Reformation History

John Knox’s “house” was the building that John Knox preached out of. John Knox preached out of the window above the jewelry shop on the ground floor during the time of the Scottish Civil War between the Protestants and the Catholics, lead by Marry Queen of Scots or Bloody Mary. Mary Tudor was a very devout and intolerant Catholic, and she required by law all of her citizens to be Catholic as well. John Knox refused to obey this law, helped by the political turmoil of the time and became the minister of St. Giles Cathedral and converted the church to protestantism. 

St. Giles Cathedral was interesting for me because although we never went inside the church, we walked past it every day that we were in Edinburgh. From the pictures of the inside I've seen though, it is beautiful. 

St. Giles Cathedral was founded by King David I in 1124 when the Roman Catholic Church and the Scottish Church had a very close bond. Several things happened in the history of the church, but the most notable in the Reformation was the arrival of John Knox. John Knox was a Protestant Reformer who was appointed minister of St. Giles Cathedral in 1559. During his time there, the church and the country as a whole were declared Protestant despite having Mary Queen of Scots (Bloody Mary), a devout and intolerant Catholic, as the ruler of the country. 

Charlemagne’s Cathedral in Aachen, Germany was one of the first places we visited this semester, and it was stunning. The art was incredible, and I was completely blown away by the amount of gold inlays and stained glass in the chapel. 

During the Carolingian Renaissance, the reform and preservation of education and culture under Charlemagne king of the Franks, Charlemagne also worked to reform the church. Charlemagne, as a religious man, wanted to unify church and state. Among his many reforms, Charlemagne changed the structure of the liturgy and raised the standards for the monks and monasteries. As Charlemagne conquered other peoples and expanded his empire, he also forced conversion to Christianity, and this power was held as the church and state continued to act as one until the Protestant Reformation. 

Something I found interesting about Charlemagne’s Cathedral was that at the front of the church where you would expect an altar to be was Charlemagne’s coffin. This was an interesting placement of his remains, and I’m not entirely sure how far to read into it...

It was very interesting to me to walk past such a monumental historical site like Westminster Abbey, which has played such an integral part in being the background of the royal family’s public appearances. To walk past a place like this, even though I was unable to get into the cathedral itself, was very neat to me. The architecture of the building as well as the history of the building itself is just amazing to me as someone who very much loves to learn about people and how they live, whether they live now or in the past. I was very glad to have gotten the opportunity to see it even if just from the outside.

The story of Westminster Abbey starts in 960 AD when Benedictine monks built a monastery by the River Thames on Thorny Island as a place to conduct their worship. A few decades later in 1040 AD, the Christian ruler King Edward I (St. Edward the Confessor), who had built his royal palace nearby, funded an expansion of the monastery into a large church with Romanesque architecture. This church was built in honor of St. Peter the apostle, and after twenty-five years of construction, the dedication service took place in December of 1065. Unfortunately, King Edward I was unable to attend this service due to sickness and in fact died a few days after the opening of the church that he spearheaded. This new St. Peter’s Cathedral became known as “West-minster” to mark a difference between St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, which was the “East-minster.”

This version of “Westminster” Abbey was able to keep its original form for almost twenty years before King Henry III decided to rebuild it in the new architectural style of the 1200s, the gothic style. Although some parts of the original Romanesque style still remain, such as some of the round arches and columns in the original monks’ rooms, King Henry III felt that he needed a modern cathedral to hold public events such as coronations and monarch burials and consequently rebuilt most of the building. The refurbishment and redecoration of the cathedral was completed on October 13, 1269, and this is the abbey that we know today when we visit it on the Thames in London.

Christ Church Cathedral is the oldest building in the city of Dublin, Ireland. In its present location—it changed locations in its early years—the cathedral dates back to the year 1030 AD when it was founded as a small, wooden Viking church by Sitriuc, the King of the Dublin Norsemen. The oldest part of the cathedral that survives today is Christ Church crypt, which was built in the 12thcentury and is one of the oldest and largest crypts in both Britain and Ireland. In 1152 AD, Christ Church Cathedral was taken over from the Dublin Norsemen by the Irish church and reformed by the man who would become the patron saint of Dublin, Lawrence O’Toole or Lorcán Ua Tuathail in Gaelic. Lawrence O’Toole introduced the canons of Saint Augustine to the church, the organizational structure that was used until The Reformation when the church switched to the Use of the Sarum or Use of Salisbury, which included things such as Mass and Divine Office (official prayers to mark the hours of the day). After the Anglo-Normans captured the city of Dublin in 1170 AD and destroyed the wooden Christ Church, the first Anglo-Norman archbishop over Christ Church, John Cumin, was an immense influence on the rebuilding of the cathedral in the Romanesque style and later the Gothic style, parts of which survive today. In 1395 AD, Christ Church cathedral was visited by King Richard II where he received homage from four kings of Irish provinces, and later in 1487 AD, Lambert Simnel was ‘crowned’ as King Edward VI in Christ Church during the reign of King Henry VII.

Christ Church continues to be important in more modern times as it holds the “Treasures of Christ Church,” which consists of documents and artifacts from nearly a thousand years of its history of worship. This allows people of all ages and walks of life from all over the world to come to Dublin and learn about one aspect of the history of Dublin, and Ireland as a whole. It was very interesting to me to see all of the important things that Christ Church Cathedral has been a part of in Dublin’s history, and I was very grateful to be able to not only learn what I did but also to bask in the beauty of the architecture of the building itself.

Something that surprised me was the mummified cat and mouse in the treasures room lovingly nicknamed “Tom and Jerry.” The cat and mouse were found in the tubes of the church organ and had been mummified by the air. The favorite theory is that the cat chased the mouse into the organ and both got stuck, and no one found them until several decades later.