Liturgy And Architecture: From The Early Church To The Middle

Description:
Social, economic, technical, theological and artistic factors are crucial to a proper understanding of ecclesiastical architecture of all periods, and together their study illuminates the study of liturgy. Buildings and their archaeology are standing indices of human activity, and the whole matrix of meaning they present is highly revealing of the larger meaning of ritual performance within, and movement through, their space. Allan Doig explores the interrelationship of liturgy and architecture from the early Church to the present, including the most recent debates in the ordering and re-ordering of churches in the next volume that will cover the period from the Reformation to the present day.In the present volume, the excavation of the mid-third-century church at Dura Europos in the Syrian desert, the grandeur of Constantine's Imperial basilicas, the influence of the great pilgrimage sites, and the marvels of soaring Gothic cathedrals, all come alive in a new way when the space is animated by the liturgy for which they were built. Reviewing the most recent research in the area, and moving the debate forward, this book will be enormously useful to the liturgist, clergy, theologians, art and architectural historians, and those interested in the conservation of ecclesiastical structures built for the liturgy.

Table of Contents:
Preface; Introduction; The earliest Christian worship and its setting; Constantine, continuity and change in the 4th century; The emergence of the Byzantine rite and the church building as sacrament; Late antiquity in the West and the Gallican rite; Carolingian architecture and liturgical reform; monasticism, pilgrimage and the Romanesque; Gothic architecture and the Latin rite: from origins to the close of the Middle Ages; Index.

Author Biography:
The Revd Dr Allan Doig is Chaplain, Tutor for Graduates, Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall and a member of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford, UK.