold.
Every model is a registered design filed with the INPI, made in our Paris workshop. Mother-of-pearl medals come in 20 to 26 mm depending on the model; openwork versions in 20 to 24 mm. The larger the diameter, the more finely the tracery reads.
The craft, from survey to medal
Making a cathedral rose window into a medal means bringing two distinct crafts into dialogue: that of the Gothic builder and that of the jeweller-sculptor. The first designed a tracery to fit a bay several metres wide and to be read from afar; the second must fit it into a circle two centimetres across and make it legible up close, without betraying a single lobe.
This is what sets a Mayaud rose window apart from an ordinary ornamental medal: the design is neither simplified nor stylised, it is transposed exactly as it is, at the cost of meticulous sculpting work on a tiny surface. This requirement of historical fidelity, applied to every cathedral in the collection, explains why some models take several months of development before their first striking or their first carving in mother-of-pearl.
Why give a rose window?
Because a rose window speaks of a place. That of the cathedral where one was christened or married, or simply that of one's city — Reims, Strasbourg, Lyon, Bordeaux. Because it speaks of attachment to a heritage: since 2019, the Notre-Dame de Paris rose window has become for many a sign of loyalty to a monument wounded and then raised again. Because it can be worn at any age and by everyone: a medal with no figure, where the meaning lies in geometry and light, and which suits a christening as much as a pilgrimage, a travel memory as much as an everyday jewel. See also our christening medals, for traditional religious subjects.
A rose window is as easily handed down as worn: because it depicts neither a face nor a first name, it crosses generations without ever looking dated, and suits a christening as readily as a wedding anniversary or a gift one gives oneself. It is a jewel of memory just as much as a traditional medal, but one that tells of a place rather than a saint.
Frequently asked questions
Can a rose window medal be engraved?
Yes for mother-of-pearl versions, whose reverse is smooth: first name and date, done in the workshop. No for openwork versions, which have no solid reverse.
Mother-of-pearl or openwork gold: which to choose?
Mother-of-pearl gives the white light and softness of a cameo; openwork gold or silver gives the real transparency of the tracery. Both take up exactly the same design.
Which size to choose?
The 20 mm for a christening or a child, the 22 or 24 mm for everyday wear, the 24 or 26 mm as a pendant, to read the tracery in all its fineness.
Does my cathedral's rose window exist?
The collection today includes many cathedrals and basilicas. If yours is not among them, write to us: a rose window can sometimes be made to order.
Sources
- Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle, 1854-1868, vol. 8, article "Rose".
- Painton Cowen, Roses médiévales, Seuil, 1979.
- BnF, Passerelles, "L'architecture gothique".
- Centre des monuments nationaux, Sainte-Chapelle, "Le gothique rayonnant".
- Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, "Les vitraux"; Revivre Notre-Dame, "Restauration des roses"; Ministère de la Culture, "Les vitraux du XIXe siècle".
- Fondation de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame and Batorama, on the Strasbourg rose; Centre international du vitrail, "La rose nord de Chartres".
- Jean Tricou, "Enseignes de pèlerinages et de dévotion", Bulletin des musées lyonnais, 1957.