Light and Procession: Bishop Grosseteste and the Ceremony of the Visitation

The chapters contained in this forthcoming volume disseminate from an international symposium funded by the Paul Mellon Education Programme and the University of Lincoln, and held at Lincoln Cathedral in January 2012. The event provided an opportunity for leading experts in Medieval theology/scholasticism, Medieval science, Church history and Gothic architecture to debate relationships between the design and symbolism of Lincoln Cathedral and the ideas of its early 13th century bishop, Robert Grosseteste, leading scientist and theologian of his age. My paper focuses on the two rose windows in the Great Transept of Lincoln Cathedral (the Dean’s Eye and the Bishop’s Eye), and the Galilee Porch off the south transept in relation to the Bishop’s Palace. The chapter argues that the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the cathedral, the role of the bishop, and the worshipper’s participation in the church liturgy, are made manifest in the architecture of the crossing, through symbolism and spatial organization. Research for this chapter forms part of an on-going (partly collaborative) project on Lincoln Cathedral and its bishop, first highlighted in a chapter in my book, Disclosing Horizons: Architecture, Perspective and Redemptive Space (Routledge, 2007), and subsequently developed in two substantial works by a colleague, Professor John Hendix, at Lincoln University.