Scott, R. (2003). The Gothic Enterprise: A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Scott’s detailed history of the Gothic cathedral-building enterprise, including the competitive dynamics among bishops in which height was the primary competitive dimension. The book documents the construction boom that followed Abbot Suger’s Saint-Denis (dedicated 1144), the spread of the style across Sens, Noyon, Senlis, Laon, Notre-Dame de Paris, Chartres, Reims, Amiens, and Beauvais, and the theological and social order the buildings encoded.