English Cathedrals Research Articles

You don't have to go to church to be a good Christian: the implicit religion of the cathedral carol service congregation

The notion that you don't have to go to church to be a good Christian is accepted as an indicator of the form of implicit religiosity espoused by those who (in Bailey's analysis) say that they “believe in Christianity.” The present paper builds on the findings of a recently published survey of rural Anglican churchgoers celebrating harvest which suggested that de-institutionalised implicit religion may be superseding commitment to conventional explicit religious attendance. The responses of 1081 people who attended Christmas carol services in two English cathedrals in 2009 and 2010 are analysed. The findings of the previous paper that implicit religiosity is more prevalent among younger people and among those who attend church less frequently are replicated. Evidence is also found that women are more inclined to this view than men and that those who have a loose historical connection through baptism are more likely to endorse it than those with either no historical connections or stronger ones. Suggestions are made for further research.

CATHEDRALS, LAUDIANISM, AND THE BRITISH CHURCHES

ABSTRACTRecent research has argued that English cathedrals, particularly but not exclusively Westminster Abbey, formed a ‘liturgical fifth column’ in the church and were the Trojan horse by which Laudianism – the ceremonial, clericalist, anti-Calvinist policies associated with Charles I and William Laud in the 1620s and 1630s – was introduced into the English church. This article re-examines links between cathedrals and Laudianism, not just in England, but also in the associated Protestant state churches of Charles's other realms: Ireland and Scotland. Laudian divines emphasized cathedrals as liturgical showcases, ‘mother churches’ which their ‘daughters’, the parish churches, should follow in the policy of the ‘beauty of holiness’, particularly the placing, railing of, and reverence to the Laudian altar. However, cathedrals are shown to be more diverse than historians have generally allowed, and Laudian policies are shown to have been grafted on to cathedrals, rather than emerging from them. Caroline cathedrals were more the victims of Laudianism than its midwives.

The care of the royal tombs in english cathedrals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the case of the effigy of King John at Worcester

AbstractThe medieval history of the celebrated tomb of King John at Worcester is now well known. The works of Charles Alfred Stothard at the beginning of the nineteenth century, of William St John Hope in the early years of the twentieth century, and that of Jane Martindale at the end of that century, are highlights along the road of our understanding of the royal effigy in its medieval context. But all the while this work of comprehension was going on, those who had a duty of care over the tomb were engaged in a battle to offload that responsibility. The authorities at Worcester were not alone in wondering who should carry the burden of caring for royal monuments in English cathedrals. As early as 1841, the question of the care of royal tombs in Westminster Abbey had come under Parliamentary scrutiny. The deans and chapters at Canterbury and at Gloucester also sought government subvention for the care of the royal tombs in their cathedrals. The history of this debate about the care of royal sepulchral monuments forms the wider framework for the main theme of this article, which is an examination in detail of the ways in which King John’s tomb at Worcester was treated between 1872 and 1930. It reveals a remarkable story in which a catalogue of disastrous decisions came to give us the tomb and effigy as we have them today. The article concludes with a short discussion of the introduction of the 1990 Care of Cathedrals Measure which established the structures that currently exist (with subsequent amendments) for the preservation of Anglican cathedral churches in use.

Pictures and Popery: Art and Religion in England, 1660–1760 (review)

Pictures and Popery: Art and Religion in England, 1660-1760. By Clare Haynes. (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company. 2006. Pp. xii, 185. $99.95.) This excellent, accessibly written, and carefully evidenced study addresses the intriguing and long-neglected issue of religious and (in a deliberately more limited way) sculpture in England after the Reformation. The received notion has always been that antipapist iconoclasm and widely disseminated propaganda against imagery in Protestant churches, along with well-publicized laments from artists about the lack of native patronage for religious paintings, meant that there was indeed no pictorial work to speak of in churches in this period. The fact that wealthy and educated aristocrats who had undertaken the Grand Tour bought works of religious art by Italian artists has been explained by invoking the prevailing aesthetic hierarchy that-following the model taught by the French Academy and adopted in England-placed painting (i.e., subjects inspiring moral virtue whether from classical history or the Bible) as far superior to other genres. Few have asked what, in fact, the owners of these paintings-whether situated in private chapels or in grand saloons-understood these paintings to signify or how they reconciled their imagery with the dictates of Protestant teaching. Moreover, anyone who regularly explores English cathedrals and parish churches can see for themselves a remarkable number of religious paintings from this period survive, not to mention stained glass and other church furnishings. Furthermore exhibition catalogues of the Royal Academy in London (founded in 1768-outside this book's chronological limits) furnish many more examples of religious art than might popularly have been supposed. Haynes draws out the complexities and nuances of these issues. Her proposition that religion in England was not all of the plainness of Puritanism, the fervor and political dominance of which tends to overshadow our understanding of this period, provides the premise for chapters that deal specifically with Grand Tour education, the interpretation of Catholic pictures in England with particular reference to Raphael's cartoons (commissioned by Pope Leo X and purchased by Charles I-now on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum from the Royal Collection), the collecting of Catholic pictures with particular attention to Holkham Hall and Horace Walpole's sermon of 1752, and the dispute over the positioning of an image of St. …

English Cathedrals: A History

English Cathedrals: A History

The Gothic Enterprise:A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral (review)

Reviewed by: The Gothic Enterprise:A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral Norbert Nußbaum The Gothic Enterprise: A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral. By Robert A. Scott. (Berkeley: University of California Press. 2003. Pp. xiv, 292.) On the surface, this book is a study about the great sacred structures of the High Middle Ages and the causes and circumstances of their creation. But anyone who reads it carefully will soon understand the actual topic paramount in Scott's distinctive perspective. The author is a social scientist who has discovered for himself the sheer fascination of the English cathedrals, reporting here in a very individual way about that voyage of discovery. At the core of this biographical process is Salisbury Cathedral, and it stands at the study's center. And because the Stonehenge megaliths are but a few miles away, at the book's end Scott juxtaposes two monuments as the creations in stone of two differing historical collectives. In this many-faceted and compelling study, he attempts to explore the motives and circumstances of existence of these two collectives. The book begins and ends with a sense of wonderment about the artifacts which first awakened the interest of scholars in the Gothic period some 250 years ago. Scott includes himself in the ranks of these discoverers of wonder in knowledgeable awe of Gothic artistry. He is in search of a kind of holistic understanding of the phenomenon. So he is not only interested in the construction of the great churches between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, and their fuller meaning. The buildings are also viewed as examples reflecting the ambition and productivity of a medieval feudal society whose cultural habitus was significantly stamped by a belief in the world beyond, cultic practices, magical thought, thinking in symbols and images, and the multiple constraints of a way of life constantly at existential risk. Scott has worked through an abundance of interdisciplinary literature in order to present as many varied aspects of his topic as possible, and his investigative curiosity carries him into the furthest nooks of medieval studies. This is further enriched by frequent consultation of standard works of diverse neighboring disciplines, and these lead to surprising and illuminating insights. However, the selection suffers from an essential limitation in that except for two studies, all the literature he cites is in English, or a work in English translation. The consequence is that Scott can report authoritatively on recent work in social history and the history of mentality, where Anglo-American research has been at the leading edge of inquiry, but when it comes to questions that require a better knowledge of Continental European discourse, his treatment remains inadequate. What I have in mind are, for example, the highly controversial debates, relativizing older theses, on the possibilities for a philosophical-theological interpretation of the medieval church as a model for heaven. Or inquiry on sacred space as a space for social and spiritual acts, or studies on the material economy and technology of the great stonemason workshops. A further result of his selective approach is the heavy focus on a specific geographical area, namely England. This tilt is not necessarily inimical to a correct total cultural-historical portrait, but that rather Anglo-centric picture is difficult to project and transpose onto the continent without certain gaps and fractures. [End Page 139] One may also wonder about the general utility of the findings. Scott investigates several of the fundamental questions on the position, function, and collective frame for action of the clerics almost exclusively in reference to the monastic vita communis of the early medieval period and High Middle Ages – being aware and correctly pointing out that some English cathedrals were under the control of monastic communities. But that was by no means the rule when viewed from a Continental vantage. There the clerical communities of the cathedral chapters were in the quickening process of dissolution precisely at the same time the first Gothic construction projects were launched. So the model of the vita communis cannot be regarded as a spiritual correlate of the community enterprise of the "cathedral." The specific weight given various topics here springs from a distinct discursive...

Costs and Benefits: The Impact of Cathedral Tourism in England

England has 42 Anglican cathedrals, many of which are major visitor attractions and which together welcome around 10 million visitors per year. Cathedrals generate substantial local economic benefits of some £150 million per annum within their urban economies and employ 1885 people on a full-time basis. Cathedral visitors spend approximately £30 a day on a visit to a cathedral city, but unfortunately very little of this revenue is received by the cathedral as donations. This short paper, which forms part of a larger research project examining different aspects of religious tourism, looks at the economic significance of English cathedrals within their urban contexts, arguing that the rising cost of conserving and maintaining the fabric of cathedrals is likely to result in increased need to raise revenue from visitors.

Vicars choral at English cathedrals. Cantate domino. History, architecture and archaeology. Edited by Richard Hall and David Stocker. Pp. viii+215 incl. 161 figs. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2005. £50. 1 84217 153 4

<i>Vicars choral at English cathedrals. Cantate domino</i>. <i>History, architecture and archaeology</i>. Edited by Richard Hall and David Stocker. Pp. viii+215 incl. 161 figs. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2005. £50. 1 84217 153 4

Sermons in Stone: Cumbria

John Ruskin’s comment that English Cathedrals are ‘Sermons in Stone’ applies equally well to parish churches and other ancient religious sites. This article explores the rich Christian heritage of Cumbria and seeks to encourage British Christians to recognize the rich cultural treasures that are all around them in the belief that an awakened sense of Christian history will help revive British Christianity by providing an evangelical resource that has great potential in terms of cultural tourism.

Listener perception of and acoustic differences between girl and boy choristers in an English cathedral choir

For centuries, boy choristers have been singing the top (treble) line in English cathedrals. Girl choristers were first admitted in 1991, and there is a long-running debate as to whether they can carry out this role appropriately. This paper will detail the results from two listening experiments designed to establish whether or not listeners can tell the difference between girl and boy choristers singing the top line in cathedral music. In the first experiment, 189 listeners took part and on average they were able to tell the difference 60% of the time; this was statistically significant over chance. The results suggested that repertoire played a significant part in this ability, and the second experiment was carried out in which the boys and girls sang the same repertoire. Nearly 170 listeners have completed this experiment and, on average, they are making guesses (correct 52% of the time). The paper will discuss the acoustic differences between the stimuli with respect to the singing of boy and girl choristers, while placing the discussion in the context of the English cathedral tradition.

St. Paul's: the Cathedral Church of London, 604-2004

St Paul's is unique among English cathedrals for its association with the richest city in the realm and with the secular and political life of the capital. At the same time it has been a lively site of devotion, often innovative in liturgy, music, and decoration, and sometimes at the heart of conflict between opposing views. The story of St Paul's offers many insights into the history of England as a whole and into the part played by religion in both private and public life. This magnificent book--the first comprehensive history of St Paul's Cathedral in thirty years--opens with a series of historical overviews of the cathedral, of the people associated with it, and of its religious, social, and political significance, from its foundation to the present. Additional essays investigate various topics related to the successive cathedrals on the site, and many well-chosen illustrations underline these themes and present the splendid features of the cathedral as it is today.

The Quest for One's Own Front Door: Housing the Vicars Choral at the English Cathedrals

Recent work at all nine colleges of vicars choral at England's medieval cathedrals is reviewed. At York, the vicars' buildings developed from thirteenth-century, quasi-monastic structures to a close of individual houses, with individual front doors, by c.1400, and a search is mounted for similar sequences of development at the other eight colleges. At Lincoln, a hitherto misunderstood vicarial building is reconstructed and interpreted as a probable early communal dormitory, but at most other colleges, the documentary and archaeological sources provide only hints that the individual houses of the late Middle Ages were preceded by earlier types of dwelling. Nevertheless, it is suggested that the surviving collegiate houses at Chichester, Hereford and Wells, might have replaced earlier, short-lived, building types. Finally it is proposed that changing building types reflect, quite precisely, both the developing demarcation between different grades of vicar within cathedral hierarchies, and the rising status of the most senior members of those hierarchies who latterly became known as 'vicars choral'.

The Quest for One's Own Front Door: Housing the Vicars Choral at the English Cathedrals

The Quest for One's Own Front Door: Housing the Vicars Choral at the English Cathedrals

The Will and Probate Inventory of John Holmes (d 1629): Instrumental Music at Salisbury and Winchester Cathedrals Revisited

The recent discovery of probate material relating to John Holmes (d 1629), a provincial Jacobean cathedral organist and composer, provides three valuable references to the use of musical instruments at Salisbury Cathedral before the Civil War. These prove that the Choristers' House, where Holmes lived, contained in 1629 a consort of viols, with other (unspecified) instruments, four virginals and an organ. This evidence, though fragmentary and circumstantial, may be read in the context of what is known about the practice of instrumental music in other English cathedrals. The references can then be used to support three generally accepted theses: first, that viols were used for teaching purposes (and possibly also in a flourishing adult musical circle centred on Salisbury Cathedral, for which there is strong circumstantial evidence), rather than in liturgical contexts; second, that sackbutts and cornetts most probably doubled the voices in the choir; and third, that the organ remained the principal instrument of choral accompaniment even in the first decade of the Restoration period. Holmes had previously served as organist and master of the choristers at Winchester Cathedral, where there is also circumstantial evidence of viol-teaching activity since 1618, where wind instruments were employed (probably liturgically) in the sixteenth century, and where Holmes may have composed at least one piece of instrumental consort music, most probably for teaching purposes.

'Laudianism' in Scotland? St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, 1633-39: A Reappraisal

The liturgical and sacramental policies of the 1630s had a direct impact upon the architecture and furnishings of English cathedrals and parish churches. Archbishop Laud, in particular, was associated with the restoration of altars, which meant the rearrangement of church interiors and the removal of pews so that communion tables could be erected at the east end of the church. There was also a concerted effort to take down seating galleries and, externally, to remove buildings and shops which encroached upon the churchyard or abutted the church. The impact of these religious policies on the architecture and the literature of the period has been the subject of detailed examination by historians such as Peter Lake, Stanford Lehmberg and John Newman. Yet the authorship of these policies remains hotly contested, with some historians seeing them as deriving directly from the king, while others have argued that the responsibility lies firmly with Archbishop William Laud. Nonetheless ‘Laudian’ provides a convenient shorthand term when discussing these differing ecclesiological strands of the period.

The Orientation of Churches: Some New Evidence

We hypothesized that the important early second millennium churches in England may have been aligned using a magnetic compass. If true, the building orientations would enable the post sixteenth-century geomagnetic observatory records to be extended back several hundred years. Directional data were collected from 143 sites, most of which were constructed between the mid-eleventh and late twelfth centuries, including all of the old English cathedrals and many large church buildings in use today, as well as numerous ruined monastic sites. However, processing the data revealed that the compass was not used to align the buildings. Attempting to explain the data, we exhumed Wordsworth's suggestion that church orientation was governed by the sun's position as it rose above the horizon on the feast day of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. The data obtained in the present study suggest that Wordsworth's basic hypothesis might hold for as many as 43 per cent of the churches if sunrise and sunset positions are considered; sun-based Easter Day and equinoctial day orientations could explain a significant majority of the remaining sites.

BRITAIN'S IMPERIAL ECONOMY

The Oxford History of the British Empire. Editor-in-Chief, Wm. Roger Louis.Volume I: The Origins of Empire. British Overseas Enterprise to the Close of the Seventeenth Century. Edited by Nicholas Canny. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. xxx, 553.Volume II: The Eighteenth Century. Edited by P. J. Marshall. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. xxi, 639.Volume III: The Nineteenth Century. Edited by Andrew Porter. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xxii, 774.Volume IV: The Twentieth Century. Edited by Judith M. Brown and Wm. Roger Louis. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xxvi, 773.Volume V: Historiography. Edited by Robin W. Winks. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xxiv, 731.The historiography of the British empire has long exuded a somewhat musty air, like a relict of glory preserved in faded regimental standards, hanging forlornly in English cathedrals or expressed in the overblown Edwardian baroque of the imperial capital. Even the names of the leading academic posts—such as the Rhodes professorship of Imperial History—now seem retrograde. The initiative has clearly moved elsewhere: as the empire's former subjects would scarcely wish to see their history written through the eyes and institutions of the colonizer, the history of India or Australia, Jamaica or Canada have forsaken the view from Whitehall and the governor's mansion, to become national history.

English Cathedrals and Civic Rituals1

English Cathedrals and Civic Rituals1

Letting the Building Speak—An Interview with Sir Bernard Feilden

The Journal's patron reminisces about his professional life and interests, which became increasingly international following his much-publicised work on three English cathedrals, most notably York Minster. He reflects on the opportunities that have come his way, in England and abroad, revealing a special feeling for India, which had its beginnings during his wartime service.

:Three English Cathedrals: Norwich, Lincoln, Wells

:<i>Three English Cathedrals: Norwich, Lincoln, Wells</i>