Cathedral studies: insight or hindsight?

Abstract

Thus far, certainly in English, most engineering history has been based on the lives of engineers or the chronologies of particular enterprises, with the two often woven together. Much of this work, as conventional biography or narrative history, has been well done, in many cases is a good read, and frequently is valuable as a basis for further study. But its preoccupation with who, when and where too often leaves unaddressed questions of how and why. Attempting to understand the intellectual and creative components of engineering's history, especially its early history for which written records are rare or nonexistent, is exceptionally difficult. In this short survey the possibilities of retrospective analysis are discussed, and some of the potential pitfalls are identified by considering the particular case of cathedral building. Over the last twenty or thirty years cathedral studies have generated more publications in the field of retrospective analysis, in this case structural analysis, than possibly any other. Whether or not very much has been learned about the history of the engineering of cathedrals, however, is a good question, and is part of what follows.