Editing Gothic architecture (section)

===Grotesques and Labyrinths===
[[File:Grotesque, Selby Abbey (6993387433).jpg|thumb|[[Grotesque]] of [[Selby Abbey]] (14th century)]]
Besides saints and apostles, the exteriors of Gothic churches were also decorated with sculptures of a variety of fabulous and frightening [[Grotesque (architecture)|grotesques]] or monsters. These included the [[chimera (mythology)|chimera]], a mythical hybrid creature which usually had the body of a lion and the head of a goat, and the [[Strix (mythology)|strix]] or stryge, a creature resembling an [[owl]] or [[bat]], which was said to eat human flesh. The strix appeared in classical Roman literature; it was described by the Roman poet [[Ovid]], who was widely read in the Middle Ages, as a large-headed bird with transfixed eyes, rapacious beak, and greyish white wings.<ref name="fasti">Frazer, James George (1933) ed., Ovid, [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0959.phi007.perseus-lat1:6 ''Fasti''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221116155202/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi0959.phi007.perseus-lat1:6 |date=16 November 2022 }} VI. 131–,{{harvnb|Riley|1851|p=216}}, tr.</ref> They were part of the visual message for the illiterate worshippers, symbols of the evil and danger that threatened those who did not follow the teachings of the church.{{sfn|Wenzler|2018|pp=97–99}}

The [[gargoyle]]s, which were added to Notre-Dame in about 1240, had a more practical purpose. They were the rain spouts of the church, designed to divide the torrent of water which poured from the roof after rain, and to project it outwards as far as possible from the buttresses and the walls and windows so that it would not erode the mortar binding the stone. To produce many thin streams rather than a torrent of water, a large number of gargoyles were used, so they were also designed to be a decorative element of the architecture. The rainwater ran from the roof into lead gutters, then down channels on the flying buttresses, then along a channel cut in the back of the gargoyle and out of the mouth away from the church.<ref name="Viollet-le-Duc page 24-26">Viollet-le-Duc, volume 6, page 24-26</ref>

Many of the statues at Notre-Dame, particularly the grotesques, were removed from the façade in the 17th and 18th century, or were destroyed during the [[French Revolution]]. They were replaced with figures in the Gothic style, designed by [[Eugène Viollet-le-Duc]] during the 19th-century restoration.<ref name="Viollet-le-Duc page 24-26" /> Similar figures appear on the other major Gothic churches of France and England.

Another common feature of Gothic cathedrals in France was a [[labyrinth]] or maze on the floor of the nave near the choir, which symbolised the difficult and often complicated journey of a Christian life before attaining paradise. Most labyrinths were removed by the 18th century, but a few, like the one at Amiens Cathedral, have been reconstructed, and the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral still exists essentially in its original form.{{sfn|Wenzler|2018|pp=99–100}}

<gallery widths="180px" heights="140px" perrow="4">
File:ND Amiens - gargouille.JPG|[[Gargoyle]] of Amiens Cathedral (13th century) 
File:Notre Dame HDR.jpg|A [[Strix (mythology)|strix]] at [[Notre-Dame de Paris]] (19th century copy)
File:Labyrinthchartres.jpg|[[Labyrinth]] of Chartres Cathedral (13th century)
File:AmienCathedralLabyrinth.JPG|Labyrinth with Chartres pattern at [[Amiens Cathedral]] 
</gallery>