Great spires designed in the Gothic era continue to dominate the skylines of many European cities even today. With their great height and complex detailing, spies like those of Chartres, Strasbourg, Vienna, and Antwerp, and their more recently completed cousins at Cologne and Ulm, rank among the most fantastic products of the medieval architectural imagination. Despite their prominence, beauty, and obvious expense, however, such spires have attracted surprisingly little systematic scholarly attention. This book presents the first synthetic history of great spires. It traces the development of this major monument type from its pre-Gothic roots through its post-medieval reception, with particular emphasis on the flowering of spire construction in the late Middle Ages. Along the way, it explores the complex layering of religious and political significations in these ambitious projects, arguing that spire design was not just a sideshow in the pageant of Gothic architecture, but one of the main events.