On praying in an old country: ritual, replication, heritage, and powers of adjacency in English cathedrals

Abstract

This article explores the double identities of English Cathedrals as places of religious engagement but also as locations of heritage. Rather than seeing such functions as only or inherently opposed to each other, with liturgy compromised by tourism, or religious seriousness by crass commerciality, it explores the ways in which religious practice, tourism and heritage display exist in adjacent, often mutually productive forms. Such adjacencies may lead to particular contexts and activities of modified mimesis and replication between religious and heritage behaviours, which I label ‘merging,’ ‘modes of address,’ and ‘enactment.’ Overall, my analysis assesses the influence not only of the market, but also of management culture, on cathedral governance in the contemporary era.

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