Talk:St Albans Cathedral

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Naming[edit]

I see there's been some shifting back and forth between here and St. Alban's Cathedral over the name of this article. I've moved it here, because it seems to be the name that is most supported by the cathedral itself - St Albans Cathedral occurs more commonly than St Alban's Cathedral on their own website. Additionally, it is more closely associated with the name of the city it is located in - St Albans. - MykReeve 20:47, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The use of '.'s as part of the contraction of 'Saint', and an apostrophe where it is both grammatically and logically required, are both, I would suggest, typographical issues, and as such the Cathedral itself may well not be best placed to determine how to name it. Not that I'm advocating one way or the other specificially (oh, what the hell, yes I am; it says in the bloody article that it is "the cathedral of Saint Alban"; "St Alban's Cathedral" or "St. Alban's Cathedral" are the only possible even midly sane renderings of that name into a partially abbreviated form). However...

James F. (talk) 22:54, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well, we call Leicester Cathedral Leicester Cathedral not the Cathedral Church of St Martin. In this case we are just doing the same thing. ;) 22:57, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, I would say it was at very least "mildly sane" to adhere to the naming convention of "CITYNAME Cathedral", given that this is what is done in other cities, and seems to be the convention that the cathedral itself adopts. I would agree if the cathedral were primarily known by its association with Saint Alban rather than with the city of St Albans in the mind of most people, and the city name unambiguously has "no apostrophe or dot" to quote St Albans. - MykReeve 15:31, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ah, right, I had mis-understood our naming convention. But then, we ~~don't~~didn't even have a redirect at London Cathedral :-).

James F. (talk) 18:36, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That's because there isn't one London Cathedral - there's several (St Paul's, Southwark, Westminster (Cathedral, not Abbey) and St George's, Southwark). Actually I had never heard anyone talk of 'London Cathedral' before. Is this term widely used?

As I understand it, the naming convention is more to do with common usage - so St Albans Cathedral is correct. If there is a page 'London Cathedral' it should be a disambiguation page linking to all the London Cathedrals. --David Edgar 08:13, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. I think common usage is the most important factor - which is why even if St Paul's Cathedral could properly be labelled as London Cathedral, it should be located at the former location as that is the more used name.

I think St Paul's Cathedral has the strongest argument to be London Cathedral though, as it is the cathedral of the Diocese of London (see [1]) - the cathedral's Bishop is titled the Bishop of London. Westminster Cathedral is the cathedral of the Diocese of Westminster, and Southwark Cathedral represents the Diocese of Southwark. Having said that, I have never heard anyone refer to St Paul's as London Cathedral. - MykReeve 16:26, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. St. Paul's is the seat of the bishopric of London, and is sometimes (completely correctly) refered to as "London Cathedral", but rather rarely of late, as the dioceses have declined in notability. As you have noted yourself, this is Anglican-centric. I wasn't arguing for moving the page, just pointing out the wonderfulness of a lack of standardised naming in the world that we're documenting. :-)

James F. (talk) 23:04, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Also, of course, St Pauls is the only Cathedral actually within the City of London - the others mentioned (Southwark, Westminster etc) are all outside the actual city . 172.142.108.34 22:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The nave[edit]

Is it still the longest? I though the new Anglican cathedral in Liverpool was longer?Icundell 14:08, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Certainly the nave article implies this. My understanding (maybe incorrect) was that there was some dispute about the proper measurement of naves.

As stated, St Albans Cathedral has a nave of length 106m. The nave in St Albans does not go underneath the tower (the tower being considerably off-centre towards the east). I have previously heard this referred to as a 'true nave'.

This page gives the length of the nave in Liverpool Cathedral as 457 ft, obviously longer. However I believe from the diagram on this Liverpool Cathedral facts page that the nave there extends under the tower. Since the building is 619 feet long, with the tower apparently roughly centred, I would deduce that a measurement excluding the tower would be less than that of St Albans.

This may be the source of the problem. (But I'm not sure what to do about it...)

(Disclaimer: I don't know Liverpool Cathedral well) --David Edgar 11:44, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Article on Ely Cathedral contests St Albans' claim to "the longest nave in Britain" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.80.221 (talk) 22:49, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Query[edit]

The section Dissolution and after mentions that St Albans was initially in the Dicoese of Linclon, and then transferred to the Diocese of London. This page from the cathedral website http://www.stalbanscathedral.org.uk/choirnotes.htm refers to the Diocese of St Albans being created out of the Diocese of Rochester. Did it get moved again, or should we have it being moved into Rochester rather than London? David Underdown 15:07, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Diocese of St Albans was only created in 1877. The Diocese of Rochester page gives some explanation of what happened at that stage.

The bit in the Dissolution section is obviously a lot earlier, and so talks specifically about the Abbey / Abbey Church.

I don't know the exact history and dates, but this map of the Diocese of London in 1714 clearly includes St Albans within its boundary at that date. --David Edgar 17:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

i.e. it was moved later, will work out the appropriate place to add the info (should ahve thought to look at the Diocese of Rochester page. doh! David Underdown 09:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

John of Hertford[edit]

Given that the Diocese of St Albans was only created in 1877, was John of Hertford really a Bishop of St Albans if he died in 1335, as claimed in the Burials section? --David Edgar (talk) 17:03, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, he was abbot - another reason not to trust findagrave.com. Johnbod (talk) 18:34, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Lee (section History, subsection Dissolution and after)[edit]

The article states without citation that Richard Lee, after buying the dissolved Abbey's land, in 1551, "handed the land without the stone back to the abbot". Surely, there was no abbot of St Albans left in charge that year, or was the pensioned-off abbot still alive locally? I have raised a citation need as the entire mention of Richard Lee's activities at the abbey are unreferenced.Cloptonson (talk) 05:45, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

English Civil War period (section History)[edit]

It is not made clear in this article who was in charge of the city of St Albans during the civil war period (there is no mention of the Civil War in the article on St Albans itself), so the reader cannot be sure if the cathedral found itself in a Parliamentary or a Royalist stronghold. It mentions "prisoners of war" (no side indicated) were kept there in the building. Most cities found themselves changing hands in the course of the war as Royalists and Parliamentarians deployed against each other, the latter eventually triumphing - did it happen with St Albans?Cloptonson (talk) 06:48, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]