An ethnographic account of daily life in Durham Cathedral, this book examines the processes of negotiation and change between a community and their cathedral. Focusing on the role of sound, light, time, space, building and dwelling, the author argues that Durham Cathedral is much more than just a backdrop to everyday life. Rather, through the constant processes of negotiation and change, it is a fully engaged participant in the daily lives of those who use Durham Cathedral. As such, it is not a place in which life happens, but a place with which life happens.

This study utilizes the rich archives which survive at Durham Cathedral to examine the way in which accounting methods and systems were adopted and adapted to manage income and expenses, assets and liabilities in changing economic environments.

These two complementary lives of Cuthbert illuminate both the secular history of the golden age of Northumbria and the historic shift from Celtic to Roman ecclesiastical practice which took place after the Synod of Whitby. Cuthbert was very much in the Irish monastic tradition. He adopted Roman usages, becoming prior and eventually bishop of Lindisfarne, but the essential nature of his commitment changed little and he lived for much of his later life as a hermit on the island of Farne, with the birds as his only companions. The two lives make an interesting contrast: the earlier, anonymous Life of 698-705 is clear, concise and rich in Lindisfarne tradition, viewing Cuthbert as no more than the great saint of his own house. Bede's prose Life of 721, however, is polished, literary, more than twice as long and altogether more didactic; treating Cuthbert as a model from which to draw lessons about how to be a perfect bishop and monk. Taken together, the lives vividly evoke the character of a remarkable churchman and provide a compelling picture of early monastic life.

Bede's Ecclesiastical History is the most important single source for early medieval English history. Without it, we would be able to say very little about the conversion of the English to Christianity, or the nature of England before the Viking Age. Bede wrote for his contemporaries, not for a later audience, and it is only by an examination of the work itself that we can assess how best to approach it as a historical source. N.J. Higham shows, through a close reading of the text, what light the Ecclesiastical History throws on the history of the period and especially on those characters from seventh- and early eighth-century England whom Bede either heroized, such as his own bishop, Acca, and kings Oswald and Edwin, or villainized, most obviously the British king Cædwalla but also Oswiu, Oswald's brother. In (Re-)Reading Bede, N.J. Higham offers a fresh approach to how we should engage with this great work of history. He focuses particularly on Bede's purposes in writing it, its internal structure, the political and social context in which it was composed and the cultural values it betrays, remembering always that our own approach to Bede has been influenced to a very great extent by the various ways in which he has been both used, as a source, and commemorated, as man and saint, across the last 1,300 years.

The first history of all the English cathedrals, from Birmingham and Bury St Edmunds to Worcester and York Minster England’s sixty-two Anglican and Catholic cathedrals are some of our most iconic buildings, attracting millions of worshippers and visitors every year. Yet although much has been written about their architecture, there is no complete history of their life and activities. This is the first such book to provide one, stretching from Roman times to the present day. The History of England’s Cathedrals explains where and why they were founded, who staffed them, and how their structures evolved. It describes their worship and how this changed over the centuries, their schools and libraries, and their links with the outside world. The history of these astonishing buildings is the history of England. Reading this book will bring you face to face with the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Reformation, Civil War, Victorian England, World War Two, and finally modern democracy.

A valuable historical perspective on the economic, medical, class and gender relations of the elderly, which until now have received relatively little attention.

This volume focuses on the distinctive voice and contribution of women to senior ordained and lay Anglican leadership and assesses where the Communion currently is, and looks constructively and courageously to the future. Stories from around the Anglican Communion and theological reflection on actual praxis are offered as a means to informing and shaping the future.

On the back cover of one of his most groundbreaking solo albums, . . . Nothing like the Sun of 1987, Sting (Gordon Matthew Sumner, b. 1951 in Wallsend, UK) somberly stands close to a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The album was released a few months after his own mother, Audrey, died. The picture was taken on the island of Montserrat, where he was recording the album, apparently on the day of her death. "I said goodbye to my mother, as I had a recording date in Montserrat, and she died a week later." When asked by the author if his mother was particularly connected to Mary, and if this was why he chose this image, he replied "No, but I did." This evocative photograph and Sting's quick answer encapsulate the two pillars of this book: a microhistory of a specific British Catholic parish in the 1950s-60s, and the impact that growing up there had on Sting's artistic output. And beyond that, this book opens a window onto the influence of Catholic education and imagination on millions of less famous people who had similar upbringings.