Building Heaven on Earth: the lives and legacies of the Gothic cathedral

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The rebuilding of Canterbury Cathedral’s east end following the fire of 1174 is a pivotal moment in history that we can still experience today. Over a million people from across the globe are welcomed through the doors at Canterbury every year. But this is just one story of our great cathedrals.

In this talk, these hulking monuments are interwoven with the lives, legends and scandals of the people who built them, against the backdrop of the most astonishing achievements of Western culture, to provide the reader with a sense of walking through this glorious Age of Faith. Together, the tales reveal how these physical embodiments of Heaven helped shape modern Europe and changed the world.

Dr Emma J. Wells is an author, broadcaster and Lecturer in Ecclesiastical and Architectural Historian at the University of York, specialising in the late medieval and reformation parish church/cathedral, the senses, pilgrimage, saints as well as built heritage more generally. She is the Programme Director of the PGDip in Parish Church Studies in partnership with the CCT and the MA in English Building History. Her first book, Pilgrim Routes of the British Isles, was published in 2016 and her next, Heaven On Earth: The Lives & Legacies of the World’s Greatest Cathedrals, is to be published by Head of Zeus in early 2022.