Author(s): Roy Strong

History

In this fascinating book Roy Strong tells the dramatic story of the English parish church, from the first temporary buildings erected in Anglo-Saxon times to its uncertain future in the twenty-first century. Starting with the Christianisation of Britain by missionaries from Ireland and Rome, he takes us on a journey through the Middle Ages, when elaboration and beauty in church art and architecture reached their peak in the building boom of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He describes in vivid detail the rituals and ceremonies at the heart of the parish community - the processions and celebrations of the church year, the public piety and rites of passage that guided parishioners through their lives and, most of all, the miracle of the Mass performed every Sunday. The rich spirituality of medieval Catholicism was destroyed by the cataclysm of the 'long Reformation' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which replaced the splendour of Catholic ritual and its adoration of the Sacrament with a simple service that centred on the preaching of the Word; moreover, it abolished age-old concepts of devotion and salvation.