Niki Blois- Durham Cathedral

Last Wednesday, our group took a charter bus up to Durham, which has been a
pilgrimage site for over a thousand years. The city houses Durham Cathedral, which the Anglo-
Normans began building in 1093 and holds the shrine of St. Cuthbert, an important England
saint. Dr. Friedman, an excellent medievalist, told us about the cathedral’s unique architectural
style: originally an Anglo-Norman construction, it also displays Gothic features such as pointed
arches, high roofs, and large stained-glass windows.

As Dr. Friedman explained, the Anglo-Normans were sea-farers, products of Norman
invasions and conquest. They built low, stolid structures with thick walls and boldly carved
pillars. Certainly, Durham Cathedral is earthy and round (round like barrels of beer, or like
the bellies of foundering ships). Its structure is stout and strong, dark and rooted. The walls still
bear traces of the original red and blue paint daubed on by the Anglo-Normans. Did you think
that medieval churches were bare and austere? I did. But no—the Anglo-Normans painted lush
flowers and patterns across their walls. Their churches, like the most explosively illuminated
manuscripts, shimmered with glowing gold, royal blue, poppy red. The Anglo-Normans strove to
create Heaven on earth.

But though Durham Cathedral is Anglo-Norman, squat and proud, it’s got touches of later Gothic architecture, aided by more precise technology such as the weight-bearing pointed arch, the Gothic style achieved ascension. In Durham, there is also light among the darkness. Soaring, exquisite beams arc across the high ceiling. Minute flourishes and embellishments cover every surface—wrought iron and wood bursting into flame from so many curls and loops and knobs and decorations. Light streams through stained glass windows, a riot of burnished colors tinting the old stone floor and studding the walls with crystalline shapes like gems, like gems on the walls of Heaven in Revelation.

To me, the cathedral is a manifestation of the old and the new mingling in a way that
doesn’t often happen. It’s a crossroads between what’s come to pass and what will. The Anglo-
Norman style gave way to the Gothic, and eventually the Gothic style faded as well. But in
Durham, a brief moment of history in transition is recorded—the shift from old to new.
Here, in our opening days of England Semester, we’re experiencing a shift as well. We’re
shifting from our old lives and into this new, scary one—one where our friends and families are
maybe a thousand miles away, and we’re just getting to know our classmates, and the exchange
rate is too horrific to think about. But maybe when the shift becomes a little rough, I can
remember Durham, where the old and the new share holy space, mingling in the presence of
God.