Cathedrals
Gavin Stamp
British Cathedrals Paul Johnson (Weidenfeld £12.50) Another book on cathedrals, written by someone who is not a professional architectural historian. That curious poly math Paul Johnson now follows his British Castles and his many other publications on many other subjects with a book on British cathedrals. And why not, indeed? While many historians are narrowly concerned with their own particular field, the reason able price of this very well illustrated book shows that the publishers are aware that there is a large public for books on architecture which make the subject accessible, readable and popular. And fortunately, this is a good book and a stimulating one.
Naturally Mr Johnson has drawn extensively upon the existing literature on mediaeval architecture; there is no new research here, but some of the descriptions of buildings are fresh and illuminating. So much writing about cathedrals is drily concerned with style. Although this book is chronological in arrangement, the author never forgets the emotional impact of buildings, that what impresses today as it awed the mediaeval pilgrim is the sheer size, complexity and power of our cathedrals. Mr Johnson's reactions may be found too emotional by some: in writing his descriptions he suffered from numerous, 'shocks' from 'sensational effects' of space 'soaring' and crossing piers that 'surge with breath-taking power'.
But the emotional response is surely the right one with cathedral architecture' and Mr Johnson very properly never lets the reader forget why cathedrals were built. They are not with us as incomprehensible legacies from a distant past. and a useful sou rcdof i ncomefrom tourists, but`collective efforts, and the individual sinks to insignificance:in the immensity of their fabrics and the teeming fruitfulness of their long lives. But for all that, faith is an individual emotion, one man's gesture of confidence in his maker; and without the faith of individuals, a few known, most unknown. the • collective process which raised our cathedrals from the dust would not have been set in motion. I salute these faithful Christian forbears.' Architecture cannot be discussed in isolation, and so this book tells us how and why the cathedrals were built and what the monks and clergy did with them.
A further merit of the book is that it is not conventional in its scope. The changes undergone by mediaeval cathedrals are discussed and the contribution of 19th-Century restorers is neither ignored nor contemp tuously dismissed. Less well-known buildings get their due: Beverly Minster, for instance, is discussed as Well as the overpraised York, and I am delighted to find a sympathetic account of that seldom-visited austere masterpiece of early Gothic, Glasgow Cathedral. The upgraded parish churches, like Sheffield, Wakefield, Manchester and Newcastle, are included as are the 18thcentury ones: Birmingham and Derby. And then, very properly, we are brought up to date. with Roman Catholic as well as Anglican cathedrals of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The discussion of modern cathedrals is particularly interesting — and sensible. So many historians have become prisoners of' their own history and feel obliged to accept the zeitgeist and pay respect to the cleliberately discordant and unorthodox mid-20th century contributions to religious architecture. Not so Mr Johnson. He dislikes Coventry and ridicules the absurd Roman Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool — 'Paddy's Wigwam' vli He he wins me over by describing the Anglican Cathedral iirthe same city as 'Britain's greatest 211th-century building', a judgment he can make because he never forgets the true functions of cathedral architecture.
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