TRACING ANTHROPOLOGICAL CHANGE THROUGH WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL

Giulia Bocaniala [ Email ] [ LinkedIn ]

This essay explores the development of cathedrals historically, from their conception to the present day, through analysis of their material, economic and social contexts. By anchoring each section with comparison to the modern case study of Westminster cathedral, fluidity and change are demonstrable in areas relating to the building, maintenance, financing and social use of cathedrals. Instances of this include the switch from stone to brick as a primary building material, the financing of cathedrals through public donations which are contemporarily often heritage preservation oriented, rather than religiously motivated, as has been the case in the past. On a social level, tourism is one of the principal means of public engagement, differing from previous centuries in which cathedrals were solely places of pilgrimage and religious devotion. This provides a certain degree of evidence for secularisation, though cathedrals remain places that are fundamentally religious.

The date is the 14th of February 2024 and I enter Westminster Cathedral at precisely 5:30pm as the evening mass begins. It’s not only Ash Wednesday but also Valentine’s Day, creating a sense of solemnity and romance. This seems highly appropriate to the enrapturing, yet imposing, appearance of the place. It’s sensorial bombardment – immense in both size and décor, dimly lit by candles and chandeliers, with incense and choral music saturating the atmosphere. I’m standing at the back because it’s full to the brim, but I’m perfectly content. It gives me a great vantage of the mosaic-laden cathedral and allows me to fully witness the multitude of people gathering to participate in the mass. Norman Shaw, a renowned British architect, claimed that it is ‘beyond all doubt the finest church for centuries’, which seems plausible to me (Stamp, 1998, p.11). After the service is finished, people file out, all identifiable by the ashen crosses on their foreheads, geared up for the Lenten season that anticipates Easter.

In the lives of the religious, buildings often hold a deeply significant role for several reasons. Temples, mosques and churches are seen not only as a ‘religious anchor’ but also ‘a social and civic one’, meaning that alongside facilitating corporate worship and ‘the experience of the holy’ they are important for maintaining social relations and creating a sense of identity (Carroll, 2018 p.73, 75). However, the fact that they seem to be ontologically distinct from buildings that do not have this transcendental and ‘holy’ aspect does not mean they are void of the material, economic and social contexts that pertain to them. In this essay, I will be contrasting analyses of the materiality, building, maintenance, and functions of cathedrals historically with the modern case study of Westminster cathedral, attempting to identify the anthropological shifts that may help us better understand the state of the modern religious built environment. Although ‘historians [as well as anthropologists] have ‘rather neglected churches’, instead tending to focus on ‘the Modern Movement in public and private housing’, this does not mean that there is nothing noteworthy or anthropologically interesting on the topic (Stamp, 1998, p.9). After all, ‘some of the most impressive and rewarding of modern buildings are churches (and cathedrals)’ (p.11).

STONE IS NOT JUST STONE – a history of the materiality of cathedrals

Of all the architectural endeavours of the last two millennia, cathedrals are high up on the list of difficulty, ambition, and devotion to the task. These grandiose projects would take generations to finish, meaning they ‘required a willingness to be part of a process that was larger than oneself’ (Durham Castle and Cathedral website). The difficulty of manoeuvring, sculpting and carving stone, which was the material primarily in use, made it an arduous process which necessitated a lot of skill. According to a stonemason for St Paul’s Cathedral, the detail in carvings found on many British cathedrals demonstrates the immense effort and ‘pride’ that masons would have had for their labours (St Paul's Cathedral YouTube Channel, 2012). In light of this, theories of materiality relating to the ecology of materials and their significance situated in webs of meaning and social contexts have evident application (Ingold, 2012). We can tangibly observe the transformation of a ‘stone’ which could be considered ‘brute materiality’ and ‘a formless lump of matter’ into something that has a profound social and historical significance by way of its inclusion in the meshwork of a cathedral (p.431). 'Meshwork' is especially applicable through Ingold's emphasis on fluidity – cathedrals, being buildings that span (or are intended to span) centuries undergo constant change as degradation and renovation occur. They also become part of a wider structure that is a landmark of heritage, and a religion that is important to the lives of a third of the world’s population (Dyvik, 2023). Through this, we can observe that the historic practice of cathedral building is a facet of the built environment that fundamentally transforms material into meaningful matter, in a visual and often symbolic manner. Churches have even been built in ways to evoke the idea of ‘hands folded in prayer’ (Stamp, 1998, p.15).

As well as this, the evidence of devoted labour and patience needed for the task of constructing these monuments, in Marxian notions, appears as an antithesis to the mass production of large-scale building projects that look like sterile replicas of each other – something we see frequently in modern metropolises in the wake of industrialisation. Although this is largely due to the ease of erecting such large structures with modern machinery and their practical necessity with the rise of capitalist economies that require office buildings, one can’t help but notice the deep contrast between the two types of buildings. Cathedrals in the Middle Ages, since they were primarily constructed by monks (Dickerson, 1967p. 606), may be idealistically seen as examples of unalienated labour, in which the hands that participated in building were committed to the end itself rather than as a means of livelihood in the confines of wage slavery. Instead, they may have been invested in the completion of a project they believed served a greater purpose – to nourish the faith of those in the generations to come. That’s not to say it was all sunshine and rainbows – it was clearly taxing labour, but it was probably more rewarding due to the outcome, and even perhaps ‘something that ought to be envied rather than pitied’ (p. 607).

BRICK IS NOT JUST BRICK – Westminster MATERIALITY

In contrast with the centuries long that some of the medieval cathedrals took, Westminster took just under a decade – beginning in 1895 and completed in 1903 (Westminster Cathedral website, 2024). This demonstrates a shift in the materiality – John Bentley, the architect, opted to use bricks (over 12.5 million of them) in an early Christian, Neo-Byzantine style. This was not only to avoid a sense of competition with the Gothic Westminster abbey down the road and the Baroque-style St Paul’s cathedral, but also because it was quicker. Preference for speed related to the fact Catholics were eager to have a sense of identity within the built environment restored after centuries of suppression by the English state (Guild of Saint John Southworth; Historic England, 2017). Using a framework of the ecology of materials previously applied to stone, bricks can also be linked into the wider meshwork of cathedral history, as it provides evidence of innovation and change. Bricks facilitate speedy and easy movement and are indicative of the reality that new materials have made the construction of sturdy, yet still aesthetically formidable buildings possible in much shorter amounts of time. This is in much the same way that steel, concrete and other common building materials have revolutionised the modern built environment and enabled the building of fast, reliable infrastructure (Archambault, 2018). While not an officially recognised cathedral, a interesting case study for innovation in the field of cathedral building would be the Cathedral de Justo in Madrid – a monument of hard work made almost solely by a former monk named Justo Gallego Martinez over the span of 60 years, using mainly recycled materials from other buildings, such as ‘concrete’, ‘broken tiles and discarded bricks’ (Bremner, 2022). Official cathedrals might not foreseeably be made of recycled materials anytime soon, but the outcomes of this project provide an exciting prospect for the future of the built environment, in so far as the popularity of repurposed material will hopefully grow amidst rising concerns for the environment.

Materially speaking, Westminster Cathedral could also be considered a livelier constituent of the built environment due to the fact it is still a work in progress. When it was opened in 1910, it was not populated by the dazzling mosaics that inhabit its many chapels and ceilings today. Over the decades, mosaics have been incrementally added, according to a priest at the cathedral, with the hope that ‘each generation has something to contribute’ (Shalom World, 2023). However, it has been an area of contention and evolution, as there has been occasional displeasure at the quality of some of the work done, even to the extent that it ‘provoked protest’ (Stamp, 2016). The most comical instance of this would be the monkey that dwelt in one of the chapels due to the martyr, St Thomas Moore, having a pet monkey that he was ‘particularly fond of’ (Londonist, 2017). It was removed, most likely because it was regarded as an ‘inappropriate distraction’ but this decision was criticised by the Catholic community, as there was no public consultation. While not the most serious example, the importance of the aesthetic quality of materiality within cathedrals is highlighted, as it often invokes the decries and complaints of the public if it is substandard. This has some parallels to the Hopewell rail project in Thailand, which caused public disdain due to the shabby quality (Elinoff, 2017). This case has limited applicability due to the backdrop of political corruption which is not contextually evident in the case of Westminster cathedral but can be applied to the historic practice of cathedral financing at large.

ECONOMICS – THE PAST AND PRESENT

An analysis of around 80 cathedrals built in the Middle Ages found that ‘the bishops and cathedral chapters responsible for paying the bills drew on every imaginable source of funds they could identify’ (Scott, 2011). Anything from donations given by popes, kings and bishops, tithes from the faithful, sales of indulgences, profits from fairs associated with major feast days, relic tours – the list goes on. This indicates large scale commercial activity, but also demonstrates the dubious capitalisation of religious devotion that is a common stereotype of the Middle Ages. In particular, the exchange of money for indulgences granted by the church to reduce time in purgatory (Wilkes, 2021). This may parallel more closely with the worries of abuses and corruption identified in the Hopewell Railway Project, as it is infrastructure that is reliant and financed on the hopes of the public (Elinoff, 2017). A difference does, however, lie in the outcomes – the Thai citizens evidenced the likelihood that their tax money was not going towards what the government claimed through the tangible materiality of the ‘cracking concrete’. This implied low quality of resources and work. On the other hand, the sale of indulgences did not produce sub-par buildings, as evidenced by the grandness of the medieval cathedrals analysed in the study, but the premise of leading people into thinking that they could reduce their time in purgatory by paying physical money is widely regarded as a condemnable practice and was one of the chief instigators of the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s (Luther, 1517). It was also condemned by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in 1563, so was an unanimously frowned upon practice, which somewhat tarnishes the legacy of the medieval cathedrals (Council of Trent, 1563).

In the modern day, although it may be common to regard cathedrals as outdated, their building, maintenance, and commercial engagement remains prominent. The profession of cathedral architect is notably not obsolete, as evidenced by the knighting of Basil Spence for his work on Coventry Cathedral, which was completed in 1962 and was extremely popular, becoming ‘the last modern building in Britain of any type that ordinary people have queued to see inside’ (Stamp, 1998, p.16). Westminster is one such cathedral built recently that provides insights into their economic contexts. It was commissioned by Cardinal Vaughan, the third archbishop of Westminster after the reinstitution of the Catholic hierarchy in England. Funding primarily came from the establishment of a Founder’s scheme, in which prominent individuals like the Duke of Norfolk, G.K Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc pledged amounts up to £1000 (which would be equivalent to £11000 today) (Westminster Cathedral website, 2024b). However, both the architect, John Bentley, and Cardinal Vaughan died (in 1902 and 1903 respectively) prior to the cathedral’s completion and consecration in 1910, meaning that they didn’t get to see the completion of their efforts like many of the bishops, masons and builders that played a role in the building of cathedrals centuries prior. For the cathedral to be consecrated for liturgical use, it had to be debt-free, which meant that fundraising efforts were ongoing even after the structure was complete and relied on public generosity. Prioritisation towards raising funds for religious buildings is a common and well documented phenomenon among those adhering to a faith. For example, immigrant labourers in European countries would ‘skip the annual summer trip to their countries of origin to contribute to a new mosque’ (Veraaik, 2013). This demonstrates that financial decisions made by individuals can have religious motives and shows the ascribed value placed on the building and upkeep of religious architecture.

Contemporarily, Westminster still often appeals and relies on the funds of a generous public to aid towards restorative projects, such as the refurbishment of the wooden flooring which is currently underway. Based on what can be observed on a surface level, the way that the cathedral, and those who work within it, are funded is primarily by donations, which can be anything from tithes of faithful Catholics, tourism, or sums given by people who have an appreciation for the cultural heritage that the cathedral represents. There is also a small gift shop with various religious paraphernalia and the cathedral sometimes hosts choral and classical concerts that have priced entry. Unlike Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s cathedral, it is free to enter at any time of the day regardless of whether a service is occurring – the only place that is barred by a small fee is the tower which affords a bird’s eye view of London. I would argue this resembles medieval means of financial support due to the large reliance on the generosity of the public – pilgrimages perhaps being more colloquially replaced with tourism. Subsequently, it doesn’t appear that shifts in economic systems have gravely impacted the religious facet of the built environment as much as it has in other areas. For example, the rise of neo-liberal capitalism has had a striking effect on the ways that new housing is built and the current housing market, often for the worse due to unsafe infrastructure and extortionate market prices for the sake of financial gain (BBC news, 2019). This limits the scope by which an analysis on the economic contexts of modern cathedrals can comment on the built environment at large, but does hint at the modern trends of capitalist commercialisation through gift shops and ticketed events that are in association with the place.

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF CATHEDRALS

(Appadurai, 1986)

Cathedrals have been, and remain, extremely socially significant. They are ‘the largest and grandest buildings in the Christian faith’ (Allen, 2018) with their etymology deriving from the Latin word ‘cathedra’ meaning ‘seat’. This relates to the seat of the bishops in denominations that retain the bishopric structure today, who are overseers of the church in regional areas. Bishops grew to have high levels of importance in matters of governance in the centuries following the legalisation of Christianity and its institution as the state religion of the Roman empire. Cathedral construction began in order to demonstrate the dignity, and jurisdictional authority of the bishop, but the buildings can also been seen as places that foster a sense of national pride, cultural identity and have a long standing history - the oldest cathedral, completed in 303AD, purportedly being the Holy Etchmiadzin cathedral in Armenia (Armenian Church US, 2017). They grew to be epicentres for many aspects of social and political life, as churches were largely responsible for providing healthcare and education for the public before the advent of the modern welfare state (Riché, 1978). While many of these functions have been relegated to secularised national governments in the modern day, cathedrals and other forms of religious architecture remain influential in matters of identity building and cultural cohesion (Veraaik, 2013; Groce and Groce, 2011).

Despite this, the historical backdrop of Westminster cathedral is evidential of social tensions due to religious conflict. As mentioned previously, the reason it was built so recently (1910) is due to the ‘outward observance’ of Catholicism in England being made illegal in 1559 with the Act of Uniformity, remaining heavily suppressed until the Catholic Emancipation in 1829 (Historic England, 2017). Anglican cathedrals remained a staple of the British built environment - many of which, like Westminster Abbey, were formerly Catholic cathedrals that were converted after the Protestant Reformation. However, these could not function to serve the newly emancipated Catholic communities, so hopes and efforts were put towards the building of Westminster cathedral as the principal diocese for England and Wales and a signifier of long-awaited religious freedom. The building of religious architecture, paired with general increases in religious fervour after having instituted the Act of Uniformity undergone suppression, is a commonly documented phenomenon in anthropological and sociological literature. For instance, after soviet suppression of Orthodox Christianity in the second half of the 20th century, survey and ethnographic data demonstrate an increase in religiosity and building and restoration projects for churches (Pelkmans, 2009; Köllner, 2013). This suggests that the building of cathedrals can be a channel for reclaiming and reinstating precious cultural and religious heritage in a materially tangible way.

CONCLUSION

Overall, the place of cathedrals in society, and the material and economic contexts surrounding them, has changed. With new, easier to transport materials and construction machinery, they can be built more quickly, and they have a touristic appeal that connects them to wider practices of commercialisation that have arisen post-industrialisation and neoliberalisation of the markets. Although plenty, like Westminster cathedral, have been built recently and it is likely that they will continue to be built in future, in most places in the world where Christianity has been around for a while, they have somewhat lost the social and political hold that they have had in previous centuries, and are often indicators of religious tensions, as well as religious revivals.

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