Johnson, Paul. British
Cathedrals. London: Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1980. Available at: http://www.amazon.com/British-cathedrals-Paul-Johnson/dp/0688036724/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376348246&sr=8-1&keywords=paul+johnson+british+cathedrals
This book is worth every
penny of it.
A lovely picture of
Westminster Abbey, p.7. The vault is 102
feet from the nave floor. This is
“exceptionally high for English Cathedrals.”
Some statements by Mr. Paul
Johnson:
·
“noblest of human artifacts”
·
Cathedrals had a “spiritual purpose”
·
“statements of faith”
·
“certain conception of man’s
relationship to his maker”
·
a society “which acknowledges this
relationship to be the central fact of existence”
·
Cathedra = chair
·
Rhetoricians, philosophers, and judges
spoke from their chairs. Bishops would
soon do likewise
·
Bishops “adopted the magisterial role
from Roman civil courts”
·
St. Chyrsostom used an ambon or “pulpit”
Constantine gave “the Lateran, one of his
palaces…” to the Bishop of Rome as his residence. St. John’s Lateran was built on the site of a
former Roman cavalry barracks.
St. John’s Lateran now has an “aisled nave, 250
feet long by 180 feet wide, supported by 15 green-marbled columns on high
pedestals.” The sanctuary, with an apse,
holds 200 clergy and the “great nave” holds “several thousand layfolk.” The clergy were separated by a “silver screen
on a double row of columns.”
Hagia Sophia was an Orthodox Church instigated by
Emperor Justinian in 532-537 A.D. The following is offered:
·
Vast dome
·
Derived, architecturally, from the
Pantheon in Rome
·
This was “Caesaro-papalism of the
Byzantine monarch and imperial ceremonial in its religious aspect” (Johnson, 9)
·
From every angle, every worshipper,
could see the “mysteries”
The rectangular basilica developed in the
cruciform shape.
Bishops in time were “the source of secular as
well as spiritual authority in the 5th and 6th centuries,
and dispensed justice and administration, as well as divinity, from their cathedrae…An increasingly heriarchal
church was thus stamped on ecclesiastical architecture." A nave-chancel distinction indicated the
clergy-laity distinction.
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Westminster Abbey for the next several pictures |
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St. John's Lateran, Rome  |
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