If we set aside social and economic institutions like the family and work, cathedrals (along with bishops and dioceses) are the oldest organisations to function in England, with records of continuous activity going back to about the year 600.
Nicholas Orme is deservedly famous for his writings on English church history, with a leaning towards the south west where he was a canon in Exeter Cathedral but also demonstrating a deep knowledge of national story lines. He has spread himself widely and deeply and it is always a pleasure to greet a new volume by him, or a new edition of a previous one as in this case.
Starting with a nod to the existence of bishops and their cathedral seats in Roman Britain subsequently collapsing as the empire faded away, Christianity surviving only in the West, Orme masterfully describes an unbroken trail from the replanting of the Church in England by St Augustine and others through to modern times.
But continuity over so many centuries implies change to reflect new environments, both external and internal, and here Orme really comes into his own. He delights in the granular detail of the constantly evolving governances of cathedrals and the reasons for such, as well as the introduction of new liturgies and music that either came along for the ride or caused them, varying over the ages. In another author’s hands this degree of detail could get bogged down in academic language and walls of facts but Orme’s pithy writing style with short and clear sentences makes his mastery easily accessible.
Nowadays it is easy to see cathedrals as static seats of stone for the bishop to care for his diocese but this is a relatively modern concept. Centres of deep scholarship, educational powerhouses, liturgical research laboratories, pilgrimage destinations, Christian nuclei, financial resources, all these and more have risen and fallen in importance over the ages as admirably presented here.
Their institutional function has always been more important than the building until relatively recently, starting with the growth of popular tourism in the Victorian age. The beauty of the architecture has slowly taken precedence in the popular imagination. It is perhaps surprising to learn that the relatively recent introduction of admission charges is nothing new, and was commonplace in one form or another from the first visitors until the 1920s or 1930s.
That is not to say that the magnificence of the structures has not been important, but less for its own sake than to create a deeply spiritual space at the best of times, or a pomp of political or financial power in other periods.
There are plenty of books on the beauty of cathedrals, or how they were built, yet this is one of the very few looking at them as ancient institutions surviving through so many centuries. It is a fine achievement and is highly recommended.
The History of England’s Cathedrals by Nicholas Orme is published by Yale University Press. Douglas Young runs the DevonChurchLand site dedicated to the churches of Devon.
