The Gothic Churches represent the pinnacle of a style. 

One which started out as the small, simple shapes and exteriors of Early Christian Churches, to the struggle for human symbology within the churches, to finally being able to use the whole exterior and interior as multi image symbology to various aspects of the religion.

They were an attempt to again provide a relatively uneducated population with a highly ornate center, filled with sculptural and graphic images, telling stories from the bible and done in a scale to impress.

This was done before in Rome, in their ornate structures, their oversized statues of the generals, in Persia, Greece, Egypt in the various large, impressive temples and oversized sculptures of the 'Gods'.

Compared to an Egyptian temple the Gothic Churches were small, but compared to any of the temples or churches built by previous societies, these structures were highly ornate and symbolic in nature.

Ever surface inside and out was taken as a means of expressing a unified theme or redemption, a 'better and more glorious life to come', the glory of heaven, etc.

Once you got through the doors the scale of the height to width of the structure gave the parishioner a sense of 'flying' and forced the viewer to look up to an ornate 'light' ceiling.

It symbolically 'lifted the viewer' upwards to the symbols of 'heaven' at the ceiling, providing the experience of why you would follow the teachings and everyone would be looking down a long narrow hall towards the end of that hall where the ceremony would take place.

So the viewer was forced again to look towards 'how' they would achieve the entrance into 'heaven'

The highest and brightest part of the structure was under the altar, so you get the feeling of being swept ahead and up while being given the teachings and sacrament.

A very powerful 'machine' in which each part of the design plays a function in the religious experience.

This is the type of Church Structure that was conceived possible in the original icon debate, in which the uneducated masses would experience in a powerful way the message of the 'afterlife' and the 'road to that after life'