The exact form of these labyrinths varies but the principle is always the same. The word labyrinth is misleading. It is not to be understood in its modern sense as a synonym of a maze (a three dimensional puzzle with choices to make, a single right route from start to finish and dead ends to confound you) or as a complicated cluster of streets or paths with no sense to their organisation. You cannot get lost in an authentic labyrinth because it is flat and unicursal and has only one path leading from the circumference to the centre. There are no junctions; no choices to make; and no walls or hedges to stop you cheating.
Clearly, a labyrinth was not placed in a great church such as Chartres for frivolous reasons, so what is it doing there? The short answer is we don’t know. Mystery surrounds the origin and purpose of medieval labyrinths. Much research and even more speculation has gone into deciphering these strange patterns and few definite conclusions can be drawn.
Medieval labyrinths have been recreated, like this one in St Omer, as well as in Amiens, and St Quentin (all in northeast France), Guingamp in Brittany and Selestat in Alsace.