OT-For our next trip <g>: Travel: British Cathedrals NY705, NY706, NY707 SPECIAL EDITION
ap.tbo.com
By Sibby Christensen Associated Press Writer
Published: May 4, 2004
(KLP NOTE: Just as a break from politics, the war, and etc... Saw this last night....maybe some of the home schoolers and students that don't have enough history in classes would enjoy it...)
Some people who only get themselves out to church for baptisms, weddings, or funerals go gaga after they see an English Gothic cathedral firsthand.
The towers that soar hundreds of feet, the eerie echo of voices and music, and the aura of ancient monuments, tombs and history can have a beguiling effect. And that's just as their creators - the bishops and the unknown master builders of the years between 1000 and 1500 - intended.
Even someone of a non-Christian faith, or none at all, can be dazzled, and sometimes moved. These huge churches were the medieval equivalent of skyscrapers. They represented prestige and power at a time when church and state were one, and religion was a pre-eminent political force.
Gothic building flowered first in France and Germany beginning around the first millennium, then spread to England. The style was built on the discovery that an arch could sustain more weight and height than a primitive crossbeam (hence "architecture"). For the builders and the church, the ability to build vaulted ceilings, spires and towers was an irresistible metaphor for uplift and reaching for heaven.
The notable thing about the British churches is that so many still stand after being battered both by the dissolution ordered by Henry VIII when he broke with the Church of Rome and by the English Civil War, when the victorious Puritans deemed them far too grand and colorful.
Ironically, in a country where church attendance is now relatively low, the cathedrals are still the hub of civic, social and economic life in the towns they occupy, much as they were when they were established. And they are a magnet for tourism, in large part because of the patina of history and because each seems to have its own personality and features.
Westminster Abbey
You've seen it on television and heard about it all your life. But Westminster Abbey in London is a wholly different experience when you stand under its 100-foot vaulted ceilings yourself. Is it really so big? So noisy and crowded? The answers are yes and yes.
It's 32,000 square feet, crowned with West Front towers that rise above 225 feet. Because of its popularity, it's usually filled with tourists who come to see, not pray. A verger told this writer that a key reason for the admission fee was to regulate the number of people in the Abbey at one time to minimize wear and tear.
The Abbey is unique in that it belongs to the crown, not to a diocese, and it's the scene for coronations, royal weddings and funerals. Most of Britain's rulers are entombed here - among the estimated 3,300 burials within the precincts - and many others are memorialized. It's a virtual who's who of British history.
Like most huge projects of this type, the church took shape over centuries. A Romanesque chapel was built on the site in the 11th century by Edward the Confessor, but its Gothic persona emerged through rebuilding from the 13th to 16th centuries. The West Front towers were designed in Gothic style by Nicholas Hawksmoor in the 18th century.
York Minster
For all its size, York Minster is unforbidding and warm, lit by huge expanses of stained glass and surrounded by a compact town still laid out on a medieval plan, bounded by much of the original Roman-medieval wallworks.
This Yorkshire gem is billed as the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe. Believe it. It's 524 feet long, 245 feet wide, 90 feet high to its vaulted ceilings, and 234 feet high to its lantern tower. The size of the stained glass Great East Window usually is compared to a tennis court.
The Christians have worshipped on the site since the 7th century, but the Minster that survives was built mostly between the 13th and 15th centuries. The 13th century Chapter House contains a fascinating collection of bizarre and humorous carvings, showing fantasy beasts of the imagination and caricatures of real townsmen of the time.
York was once commanded by the Romans, and the Minster was built on the site of a Roman headquarters compound. Several decades ago when structural problems threatened the church, its foundations were rebuilt. In the process, some of the Roman walls and earthworks were discovered and preserved for visitors to see.
Lincoln Cathedral
Whoever chose the site for Lincoln Cathedral had a sense of the dramatic. It sits on a high hill in this Lincolnshire town, and its 271-foot-high crossing tower is visible for miles. To get there, pedestrians walk up via steep paved paths braced by bannister rails.
Its initial construction, in the 11th century, was in stern Norman style. Subsequent alterations and additions in the 14th and 15th centuries give it a distinctively Gothic appearance. Statues of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile commemorate the attendance of the royal couple at the 1280 consecration of the completed east end of the cathedral.
Stained glass windows include the Teaching Window, a tribute to George Boole, the 19th century academic and mathematician whose theories laid the groundwork for computer science.
Wells Cathedral
If one arch is good, more are better. That seems to have been the ingenious idea of the architect for Wells Cathedral, who stacked an inverted second arch atop the first, then topped the set with still another arch, all to support its massive central tower. The resulting "scissors" structure is the signature motif of this church, located in the Somerset town of the same name.
The exterior setting and precincts are memorable for the set of medieval buildings, including the Bishop's Palace, the Vicar's Close and the Cloisters, and the moat, filled with swans who reputedly ring a bell at a gate to be fed.
Salisbury Cathedral
This 13th century cathedral, on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, is the one you've seen in the John Constable paintings. Even without this fortuitous boost to its image, Salisbury Cathedral would still be known for its towering 404-foot spire, the tallest in the country.
Unlike other cathedrals built over many centuries, this one was put up within a generation. As a result its design is tightly unified, with masses of interior Purbeck marble columns.
The cathedral houses what's said to be the oldest working clock in Europe (circa 1386) and one of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta.
Coventry Cathedral
For sheer emotional pull, contemplate Coventry Cathedral. Especially the old one.
The medieval cathedral in this industrial Midlands city still stands, a shell open to the sky and its tower intact. It was firebombed by the Luftwaffe in 1940, and 568 people on the ground were killed.
Today the old 12th century church is still consecrated, with a newer, mid-20th century modern cathedral looking over it.
Workers clearing the bombing rubble found two burned medieval timbers that had fallen in the shape of a cross; it was set up on an altar with an inscription: "Father Forgive." Crosses also were fashioned from medieval nails found in the debris and became the cathedral's symbol of reconciliation. Patches of the stained glass still hang on.
You can still see the tomb and sculpted image of the early 20th century bishop of Coventry, Huyshe Wolcott Yeatman-Biggs; for all time, he holds a replica of the old cathedral in his hands.
AP-ES-05-04-04 0320EDT |
