Bishop Robert Grosseteste and Lincoln Cathedral
Tracing Relationships between Medieval Concepts of Order and Built Form
- Submitting institution
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Birmingham City University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32Z_OP_B1005
- Type
- B - Edited book
- DOI
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- Publisher
- Routledge
- ISBN
- 978-1-138-54833-6
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- October
- Year of publication
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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2
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The researcher devised, co-edited and contributed a chapter to this volume of nine essays exploring Grosseteste’s relationship to the medieval Lincoln cathedral and the surrounding city. The volume emerged from the 2012 symposium ‘Architecture as Cosmology’, hosted by Lincoln Cathedral and supported by the Paul Mellon Educational Programme.
The volume contributes to the understanding of Gothic architecture in early thirteenth-century England, particularly how forms and spaces were conceived in relation to cultural, religious and political life. The architecture and topography of Lincoln Cathedral are examined in their cultural contexts, in relation to scholastic philosophy, science and cosmology, and medieval ideas about light and geometry. The volume makes an important contribution to understanding the relation between architecture, theology, politics and society during the Middle Ages, and how religious spaces were conceived and experienced. When reviewing the book Nader El-Bizri, American University of Beirut stated that it ‘advances novel theoretical directives in analyzing the architecture of Lincoln Cathedral under Grosseteste's Bishopric in its English Gothic milieu.’
The researcher’s own chapter, ‘Bishop Grosseteste’s Lincoln and Bishop Poore’s Salisbury’ argues that it is unlikely that Bishop Grosseteste had any influence over the architectural designs of the nave and choir vaulting of the cathedral but instead, focussed his time on reforming the city as a whole in relation to the processional rites of the church; just as Bishop Poore had done during the same period in Salisbury. The paper uses liturgical documents and the layout of Lincoln as a base from which to argue for a new interpretation of Grosseteste’s legacy in the region. The originality of the research lies in the understanding that it is in the experience of moving through architecture, rather than in static architectural form, that much of the meaning of medieval architecture resides.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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