The Cathedrals of the North
Cathedrals of Britain: North of England and Scotland
Bernadette Fallon
Pen and Sword, 2017
144 pp., $19.95
ISBN: 978 1526 703 842
Reviewed by Brian Welter
Author Bernadette Fallon examines the historical roots of a wide range of cathedrals by weaving together biographies, religion, architecture, and travel. York, Durham, Ripon, and Aberdeen include those covered. The many black and white photos complement her observations. Photos include shots of statues at Ripon by contemporary artist Harold Gosney, York cathedral's beautiful Chapter House glass windows, and the effigies in Sheffield cathedral of the sixteenth-century's Earl George Shrewsbury and his two wives.
Typical of the discussion of these rich histories, the author provides a brief biographical sketch of the Earl, including the following: “He [Shrewsbury] hosted Cardinal Wolsey in the lodge for two weeks, when the cardinal was making his way back to London in disgrace after being arrested for high treason in York”. George Cavendish's first-hand account, illustrating Shrewsbury's graciousness, includes the Earl's welcoming words to the Cardinal. These betray a less than total acceptance of Henry VIII's destruction of the nation's medieval religious heritage: “be of good cheer and fear not, for I will not receive you as a prisoner but as my good Lord, and the King's true and faithful subject”. Such historical references evoke the buildings' ghosts and bygone events. In addition to being religious centers, these cathedrals witnessed much of the nation's political history.
Each chapter's “Curious Facts” section provides light yet memorable reading. A relic of St Giles, housed at Edinburgh's St Giles Cathedral, vanished during the Reformation's violence. The author points out fascinating though easily-missed objects that did survive: “a knight's grave marker from around 1200, a 15th-century headstone and one of the earliest stone carvings of the Edinburgh arms, probably also from the 15th century”. As with all the cathedrals, the author traces St Giles' medieval beginnings before turning to the church's place in Reformation history, and subsequent historical, architectural, and artistic achievements that reflect an enduring Christian culture.
The author balances the sense of religious and architectural loss brought by Henry VIII's plundering with attempts at restoration in later centuries, particularly the nineteenth. Thus, in writing about Wakefield Cathedral's rood screen, Fallon notes:
Because of the destruction of statues and iconography during the Reformation, the Medieval statues that would have stood at the top of the rood are long gone. Today's elaborate gallery and figures on top of the screen were created by J. Ninian Comper, who lived from 1860 to 1964, and show Christ on the cross with the Blessed Virgin and St John the Evangelist.
Cathedrals of Britain shows the distinctively English nature of the restoration towards a more Catholic sensibility, however incomplete that has been. Such painstaking work includes the windows of Bradford Cathedral, designed by William Morris and his pre-Raphaelite colleagues Ford Madox-Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Peter Marshall and Philip Webb: “This was one of their earliest commissions and was originally installed as a single seven-light window in 1863. In the 1950s, it was re-ordered for the cathedral extension as three separate windows, a mammoth jigsaw puzzle involving 30,000 pieces of glass.” Figures depicted in the glass include the Magdalene.
Much of these churches' artwork reflects dimly-remembered British and European history. Bradford Cathedral's windows portray Hungary's thirteenth-century Princess Elizabeth and the earlier Ethelburga of Kent, whose “story ... is told in many cathedrals throughout the north of England, as she was among those responsible for bringing Christianity to the region”.
Such historical details illustrate how much of pre-Reformation Christian history, including from the earliest Christian centuries, still echoes throughout these buildings and their artwork. This in turn shows the nation's once deeply-Christian character – until rather recently, in fact, as testified by the nineteenth-century's enormous contribution to these buildings' beauty. Some of the photos reveal a certain eclecticism, with the original Catholic roots mixed in with more modernist artistic renderings. While St Cuthbert's Shrine at Durham Cathedral includes a statue (head in hand), large candles, a kneeler as might be found at Chartres Cathedral, and a small altar at the back of the tomb, the saint's depiction on a flag resembles neither traditional Orthodox iconography nor any sort of Catholic art. Perhaps the artist or designer admired Picasso.
The glossary at the end includes such technical language as “Misericords,” which Fallon defines as “Tip-up seats designed to let clergy rest during prayers. A ledge under the seat gives support to somebody standing when the seat is turned up.”
Britain's oft-tragic Christian history comes through clearly in this book. Frequent religious upheaval has left an indelible mark on British Christianity, including on its northern cathedrals.
