Paula Molina
Cathedrals
The middle ages was the time were church gain it’s most power.
Christianity became very popular during the Middle Ages because people
were interested on going to big, beautiful, and unusual buildings called
cathedrals. The cathedral was the most important church of a diocese, its
where the seat or throne of the bishop was. This explains why cathedrals are
called this way; because the word cathedral comes from the Greek wor
kathdra, which means seat.
The group of people that managed a cathedral was called the cathedral
chapter. There was only one cathedral in a town, but still there could be other
churches equally as big as the cathedral. The middle Ages was a time where
an extreme amount of cathedrals were built but despite this, every single one
of them was different. “It is disheartening to me to hear someone say of the
great cathedrals, ‘if you have seen one, you have seen them all.’ NO!! They
are all different. I have not experienced any two cathedrals alike.” (Thomas
Davies Clay) Cathedrals served many purposes, but the point on building a
cathedral was to symbolize wealth, faith, greatness and ambition.
During the Middle Ages people`s lives were really monotonous. Their
houses were simple and the streets were dirty and dark. In contrast, Cathedrals
were gigantic and beautiful buildings, illuminated by light passing through big
stain glass windows, and decorated with columns, arches, statues and
paintings. Thus, people were interested on going to cathedral to change of
environment for a moment and do something apart from their everyday job.
Most of the cathedrals were built in the shape of a cross, so if you were to look
at a cathedral from the sky, you would see a giant cross as if to show god,
what we are capable of doing for him. Cathedrals and other churches tended to
have pipe organs. This is an instrument that works with air going through
different lengths of pipes. Pipe organs and the choir were very interesting
characteristics about the cathedrals’ music.
People during this time period started visiting a lot the cathedrals
and the many other churches in their town, not only because of the services
held there, but also because of curiosity, self entertainment, and learning. As I
mentioned before, their lives were not very interesting or in other words, fun.
Still, they lived in a town where there was this one place with all kinds of
decorations, lots of space and light, with delightful music and many other
things. (The World Encyclopedia).
For this reason, people would start visiting cathedrals. They would start
attending to church, learning about Jesus’s teachings, and in consequence,
they would become very close to this religion.
“The medieval cathedral served as a center of public life. Public
meetings, as well as daily church services, were held there. The cathedral was
also used as an educational center. Its walls were lined with paintings or
stained-glass windows that portrayed scenes from the Bible and the lives of
saints. These scenes made up a visual encyclopedia of medieval knowledge
for the many worshipers who could not read or write.” (The world
Encyclopedia V3 pg.260)
As we can see in this paragraph, people benefited a lot from cathedrals. It was
a place where they could learn a lot, and discuses different important matters.
As people benefited from cathedrals, cathedrals also benefited from people.
Cathedrals generated lots of jobs and this made the economy in a town
improve. The larger and the more sophisticated a cathedral was, the wealthier
the town and diocese was. Therefore the people in the town loved having a
cathedral and they wanted it to be big and beautiful, and so people didn’t mind
donating money to the cathedral.
Cathedrals helped us understand how people used to live during this
time period. They help us understand the importance of church during the
middle ages, and the influence it had over people. They also are very
important because they represented Christianity, a religion that in fact, is the
most popular religion in today’s world with about 2,116,909,552 people
following its many branches.
Some important cathedrals are: St. John Lateran in Rome Italy, which
was the first cathedral ever built, Canterbury cathedral in England, The Notre
Dame cathedral in Paris France, Milan cathedral in Milan Italy and finally,
Liverpool cathedral in England. As we can see, the countries in where this
cathedrals stand, were some of the countries with the most church power
during the Middle Ages. This way we can see, the influence that cathedrals
had over religion. (“Some World-Famous Cathedrals”)
In the middle ages, church had way more power and political influence
than it has today. Nowadays the majority of catholic people haven't had visited
the cathedral in their own city or town, while in the medieval times, people
attended to their cathedral every week. Also atheists are very common in
today’s society and people are more open-minded and have more points of
view about religion. Before, visiting cathedrals were necessary for people’s
lives. Most of the people in a town visited their cathedral every week for many
reasons. Before, the construction of cathedrals was very important. The church
had many ways to persuade people from helping in the construction of the
cathedral. “Church began absolving people of their sins if they participated in
the construction of the cathedrals…” (Simon Newman). In present day, even
though cathedrals are still places to worship god, they are more of tourist
places and important buildings that represent a city. They are also very
important architectural structures that influenced today’s world. We also use
cathedrals as sources of information to know more about how people lived in
this period of time, how they thought, what they did, and what was important
for them.
The building of cathedrals was a very important event that
happened during the middle ages. Because of this, many people think many
different things about them. Some people think they are the most beautiful
buildings ever made in history. Other people think they were just a waste of
money. But one of the things most of us agree on is that cathedrals are
mysterious, beautiful buildings, from which we have a lot to learn.
In this project I learned many things about cathedrals. In the beginning,
I never though I would learn so many interesting things about something I
found so simple. But now, I am glad I chose this subject to do this project. In
this project I not only learned about cathedral, I also learned about Christianity
and I understood better how people during this time used to live.