Masters and masons of the English Cathedrals in the later Middle Ages a study in management based on a systematic analysis of the surviving fabric rolls, 1290-1540

Thesis

The English Cathedral fabric rolls have long been known as an essential research resource for architectural history. Yet, despite the emergence of highly significant work on individual great churches in the last fifty years, they have not been much researched as a whole. This study aims to apply modern spreadsheet techniques to the full range of almost 500 surviving accounts rolls from 1290 to 1540 and to explore the common themes which result. A shortage of fifteenth-century material was rectified by the inclusion of Westminster Abbey nave, which operated with similar fabric rolls.

The 250 years (1290-1540) from which these accounts have survived saw significant funds raised to realise the rebuilding and completion in their present form of almost half of the cathedrals. There were changes in the management of large building projects under the master masons, whose role as architects and site managers was new. Part I of the thesis discusses the fabric rolls as evidence, focusing on the origin and purpose of separate funds, the reliability of the rolls as accounts, and the adequacy of the surviving rolls as a sample of cathedral building activities. Part II explores questions of funding, including the sufficiency and sustainability of individual donations, chapter and commercial receipts, and the key role and motives of the bishop-patrons in making these projects affordable. Part III investigates the changing design and management roles and the business models of the master masons, and how these impinged on the masons’ working practices and on the ability of the cathedrals to achieve new projects. In Chapter 11 the changing pattern of costs and revenues is set against the context of the late medieval English economy and related to the completion of the cathedral building campaigns.

With a Supplement of Tables consisting of management accounts, wage rates and payments, quarry, stone, and materials costs, and remuneration of master masons and keepers of the works.

Authors: Paterson, C

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-yrvvp0zdg
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cathedral Archives; Middle Ages; Architectural drawing, Medieval; Church history; Social History; Social history; Architectural History; Economic history; History of Accounting