A Prayer of Their Own: Understanding Writing and Worship Through Graffiti in Cathedrals

Abstract

A Prayer of Their Own: Understanding Writing and Worship through Graffiti in Cathedrals is an examination of the historic graffiti in Southwell Minster and Lincoln Cathedral. Both English institutions were established in the 12^th century soon after the Norman Invasion of 1066. The graffiti – inscriptions and writings created by visitors, workers, and clergy members which were not commissioned as part of the buildings’ designs – demonstrate how individuals understood, used, and adapted religious practices for their everyday lives.

This dissertation combines a spatial analysis of the graffiti with the organization of elite religious spaces, pre-Reformation and post-Reformation religious practices, and theories of assemblage, relationality, and memory to understand the ways past peoples utilized graffiti in elite religious spaces. As argued, there is evidence which tie the graffiti in Southwell and Lincoln to the English Reformation, indicating that individuals understood the changes related to the Reformation and employed those understandings in these inscriptions, while simultaneously continuing pre-Reformation worship practices. As a result, this body of historic English graffiti exemplifies that people are conscious of changes to their everyday structures and subsequently interact with these changes. These interactions demonstrate a conscious knowledge of social structures and the ways that they shift through time, as well as an ability to adapt to these changes through interaction.