Massive Fire at Notre Dame cathedral

[OmCheeto]

Not very complicated -- 'Anno 1161' is the expanded version of AD 1161, with the 'Domini' part of the term omitted.

Well, if you read the wiki entry on "York Minster", you'll find that the church now, is not the same church that was built in 627.

York Minster​

The first recorded church on the site was a wooden structure built hurriedly in 627...​

In 741, the church was destroyed in a fire.​

...​

Guessing the other cathedrals had similar histories.

 

[sysprog]

Well, if you read the wiki entry on "York Minster", you'll find that the church now, is not the same church that was built in 627.

York Minster​

The first recorded church on the site was a wooden structure built hurriedly in 627...​

In 741, the church was destroyed in a fire.​

...​

Guessing the other cathedrals had similar histories.

Apparently I misconstrued what you meant by the Anno numbers being complicated -- I agree that the associated histories are rather complicated as to what is reported to have been built when.

 

[BillTre]

Here is a long and very good NY Times article.
It's a forensic look at:

• the timecourse of the fire,
• many details of the firefighting efforts, and
• their (not yet worked out) theories of what happened.

It also has a lot of great graphics (similar to their diagram posted above) and pictures.
It shows:

• how the fire spread,
• what the fire fighters did, and
• specifically why they were afraid that the whole thing would fall down.

 

[BillTre]

Here is another longish NY Times article on the rebuilding of Notre Dame.
In this article, they are looking at how decisions they make about the restoration affect the sound in the building.
They present recordings from different places in models of different acoustic spaces showing the differences in different parts of the space and in other shapes and sizes of rooms.
I found it interesting that in older times, the laypeople area of the cathedral would not have been able to make out the words spoken (but they were in Latin then which most would not have understood anyway (speaking only French)) due to the reverberations.

But wait, there's more:
Here is a thread featuring a David Byrne (talking heads guy) video about the affects of different acoustic spaces on the music preformed in them.

 

[Klystron]

I found it interesting that in older times, the laypeople area of the cathedral would not have been able to make out the words spoken (but they were in Latin then which most would not have understood anyway (speaking only French)) due to the reverberations

Not to trend to far off topic from Notre Dame cathedral, but my Latin teachers described two probable paths for Latin pronunciation. The 'Germanic' school held with hard consonants such that Marcus Cicero sounds like "Markis Kikeroo". The 'Gaulist' held that early French preserved the purist Latin in Europe, a theory supported by some modern linguists. So, French and local patois speakers may have understood more church Latin than English speakers under similar circumstances despite poor acoustics.

As an ex-Catholic I can attest that regular Catholic Mass attendees either read along in their missals during Latin sections, or simply responded to familiar cues to stand, sit and kneel.

After Vatican II symposium in 1962, most Catholic ceremonies were performed in the local vernacular. A major exception to this papal edict, nearly leading to another schism, took place in (Back on topic) France. No doubt reactionary Catholic factions in France seize on the Latin mass and related issues to support or oppose rebuilding funds for the damaged cathedral.