Cathedrals Under Siege: Cathedrals in English Society, 1600-1700

Anglican Theological Review, Spring 1998 by Miller, Charles

Cathedrals Under Siege: Cathedrals in English Society, 1600-1700. By Stanford E. Lehmberg. University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1996. xxx 270 pp. $55.00 (cloth).

In this handsomely produced study Professor Lehmberg offers a sequel to a previous volume of like kind, The Reformation of Cathedrals (Princeton, 1988). The study's nine chapters are divisible into two parts: the first (chapters 1-3) provides an overview of cathedrals with an eye toward current political and ecclesiastical events in the Stuart, Civil War and Interregnum, and Restoration periods respectively; the second part (chapters 4-9) takes the form of social history with particular concern for the diverse players (e.g. deans and chaplains, organists and singers, civic worthies) whose lives and work connected with the cathedrals and their work. In the course of the chapters the reader enters into a microcosm of the seventeenth-century English world in many of its aspects.

The author has combined a variety of source materials (e.g. county and cathedral archives, diaries) in a fluent, judicious, informative and often entertaining text. Evidence vis-a-vis architectural and monumental remains are set beside apposite remarks about theology and ecclesiastical history which indicate the author's familiarity with current scholarly study and analysis of the period. In addition, use has been made of computer-aided examination of prosopographical data so as to provide the reader with informative charts about, say, cathedral finance, and the academic training and credentials of cathedral clergy. I found the chapter on 'Cathedral Music and Musicians' most amusing and informative. At the very least it reveals the long history of tension and dispute between the clerical establishment and the church's musicians. Equally, the discussion of the 'Writings of the Cathedral Clergy' is a useful exposition of the important role of such clergy in the seventeenth-century republic of letters-just one instance of the way cathedrals epitomized the manifold links between church, society and culture in the period under examination.

A few terminological quibbles might be leveled against the author: 'Arminian' and 'Puritan' are used with something less than the exactitude (if we can be exact about them! ) for which current scholarship has striven. Also, it is a shame that Westminster Abbey-owing to its status as a 'royal peculiar' not a cathedral-has been left out of the study. Altogether, though, we must thank Prof. Lehmberg for a fine, reliable volume which surely adds both depth and color to our knowledge of this key period in English ecclesiastical history and cultural life.

Seventeenth-century specialists in architecture, social and ecclesiastical history, and theology will have reason to consult it, as will historians of church music and of the clerical profession. But Lehmberg presents his material so well (together with photographic aids) that 'amateurs' will find it interesting and accessible too.

CHARLES MILLER

Nashotah House

Nashotah, Wisconsin