The second volume of the comprehensive monograph on Chartres illuminates the imagery of High Gothic sculpture at the two monumental portal structures of the north and south transepts of the cathedral. This unusually well-preserved visual world features works of the highest artistic quality, spanning the entire Christian cosmos of the Middle Ages: from the famous Creation cycle of the north porch to the exalted figures and events of the Old and New Testaments, culminating in the redemptive inclusion of humanity among the nine angelic hierarchies at the end of the earthly cycle. Many of the previously unexplained mysteries of the portal sculpture are revealed through an examination of the intellectual life in and around Chartres, influenced by the significant philosophical and theological works of the time, as well as the far-reaching ideas of the Chartres philosophers and the mythical.