I very much wanted to go to Norwich because it is Julian’s home (Julian of Norwich, the subject of one of my dissertation chapters). The cathedral is amazing–it shows a mixture of both romanesque and gothic styles. The columns and arches are Romanesque, but the ceiling is a crazy gothic vault–to busy for my taste. The cloisters were unfortunately closed, because apparently Dame Judy Dench was filming a movie scene inside. No sign of her–just lots of equipment.<\/p>\n

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Romansque arches–huge, no clusters of columns running around the pillar, rounded arch<\/p><\/div>\n

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Crazy gothic vaulting!<\/p><\/div>\n

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There is an amazing modern sculpture of Julian on one side of the west portal (the other sculpture is of St Benedict, because the cathedral was originally a monastic church, associated with a Benedictine house). I love this sculpture because it makes Julian look so very human. There is also a great stained glass window depiction of her with a cat in the chapel in the apse. (According to one of the English guides for anchoresses, these women were allowed to own a cat, but no other animals.) Other highlights of the cathedral included two fourteenth-century reredos, which is the piece of furniture (typically painted or carved) that stood behind the main altar). Especially interesting (take note, Shannon!), was the one which pictured five scenes from the life of Christ, but then around the edges featured small miniatures of the wounds of Christ (the arma christi) and the instruments of his torture, or other items, such as a chalice, meant to represent his last days before the crucifixion.<\/p>\n

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We visited a few parish churches in Norwich as well. Like York, Norwich had its share of\u00a0 churches–32 still standing today, but there were even more in the Middle Ages. They are obviously not all in use as houses of worship, but the city seems to have done a better job than most in re-purposing the buildings. We ate lunch in one church that is now a cafe and Christian book store. Another church had been turned into an antique store, with all the clutter and junk that one would\u00a0expect, but the splendid fourteenth-century wall painting of St George was a little too antiquated to blend in. We also went to St Peter\u00a0Mancroft, which has a splendid medieval east window. One of our group members had a slip of tongue while we were finding our way around, and called it ‘St Peter\u00a0Mancave.’ Parishes in medieval Norwich appear to have been quite wealthy; all these churches were all\u00a0large for parish buildings. We ended with a visit to…St Julian’s! The building isn’t medieval at all; it was bombed in WW2 and the structure that stands is a reconstruction. But you can still get a sense of the size of Julian’s cell, the size of the church (quite small), and the church’s location near\u00a0the river.<\/p>\n

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Julian’s cell from the outside<\/p><\/div>\n

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A panorama of Julian’s cell–this shot makes it look bigger than it is.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The chancel (where the altar would have stood) at St Gregory’s, now full of antiques<\/p><\/div>\n

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St George protecting the cashiers<\/p><\/div>\n

We then took a train to Ely, to see the city’s magnificent cathedral. It was amazing! (I know, I say that every time, but this one really is something else.) Like many of the churches we’ve seen, it is also a romanesque\/gothic hybrid. In the first picture, you can actually see the transition from rounded romanesque arches to pointed gothic ones. The next two shots are facing the west portal. You’ll notice the rounded tower on the right, which was part of the earlier romanesque building. You can see an exposed buttress on the left, which is where they had to shore the building after the north tower collapsed in, I think, the fifteenth century. It was never rebuilt.<\/p>\n

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The inside is so spectacular in part because the Victorian inhabitants of the city replaced all the stained glass (so it’s at least a consistent scheme) and painted the ceilings. The pillars are decidedly romanesque (i.e., they are HUGE), but the colonettes (the smaller columns clustered around the pillar) are set out from the pillar a few inches, to give a sense of lighter construction. The arches are also extremely textured (contrast them with the arches in Norwich), which makes them appear more vertical and feel less heavy.<\/p>\n

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The crossing, the bit at the center of the cross-shaped cathedral, is an octagon, which is cool. Someone also brilliantly decided not to put the organ on top of choir screen, which is what happens in many cathedrals, and the instrument then blocks a view of the entire length of the building. But in Ely, they have engineered a way to have it on the side of the choir, which leaves the view from the altar all the way down to the west portal completely open.\u00a0We were also able to attend evensong in Ely. They had a beautiful choir (the people, not the space), made up of boys and men, and today the church was celebrating the feast of St Aetheldreda. Aetheldreda is a Anglo-Saxon queen who took hoy orders and founded the monastery at Ely, which eventually turned into the cathedral. The bishop during his prayers singled out the role that women have played in the church, and prayed for continued blessing on female clergy.<\/p>\n

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A view down the entire cathedral from the altar. The haziness is from the incense they used in the Evensong service.<\/p><\/div>\n

We ended with dinner at a pub on the river. Ely is on the Great Ouse river, which\u00a0is part of the Norfolk and Suffolk broads, the wetlands that I mentioned a couple of days ago. The river was full of “house barges,” some of which you can apparently rent and boat around the rivers and lakes for a week. I think this sounds like a fabulous vacation! During the Middle Ages, the city was surrounded by fens, which were only effectively drained in the eighteenth-century with the help of (who else) Dutch engineers.<\/p>\n

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