Cathedrals of Britain Cathedrals of Britain - London and the South East.indd 1 31/01/2018 22:06 Cathedrals of Britain - London and the South East.indd 2 31/01/2018 22:07 Cathedrals of Britain London and the South-East Bernadette Fallon Cathedrals of Britain - London and the South East.indd 3 31/01/2018 22:07 First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Pen & Sword History an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd 47 Church Street Barnsley South Yorkshire S70 2AS Copyright © Bernadette Fallon 2018 ISBN 978 1 52670 392 7 The right of Bernadette Fallon to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. Typeset in Ehrhardt by Mac Style Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Pen & Sword Books Limited incorporates the imprints of Atlas, Archaeology, Aviation, Discovery, Family History, Fiction, History, Maritime, Military, Military Classics, Politics, Select, Transport, True Crime, Air World, Frontline Publishing, Leo Cooper, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing, The Praetorian Press, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe Transport, Wharncliffe True Crime and White Owl. For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk Cathedrals of Britain - London and the South East.indd 4 31/01/2018 22:07 Contents Acknowledgements vi Introduction vii Chapter 1 Canterbury Cathedral 1 Chapter 2 St Paul’s 19 Chapter 3 Westminster Abbey 34 Chapter 4 Southwark Cathedral 47 Chapter 5 Westminster Cathedral 63 Chapter 6 Rochester Cathedral 79 Chapter 7 Chichester Cathedral 95 Glossary 111 Further reading 121 Index 122 Cathedrals of Britain - London and the South East.indd 5 31/01/2018 22:07 Acknowledgements A lot of people have been generous with their time and knowledge to help put this book together. Thank you to: Jane Walker and David Lewis at Canterbury Cathedral; Sinead Hanna at Visit Kent; Karen Hart, Mirian Takasugi and Simon Carter at St Paul’s Cathedral; Ruth Miller and Marilyn Carpenter at Southwark Cathedral; Grace Robinson and Christine Reynolds at Westminster Abbey; Anne Marie Micallef, John Daly and Michael Langton at Westminster Cathedral; Lisa Parish and John Bradshaw at Rochester Cathedral; Maria Gordon and Alan Bradford at Chichester Cathedral; Jessica Winkworth at West Sussex; Andrew Clegg at Visit Chichester; Evelina Andrews and Rebecca Lowe at Visit England. Cathedrals of Britain - London and the South East.indd 6 31/01/2018 22:07 Introduction I never weary of great churches. It is my favourite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral. Robert Louis Stevenson Four out of six of the cathedrals in this book were created for God and the Church of Rome, five now answer to the Queen of England. And the seventh isn’t in fact a cathedral at all, though you’ll see why it takes its place among these hallowed buildings. From tiny timber churches that grew into magnificent cathedrals, from a Catholic faith turned Protestant, the history of the cathedrals of Britain is tumultuous, awe-inspiring and splattered with violence. And it tells a fascinating story. The story of religious communities and the secular congregations that grew up around them, the story of power and wealth alongside suffering and poverty, the stories of wars and plagues, of soaring spires and falling towers. The story of entire regions is mapped out in the buildings that were built to serve them, where you can see the faces of local children carved into the very structure. Britain’s incredible cathedrals are mainly legacies from the Middle Ages, a direct and living link with a 1,000-year history. But their foundations go back much earlier to small Saxon churches, priories and monasteries. A few may even have been Roman temples. Before that it’s likely that some were Pagan shrines and sacred places of worship. All long-since destroyed but living on in this magnificent new form. Cathedrals of Britain - London and the South East.indd 7 31/01/2018 22:07 viii Cathedrals of Britain The desire to worship a divine power is not confined to a particular age or set of people. If it were, it would be long gone from us, along with the buildings it inspired. We have always been spiritual beings. We want to find meaning in life. To find wonder in the world around us. To seek greatness that exists outside us. And to find something of the divine nature inside ourselves. In past times, people looked to organised religions to meet those needs, and different cultures created different doctrines to answer them. Today, people look for meaning in many different places. Yes, in organised religions still, but also in many different disciplines such as yoga, meditation and other spiritual pursuits. Not everyone who visits a cathedral today comes to worship, of course. Many come just to stand and stare and admire the magnificent building, to discover the history, to hear the stories, to see the artworks and to listen to the singing. But the practice of worshipping a god has been with us from the beginning of time. Nobody made us worship. We listened willingly to the stories. St Augustine was one of the first to bring those stories to England, back in the 6th century. He was sent by Pope Gregory, who had reportedly seen Anglo-Saxon slaves for sale in the Roman forum. Struck by their fair complexions, he asked where had they come from. When he was told they were ‘Angles’ he is said to have replied, ‘Not Angles, but angels,’ and decided that these people should hear the word of God. Some of them had heard it already, however. Christianity first came to Britain with the Roman Empire. But after its fall at the start of the 5th century, the Saxons came to power. They had little interest in following the Roman ways, replacing Roman stone buildings with their timber ones and speaking their own language, which gradually evolved into English. Most didn’t practise Christianity but worshipped their own Pagan gods. Until Augustine arrived. He landed on the shores of Kent with a group of Benedictine monks in 597. At this time, England was Cathedrals of Britain - London and the South East.indd 8 31/01/2018 22:07 Introduction ix divided into several Saxon kingdoms and Kent came under the rule of King Ethelbert and his Christian queen, Bertha. Ethelbert was wary of Augustine at first, according to Bede, who is the man responsible for almost everything we know about early Christianity through his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written in 731. He was only prepared to meet the missionaries outdoors in case they might try to work some magic on him that he would be more susceptible to inside. But he eventually welcomed Augustine and gave him land in Canterbury to establish a cathedral, which is still the mother church of all England. Ethelbert later converted, as did many thousands of his subjects, prompting the start of the major spread of Christianity throughout the country. In the 6th century also, Irish monks travelled to the north of Britain, spreading Christianity after Saxon invasions in that part of the country destroyed the church established by the Romans. Working across the kingdom of Northumbria, from the isle of Iona and the holy island of Lindisfarne, St Columba and his disciples St Oswald and St Aidan preached from Edinburgh and Lothian right down to the Humber, taking in the counties of Durham and York. From there, their ministry swept across the country. Today the Church of England is still led by the cathedrals of Canterbury in Kent, and York in what was formerly Northumbria. In the early days, Canterbury, under the pope’s influence, followed the Roman calendar, while Northumbria stayed with its founding Celtic Christian tradition, which made for some awkwardness. Like the confusion arising from one church body celebrating two Easters, for example. The Synod of Whitby in 664 debated the issue and everybody agreed to follow the Roman calendar, which gave Canterbury the upper hand, a hand it has never relinquished. This united the church in England. Though with the pope claiming supremacy over his congregations in all matters spiritual, there was inevitably Cathedrals of Britain - London and the South East.indd 9 31/01/2018 22:07