What is a Cathedral?

As I prepare for our trip to Europe, I have now finished my first Great Courses lecture series by William Kloss, World's Greatest Paintings. This morning, I started a new series, this one by Professor William R Cook, entitled The Cathedral. The first lecture was titled What is a cathedral? This is what I learned...

After the 1st century, when Jesus' apostles had all died, each community started having a local bishop who had authority in his region. These were small groups who often met either in secret or quietly because of persecution. In the fourth century, however, Roman Emperor Constantine became a Christian and he legalized Christianity. Because of this, Christianity grew rapidly and the Christians were not being persecuted. And, the church starts to accumulate wealth.

(Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland - the only cathedral I've visited...yet!)

Each bishop, who was in charge of a region, sat in a seat called a cathedra. With larger numbers of Christians/Catholics, they erected buildings to house the cathedras, thus creating the first cathedrals. As the Roman Empire collapsed, the bishops role became larger. The people lived under "canon law" - the law of the church which was administered by the bishop sitting on his cathedra. Besides law, the bishops also had a political role since there were no Roman administrators left.

The bishops became very wealthy as the people gave gifts of land, jewels, gold, etc. Perhaps the gifts were of a pious nature, or perhaps they were trying to gain religious favor. The bishops used the wealth to create enormous cathedrals.

Relics were kept inside of the cathedrals. The relics were bones or other parts of the bodies of saints or other religious martyrs. These relics were believed to be powerful, so many people made pilgrimages to the cathedrals that housed these relics. One example is Canterbury Cathedral which housed the bones of the Holy Blissful Martyr, Saint Thomas Becket of Canterbury. This pilgrimage is the basis for Chaucer's book, The Canterbury Tales.

Why did the cathedrals need to be so big? One of the main reason was to house all of its members during feast days, which could be for the 'big' religious holidays (like Easter) or for local Saint's days. Also, baptisms were often held here. The baptisms could be collective for many babies, perhaps on a Saint's day, or could be for the child of an important family.

The cathedrals you can visit today are usually still in use and have goen through a lot of repair and remodeling. They are NOT museums. They do not look exactly like they did when they were first built. Some reasons include:

• damage from revolutions (like the French Revolution)
• damage from the Protestant Reformation
• damage and abandonment by Communist governments
• damage from wars (like WWI and WWII)
• damage by natural disasters like fire and earthquakes
• damage of erosion and discoloration by industrial pollution

Most of the lectures will cover Gothic Cathedrals which started in France so that will be the focus of the lectures. The term "Gothic" wasn't used until the 18th century. This style of building was considered "primitive" and representative of the superstitious medieval Catholic church. Gothic referred to the Germanic tribe of Goths so it meant they were "barbarian."

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! It reminds me of our trip to Ireland this summer,

so I thought I'd re-post a few photos.

The "real", Irish Leprechaun she found.

At the beach in Dingle. (very cold!)

An ancient beehive hut.

Alex at the beautiful Cliffs of Moher.

The incredible harpist we listened to at Cliffs of Moher. (I now own 3 of her CDs.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Cliffs of Moher (Final Day in Ireland)

We spent our last day in Ireland at the Cliffs of Moher.

Alex with the Cliffs of Moher behind her.

We climbed up O'Brien's Tower to see the cliffs.

This lady, named Tina, was an incredible harpist. I think she made our visit to the cliffs all the more wonderful. I could have set and listened to her for an hour. (And, I bought her CD... her music is like a beautiful lullaby.)

Now we're on the side by the cliffs and you can see the tower we climbed earlier. Nana & Papa had been here a few years earlier and things have changed a lot. It is much safer! They have moved the walkways back from the edge and there is practically no way you could fall off if you stick to the paths. There were paths marked "Private Property: Do Not Enter" that weren't near as safe.... and you wouldn't believe how many people were taking those paths! (My librarian is from Ireland and she'd warned me that quite a few people have been blown off the cliffs by strong gusts so she'd warned me to keep Alex away from the edge... I was so glad they had made this view so much safer!)

Alex saw this adorable little mouse on our path. He's about the size of a ping pong ball. Papa picked him up twice to move him off the path... he blended in so well he was in danger of being stepped on! (Oh, and Alex named him Cheddar!)

We also took this boat to the base of the cliffs. Here it is coming to get us with an island in the back. I hadn't noticed the ancient ruins (to the right with the flag) while we were there!

Alex and I started our trip at the front of the boat. What a mistake! :-) We got SOAKED in just a few minutes... it was quick and we were trying to get towards the back when the drencher came.

Unfortunately, Nana got sick and I wasn't feeling very good myself. My camera also got wet in the "drencher." And, the boat was going up and down so much I was really surprised any of my photos came out. Anyway, you can see the tower we'd climbed earlier (a little to the left of center). The main cliffs are on the right, not in the photo at this time.

I loved how this feature was sticking out of the water.

And, a short video of Tina Morrissey's (was Mulrooney) beautiful music. She's been playing at the cliffs for more than 20 years! (Great video at this link - includes Tina playing part of Danny Boy.)

Slea Head Drive - Dingle Peninsula (Day 12)

I'm almost done blogging about our trip to Ireland & Scotland. I really appreciate the comments that have been left on these posts and the people who have told me in person that they're enjoying this virtual trip. This has taken a lot of time and it encourages me to finish posting. Thanks!

In the hotel we stayed at in Dingle, Ireland, there were windows in the roof (like there are at most houses in Ireland.) When I asked the lady at the front desk if there was a way to close the shade, she told me to look for the remote by the TV. Of course, I was looking for something like a TV remote... I was surprised to find this long pole like they use in the US in clothing stores! You could pull the blind closed or push it shut and also open and close the window with it.

This was probably my favorite day in Ireland. We drove around the Dingle Peninsula on the Slea Head Drive. It follws the coast and has incredible views. I posted a lot of photos today (23!) because there are just so many amazing things to see!

Here's a goat that was just "loose" by one of our stops.

And, a sheep... I was just amazed at how they can climb up steep slopes! Can you see the red spot on his back? The sheep in this area are branded with various colors of paint in various places on the sheep's body.

A beautiful view...

We stopped at the beach a few times. It was so beautiful!

This is Alex at Dunbeg Fort. It was built in the Iron Age. It was a ring fort and parts of it have fallen into the sea. It was amazing to see that this fort, built several THOUSAND of years ago, was put together without any kind of mortar... and it is still standing strong!

Some of the cliffs near the ring fort.

This is a beehive hut. These were built 4,000 years ago!!! They were used as family dwellings. Again, they were built without any type of mortar and are so solid!Most of the beehive huts no longer had a roof. (There were 4 or 5 huts here.)

I took this photo from inside of the one hut that did have its roof. The roof are just much larger stones.

This sculpture of Jesus was along the Slea Head Drive. We saw another very similar sculpture somewhere else in Ireland... I don't remember where, though.

Just another place I had to stop to take a photo.

Another stop at a beach.

Along the Drive, there were tall shrubs that had been planted. Mostly, there were fuschia, which I love. These shrubs were about 10 foot tall and I think one purpose was to warn you when you got too close to the edge of the road. :-) These roads were very narrow!

An old church and cemetery on the drive. Again, we were surprised that the tombstones we saw weren't very old!

Part of the drive goes up a place called Connors Pass. You drive almost into the clouds!

And the road is very narrow... and it was so cold and windy! I had trouble bracing myself to just take some of the photos.

Some sheep loose right next to the road.

This man and his donkey were way up near the top of the mountain. Like I said, it was very cold and windy up here. I wondered what this man's story was...

Some people got out and were climbing even higher. You can see we're almost to the clouds!

On the way back to Limerick, I stopped to take photos of these thatched roofs I'd seen on the way to Dingle. I saw a few houses that had thatched roofs, but this is actually a little store. I wonder what it looks like from the inside?

Driving to Dingle (Day 11)

On Monday, Nana, Papa, Alex, my nephew, and I headed for the town of Dingle. Dingle is the starting place for a scenic drive around the Dingle peninsula.

We had to keep stopping the car so I could take photos. Isn't Ireland beautiful?

Hydrangeas are one of my FAVORITE flowers. And, they are everywhere in Ireland and Scotland. I couldn't believe how many blooms would be on each bush! You could hardly see the leaves!!!

We stopped at this windmill on the way. There is a museum attached which is mainly about the Irish Potato Famine.

Alex LOVED grinding wheat inside of the windmill.

More of the beautiful countryside!

Alex had complained of being carsick on our drive and she "proved it" (if you know what I mean) right when we parked in Dingle. So, she messed up her pullover and it was REALLY COLD out. I let her wear my jacket as we searched for a store. We found these cute matching pullovers at Kerry Woolen Mills. (Not at this outlet, but we posed here when we saw the sign.)

We had planned on going further this first day, but since Alex was sick we decided to stay the night in Dingle. I'm so glad we did! Dingle is a port and we found a hotel right by the water. We went walking around that evening. Here, Alex is posing on a statue of Fungi. Fungi is a bottle-nosed dolphin that lives in Dingle Harbor and enjoys playing around people. Unforunately, I didn't realize you could take a 45 minute boat trip out to see him and you are guaranteed to see Fungi or get your money back... and they've never had to give a refund! You can also rent wet suits and go out and play in the water near Fungi.

Another view of the harbor.

The town of Dingle.

That night, we spent some time in the pub area of our hotel listening to live local music. It was so much fun!!! About half of the people there were kids and many of them were dancing. People were welcome to get up and play an instrument with the band or sing with them and several people did. I loved this Irish music and it was a wonderful evening.

This is the electric water heater at our hotel. I think every place we stayed had hot water like this. You push the "start-stop" button and you have hot water! We always left them on "medium" flow and left the temperature dial alone. It was a great shower! In the house in Limerick, you had to turn a power switch on in the hallway before you could turn this heater on.

And, I'll leave you with just a very short taste of some live, Irish music.

Book of Kells & Dublin (Day 10)

On Sunday, we spent some more time exploring Dublin before getting on the train to head back to Limerick.

Alex with a statue of Molly Malone.

Alex's daddy had been teasing Alex about finding a leprachaun while in Ireland.

Well, we found one! He's pretty big, though.

We split into 2 groups for part of the day with my father-in-law and I heading to Trinity College for a tour of the college and do view the Book of Kells and a museum about illuminated manuscripts. The others went shopping and exploring Dublin. We got to go in the college's library... the largest single room library in the world! It was amazing. The books are almost all in Latin! And, students at the college can check them out for free, but they rarely do. Partly because they're in Latin, but also because it is hard to find the book you want - they are only arranged by SIZE!!! (The architecture was amazing, too.)

I was so sad that photos weren't allowed in either the museum or the library!!! The museum about the manuscripts was so interesting. There were even videos showing how they wrote in the books and how they bound them.

I actually saw this "statue" getting in position. Yes, it is actually a man! He would tap people with their umbrellas and startle them. He looked so real!

I really enjoyed listening to this group. The man on the left is playing a tin whistle or pennywhistle, in the middle is a hammered dulcimer, and on the right is a fiddle. (I think I identified these correctly.) I almost bought their CD and wish I would have!