‘Durham Cathedral can be whatever you want it to be’: Examining the negotiation of space and time

Introduction

‘Durham Cathedral can be whatever you want it to be’: this was a phrase I would often hear during my fieldwork, be it a workshop, a laboratory, a concert hall, a temple, or simply a place to meet friends. All elements seemed as important to the community and the life of the building as the next and it is a phrase which has stuck with me. That a building so clearly devoted to Christian worship could be whatever you wanted it to be conjures up the image of a complex, multifaceted relationship that exists between the building and those who use it. Often, these various contrasts would reveal themselves in multiple ways. For instance, one volunteer tour guide, upon reaching the tomb of the Venerable Bede, turned to a group of tourists and said: ‘Now here we are at my favourite bit. Before my retirement, I was a physicist and I’m not given over to the religious parts of this building. However, Bede was not just a monk but a great mind of his time and I remain eternally in awe of him’. Examples like this were common during my fieldwork as people would draw their own connections to the building and the spaces within them, emphasising the elements of these connections which were important to them personally: in this case, the academic achievements of Bede as opposed to his spiritual ones. These connections would also highlight the complex multiplicity of meaning that one could draw from the spaces, resulting in people creating an infusion of meaning between themselves and the building.

When viewed in its totality, Durham Cathedral stands for, and is experienced as, far more than just a place of worship. Rather, it is a place of infusion where people participate in both present and past times in a multitude of ways, whether that be through architecture, stained glass windows, family ties, historically important figures, community events or religious services. However, one cannot escape the fact that the building is not an everyday space – it is a space dedicated to Christian worship, where the community finds space for other activities. Yet in modern society, cathedrals have also undoubtedly become public spaces and therefore, by extension, spaces of contestation, where people vie for the space they need for the purposes they need them for. As a result, these spaces become places of enacted negotiation in which both space and time are malleable assemblages used to create manifold space-times. However, spaces like Durham Cathedral do not become whatever people need them to be through any special practice, but simply through everyday actions and negotiations: a participation of both the building and the people using the space. As Hallam and Ingold point out, negotiation is often improvisational and is ultimately ‘the way we work, not only in the ordinary conduct of our everyday lives, but also in our studied reflections on these lives in fields of art, literature and science’ (2007: 1). Acts of negotiation and improvisation are important between groups of people that share a building, but do not necessarily share the same agenda. Indeed, in their analysis of the organisation of a pilgrimage shrine Eade and Sallnow argue that spaces that house the co-existence of numerous groups of people and agendas, religious and otherwise, should be seen as based on acts of contestation, contradiction, and opposition (2000: 52).

By examining two differing ethnographic accounts taken from 14 months of fieldwork I conducted in Durham Cathedral, this paper seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the way in which tensions that can occur as a result of different expectations in the qualities of time and space are overcome. As such, this article will explore the negotiation of space and time within the Cathedral, beginning with an ethnographic account of the Flower Festival, in which the space of the Cathedral is used for many different purposes. I will argue that through Munn’s (1992) analysis of creating various space-times, space can be found within the building for multiple purposes of multiple qualities of time. The article will then go on to examine an ethnography of Maundy Thursday and the creation of a sacred space-time. In order to interpret these actions, I will explore Eliade’s discussion of sacred time and Bergson’s concept of time, la durée, ¹ further building on Munn’s use of space-time. The difficulty remains in understanding a sacred time as set forward by Eliade yet agreeing with the view of Gell, in which there ‘is no fairyland where people experience time in a way that is markedly unlike the way in which we do ourselves’ (1992: 315). To remedy this, I argue through Bergson that in fact there exists a multiplicity of time and emerging space-times, all of which exist within the concept of la durée, in which there is only one time, in which all time takes place. Therefore, this paper aims to set out a clearer picture of how various groups negotiate the spaces they share, particularly when they are searching for differing qualities of time. In doing so I argue that just as the actions of one group can create a particular space-time for their needs, the creation of sacred time acts in very much the same way, drawing in only those who are actively partaking in the creation of the particular space-time. In doing so I show that the multiplicity of time, emerging space-times and sacred time, in which time is co-spatial and co-temporal can exist within the concept of la durée.

The Flower Festival

The Flower Festival is an annual event which takes place in a different location every year. In 2013 it was held in Durham Cathedral. Entitled ‘Jewels of the North’, the theme took as its focus the Northern Saints and the Lindisfarne Gospels, which had been on display next door to the Cathedral within the Palace Green Library, on a three-month loan from the British Library. ² Preparations for the festival had been going on for months prior to my arrival and would see the Cathedral divided into sections with each section showing different floral displays. With the Cathedral expected to receive around 6000 visitors a day over the six-day festival, it was most certainly an important event. ‘It’s important to remember’, explained Anne Heywood, the Cathedral’s visitor coordinator during a training session for the volunteer stewards, ‘that the main task of this for us is to raise money for the Open Treasure Project, ³ and although this is going to be disruptive to the day-to-day life of the Cathedral, it’s happening and you’ve just got to be flexible and we have to get on with it’. It wasn’t until I walked into the Cathedral a few days before the start of the festival that I realised how true Anne’s words were.

The usually neat and tidy Cathedral had been replaced by countless stacks of buckets, pallets of flowers, tool boxes, cardboard boxes, black bin bags, rolls of red ribbon, mountains of green foam, discarded flower stems, scissors, and secateurs, while step ladders stood all around the nave. The usual hushed tones of people whispering was taken over by a cherry picker being driven down the aisle to secure four huge banners, which were hoisted between the massive columns of the north aisle. I sat and watched a group of flower arrangers huddled around a blank stretch of wall, examining it as if it were a piece of art, deliberating over how best to approach whatever task they had. Everywhere I looked, flower arrangers negotiated their way around the building and its furniture, climbing on the high altar, tying flowers to the walls with reams of ribbon, a beleaguered looking Porter declaring loudly that he just ‘wants things left where they are’, as another flower arranger moved a large decorative candlestick out of her way. Amongst the legions of flower arrangers were mingled visitors to the Cathedral, standing amid the black bags and discarded flower stems, leaning over cardboard boxes to read information signs, and watching flower arrangers compose their artistic designs. Further down the nave, another group of arrangers considered another blank stretch of wall: a man stood with his arm in the air, pointing with a green laser pen at particular points, explaining loudly how best to use it.

As I sat in a pew writing my observations, an older gentleman with a child around the age of eight or nine slid along into the pew in front of me. Taking a seat, they leaned forward in silence. After a minute or so they leaned back and observed the busyness around them. The man sat in silence, the noise of the Cathedral all around as his granddaughter fidgeted in her seat, distracted by the activity around her. Soon a Cathedral listener ⁴ approached them. Spotting this, the man stood up and stretched out his hand to greet the listener, before sitting and returning to his silent state once more. After a few moments of silence, the two men began to chat about the busy nature of the Cathedral before being interrupted by a loud voice, ringing over the speaker system to alert everybody that Holy Communion was about to begin in the Galilee Chapel. A few minutes later within the noisy, busy, and untidy nave, a black robed verger ⁵ strode silently up the central aisle, an ornate silver staff clutched in one hand, followed by a member of the Chapter fully gowned, head bowed and hands clasped, together making their way in solemn silence past the cherry picker and through the hustle and bustle of the flower arrangers and tourists, up towards the Galilee Chapel.

Present here within the building were multiple, intersecting layers of differing time rhythms and qualities all played out in the confined space of the nave. Firstly, the flower arrangers rushing around in all the urgency of a group who are short of time, interacting with a porter whose daily rhythm of ‘things being left where they are’ was being disrupted, causing him a visible level of discomfort. Additionally, there was the grandfather and his granddaughter, who seemed to be seeking a calmer, more reflective quality of time. Whilst the qualitative atmosphere of the Cathedral was not its usual self, the pair maintained their own quiet and relaxed quality of time within the noise, no doubt this subdued nature coming with their own rhythmical expectation of the building and thus highlighting ‘the struggle to adjust between rhythmic expectation and actual event’ (James and Mills, 2005: 8).

In Durham Cathedral the Eucharist has occurred daily for over 900 years. However, the rhythmical nature of the religious service, on this day, had to fit into the midst of the Flower Festival, with the verger and clergyman having to make their way through the noise of the unusually busy Cathedral, their long gowns trailing the floor, aesthetically separating them from others sharing the space whilst also evoking a sense of the long tradition of this important part of daily worship. Whilst all of these qualities were in tension with one another, because so contrasting, they seemed at first sight to still operate without any major difficulty. It wasn’t until the next day that a discussion occurred regarding the tensions between rhythms and qualities of time being spatially so close. As two office workers passed each other, they stopped to discuss how the Galilee Chapel was proving to be too noisy for the service.

In a volunteer training manual circulated by the volunteer coordinator before the Flower Festival, the necessity of having somewhere for those wishing to find a quiet spot had been thought about: ‘Quiet prayer and thought are not going to be easy in the Cathedral. Access to the Gregory Chapel ⁶ will be possible but potentially difficult more on “Health and Safety” grounds than anything else’. It had also been suggested that the Chapel of the Holy Cross, situated out the back of the Cathedral beneath the Dean’s lodgings, would be an acceptable solution. However, it was due to have atmospheric bird noises played in the small space, as part of the festival. The tension here was between the expectation of having a quiet space in which to conduct Holy Communion, and the actual event in which the Cathedral was simply too noisy to be able to conduct a quiet communion as was intended – again highlighting the struggle between the event and the expectation of it (James and Mills, 2005: 8).

This tension, in which different qualities of time share the same confined space, was most obvious at every Evensong during the Flower Festival. In Durham Cathedral, Evensong takes place every day at 5:15, except Sundays, when it is at 3:30. During a conversation with the Dean, he described the rhythm of both Evensong and Morning Prayer – both services being key elements in the Benedictine monks’ Opus Dei which took place in the same space over 400 years ago – as important thresholds into and out of the day, and no matter what was happening at Durham Cathedral, nothing interrupted the rhythmic returning of these two key services. The Flower Festival was scheduled to run till 9:00 pm every day. However, when it came to 4:45 pm, half an hour before the start of Evensong, the stewards would begin to slowly mingle with the many visitors and alert them that Evensong was soon to begin, and that the Cathedral during this time would be closed to those who did not wish to attend. As time drew closer to the beginning of the service, stewards would begin to gently guide the visitors to the back of the nave and behind a red velvet rope which separated those not wishing to attend the service and the Cathedral beyond.

Making time and space

As the occurrences of the Flower Festival shows, the tensions that can appear as a result of different expectations in the qualities of time and space are a common part of life in Durham Cathedral. However, as the conversation of the two office workers alluded to, whilst these differing qualities may at first seem to exist together without any issue, the expectation of one quality alongside the reality of that particular space at that particular time does raise tensions, as seen with the porter’s discomfort at things being moved around. Interest turns then to the way in which these tensions come to be negotiated because, as Hubert implies, the resolution of these tensions lies with the community and social activity (1999: 71).

According to Munn, we humans and our productions are always in some way ‘in’ time, yet in the same moment, our actions make the time we are in. Similarly, she asserts that space and time are integral to one another, and so ‘spatial and temporal dimensions cannot be disentangled, and the two commingle in various ways’ (1992: 94). This in turn leads Hodges to suggest that Munn characterises social life ‘as comprising a “lived space-time”’ (2008: 406). Munn herself articulates this view in an earlier piece in which she argues that: ‘Sociocultural action systems (or the activities through which they become operative) do not simply go on in or through time and space, but they form (structure) and constitute (create) the “space-time” manifold in which they “go on”’. In extension to this, Munn suggests that it is down to the actors to create this ‘manifold’, and in doing so produce their own space-time. Using this approach, then, one can suggest, as Munn does, that sociocultural ‘space-time’ is neither individualistic nor uniform, but rather through the actions of each system they create and possess their own ‘space-time’. Therefore: ‘Different action systems in the same society can construct different space-time formations’ (1983: 280). As Bergson points out, ‘duration means invention, the creation of forms, the continual elaboration of the absolutely new’ (1946: 11).

Reconsidering that busy Cathedral day in which the flower arrangers, porter, tourists, grandfather, granddaughter, Cathedral listener, verger and clergy members were all vying for space, we can begin to view their disconnected activities as being different ‘space-times’ separately constructed by the actions of the different groups. Furthermore, by viewing time and space within the Cathedral in this manner, one can bring in different rhythms of layers and qualities into the one space of the Cathedral. Additionally, one can also avoid the over-generalisation of sacred/profane time, suggesting instead that both aspects can exist at the same time within the same space within the sub-groups of one community. In this sense, the occurrence of a sacred act within a space does not bring everybody into one sociocultural space-time because, just as there are a variety of ‘profane’ acts, for example tourism or flower arranging, so too are there differing sacred acts, thus creating differing space-times. An example of differing sacred acts within the same time and space can be seen in the layout of the building whilst accommodating a monastic community alongside the laity. At the east end of the nave stood two dividing walls: the quire screen which closed off the quire, and the rood screen which closed off the entire east end of the Cathedral. Both walls served as a threshold between the secular area and the more ritualised ‘sacred area’. In terms of practicalities the division allowed lay services to be conducted at the Jesus altar in the nave, whilst the monks performed the daily offices within the quire (Russo, 1994: 258). At these times, there existed within Durham Cathedral two different sacred times kept separate and operating completely independently of each other, during which it was left to the unattached action-systems to each create their own spatiotemporal sacrality, independent of each other.

Acts of separation still continue today, as can be seen during the Flower Festival. During this time, I was often asked to stand at the velvet rope at the back of the nave which would separate the congregation from those not wishing to attend services and ask guests if they wished to attend and, if not, then not allow them past the rope. At the back, visitors would come into the Cathedral and stop to watch a few minutes of the service before disappearing out into the cloisters, returning once the service had ended and the Cathedral was once again open to everybody. In these instances, the whole east end of the building so often open to the community is cleared in preparation for a sacred space-time.

Through Munn’s suggestion of multiple space-times, it is also possible to understand how Durham Cathedral can be whatever people need it to be, through a process of the community, in its various parts or ‘action systems’, creating their own space-time. It is through the actions of the groups of flower arrangers that the Cathedral becomes a messy hive of busyness, creativity, and temporary change of appearance through the exhibition of the flower arrangements. It is also important to remember, however, that these actions do not constitute a totalising whole in which nothing but the arrangement of the Flower Festival can take place. It is instead simply one part of what is possible within the Cathedral as it is transformed through the actions of those using the space. An example of this was demonstrated by the young girl and her grandfather. Whilst his wife and daughter were shopping, he took the opportunity to acquaint his young granddaughter with the Cathedral. In doing so, through their actions of sitting in a pew and leaning forward in silence to pray, they created, for no matter how brief a time, their own space-time with a quality of calm and silence within the messy hustle and bustle of the flower arranging, a space-time which, through their actions and my proximity, drew me into a sense of obligation.

As the granddaughter and her grandfather took their seats and lent forward clasping their hands together, I immediately felt obliged to alter my own space-time in order to accommodate the close proximity of this newly created space-time. It was an impingement, in this case on my space-time generated here by their body movements which established their relationship to the divine, transforming the space around them. Furthermore, through my understanding of their actions they caused me to alter my space-time, in feeling if not in action. So too the verger, fully cloaked, followed by a minister in full robes, his hands clasped together and head bowed, moving slowly through the noisy Cathedral, was walking through a not necessarily sacred space, but a vacillatingly sacred space, particularly on this day. It was through their actions that they began to create the sacred space needed to carry out the intended communion. As Bourdieu points out, the body is constantly steeped in the cultural meanings of space, and vice versa (1977: 90). Similarly, Munn, commenting on her own studies, suggests that those from her own fieldwork ‘view action as a symbolic (meaningful and meaning-forming) process in which people ongoingly produce both themselves as spatio-temporal beings and the space-time of the wider world’ (1992: 107). ⁷ Both comments, thus, highlight the important role our bodies play in the cultural meaning and meaning-forming aspects of space.

At times, various action systems such as the clergy, the stewards, the worshippers, and the building itself align to create a number of space-times, which have common goals, as can be seen with Evensong. As Evensong approached, the stewards worked to clear tourists out of the nave of the Cathedral. During Evensong, the clergy conducted the service, and the worshippers congregated at the prescribed time to worship, all of them having different actions and thus different action systems, but all having a common goal, a smooth Evensong service. Through these various action systems and the created space-times, it becomes possible to understand the way in which the tensions of quality and space become negotiated. Whilst the exact negotiation is an ongoing process, with each situation being dealt with as it arises, the creation of various space-times helps to explain the manner in which, as Hubert commented, these adjustments are more a circumstance of social activity than that of the individuals’ own mental processes (1999: 71). That is, space-time is not just something inside people’s minds but something that has to be created and enacted through the very practical means (action systems), for example, the taking up of the specific position of prayer.

Through the above ethnography and Munn’s proposal of a manifold space-time, the negotiation and transformation of space reveals itself as a continuous process in which the community finds the space to fulfil their needs and through their subsequent action systems creates multiple space-times, existing concurrently within the same space of Durham Cathedral. Importantly, as Adam states, these ‘multiple rhythms and social organisation are nestled inside one another, and new rhythms are not merely grafted onto existing ones but change their nature in the process’ (2002: 515). Furthermore, viewing these smaller action systems as sub-sets of the larger community allows for a more manageable negotiation of the confined space of the Cathedral, ultimately allowing the people to not find the space they need but create it.

Changing spaces and experiencing Easter

Whilst it is through the actions of the various groups that numerous space-times are created, actions like the giving of Holy Communion bring with it an entirely different dimension of time, or rather, lack of it. As Hubert states:

Given that in fact religious acts take place in space and time, one of the enigmas of ritual is the reconciliation of these inescapable conditions with the infinite extent and the theoretical immutability of the sacred. Ritual must consequently bring into play representations and figurations of space and time necessary to resolve this antinomy. (Isambert and Hubert, 1999: 18)

‘This is the evening of the Last Supper’, read my service book, explaining that on his last evening with his disciples, Jesus instituted the Eucharist and commanded his disciples to wash one another’s feet (the Maundy), after which they headed to a garden where the disciples watched whilst Jesus prayed.

There had been a certain anticipation for this service. ‘It’s the only time of the year that you get to see the altar without anything over it, you never see it otherwise’ explained one volunteer. Another had mentioned a section of the service called ‘the Judas Cup’, a rite unique to Durham that had been performed by the monks of Durham Cathedral every Maundy Thursday, mentioned in the 16th-century manuscript The Rites of Durham (1998 [1593]). The rite itself had only recently been revived and placed back into the service.

The service began with a hymn which opened with the line ‘O thou, who at thy Eucharist didst pray’, before quickly moving from the gathering to Prayers of Penitence. The first reading – Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14 – spoke of God’s message to Moses and Aaron regarding the Jewish festival of Passover, also celebrated at this time of year, and how they should protect themselves from ‘the Passover of the Lord’. The second reading – John 13.1-17, 31 b-35 – began with Jesus knowing before the Feast of the Passover that his time on earth was short and that he would ultimately be betrayed by Judas. It then described Jesus’ actions during their final supper together, of washing his disciples’ feet, removing his outer robe, and tying a towel around himself.

After the readings, a sermon was given by the Bishop of Durham, before moving to ‘The Middle Voluntary’. During this section, the Bishop recreated the motions of the second reading, taking off his outer robes, tying a towel around himself, and washing the feet of a select few of the Cathedral Boys’ Choir sitting in a row in front of the quire stalls. With the washing of the feet concluded, the bishop once again read the section of the second reading in which Jesus says, ‘Do you know what I have done to you?’, before concluding with a prayer. Having moved through the ‘Prayers of Intercession’ and ‘The Liturgy of the Sacrament’, and with the Cathedral now firmly held within the darkness of night, the preparation of the table began, and with a liturgy describing the Eucharist’s origins, the service arrived at the Eucharist itself.

Once everybody had taken bread and wine and returned to their seats, the service moved to the rite of ‘The Judas Cup’, the introduction of which I, not having been confirmed, had read whilst everybody took communion. The introduction spoke of the ambiguities of discipleship and the manner in which the ambiguities came to be recalled in the ceremony called simply ‘The Judas Cup’. It was described as a ‘dramatic re-enactment’ and was an attempt to translate the medieval ritual ‘into modern terms’, another expression of the layers of history at play within the Cathedral.

After the haunting sounds of the choir chanting Psalm 54, a psalm of betrayal, had disappeared into the atmosphere, the Dean, leading the Bishop and Chapter to the table of the Last Supper laid out in the centre of the quire, relayed the words of Jesus as He sat at the table. The ceremony then took on a full re-enactment of a section of the Last Supper. Playing the role of Jesus, the Dean poured wine into a mazer before saying, ‘Alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed’, before each member of the Chapter, each playing a disciple, asked: ‘Lord, is it I?’. The Dean then drank from the mazer and passed it around the table for the others to drink in silence. As the performance went on, the disciples proclaimed that, ‘Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you’, before the Dean announced, ‘It was night’, and the lights of the Cathedral were lowered. Within the darkness the stripping of the altar began as the Chapter moved in silence through the quire removing the altar clothes, banners, and hangings amongst other things as the lamentation from the choir moved slowly through the dense air. Looking up the nave, the long shadows seemed to bring the focus down into the quire which, as the ringing lamentation ended, was left bare.

With the stripping of the altar concluded, the clergy turned and left the quire and proceeded up the nave and into the Galilee Chapel in silence, followed by the choir and congregation. I, too, made the journey to the west end of the Cathedral and filtered through the large double doors and into the small chapel. The atmosphere here too was heavy, and the place was completely dark save a few candles lit behind an altar screen in front of what was the great west doors. Out of the dark silence the Bishop’s voice began to read from the final page of the service booklet: ‘They went to a place called Gethsemane; and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray”’. His voice in this smaller space gave no echo of the grandeur of the main Cathedral. In comparison, it was small, dry, and distilled. The Bishop went on reading through Jesus’ distress and praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, finishing with the sentence: ‘Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand’, leaving the congregation in silence.

As I looked around I noticed that the candle flames were hidden from view, the visible glow of candle light giving the impression that the light we were seeing was coming from over the brow of a hill. All around me stood darkened figures, some sitting, some standing, none of whom I could make out as someone I knew. In the silence I realised that I had become disorientated. Finally, at the front of the crowd that had silently gathered around the central altar and the eerily serene glow from over the brow of the hill, I could recognise the tall frame of the Dean, head bowed, taking a step back and sitting in the first pew. Around me, silent figures looked intently toward the light, shifting their weight from one foot to another, taking seats, some at the pews and some on the floor. As the minutes went by, my ears started to become aware of a storm outside and the howling wind finding its way through small cracks in the windows, adding to a sense of being outdoors, yet protected from the high winds inside the Galilee Chapel’s atmosphere. Sitting silently, my mind was drawn to the nave, just on the other side of the doors, yet it felt a world away from where I was now sat.

Existent here within the Cathedral during the Maundy Thursday service is a very different kind of space and time being created through the various action systems of the present congregation, action systems whose goal was not to create a space in which Durham Cathedral could be many things to many people, but a space and time which was co-temporal and co-spatial with an altogether different period of history in an altogether different location.

According to Eliade’s concept of sacred time, the sacred exists outside of time, that is to say it is ‘an attempt to deny “the definitive character of historical event”, and to return to a primeval state of being: the myth of the eternal return’ (Brandon, 1965: 66) – the myth of eternal return being, in part, the cyclical nature that we ‘apply’ to linear time. Thus, through this cyclical nature, the same dates come around again and again. As Stirrat argues, that which is seen as being most sacred, in religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Catholicism, ‘that which is concerned with salvation, is that which is outside time’. Stirrat goes on to suggest that the concept of dogma in Catholicism ‘consists of timeless truths whilst at another level, the sacrifice of the mass is not simply a reproduction or a representation of Christ’s Crucifixion on Calvary but is co-temporal with that original sacrifice’ (1984: 202). It is important to note that, in this view, Stirrat does not take Eliade’s concept of a ‘return to the beginnings of time’ to its full extent, choosing instead to stress that the major world religions, such as Christianity, ‘involve an idea of the sacred which is conceived of as timeless and that this timelessness of necessity involves the beginnings of time’ (1984: 202–3).

Just as Eliade’s concept of the sacred is outside of time, and thus denies time in whichever form it may exist, lineally or cyclically, so too does it deny space (Stirrat, 1984: 203). Therefore, just as the mass and the crucifixion are co-temporal, meaning that the act of mass is not a re-enactment but is happening at the very time in which the original sacrifice occurred, so too is the mass co-spatial, and thus happening at the place of the original sacrifice, Golgotha. From this then, the sacred is not only outside of time but also outside of space, creating a time and space separate from that in which we live. Eliade alludes to the idea of co-spatiality when he states that ‘the medieval cathedral symbolically reproduces the Celestial Jerusalem’ (1971 [1954]: 17). It is a theory not lost on Helms, who suggests that the claustral buildings of the medieval monastery were also given the qualitative values ‘necessary to define the monastery as a whole as a definitive ideological centre and a focal point in the broader territory beyond its walls’ (2002: 436) and, by extension, to the centre of the Christian world, Jerusalem. Helms goes on to state that the repetitive nature of monastic life ‘invoked the principle of ritual repetition by which hierophonies are sustained at sacred centres’ (2002: 441). Therefore, events like the Sunday processions express the basic belief that, ‘in religion, as in magic, the periodic recurrence of anything signifies primarily that a mythical time is made present and then used indefinitely’ (Eliade, 1958: 392). That is to say that through their periodic recurrence a ‘mythical’ time is created.

Following on from Eliade’s ideas of co-spatiality and co-temporality with the original event, therefore, it becomes clear that I had not sat and watched some re-enactment of the Last Supper as if I were sitting in a theatre as the last actions of Jesus were acted out in front of me. Rather, I was co-spatially and co-temporally present, along with the rest of the congregation, at the Last Supper. I had seen the washing of the feet; I had seen the disciples drink from the same cup as they ask who the betrayer would be; I had walked not to the Galilee Chapel at the west end of the building but into the Garden of Gethsemane and had sat with Jesus’ disciples, waiting as he prayed just out of view, over the brow of a hill. The entire space of Durham Cathedral had been transformed into a sacred space and time, co-existent with the original event, where the final actions of the Stripping of the Altar in the dark, deserted and bare quire, the very soul of the Cathedral’s religious worship, mirrored what was to become of Jesus in the few hours after leaving the Garden of Gethsemane, abandoned and destitute.

It should be noted here that the rite of the Judas Cup seemed to play a dual role within this service. Whilst it was, along with Eliade’s concept of the sacred, both co-spatial and co-temporal with the Last Supper, my service book distinctly described it as a ‘dramatic reenactment’ of another time, stating that: ‘In the Medieval monastery at Durham these ambiguities [of discipleship] were recalled in a ceremony called the Judas Cup’. This element of the service highlights the complex diversity of time at play within the Cathedral at particular moments. In this instance, the clergy of today look to retrieve a rite once performed by the Catholic monks of Durham Cathedral. In doing so, they are drawing a line from a rite described in a 16th-century manuscript thought to be written by a former monk at Durham who had converted to Anglicanism following the dissolution. ⁸ As a result, the historical aesthetics of the buildings’ history can still be seen permeating the lives of the community today. As the service booklet suggests, the dramatic reenactment is ‘an attempt to translate that ritual into modern times as a way of reminding us of the necessity for humility as we recall the ambiguities of our own discipleship’.

The Rites of Durham itself speaks little of the ceremony, choosing instead to describe the Judas Cup itself and state that this rite occurred in the Frater House, the Monks’ Refectory, used today as the Library, thus highlighting the Benedictine monks’ own unique way of entering into the co-spatial and co-temporal sacrality of the service. For the monks, the location would also have had hugely significant meaning; by conducting it within the refectory as opposed to the quire, they were emphasising the co-spatiality of the deed. The location of the refectory is no accident, being a large upstairs room similar to the one in which Jesus and his disciples ate their Last Supper together, described within the ‘Acts of the Apostles’ (20:8), and was the place in which the brotherhood continued to meet (Ferguson, 1986: 174). In essence, each meal-time of the monks was sacred, taking place not within the Frater House but within the upstairs room of the last supper.

Bringing together time

Whilst the space-time of the Flower Festival and the creation of sacred time during the Maundy Thursday service may in many ways seem vastly different, I suggest that they are at their heart the same: they are both space-times created by the actions of those using the space. Furthermore, whilst Gell may argue that there ‘is no fairyland where people experience time in a way that is markedly unlike the way in which we do ourselves’, I contend that the co-spatial and co-temporal properties of sacred time are not found in some magical place but occur within la durée, through the creation of a particular space-time akin to Munn’s suggestion.

Bergson’s conclusion as to what la durée is stems from the idea that to exist means to endure, enduring being a ‘qualitative multiplicity, with no likeness to number’ (2001 [1913]: 226). Most importantly, it is a continuously creative process that ‘means invention, the creation of forms, the continual elaboration of the absolutely new’ (1946: 11). In its purest form it is the succession of our conscious states as we go on through life, or as Bergson puts it, ‘when our ego lets itself live’. That is to say, time is not one moment after the next laid out in neat little rows but a time in which one moment penetrates the next in one indivisible flow. It is a time which forms ‘both the past and present states into an organic whole’ (2001 [1913]: 100). Therefore, there is only one time, in which all time takes place.

There is a distinction, according to Eliade, between religious and non-religious people based on their perceptions of time, the difference being heterogeneous time for religious people and homogeneous time for non-religious people (1971 [1954]). Rennie points out that this division of time ‘seems to derive, directly or indirectly’ (1996: 42), from the analysis of the division of time put forward in Time and Free Will in which Bergson states that there are ‘two possible conceptions of time, one free from all alloy, the other surreptitiously bringing in the idea of space’ (2001 [1913]: 100). According to Hodges, Bergson had adapted this view from physicist and mathematician G.B.R. Riemann’s theories between ‘quantitative, or discrete, and qualitative, or continuous, multiplicities’. Whereas quantitative multiplicities are naturally numerical ‘and take the form of the one and the many’, the differences between these multiplicities are ‘homogeneous differences of degree’ and therefore their dividing does not cause any changes in kind (quality). However, qualitative multiplicities create heterogeneous differences when divided. ‘They comprise an interrelated (i.e. relational) infinite whole, where any multiple is fused with all other multiples, and any one cannot either be isolated or change without all others changing’ (2008: 409). As Deleuze states, they are of ‘difference in kind… that cannot be reduced to numbers’ (1991: 38, emphasis in the original). According to Grosz:

[La durée] functions simultaneously as singular, unified, and whole, as well as in specific fragments and multiplicitous proliferation. There is one and only one time, but there are also numerous times: a duration for each thing or movement, which melds with a global or collective time. As a whole, time is braided, intertwined, a unity of strands layered over each other; unique, singular, and individual, it nevertheless partakes of a more generic and overarching time, which makes possible relations of earlier and later. (1999: 17)

With this clearer understanding of duration, it becomes apparent that the multiple space-times suggested by Munn (1992) emerge within la durée. Consequently, a manifold time allows for a range of qualities to exist, whether that be sacred, non-sacred or anything in between. Furthermore, in spaces like Durham Cathedral, space and time regularly fluctuates as individual action systems negotiate who will occupy a central or peripheral space as and when needed. However, as genuine sacred time is inherently described as being mythical, ‘that is a primordial time, not to be found in the historical past’ (Eliade, 1959: 72), its relationship to duration is less clear. Nevertheless, when considering the manner in which sacred time is arrived at, a coherence between the two emerges. As Rennie states, ‘Obviously the “primordial time” is not located in any long-gone historical era of our known world, but is notional, conceptual or imaginary’ (1996: 79). Whilst Eliade thought that man held a ‘nostalgia for the lost paradise’ (1971 [1954]: 91), this nostalgia is ‘not for a chronological past, an actual event or historical condition, rather it is for an imaginary ideal which none the less functions as an exemplar’ (Rennie, 1996: 79). ⁹ As Stirrat points out:

Eliade’s formulation of the sacred as existing outside of time is a fair characterization of much that is claimed within the religious discourses of most, if not all, the world religions. Thus, in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Catholicism, it can be argued that what is most sacred, that which is concerned with salvation, is that which is outside time. (1984: 202)

Significantly, these aspects are not just informed by the present. As Grosz points out, time is a unity of strands layered over each other which, although being unique, singular, and individual, ‘Nevertheless partakes of a more generic and overarching time, which makes possible relations of earlier and later’ (1999: 17). Therefore, elements like attire, words and choice of rites become infusions of both past and present, and by doing so become shared components of ancestral connections which are exercised through the communities’ actions and created environments.

Conclusion

Several times throughout my fieldwork the ability of Durham Cathedral to provide space for the many different needs of those who visit was made clear, and it seemed important for many to stress this in conversations. Whilst I began this piece discussing a well-used phrase, that Durham Cathedral can be whatever you want it to be, what has emerged is a continuous process of negotiation and creation, of both space and time. Furthermore, it is a creation which, whilst being ‘the continual elaboration of the absolutely new’ (Bergson, 1946: 11), is a creation infused in the building and community’s history. Moreover, the manifold nature of time, the manner in which the community negotiates it and the subsequent transformation of space are standout features of the relationship between building and community and are observable at all points of life with the Cathedral.

Cathedrals are not just places in which more than one activity at a time can take place; they are places in which space and time are transformed, creating space-times which become interlaced, with each space-time unique to the actions of those creating it, and by extension generating a process of constant negotiation. This is not simply a negotiation of space, however, but also of times, as the ancestral inheritances that come with ancient buildings like Durham Cathedral inevitably bringing an infusion of the past into the present, as Grosz points out of la durée, ‘It makes possible relations of earlier and later’ (1999: 17). Indeed, religious and secular reminders of the community’s heritage are embodied in the building: for example, the stained glass windows depict both biblical and community scenes, like the window of the Last Supper, paid for by the staff of the local Marks and Spencers, images of the Northern Saints such as Cuthbert, 19th-century replicas of 14th-century windows recreated with the aid of the Rites of Durham, and windows remembering those from County Durham who fought in the RAF all sit side by side; chapels dedicated to saints and to the Durham Light Infantry stand opposite one another; and memorials mark out saints, Scottish prisoners of war and coal miners who died working in the Durham Coalfield. It is important therefore to view these processes of negotiation and creations of space-time as infusions of both the past and the present as the complex histories and subsequent layers of time play out in the daily activities and resulting space-times within the building. This adds to the need to view Durham Cathedral as a place of contestation, contradiction, and opposition (Eade and Sallnow, 2000: 52), all of which are important elements in the negotiation and creation of space-times within the building. In places in which heritage and tourism are becoming essential elements of a business plan aimed at raising money for upkeep and maintenance, in which spaces are continuously being repurposed, for example the Great Kitchen becoming a community shop and now an exhibition space, the manner in which space and time is mediated by the community becomes important to understand as the need to share the restricted spaces becomes an ever more pressing issue in the lives of these buildings and the communities who use them.

There are three points I wish to make in conclusion. Firstly, whilst Durham Cathedral can be whatever you need it to be, as was often pointed out to me, the way in which it does this can be explained through the creation of various space-times. However, as I highlighted in the introduction, Durham Cathedral is not an everyday space; it is a space that has been dedicated to daily Christian worship for over 900 years. It is important therefore to stress that the custodians of the Cathedral – the Dean and Chapter – give freedom to the various groups to continue in this process of negotiating the space for multiple purposes. Secondly, I want to draw attention to the organisation of this manifold time. In explaining it, Bergson uses music as an opportunity to observe duration most readily, in doing so suggesting that we do not hear one note and then another but ‘conceive of succession without distinction and think of it as a mutual penetration, an interconnexion and organization of elements, each one of which represents the whole, and cannot be distinguished or isolated from it except by abstract thought’ (2001 [1913]: 101). It is penetration here that I want to emphasise when thinking about the various space-times. As is the case with la durée, these space-times do not sit side by side in neat little rows but are inherently messy; they penetrate one another, they move through and alongside one another in a process of constant motion and constant change with people’s experience of their own time-of-life being shaped in part by the influence of the buildings’ past. Finally, whilst many times can exist, they do not exist separately but within the one manifold that is la durée. It is within la durée that we experience life, and within which additional space-times emerge through the actions of the people and the experiential infusions that are provoked by such major ancestral inheritances as Durham Cathedral, and whilst sacred time may be a mythical time, outside of time, the actions of the people are performed within the experiential time of la durée.