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A History of the Church through its Buildings

by Allan Doig
Hardcover |English |0199575363 | 9780199575367

A History of the Church through its Buildings

by Allan Doig
Hardcover |English |0199575363 | 9780199575367
Overview

"A History of the Church through its Buildings takes the reader to meet people who lived through momentous religious changes in the very spaces where the story of the Church took shape. Buildings are about people, the people who conceived, designed, financed, and used them. Their stories become embedded in the very fabric itself, and as the fabric is changed through time in response to changing use, relationships, and beliefs, the architecture becomes the standing history of passing waves of humanity. This process takes on special significance in churches, where the arrangement of the space places members of the community in relationship with one another for the performance of the church's rites and ceremonies. Moreover, architectural forms and building materials can be used to establish relationships with other buildings in other places and other times. Coordinated systems of signs, symbols, and images proclaim beliefs and doctrine, and in a wider sense carry extended narratives of the people and their faith. Looking at the history of the church through its buildings allows us to establish a tangible connection to the lives of the people involved in some of the key moments and movements that shaped that history, and perhaps even a degree of intimacy with them. Standing in the same place where the worshippers of the past preached and taught, or in a space they built as a memorial, touching the stone they placed, or marking their final resting-place, holding a keepsake they treasured or seeing a relic they venerated, probably comes as close to a shared experience with these people as it is possible to come. Perhaps for a fleeting moment at such times their faces may come more clearly into focus"--
ISBN: 0199575363
ISBN13: 9780199575367
Author: Allan Doig
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Format: Hardcover
PublicationDate: 2021-02-01
Language: English
PageCount: 392
Dimensions: 9.4 x 1.1 x 6.5 inches
Weight: 29.76 ounces
A History of the Church through its Buildings takes the reader to meet people who lived through momentous religious changes in the very spaces where the story of the Church took shape. Buildings are about people, the people who conceived, designed, financed, and used them. Their stories becomeembedded in the very fabric itself, and as the fabric is changed through time in response to changing use, relationships, and beliefs, the architecture becomes the standing history of passing waves of humanity. This process takes on special significance in churches, where the arrangement of the space places members of the community in relationship with one another for the performance of the church's rites and ceremonies. Moreover, architectural forms and building materials can be used to establishrelationships with other buildings in other places and other times. Coordinated systems of signs, symbols, and images proclaim beliefs and doctrine, and in a wider sense carry extended narratives of the people and their faith. Looking at the history of the church through its buildings allows us to establish a tangible connection to the lives of the people involved in some of the key moments and movements that shaped that history, and perhaps even a degree of intimacy with them. Standing in the same place where theworshippers of the past preached and taught, or in a space they built as a memorial, touching the stone they placed, or marking their final resting-place, holding a keepsake they treasured or seeing a relic they venerated, probably comes as close to a shared experience with these people as it ispossible to come. Perhaps for a fleeting moment at such times their faces may come more clearly into focusEL
Editorial Reviews



Doig's architectural perspective offers fresh insights into centuries of Christian history. -- W.L.Pitts,
CHOICE Connect, Vol. 59 No. 8


This is an extraordinarily learned book, both architecturally and theologically. It is worth living with the eccentricities for the riches embedded in such an attractive, readable and scholarly text. -- Stephen Platten,
The Living Church


It is a well-written work, replete with insightful information, and should be required reading in a course on ecclesiology. -- Peter C. Phan,
Catholic Books Review


Doig's book underscores the patently important role that church buildings played and continue to play in Christian, non-Christian, and post-Christian societies. Readers will appreciate the accessible treatment of the monuments; their contextualization through the use of primary sources; and the

author's apt and intelligent commentary. In the middle of a pandemic, with severe travel restrictions still in place, Doig's lively descriptions and unbridled enthusiasm for these buildings allowed us to travel, and he reminds us that what is built for worship and wonder is worth its own story. --

Vasileios Mari,
Marginalia Review of Books


The book serves as an excellent introduction to particular buildings, especially those that are not normally taught in the context of a university in the United States.... it is an episodic account of the wonderful, weird, and glorious aspects of ecclesiastical architecture and its patrons. --

Vasileios Marinis, The Marginalia Review of Books


[An] ambitious study... [a] well-illustrated tour of the Christian world's greatest landmarks of the base, earthly instincts that are intertwined in such heavenly buildings. -- Peter Stanford, The Sunday Telegraph


Each chapter examines a church in an original way, a thousand miles from usual guidebook historical rat-runs. -- Christopher Howse, Spectator


The buildings in this book have epic stories to tell, and Doig has a tremendous knack for telling them. -- Alison Shell, Times Literary Supplement


Doig's volume engages with a broad geographic range of key buildings and provides an accessible history of Christianity, engagingly told through its monuments and architecture. -- Claire Nesbitt,
Journal of Antiquity


This is a fascinating approach linking history with architecture and therefore the spaces of ritual and ceremony implying certain types of relationship. -- David Lorimer,
Paradigim Explorer


What a treat to be taken on a tour of sacred sites in Rome and Istanbul, Moscow and Jerusalem, Aachen, Paris, CÃ3rdoba - and Ewelme and Coventry - by the Revd Dr Allan Doig! An architect, priest, and scholar, he is an expert guide: one who has walked these streets many times before; one who has

read widely and long reflected on how faith and architecture intersect... no reader could resist the combination of scholarship and enthusiasm which runs throughout the volume, and it provokes the hope that others might follow its lead. -- William Whyte, Church Times





Allan Doig,
Emeritus Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford
Allan Doig read Architecture at King's College, Cambridge, where he also completed a PhD. After a number of years as a university lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Kent, Canterbury, he was ordained, and during his curacy at St Helen's in Abingdon was responsible for the

restoration of the fourteenth-century painted ceiling in the Lady Chapel there. From his curacy he took up the Chaplaincy of Lady Margaret Hall in the University of Oxford and was elected to a Fellowship in 1996. He has served on the Oxford Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches, the

Council for the Care of Churches, English Heritage's Places of Worship Advisory Committee, and the Fabric Advisory Committees of Salisbury and Ely Cathedrals, and he has also published many books and articles on the history of church architecture. He is a Fellow of both the Society of Antiquaries

and the Royal Historical Society.

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The following guidelines apply to books:

  • New: A brand-new copy with cover and original protective wrapping intact. Books with markings of any kind on the cover or pages, books marked as "Bargain" or "Remainder," or with any other labels attached, may not be listed as New condition.
  • Used - Good: All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May include "From the library of" labels. Shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Item may be missing bundled media.
  • Used - Acceptable: All pages and the cover are intact, but shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Pages may include limited notes, highlighting, or minor water damage but the text is readable. Item may but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting, but the text cannot be obscured or unreadable.

Note: Some electronic material access codes are valid only for one user. For this reason, used books, including books listed in the Used – Like New condition, may not come with functional electronic material access codes.

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  • Stevens Books offers FREE SHIPPING everywhere in the United States for ALL non-book orders, and $3.99 for each book.
  • Packages are shipped from Monday to Friday.
  • No additional fees and charges.

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The usual time for processing an order is 24 hours (1 business day), but may vary depending on the availability of products ordered. This period excludes delivery times, which depend on your geographic location.

Estimated delivery times:

  • Standard Shipping: 5-8 business days
  • Expedited Shipping: 3-5 business days

Shipping method varies depending on what is being shipped.  

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If your package has been delivered in a PO Box, please note that we are not responsible for any damage that may result (consequences of extreme temperatures, theft, etc.). 

If you have any questions regarding shipping or want to know about the status of an order, please contact us or email to support@stevensbooks.com.

You may return most items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund.

To be eligible for a return, your item must be unused and in the same condition that you received it. It must also be in the original packaging.

Several types of goods are exempt from being returned. Perishable goods such as food, flowers, newspapers or magazines cannot be returned. We also do not accept products that are intimate or sanitary goods, hazardous materials, or flammable liquids or gases.

Additional non-returnable items:

  • Gift cards
  • Downloadable software products
  • Some health and personal care items

To complete your return, we require a tracking number, which shows the items which you already returned to us.
There are certain situations where only partial refunds are granted (if applicable)

  • Book with obvious signs of use
  • CD, DVD, VHS tape, software, video game, cassette tape, or vinyl record that has been opened
  • Any item not in its original condition, is damaged or missing parts for reasons not due to our error
  • Any item that is returned more than 30 days after delivery

Items returned to us as a result of our error will receive a full refund,some returns may be subject to a restocking fee of 7% of the total item price, please contact a customer care team member to see if your return is subject. Returns that arrived on time and were as described are subject to a restocking fee.

Items returned to us that were not the result of our error, including items returned to us due to an invalid or incomplete address, will be refunded the original item price less our standard restocking fees.

If the item is returned to us for any of the following reasons, a 15% restocking fee will be applied to your refund total and you will be asked to pay for return shipping:

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  • Item(s) returned to us due to an invalid or incomplete address.
  • Item(s) returned to us that were not a result of our error.

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Overview

"A History of the Church through its Buildings takes the reader to meet people who lived through momentous religious changes in the very spaces where the story of the Church took shape. Buildings are about people, the people who conceived, designed, financed, and used them. Their stories become embedded in the very fabric itself, and as the fabric is changed through time in response to changing use, relationships, and beliefs, the architecture becomes the standing history of passing waves of humanity. This process takes on special significance in churches, where the arrangement of the space places members of the community in relationship with one another for the performance of the church's rites and ceremonies. Moreover, architectural forms and building materials can be used to establish relationships with other buildings in other places and other times. Coordinated systems of signs, symbols, and images proclaim beliefs and doctrine, and in a wider sense carry extended narratives of the people and their faith. Looking at the history of the church through its buildings allows us to establish a tangible connection to the lives of the people involved in some of the key moments and movements that shaped that history, and perhaps even a degree of intimacy with them. Standing in the same place where the worshippers of the past preached and taught, or in a space they built as a memorial, touching the stone they placed, or marking their final resting-place, holding a keepsake they treasured or seeing a relic they venerated, probably comes as close to a shared experience with these people as it is possible to come. Perhaps for a fleeting moment at such times their faces may come more clearly into focus"--
ISBN: 0199575363
ISBN13: 9780199575367
Author: Allan Doig
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Format: Hardcover
PublicationDate: 2021-02-01
Language: English
PageCount: 392
Dimensions: 9.4 x 1.1 x 6.5 inches
Weight: 29.76 ounces
A History of the Church through its Buildings takes the reader to meet people who lived through momentous religious changes in the very spaces where the story of the Church took shape. Buildings are about people, the people who conceived, designed, financed, and used them. Their stories becomeembedded in the very fabric itself, and as the fabric is changed through time in response to changing use, relationships, and beliefs, the architecture becomes the standing history of passing waves of humanity. This process takes on special significance in churches, where the arrangement of the space places members of the community in relationship with one another for the performance of the church's rites and ceremonies. Moreover, architectural forms and building materials can be used to establishrelationships with other buildings in other places and other times. Coordinated systems of signs, symbols, and images proclaim beliefs and doctrine, and in a wider sense carry extended narratives of the people and their faith. Looking at the history of the church through its buildings allows us to establish a tangible connection to the lives of the people involved in some of the key moments and movements that shaped that history, and perhaps even a degree of intimacy with them. Standing in the same place where theworshippers of the past preached and taught, or in a space they built as a memorial, touching the stone they placed, or marking their final resting-place, holding a keepsake they treasured or seeing a relic they venerated, probably comes as close to a shared experience with these people as it ispossible to come. Perhaps for a fleeting moment at such times their faces may come more clearly into focusEL
Editorial Reviews



Doig's architectural perspective offers fresh insights into centuries of Christian history. -- W.L.Pitts,
CHOICE Connect, Vol. 59 No. 8


This is an extraordinarily learned book, both architecturally and theologically. It is worth living with the eccentricities for the riches embedded in such an attractive, readable and scholarly text. -- Stephen Platten,
The Living Church


It is a well-written work, replete with insightful information, and should be required reading in a course on ecclesiology. -- Peter C. Phan,
Catholic Books Review


Doig's book underscores the patently important role that church buildings played and continue to play in Christian, non-Christian, and post-Christian societies. Readers will appreciate the accessible treatment of the monuments; their contextualization through the use of primary sources; and the

author's apt and intelligent commentary. In the middle of a pandemic, with severe travel restrictions still in place, Doig's lively descriptions and unbridled enthusiasm for these buildings allowed us to travel, and he reminds us that what is built for worship and wonder is worth its own story. --

Vasileios Mari,
Marginalia Review of Books


The book serves as an excellent introduction to particular buildings, especially those that are not normally taught in the context of a university in the United States.... it is an episodic account of the wonderful, weird, and glorious aspects of ecclesiastical architecture and its patrons. --

Vasileios Marinis, The Marginalia Review of Books


[An] ambitious study... [a] well-illustrated tour of the Christian world's greatest landmarks of the base, earthly instincts that are intertwined in such heavenly buildings. -- Peter Stanford, The Sunday Telegraph


Each chapter examines a church in an original way, a thousand miles from usual guidebook historical rat-runs. -- Christopher Howse, Spectator


The buildings in this book have epic stories to tell, and Doig has a tremendous knack for telling them. -- Alison Shell, Times Literary Supplement


Doig's volume engages with a broad geographic range of key buildings and provides an accessible history of Christianity, engagingly told through its monuments and architecture. -- Claire Nesbitt,
Journal of Antiquity


This is a fascinating approach linking history with architecture and therefore the spaces of ritual and ceremony implying certain types of relationship. -- David Lorimer,
Paradigim Explorer


What a treat to be taken on a tour of sacred sites in Rome and Istanbul, Moscow and Jerusalem, Aachen, Paris, CÃ3rdoba - and Ewelme and Coventry - by the Revd Dr Allan Doig! An architect, priest, and scholar, he is an expert guide: one who has walked these streets many times before; one who has

read widely and long reflected on how faith and architecture intersect... no reader could resist the combination of scholarship and enthusiasm which runs throughout the volume, and it provokes the hope that others might follow its lead. -- William Whyte, Church Times





Allan Doig,
Emeritus Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford
Allan Doig read Architecture at King's College, Cambridge, where he also completed a PhD. After a number of years as a university lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Kent, Canterbury, he was ordained, and during his curacy at St Helen's in Abingdon was responsible for the

restoration of the fourteenth-century painted ceiling in the Lady Chapel there. From his curacy he took up the Chaplaincy of Lady Margaret Hall in the University of Oxford and was elected to a Fellowship in 1996. He has served on the Oxford Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches, the

Council for the Care of Churches, English Heritage's Places of Worship Advisory Committee, and the Fabric Advisory Committees of Salisbury and Ely Cathedrals, and he has also published many books and articles on the history of church architecture. He is a Fellow of both the Society of Antiquaries

and the Royal Historical Society.

Books - New and Used

The following guidelines apply to books:

  • New: A brand-new copy with cover and original protective wrapping intact. Books with markings of any kind on the cover or pages, books marked as "Bargain" or "Remainder," or with any other labels attached, may not be listed as New condition.
  • Used - Good: All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May include "From the library of" labels. Shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Item may be missing bundled media.
  • Used - Acceptable: All pages and the cover are intact, but shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Pages may include limited notes, highlighting, or minor water damage but the text is readable. Item may but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting, but the text cannot be obscured or unreadable.

Note: Some electronic material access codes are valid only for one user. For this reason, used books, including books listed in the Used – Like New condition, may not come with functional electronic material access codes.

Shipping Fees

  • Stevens Books offers FREE SHIPPING everywhere in the United States for ALL non-book orders, and $3.99 for each book.
  • Packages are shipped from Monday to Friday.
  • No additional fees and charges.

Delivery Times

The usual time for processing an order is 24 hours (1 business day), but may vary depending on the availability of products ordered. This period excludes delivery times, which depend on your geographic location.

Estimated delivery times:

  • Standard Shipping: 5-8 business days
  • Expedited Shipping: 3-5 business days

Shipping method varies depending on what is being shipped.  

Tracking
All orders are shipped with a tracking number. Once your order has left our warehouse, a confirmation e-mail with a tracking number will be sent to you. You will be able to track your package at all times. 

Damaged Parcel
If your package has been delivered in a PO Box, please note that we are not responsible for any damage that may result (consequences of extreme temperatures, theft, etc.). 

If you have any questions regarding shipping or want to know about the status of an order, please contact us or email to support@stevensbooks.com.

You may return most items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund.

To be eligible for a return, your item must be unused and in the same condition that you received it. It must also be in the original packaging.

Several types of goods are exempt from being returned. Perishable goods such as food, flowers, newspapers or magazines cannot be returned. We also do not accept products that are intimate or sanitary goods, hazardous materials, or flammable liquids or gases.

Additional non-returnable items:

  • Gift cards
  • Downloadable software products
  • Some health and personal care items

To complete your return, we require a tracking number, which shows the items which you already returned to us.
There are certain situations where only partial refunds are granted (if applicable)

  • Book with obvious signs of use
  • CD, DVD, VHS tape, software, video game, cassette tape, or vinyl record that has been opened
  • Any item not in its original condition, is damaged or missing parts for reasons not due to our error
  • Any item that is returned more than 30 days after delivery

Items returned to us as a result of our error will receive a full refund,some returns may be subject to a restocking fee of 7% of the total item price, please contact a customer care team member to see if your return is subject. Returns that arrived on time and were as described are subject to a restocking fee.

Items returned to us that were not the result of our error, including items returned to us due to an invalid or incomplete address, will be refunded the original item price less our standard restocking fees.

If the item is returned to us for any of the following reasons, a 15% restocking fee will be applied to your refund total and you will be asked to pay for return shipping:

  • Item(s) no longer needed or wanted.
  • Item(s) returned to us due to an invalid or incomplete address.
  • Item(s) returned to us that were not a result of our error.

You should expect to receive your refund within four weeks of giving your package to the return shipper, however, in many cases you will receive a refund more quickly. This time period includes the transit time for us to receive your return from the shipper (5 to 10 business days), the time it takes us to process your return once we receive it (3 to 5 business days), and the time it takes your bank to process our refund request (5 to 10 business days).

If you need to return an item, please Contact Us with your order number and details about the product you would like to return. We will respond quickly with instructions for how to return items from your order.


Shipping Cost


We'll pay the return shipping costs if the return is a result of our error (you received an incorrect or defective item, etc.). In other cases, you will be responsible for paying for your own shipping costs for returning your item. Shipping costs are non-refundable. If you receive a refund, the cost of return shipping will be deducted from your refund.

Depending on where you live, the time it may take for your exchanged product to reach you, may vary.

If you are shipping an item over $75, you should consider using a trackable shipping service or purchasing shipping insurance. We don’t guarantee that we will receive your returned item.

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