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010 _a14019070
040 _aUtSlPG
041 7 _aen
_2iso639-1
050 4 _aNA
100 1 _aSpence-Jones, H. D. M.
_q(Henry Donald Maurice),
_d1836-1917
245 1 4 _aThe secrets of a great cathedral
264 1 _aSalt Lake City, UT :
_bProject Gutenberg,
_c2025
300 _a1 online resource :
_bmultiple file formats
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent
337 _acomputer
_bc
_2rdamedia
338 _aonline resource
_bcr
_2rdacarrier
500 _aRelease date is 2025-11-08
508 _adeaurider and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
520 _a"The secrets of a great cathedral" by H. D. M. Spence-Jones is a historical-architectural study written in the early 20th century. It explains the origins and purposes of major features of medieval cathedrals—especially in the Romanesque tradition—focusing on elements like the triforium, Lady Chapel, crypt, and cloister, with Gloucester Cathedral as a recurring reference point. Drawing on leading scholarship, it aims to give lay visitors clear answers to common questions about how great churches were conceived and built. The opening of the work states the author’s aim as Dean of Gloucester: to answer frequent visitor questions about what “Romanesque” means and where cathedral features come from, tracing the style back long before the Normans. It contrasts two modern authorities—Rivoira (rooting Romanesque in Italy) and Sir Thomas Jackson (emphasizing Constantinople and the East)—then flags chapters on the triforium’s Eastern origins, the rise of Lady Chapels with Marian devotion, the Western-only crypt tradition tied to St Peter’s tomb, the monastic cloister, and Gloucester’s peculiar S. Petronilla link. The first chapter defines Romanesque as a consistent round-arch style (per Freeman) rooted in ante-classical Roman practice, illustrates its early maturity in Diocletian’s palace and especially Ravenna’s great fifth–sixth century basilicas, and notes their plain exteriors but sumptuous interiors. After the Lombard conquest, it traces the Comacine Guild—successors to Roman building collegia—based at Como, reviving and spreading the style, with gradual advances like vaulting. It sketches the style’s early English traces (Benedict Biscop, Wilfrid), the isolated German example at Aachen, and France’s losses from Saracen and Viking devastations before a church-building boom around the eleventh century with strong regional variants. It then introduces Norman-Romanesque via William of Volpiano and Lanfranc, the vast English building surge after the Conquest—often framed as acts of expiation—and closes this opening sweep with notes on campaniles and the Comacine “Solomon’s knot” motif. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534 _pOriginally published:
_cLondon: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1914
653 _aGloucester Cathedral
653 _aChurch architecture -- Europe
653 _aArchitecture, Romanesque
653 _aCathedrals -- Europe
856 4 _uhttps://archive.org/details/secretsofgreatca00spenuoft
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77195
999 _c117916
_d117916