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Originally Posted by couch coyote
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Yes, it would. Those medieval stone cutters carved their intials into their work, and sometimes included a statue of themselves in the statuary that displays groups of saints and nobles. So at least some of them were self-immortalized.
Others names have been forgotten, but their work lives on. Permanence often more important to an artist than even his name, but I'm sure many were well-known in their lifetimes, as it was a big deal to be a carver back then.
Once Notre Dame gave the stone cutters their reputation, they were able to go work on other new cathedrals, and make a very good living at it. The artisans were a very small bunch then, just as they are now. Carving stone became a multi-generational family occupation, as the work went on for centuries.
Many of the stone cutters worked on several cathedrals afterward. Notre Dame was the first to use flying buttresses to hold the high walls up, and once they were invented, all of Christian Europe went into building bigger, higher cathedrals.
France has more of them than any other nation, because France had just reclaimed some of its traditional territory from England. Henry VIII had struck a huge blow to Catholicism, so France was eager to show the Pope how Catholic the nation was.
That was partly religious fervor and partly cozying up to the Pope, who had a very large army at his command.
France wanted to deter England's thoughts of taking back what they had just lost to France. With the Pope at his back, the French king was a lot more secure in holding French territory.
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