.

Behind the Cathedral

Master masons made these bastions their own
by blending crafts, attaining structural awe;
from Notre Dame, to Salisbury and Cologne
they dazzled kings and stupefied the poor.
The scale envisaged dwarfed the parish churches;
kaleidoscopic windows tamed the light,
while gargoyles gurned from on their lofty perches
and arches rent the sky to left and right.
These shrewd constructors pushed the stone-set lines
and exorcised the darkened ages’ ghost.
They didn’t worship others’ shoddy shrines,
but raised their own great works on which to boast.
The visionary, not the skeptic’s eye
is arbiter as epochs march on by.

.

.

Paul A. Freeman is the author of Rumours of Ophir, a crime novel which was taught in Zimbabwean high schools and has been translated into German. In addition to having two novels, a children’s book and an 18,000-word narrative poem (Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers!) commercially published, Paul is the author of hundreds of published short stories, poems and articles.


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62 Responses

  1. Tom Woodliff

    Awesome poem Paul. I guess the subject will strike people different ways. No denying the architecture and skills. But these structures have come to represent hypocrisy, excess, and oppression for an increasing number of informed folks.

    Reply
    • Jeremiah Johnson

      Tom – Yet, for many, they still retain their wonder. I mean, after all, Notre Dame Cathedral is being rebuilt, and the plans are to restore it to be completely like the original.

      Reply
    • Mary Gardner

      Tom, I agree that Paul has written an awesome poem.
      To those who see the cathedrals as excess, I would respond that it is uplifting to honor God, by whatever name, with structures, art, and music of beauty and quality – not starkness. It is in Man’s nature to give only the finest to that which he loves.
      Is it hypocrisy, or striving to be better? Is it excess, or generosity? Is it oppression, or giving opportunity to work? Answers will vary with each person’s outlook.

      Reply
      • Tom Woodliff

        Christendom’s history of political intrigues, wars, spiritism, pedophilia and every godless, condemned iniquity is plain for all to see. The monuments are facades hiding shame

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Oh, and modern leftism is better than what you describe? Give me a break.

        The high-up people in Christendom may have had their own problems, but the common people had a faith that puts us to shame.

    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Who precisely are those “informed folks”? You perhaps, Mr Woodliff?

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        I have to say, while I disagree with Mr. Woodliff’s assessment, I do like the irony of Mr. Freeman facing the same kind of criticism for a poem of his from someone who appears to be more leftist than himself as he has dished out to Susan.

      • Tom Woodliff

        Sigh. I have nothing against Paul or his awesome poem. Just suggesting there’s more to the story behind the glitter and glam

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Ah, Tom — it was so easy to get you to show your true colors! You must be new to the liberal policy of keeping your real opinions covered up in public.

      • Tom Woodliff

        Yes. One of many. The number is growing as traditional church membership shrinks as informed people look for something better

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Imagine that — Paul’s sonnet is “awesome” but cathedrals are just “facades covering shame.” Left-liberal logic at its best.

        Congratulations, Tom — you’re learning the Orwellian speech habits quite quickly.

      • Tom Woodliff

        I’m new to this site. I truly hope that I don’t find that opposing or even neutral points of view are ridiculed, discouraged or shunned. And I believe in transparency. Too many on social media hide what and who they truly are. Have a nice evening Joseph

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Mr.Woodliff, you seem to forget that you started this fight. Paul Freeman wrote a perfectly nice and thoughtful sonnet on cathedrals — one which did not contain any particular religious or political commitment.

        You initiated the commentary with a gratuitous nasty remark about how cathedrals represent “hypocrisy, excess, and oppression.” You then followed it up three posts later with a vicious attack on Christendom and its supposed faults and sins, and then suggested that cathedrals are nothing but “glitter and glam.” One of your short posts seems to say that you were not one of the people who were upset by the destruction of Notre Dame.

        You act in this manner, and you don’t expect to get kicked in the teeth in return? Think harder, pal. You throw those kinds of punches here, and you’ll get a haymaker in return.

        Yeah, sure — have a nice evening.

      • Tom Woodliff

        Everything I’ve said is historical. I could go on about the Inquisitions, the two world wars fought among Christians, the Opium war, the Thirty years war, the treatment of the American Indian, the Crusades, the conquests in the name of Christ, the financial and political intrigues, etc, etc, etc. But I shan’t. What you see as grace and splendor much of the world sees as oppression. These edifices, especially in Europe, do not represent the best of mankind, design and architecture notwithstanding. True Christians love their neighbor… and their enemies -Matthew 5:43-48; 1 John 3:10

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Tom, no one has ridiculed opposing points of view except you. The hate you display for all things Christian may fly in your liberal online groups, but you’ll find that we’re more than prepared for your simplistic attacks. Quite a few of us are Christians and are perfectly aware how much your kind hates us and everything we stand for. I’m glad you’re not pretending to be a Christian like us, but if you can’t even look at a beautiful cathedral without anger and hate, then please keep that kind of thing to yourself; only staunch leftists want to hear that, and you won’t find many of those here. If you can’t keep it to yourself, then as the saying goes, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

        If you react with such hate to Mr. Freeman writing about Notre Dame, I can’t wait to see what you think of my poems. Just type my name in the search bar and read away.

      • Tom Woodliff

        I’ve been a Christian for forty years but thank you for asking.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        So you’re a Protestant who hates Catholics and the Catholic Church?

      • Tom Woodliff

        I don’t hate anyone. Maybe the Devil

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Woodliff, if you hate cathedrals and what you think they stand for, why did you bother to comment on Paul Freeman’s sonnet? Is it that you just couldn’t resist picking a fight with Christians who love and appreciate the buildings?

        Like all left-liberals, you’re a slave to your animosities, and can’t resist spouting them in a public forum. As for you being a Christian, I assume that means a “social gospel” type, and not an actual doctrinal believer. That’s OK — anyone is welcome here, and no one is censored.

        But I reiterate — if you attack and ridicule things that we love we will HIT BACK HARD, because we have freedom of speech as well. This is not a safe space for left-liberal trolls.

      • Tom Woodliff

        You seem to have a desperate need to have the last word Joseph, so I’m going to let you. Keep on the watch for my next submission, more fun on the way. Once again, goodnight

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Your attack on Christendom strongly suggests otherwise.

      • Tom Woodliff

        Joshua, surely you understand the difference between hating the sinful deeds and not the individual sinner. Right? Am I really the first person to ever point out to you the historical facts mentioned above? These are well known. My original comment on Paul’s poem was simply this: Not everyone stands in awe of the great edifices of Christendom. Most Europeans today (who still profess Christianity, the numbers of which dwindle yearly) are nominal Christians, at best. They’ve felt the fire of two world wars on their continent and the utter failure of religion to prevent such.

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Who’s looking to get the last word now, Woodliff?

      • Joshua C. Frank

        So you don’t hate Christians, just Christianity, which you consider a sin? Given that you call yourself a Christian, that doesn’t even make sense. But taking it at face value, if you are a Christian as you claim to be, then surely you know that one who accepts Jesus Christ becomes a new creation in Him, as the Bible says. Therefore if you hate Christianity, you hate Christians. It’s that simple.

        History is written by the winners, and by your own admission, unbelievers are the winners right now. It is true that “all have sinned,” but the left distorts the sins of medieval Christian leaders into the idea that Christendom is inherently evil. For example, the Crusades are portrayed as an invasion motivated solely by bigotry, when in reality, it was to defend Jerusalem from Saracen invaders.

        It is liberalism that is inherently evil; among its natural results have been Communism, the Abortion Holocaust, the destruction of the family and even Western culture itself… the list goes on.

        Paul Freeman may lean liberal, but at least he recognizes beauty when he sees it.

      • Tom Woodliff

        I see beauty in the mountains, in my wife’s eyes, in my brother’s kitten, in a colorful sunset. These are the gifts of God. I love true Christianity, the teachings of Jesus Christ. What I hate are the abuses perpetrated in the name of Christ. I don’t know how I can make it any clearer than that (see Matthew 7:21-23)

      • Joshua C. Frank

        As far as I can tell, it sounds to me as if you love Christianity as long as it never transgresses the boundaries of modern liberalism, or put more bluntly, as long as it’s neutered to accommodate modern culture and its beliefs that run contrary to what Christians have always believed.

        Would I be correct in inferring that you approve of abortion, transgenderism, and calling whiteness inherently evil and oppressive?

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Joshua, its typical of left-liberals like Woodliff to bow out of an argument when it gets too hot for them, and to leave uncomfortable questions unanswered. He won’t be back.

    • Joshua C. Frank

      Just because they have come to represent all those bad things for an increasing number doesn’t mean that’s true. You’ve been spoon-fed anti-medieval propaganda from every angle in our anti-Christian, capitalistic, technocratic culture. I invite you to read the alternative view and see for yourself how wrong all that is. Here’s a starter set for you:

      The Case Against the Modern World by Daniel Schwindt
      Progress Debunked by Samuel Thomsen
      The Reactionary Mind by Michael Warren Davis

      Take the red pill and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

      Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      An interesting argument, similar to that today about the cost of manned space flight versus sorting out problems closer to home like finally eradicating polio or getting to grips with malaria.

      Thanks for reading and the kind comments.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Malaria would have been eradicated decades ago (and millions of lives saved) if jackass environmentalists hadn’t forced a ban on DDT.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        I think the difficulty of manned space flight is God’s way of saying, “Stay home.” After all, the Bible says He made the Earth to be inhabited, not space or another planet.

        To quote a minor character on Star Trek, “If man were meant to fly, he’d have wings. If man were meant to live in space, he wouldn’t need air.”

      • Tom Woodliff

        A man of true class. You’re quite welcome sir

  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Paul, that is a wonderful ode to the structural beauty of European cathedrals. I was fortunate in my time in Europe to see the ones you mentioned plus those ranging from England, Germany and Austria, to those of Poland and Russia (USSR at the time). The saddest one I saw was in a Russian city. As an Army Attaché, I was with my partner and we managed to fool our KGB followers long enough to sneak into any empty cathedral. There we saw atheistic agitprop (agitation/propaganda) signs in profusion hanging down from the rafters, dozens of desks with atheistic booklets on the desks, and signs all over the place. I am sure that all changed after the switch from the USSR to Russian in the early 1990’s.

    Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      As always, an interesting worldly view to add another layer to the topic of a poem.

      Last time I was in Khartoum, the Museum of the History of the Republic of Sudan was located in what was once All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral, a building dating from the early 20th century. Very incongruous.

      Thanks for reading, Roy.

      Reply
    • Monika Cooper

      Roy, your story of the agitprop hanging from the rafters of the empty cathedral makes me think of pictures I’ve seen of Hagia Sophia with Arabic letters posted over the Christian ceiling art.

      Also I’ve heard that in the USSR, certain churches were made into museums and others, for some reason, were spared to be used as churches. Maps would feature the museum-churches but leave the “living churches” out. I was taking a bus tour of an American city one time and the driver pointed out to us a historic church, passing over in complete silence another big beautiful church across the corner from it. “What’s that church?” I asked. He said he didn’t know. It was the Catholic cathedral of the diocese.

      Reply
  3. Mark Stellinga

    Paul, a well deserved and well depicted tribute to the absolutely breathtaking architecture of this era. You nailed it – a moving read.

    Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      Glad you enjoyed the poem, Mark. Evan provided some fabulous input, though we stuck to the British spelling for ‘gurned’, which is one of my favourite words.

      Reply
  4. Jeremiah Johnson

    Paul, I love your point that, ultimately, it’s the artists and not the critics who have the last word. I was just thinking about that this morning in connection with Nabokov’s lectures on Don Quixote. Despite all of Nabokov’s and others’ cynicism, DQ continues to shape the imagination of peoples around the world. The work, if it’s great enough, abides regardless of what people think – I mean, they’re rebuilding Notre Dame Cathedral!

    On another note, my most vivid impression of visiting a cathedral was the Duomo in Milan. You couldn’t even see the magnificent front of the church when I was there, as it was covered with scaffolding for renovation purposes – but I remember climbing the stairs to the roof and wandering about for an hour, lost in a wonderland of spire-like statues.

    Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      Scaffolding on an old building I find encouraging because it tells you that the structure is being maintained.

      It’s interesting what you say about Don Quixote. I gave up on the book club out here because everyone seemed to be getting their ideas from Wikipedia or Sparks’ notes rather than their own impressions.

      Thanks for reading, Jeremiah.

      Reply
  5. Russel Winick

    This is an excellent poem, on a lovely subject whose nearness to your heart is palpable. That is what we all seek to do with our work. Thank you for sharing this fine piece, Paul.

    Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      You’re making me blush, Russel.

      Thanks for reading and commenting.

      Reply
  6. Margaret Coats

    Paul, you do a magnificent work of summing up cathedrals by moving from the skills, plans, and oversight of master builders to the lasting effect. “Visionary” is the key word. As your couplet says, judgment about cathedrals belongs to the person of any era who sees something of the builders’ vision. And whether those masters were humble or boastful, they certainly had as one of their aims, to induce a vision of a more glorious world. Their works are viewed, every day, to this effect by numerous mostly skeptical tourists who cannot help but imagine higher realms, even if they see the place only from the outside.

    You are quite right to point out the importance of scale. One critic of American cathedrals long ago pointed out that they are mostly oversized parish churches. Saint Patrick’s on Fifth Avenue is New York is an exception, but there it was clearly necessary for the building to compete with lavish secular architecture. I was more impressed by Holy Cross in Boston, built far from the center of the city, in the middle of a lower-class Irish area. When completed, it must indeed have stupefied the immigrant workers–and given them tremendous pride in their ownership of a building and a vision of God that dominated the city as far as they could see.

    Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful comments, Margaret.

      As you may recall, I subbed this poem after reading your April poem about Notre Dame.

      Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      I do remember, Paul, and I have been looking forward to your poem. Although you call it “Behind the Cathedral” to focus on the builders rather than the building, in lines 9-13 you come to a historical and spiritual recognition that the stone cathedrals and churches we see today represent an important shift in thinking and life. The Dark Ages passed as men attempted to create lasting architectural beauty to the honor of God. This was in part the millenial impulse of the year 1000, noted soon thereafter by the monk Raoul Glaber who saw Europe beginning to be covered by “a white mantle of churches.” It came a little later in England, because the Norman knights who had promised to go on crusade to the east if they won in 1066 were allowed to fulfill their promises instead by building finer churches for conquered England. The “shoddy shrines” of wood disappeared as “great works” were raised, pushing the limits of what could be done in stone. How often there must have been disasters like the collapse at Ely that led to its beautiful lantern! And then the spectacular successes like the dome at Florence. That’s where I go after the turn in your sonnet! It was worth the wait.

      Reply
  7. Joseph S. Salemi

    When Notre Dame in Paris burned, persons of all faiths and non-faiths were seriously upset. Protestants, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists — one of my friends, a secular non-practicing Jewish liberal, wept. That is the sheer beauty of these shrines.

    Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      These sturdy structures can be deceptively vulnerable, Joseph.

      I was reading an article I wrote about Ibn Battutah (an Arab adventurer / explorer in the vein of Morco Polo), and was similarly affected by the fact that he got to see the Lighthouse at Alexandria a few years before it got toppled during an earthquake.

      Reply
  8. Joshua C. Frank

    I really like this one. As a Catholic, I can say you’ve really captured the beauty of the cathedrals that medieval craftsmen built to be a suitable home for the body and blood of Jesus Christ (for those who don’t know, that’s what Catholics consider the Eucharist to be). I love lines 5-8, and I also like the alliteration and subtle internal rhyme between lines

    I don’t understand the meter in line 3, though. Is that iambic pentameter in your accent? I read it as hexameter: “from NO-tre DAME, to SA-lis-BU-ry AND co-LOGNE.”

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      The name Salisbury is pronounced SAULZ – burry (disyllabic) in England. Therefore the meter of the line is regular.,

      Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      My grandmother lived in deepest Somerset and one of the village’s two weekly buses was to Salisbury.

      My pronunciation of ‘Salisbury’ is somewhere between SAULZ–burry and SALZ-bree, probably closer to the latter due to what remains of my London accent.

      Reply
  9. C.B. Anderson

    Someone once said that architecture is frozen music. Once you see it you can hear it.

    Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      In one of these more famous, or even less famous cathedrals, you definitely feel the architectural music.

      Reply
  10. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Paul, from your title to the closing line, this admirably wrought sonnet is thoroughly engaging. I especially like, ‘while gargoyles gurned from on their lofty perches’ – you bring these gurning (great word) grotesques to life beautifully. It puts me in mind of the spoiled-grave scene in ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’. Very well done indeed!

    Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      Thank you, Susan.

      I was particularly enamoured by an ‘Alien’ gargoyle I saw on the internet that’s occasionally used on abbeys and cathedrals in the UK.

      Reply
  11. Shaun C. Duncan

    My first visit to a mediaeval cathedral, coming from Australia where there’s virtually nothing standing which dates from prior to the Victorian era, was one of the most transformative experiences of my life and the closing couplet of your finely constructed sonnet perfectly encapsulates the feeling of standing in one of those magnificent constructions for the first time.

    Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      Thanks for your comments, Shaun. I did have reservations about that final couplet, so I’m really chuffed.

      Reply
  12. Monika Cooper

    Here is my analysis/response:

    A strong and beautiful poem, containing complex thought. It’s a study in contrasts and there are contrasts among the contrasts.

    Kings are dazzled, the poor are stupefied: a roughly parallel and humbled reaction in the two contrasting classes of people. (But being dazzled seems more desirable than being stupefied.)

    The next contrast that stands out to me is the contrast between the scale of the cathedrals versus the “dwarfed” parish churches.

    Then we have these light-filled, light-taming constructions set against “the darkened ages’ ghost.” What are these darkened ages? The earlier Medieval with its parish churches (hovels of God, you might call them) now “dwarfed”? Or, less intuitively, the age of paganism? Maybe both.

    “Shoddy shrines” contrasted with “great works”: again the question, are these shoddy shrines the same parish churches or some pagan thing?

    The final contrast of the poem declares decisively in favor of the “visionary” over the “skeptic’s eye.” In the architecture of the cathedrals we see faith shot through with the light of reason (or is it reason shot through with the light of faith?) and more than the light of reason too, the mystic’s or genius’s vision. It reminds us of Aquinas’s achievements in theology.

    But why must cathedral light be tamed and taught to slow dance in kaleidoscope formations? Or another question, from C. S. Lewis, why are holy places dark places? The cathedrals have reconciled shadow and light in a stupendous way. But do they (and we) have to repudiate the darksome houses where the little parishes pray? Or even completely reject the pagan holy wells and caves? What do the gargoyles, those gurning little dwarfs, think? (Do we care what they think?)

    This “boast” of the builders: who knows the architects’ names today? Only scholars, if they. While the people still know the cathedrals by the names of their saints and cities, while the people still call on the Name of the Lord. When I see a cathedral, I see the faith of the people who prayed and sacrificed it into being and it dwarfs the very genius of the architect.

    Thank you for this poem, Paul.

    Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      Wow! Thank you, Moniker, for looking at my work in greater detail. I always think this helps the writer to see how conscious and subconscious processes are working.

      The ‘darkened ages’ is a poetically mangled reference to ‘the Dark Ages’, the age of ignorance between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Medieval era and finally the Renaissance.

      I figure older churches and cathedrals are dark because glass was so expensive to make and could not be made in large sheets like today.

      Thanks for spotting so much and allowing me to have insight into my own writing process.

      Reply

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