I have adapted the text of this post from one on the Medieval Religion discussion group about what appears to be a very interesting blend of historical and literary scholarship with modern technology.
A sermon at Paul's Cross
Panel painting by John Gipkyn (fl 1594–1629) of 1616
The view is from the north-east
The view is from the north-east
Image:Society of Aniquaries
John N. Wall, Project Director and Professor of English
Literature
at North Carolina State University, announces that the Virtual Paul’s Cross
Project website
is now available for exploration online here. The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project has been supported by a
Digital Start-Up Grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
The Project uses visual and
acoustic
modeling technology to recreate the experience of John Donne, then Dean of St Paul's,
sermon at Paul’s Cross for November 5th1622.
The aim of this initiative
is to
integrate what is known, or can be surmised, about the look and sound
of this space,
destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, and about the
course of
activities as they unfolded on the occasion of a Paul’s Cross
sermon, so that
we may experience a major public event of early modern London as
it unfolded in
real time and in the context of its original surroundings.
The Project has sought the highest
degree of accuracy in this recreation. To do so, it combines
visual imagery
from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with
measurements of
these buildings made during archaeological surveys of their
surviving foundations. The
visual presentation also integrates into the appearance of the
visual model the
look of a November day in London, with overcast skies and an
atmosphere thick
with smoke. The acoustic simulation recreates
the acoustic properties of Paul’s Churchyard, incorporating
information about
the dispersive, absorptive or reflective qualities of the
buildings and the spaces
between them.
This website allows us to explore the northeast corner
of
Paul’s Churchyard, outside St Paul’s Cathedral, in London, on
November 5th
1622, and to hear John Donne’s sermon for Gunpowder Day, all two
hours of it, in
the space of its original delivery and in the context of church
bells and the
random ambient noises of dogs, birds, horses, and crowds of up to
5,000 people.
There is a concise guide to the whole site here.
In keeping with the desire for authenticity, the text of Donne’s sermon was taken from a manuscript prepared within days of the sermon’s original delivery that contains corrections in Donne’s own handwriting. It was recorded by a professional actor using an original pronunciation script and interpreting contemporary accounts of Donne’s preaching style.
John Donne's Paul's Cross sermon for November 5th,
1622 (in
15-minute segments), as heard from two different positions in the
Churchyard, can be heard by clicking here.
On the website, the user can learn how the visual and
acoustic models were created and explore the political and social
background of
Donne’s sermon. In addition to the complete recordings of Donne’s
Gunpowder Day
sermon, one can also explore the question of audibility of the
unamplified
human voice in Paul’s Churchyard by sampling excerpts from the
sermon as heard
from eight different locations across the Churchyard and in the
presence of four
different sizes of crowd. For excerpts of the sermon from these eight different
locations
and in the presence of these differing crowd sizes click here.
The website also houses an archive of materials that
contributed to the recreation, including visual records of the
buildings, high
resolution files of the manuscript and first printed versions of
Donne’s sermon
for Gunpowder Day 1622, and contemporary accounts of Donne’s
preaching style.
In addition, the website includes an acoustic
analysis of the Churchyard, discussion of the challenges of
interpreting
historic depictions of the cathedral and its environs, and a
review of the
liturgical context of outdoor preaching in the early modern age.
The visual model in detail on a fly around video
can be seen here. This is especially dramatic if viewed in HD
video and at Full Screen display.
The Project is the work of an international team of
scholars, engineers, actors, and linguists. In addition to the
Project Director, they
include David Hill, Associate Professor of Architecture at NC
State University;
Joshua Stephens, Jordan Grey, Chelsea Sacks,
and Craig Johnson, graduate students in architecture at NC State
University; John Schofield, Archaeologist at St Paul’s
Cathedral and author of St Paul’s
Cathedral Before Wren (2011); David Crystal, linguist; Ben
Crystal, actor; Ben
Markham and Matthew Azevedo, acoustic engineers with Acentech,
Inc; and members
of the faculty in linguistics and their graduate students at NC
State
University, especially professors Walt Wolfram, Erik Thomas, Robin
Dodsworth,
and Jeff Mielke.
Wall’s team is now planning a second stage of this
Project,
with the goal of completing the visual model of Paul’s Churchyard,
including a
complete model of St Paul’s Cathedral as it looked in the early
1620s, during
John Donne’s time as Dean.
This visual model will be the
basis for an acoustic model of the cathedral interior,
especially the Choir, which
will be the site for restaging a full day of worship,
including Bible
readings, prayers, liturgies from the Book of Common Prayer,
sermons, and music
composed by the professional musicians on the cathedral staff
for performance
by the organist and choir of men and boys.
They will be competing for our attention, as they did in the 1620’s, with the noise of crowds who gathered in the cathedral nave, known as Paul’s Walk, to see and be seen and to exchange the latest gossip of the day.
