This volume is a study of the people who commissioned, designed, and built the great cathedrals of Europe, from the eleventh through the sixteenth centuries. Historian Francois Icher has written a lively, detailed account of the process by which these masterpieces of world architecture came to be - from their commissioning by a bishop or wealthy patron, to the hiring of an architect and mastercraftsmen, to the daily labor on the construction site.

Supplementing the author's highly readable narrative are many stories and anecdotes about particular cathedrals and their construction; an appendix of archival documents that furnish additional details about the construction process at various sites; and a bibliography.

Building the Great Cathedrals is extensively illustrated with current photographs of many of the structures, with architectural drawings, and with art works such as mosaics and illuminated manuscript pages that depict scenes on the construction site, including craftsmen at work, individual tools and instruments, and symbols and emblems of the guilds and orders.