1st Edition
Liturgical Space Christian Worship and Church Buildings in Western Europe 1500-2000
This is the first comprehensive and up-to-date account of the internal arrangement of church buildings in Western Europe between 1500 and 2000, showing how these arrangements have met the liturgical needs of their respective denominations, Catholic and Protestant, over this period. In addition to a chapter looking at the general impact of the Reformation on church buildings, there are separate chapters on the churches of the Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Roman Catholic traditions between the mid-sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, and on the ecclesiological movement of the nineteenth century and the liturgical movement of the twentieth century, both of which have impacted on all the churches of Western Europe over the past 150 years. The book is extensively illustrated with figures in the text and a series of plates and also contains comprehensive guides to both further reading and buildings to visit throughout Western Europe.
Biography
Nigel Yates is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Wales, Lampeter, UK.
'Nigel Yates is the foremost authority on the relationship between the liturgy and the ordering of church buildings in the post reformation world. Building on his earlier book, Buildings, Faith and Worship, which explored the liturgical arrangement of Anglican churches between 1600 and 1900, Professor Yates has provided a well researched and entertaining account of the interplay between the liturgies of the various denominations and the way church buildings, old and new, have been ordered. Professor Yates is an acknowledged expert in this field, and serious students and amateur church crawlers alike will enjoy his eye for quirky detail as well as the scholarly erudition that underpins this splendid volume.' The Right Reverend David Stancliffe, Bishop of Salisbury, UK This is a masterly overview of the continual process down the centuries by which the Church responds to a renewed vision of God by revisiting the church building and reshaping it to better reflect the hopes and aspirations of the community of faith. Both scholar and worshipper will be enriched by it. The Very Reverend Richard Giles, Dean of Philadelphia Cathedral, USA No liturgical historian or indeed anyone who has any kind of responsibility for liturgy can afford to be without this book, dealing as it does with how theology and worship affect the use of liturgical space. This book shows how different theological and liturgical insights impact on how churches have been re-ordered for worship at different times and across all the denominations, and is therefore invaluable for those responsible for modern day worship. The Most Reverend Dr Barry C Morgan, The Archbishop of Wales Interesting and attractive in equal measure, and much more than a handbook or introductory overview, Liturgical Space is comprehensive, authoritative, and suggestive in its interweaving of architecture, theology, ecclesiology, and history. Professor Clyde Binfield, UK ’This superb study, by the leading historian of liturg
