S. G. Platten, ed., (2017) Holy ground: Cathedrals in the twenty-first century. Durham: Sacristy Press. Modern Believing, 59(2), 155-156.[Book review] (original) (raw)
The Antiquaries Journal, 2001
The series in which these two volumes appear is concerned with the liturgical traditions of Judaism and Christianity, as sister (or mother and daughter) religions. Within the two religions, Passover and Easter constitute the most important festivals of the year, and are inextricably linked. The scope which this provides accounts for two volumes-the first concerned with origins and history, and the second with symbolic structuring. In the first volume, the two series editors both provide introductions. Paul Bradshaw stresses the importance of distinguishing between the unitive, rememorative and representational aspects of the development of Holy Week. Lawrence Hoffman provides an introduction which is concerned with Passover and the place of the Haggadah. The early literature has plenty on meals, but little about public prayer. It has been assumed that the Seder was a symposium meal for which the Haggadah as a liturgical script was developed. In fact, Hoffman notes, the Haggadah was oral in origin, and originally came after the meal as a post-prandial discussion. In the course of time it came to be a canonised text placed before the meal. The cultural setting of Passover (and for that matter, the Lord's Supper) is set by Blake Leyerle, with an essay on the meal customs of the Greco-Roman world, since meals had encoded social messages about different degrees of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, boundaries and transactions across boundaries. The evidence reveals (as might be expected) a variety of customs between east and west, public and private, and social class. Joseph Tabory investigates the history of the Passover Seder from the Mishnah to the medieval period. It reveals a change from a sacrificial meal, in which the food was the main event of the evening, into a meal with discussion of the symbolism of the meal, to the food being purely symbolic and eaten in symbolic quantities. Paul Bradshaw turns to the origin of Easter, suggesting that the Quartodeciman custom, far from being an aberration, is earlier than the Sunday celebration of the feast. Given his own warnings elsewhere against positing a single origin, the safer ground might be to posit dual origins in different geographical locations from very early days. This essay is an instructive overview, noting the development of a Pascha to Paschein, ' Hitler, Adolf, and Catholic Church ' ; ' Holocaust and the papacy ' ; ' Nazi Germany and the Vatican ' ; ' Nazi racialism and the Vatican ' ; and ' World War II and the papacy '. Not surprisingly, Italy is particularly well served, but the material is scattered, and there is no heading on Italy (or France or Portugal for that matter) either in the main work or in the index. Without guidance, I wonder if readers will find such articles as those on the ' Miguelite War and papacy ', ' Ralliement ', or ' Vichy France and the Vatican ', or look for information about the Law of Guarantees under ' Papal guarantees, the Law of, '. Apart from entries on every pope, antipope and council regarded by Roman Catholics as oecumenical, the criteria for the selection of articles is unclear. There is nearly two pages on the ' Sword and Hat, Blessed ', but nothing on the papal tiara, for instance, and among religious orders only the Congregation of the Mission, the Franciscans, and the Society of Jesus have articles, the last with another entry on its abolition in . Something has gone wrong under Anastasius ; it was Clement (not Clement ) who canonised Rose of Lima ; the Noble and Palatine Guards (described in the present tense under ' Vatican City ') were disbanded in ; and it seems more likely that Martin 's life was spared
Trinity Inspires: Contemplating the History and Temple of a Young Cathedral
Holy Trinity Church was made Cathedral of the Diocese of Eastern Kowloon in the Province of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (Anglican-Episcopal) on Trinity Sunday 2010. It carries a distinctive history as one of two local churches to realize the vision of indigenization in context. This paper presented at the Seminar organized by the Hong Kong Province to celebrate the Centenary of the Anglican Church in China which was established in 1912. The notion and implementation of the Incarnation of Christ is selected and elaborated with support from the history and design of the Trinity Temple under the leadership of Bishop R.O. Hall. The British philosopher theologian Patrick Sherry from the University of Lancaster was quoted as a philosophical-theological ground of the Trinity Story in the three fold effort: Locating, Relating and Validating. In this paper Incarnation is comprehended as "the determination and course of action to refuse being locked in time and space."
Contradictions of Saint Paul’s Cathedral
The Academic Research Community publication
Saint Paul’s Cathedral is a contradiction. Beautiful and majestic, it combines an almost Catholic shape with a Protestant soul. It is one of the most powerful symbols of England, and a reason for pride for any Londoner. This paper wants to explore the architectural variations of Saint Paul’s, especially before and after the Great Fire in 1666, to unveil the peculiar relationship between the cathedral and the people of London. Although St Paul’s has been a constant for the Londoners, its role in their lives has not always been the same. The progressive change in people’s attitude towards the cathedral went at the same pace as the alteration of the architecture of the building, which mirrored the social, political, and religious changes of the country. From being a central point of commerce and medieval social life during its Norman period and its Gothic style, the cathedral evolved into the highest symbol of religion and power and reached its peak with the design provided by Wren. Lo...
Religion
Much of this thematic issue emerges from work carried out for an AHRC-funded project, Pilgrimage and England's Cathedrals, Past and Present Cathedrals (PEC). In this introduction, we explore the possibilities of developing a new sub-field oriented around exploring the shaping of belief and praxis in and by cathedrals. After noting the renewed popularity of these institutions in England, we provide a brief history of cathedrals within and beyond Europe, highlighting both particular periods of expansion and pilgrimage practices relating to them. We emphasize the significance of cathedrals in juxtaposing 'sacred space' with 'common ground.' This approach is complemented by a focus on how cathedrals both embody and encourage material and liturgical forms of 'replication'-a theme that provides a useful comparative approach for historians and ethnographers alike. Potential for future research is also briefly discussed.
The Antiquaries Journal, vol. 86, pp 110-30., 2006
The church of St Bartholomew the Great in West Smithfield is not generally thought of as a building of major importance, probably because the plan of its presbytery seems to suggest that it was a rather outmoded imitation of Norwich Cathedral. The first part of this paper examines the basis for such an assumption and offers an explanation for the similarities between the presbyteries of the two buildings. Affiliations between the two institutions are placed in the wider context of the aspirations of the London episcopate in the decades either side of 1100. Smithfield emerges as an extraordinary building, highly untypical of contemporary Augustinian architecture. The twelfth-century foundation narrative of Smithfield implies that, while in building, the church struck onlookers as astonishingly innovative. Taken at face value, this is puzzling, since most of the elements of its design had been common architectural currency for a generation or more. This apparently paradoxical situation is explored in the second part of the paper and the basis for Smithfield's perceived modernity while under construction very tentatively reconstructed. Anglo-Norman London has all but disappeared. Remarkably, even though the buildings surrounding it in West Smithfield have been destroyed and replaced time and again, the Romanesque presbytery of the priory church of St Bartholomew's is still standing. A precious vestige on the dense urban palimpsest that is London's built history, it is cherished as a cultural landmark and as a place of worship. As an example of English Romanesque architecture, however, it cannot be said to enjoy a place among the major monuments of the age. When it does appear in the scholarly literature, it is almost invariably compared with the earlier and better-preserved cathedral church at Norwich. Norwich and Smithfield are normally discussed together in connection with just one architectural feature, namely the similarity in plan of their distinctive radiating chapels. ä1 Norwich, the older of the two foundations by some twenty-seven years, was the product of an extraordinarily innovative period of church building in England of the last quarter of the eleventh century. Herein, perhaps, lies the explanation for Smithfield's modest reputation in architectural terms. Among scholars, the tacit consensus seems always to have been that Smithfield was imitative and old fashioned, mindlessly following a successful formula established almost thirty years earlier at Norwich.
Time, Space, and Mass: The Lay Experience of Medieval Cathedrals
The Lay Experience of the Medieval Cathedral: Proceedings of the Ecclesiological Society Conference 3, London Conference, 2021, 2023
It a commonplace that the liturgical and devotional life of medieval cathedral chapters followed established daily, weekly, and yearly cycles, similar to those of any medieval monastery or collegiate church. What is far less well understood, however, is the impact of this sacred chronology on the lay experience of cathedral visiting. This paper argues that lay presences in the cathedral were in fact not only highly seasonal in the year, but that activities were concentrated around particular times of day, and that at many later medieval cathedrals 'opening hours' were carefully regulated to manage the lay experience within the church space. Individual case studies from Durham and Canterbury show how this understanding of seasonality enhances our ability to reconstruct lay experiences of cathedrals.
The liturgical development of the cathedrals of the church of Englad 1980 to present day
2006
The contention of this thesis is that the development of liturgy in the Cathedrals of the Church of England over the last 25 years gives a unique insight and illustration of the way in which worship has developed within Anglicanism in this country. At its beginning, the theological context of this study is set: specific examination of cathedral identity and mission leads to a number of questions about the nature and purpose of cathedrals: particular reference is made to recent reports concerning the future of cathedral ministry. There follows a detailed exploration of liturgical development throughout the Church of England, concentrating on the Church of England's response to international liturgical developments, trends in language, and the production of prayer books. In the central chapter of the thesis, considerable time is spent examining specific changes of emphasis in the liturgical life of cathedrals. Special treatment is given to attempts to make worship accessible; fres...
Recent Discoveries at All Saints Cathedral, Wakefield, West Yorkshire
The archaeological investigations conducted in advance of reordering the nave for Wakefield Cathedral Chapter's 'Project 2013' provide the first scientific dating evidence to support the suspected Anglo-Saxon origins of the church although no corresponding building remains were identified. Additionally, the south side of a probable Norman church was recorded beneath the columns of the south arcade but much of the north side had probably been removed during late 19th-century renovations. It is suggested that the Norman church was both smaller and of a simpler form than previously thought. Masons' marks on the stonework of the 14th-century arcades indicate the work of 22 individuals and suggest that the aisles were either constructed at slightly different times or by teams of stonemasons. The majority of the burials beneath the nave were Georgian and Victorian in date and were consistent with high-status intramural burials of the period.