When one looks closely at HOW these examples of Medieval Architecture were built one sees, if one uses both open eyes and open mind that these edifices were built with the blood, sweat and tears of lowliest of serfs and peasants who were mostly coerced into labouring NOT for their own benefit by for the benefits of the Religion, the Church and its powerful Hierarchy under the entirely false premise of " God needs another house for his children to worship him in."
I look at those edifices and wonder, how many LIVES did they cost, How many families went hungry BECAUSE their fields and crops went unattended to, Did these poor serfs and peasants get exemptions from paying Tithes to the Church both during and after expending their energies to build these edifices, etc, etc,?
IF these religious Edifices had NOT been built and the labour, etc, was used to better the conditions under which the peoples were living at those times just how far advance would human kind have been by now?

@Triphid Yes that is very true, and generally I see them as monuments to exploitation. The church after all demanded a tithe, one tenth of everything from everyone, and of course it was as always the poorest who had the least opportunities to avoid paying. Then it accepted and demanded gifts on top of that, plus its own property and rents, and its own merchant activities. It was a huge drain on the resources of the time. Just imagine what could have been done with all that wealth, had it been spent on canals, roads, better housing for the poor, harbours, sewers, irrigation and dams, all of which were known and technically possible at the time. ( They did spend a little on hospitals. Putting on a show. ) The catholic church may be a charitable institution, when it has to be, or when it gains credit from doing so, but perhaps no institution has done more to create poverty in the first place.

Though I do not think, as I have been informed, that it is true that, poor peasants, were forced to actually work on building the cathedrals. Most of the work was done by skilled masons, and builders, who were actually part of the church establishment, and usually very highly paid, by the standards of the day. So much so, that membership of the trade guilds, was very carefully controlled and only members of the builders and masons guilds, which were themselves powerful and wealthy, could work on the sites. I have heard that, even unskilled labour on the cathedrals earned one shilling and six pence, increasing with their rank and skill level, which was an undreamed of wage then, a hundred times the earning of a peasant. Cathedral building was the 'oil boom', industry of the day. So much so that there was vast and aggressive competition for the church jobs, and in part it was no doubt the ambition of the powerful and influential masons, within the church establishment, which drove the church building programs.

Health and safety was however as you say quite unknown. And a lot of lives were lost during the building. Indeed it is not unknown for even master masons to die, in falls from, or the collapsing of scaffolding etc. But then no doubt, the church said that, if you died helping to build the church, then you gained a great blessing (sic).

@Fernapple Yes, the design work and dressing of stone etc, was done by Stone Masons and Builders BUT as is always the case, the hard slog and dangerous work was ALWAYS left to and done by the serfs and peasants whose lives were considered far less of a value btw.

Thank you. I'm already aware of that subject and don't understand their fascination. For the sake of architecture we'll overlook oppression and death? Hm. Those are some values the man on the cross might not agree with.

I love church’s / places of worship, some beautiful buildings. I enjoy visiting them and even watching some of the proceedings ( from an anthropology perspective). There is a Buddhist temple in Singapore that is interesting with a complete gold room.

@Canndue I have a complicated relationship with such places. I find them both comfortingly familiar and suffocating. I celebrate human endeavor while simultaneously mourning the needless cost. I leave full of mixed emotions.

@AmyTheBruce interesting. Sounds like your still struggling with doubts. I can honestly say I feel something visiting museums, seeing works of art, but nothing in churches or temples.

@Canndue LOL! No, I am not struggling with any doubts beyond the very reasonable position that if any REAL evidence was shown, I'd take a look.

These are not doubts, but memories and knowledge that FEELS like memory, if you know what I mean. It's like I can feel the weight of history in there (even in newer buildings, because they carry the weight of the traditions that inspired them).