Paul’s Work

This chapter highlights the fabric of the cathedral and the protracted debates surrounding its repairs. A narrative is constructed of the efforts of cathedral renovation in the sixty years after the 1561 burning of the spire, focusing especially on the Jacobean period when royal and public interest in the condition of the church gained ground. While secular writers such as Henry Farley and Thomas Dekker demonstrate the cultural interest in the renovation, visual representations of the cathedral serve as reminders of the Cathedral’s prominence in London. King James paid special attention to Paul’s and commissioned a sermon by Bishop John King arguing for its repairs, laying the important groundwork for the massive renovation project of the 1630s.

Paul’s Boys

This chapter focuses on the Children of Paul’s and emphasizes that the boys were choristers for the cathedral first and only occasionally actors. The boys’ spatial milieu, including the Almonry (which likely served as the singing school, residence hall, and ‘theatre’), the chancel, the churchyard, and the grammar school, is discussed. The make-up of the neighbourhood—the precinct and nearby spaces—is examined in order to get a better sense of the audience at Paul’s. Audiences were drawn to plays by Paul’s actors because they were talented singers and educated students. John Marston’s early plays for the Children of Paul’s affirm the distinctiveness of the ‘company’, the playing space, and the talents of the actors. They display a preoccupation with the lives of the boys—as singers, students, and servants—and reveal a rich understanding of the varied roles of the child actor.

Introduction

This chapter is an overview of the book’s argument, of the cathedral precinct spaces, their uses, and their users, and outlines the critical framework of the book. It provides an overview of the cathedral and precinct, attending to architectural details, and the various buildings and spaces in the church and precinct, including the interior of the church and the surrounding churchyard. The physical transformations of several sites is highlighted and the material state is discussed. The chapter considers the religious, commercial, civic, and social activities of Paul’s, and provides an overview of some of the everyday users of the space, emphasizing that the precinct operated as a neighbourhood and fostered community. The cultural geography methodology of the book is reviewed, and its approach aligned with historical phenomenology and the notion of spatial dynamism. The importance of both imaginative and literary texts to the overall understanding of St Paul’s is explored.

Paul’s Nave

This chapter provides an overview of the architectural features, uses, and users of the nave, with discussion of its physical condition. It also discusses the occupations of the nave—the various church-related and secular practices and professions that were carried out in the interior, and emphasizes the commercial activities, including those of labourers, lawyers, clergy, serving men, and criminals. The chapter looks at the newsmongers and walkers of Paul’s, including John Chamberlain, and attempts to reframe the rituals of their ‘walk’ as purposeful rather than idle. Several literary texts, including those by Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Dekker, are discussed. Further, consideration is given to how the nave’s architecture and material features, principally the tombs and monuments influenced the practices by both restricting and affording human agency, all the while affirming the importance of the dead to the living in Paul’s.

Conclusion

The conclusion analyses John Earle’s Microcosmography to emphasize that even the most detailed descriptions of places are necessarily incomplete. Spatial transgression, nostalgia, and the role of texts are discussed. The author points to the potential for future scholarly work on St Paul’s precinct. The role of speculation and imagination in historical geography is discussed. The conclusion ends with a discussion of the 2019 fire at Notre-Dame.

Paul’s Churchyard

This chapter provides an overview of the buildings in the spaces exterior to the cathedral and their uses, with an emphasis on behaviour ‘out of place’, including vagrancy and violence. It focuses on the area of the north churchyard, in particular the bookshops and the College of Minor Canons, as revealed in the 1598 bishop’s visitation documents. Shopping for books is described, along with how it evolved to include browsing or loitering. The College of Minor Canons, built as a site for the clergy associated with the cathedral choir, operated much as did other London neighbourhoods. However, the permission of clerical marriage, the alteration of structures in the college, the practice of taking on lodgers, and the presence of women, transformed the meaning of the space. The individuals who lived there are considered, many of whom regularly transgressed social and religious norms and tore the fabric of community.

Paul’s Cross

This chapter examines Paul’s Cross, the pulpit located in the north-east quadrant of the churchyard, and its material properties and uses, focusing on sermons, the importance of preaching in early modern London, and the sensory spatial practices of sermon attendance at Paul’s. Sermons preached at Paul’s that critiqued and sought to reform the members of the auditory for their primary sin of pride in apparel are analysed. The spotlight on sartorial vanity derives from both a general preoccupation in early modern texts with that particular ‘vice’ and the sense that Paul’s precinct was a common place where it was put on stage. The chapter discusses the jeremiads preached at Paul’s as texts that were significantly influenced by secular literature, including Philip Stubbes’s Anatomie of Abuses as well as verse satire and Thomas Nashe’s Christ’s Teares over Jerusalem, and emphasizes the importance of the site in relation to the message.