This first comprehensive overview of the process of commissioning and financing the construction of cathedrals in the Middle Ages reveals a financing system almost as monumental as the cathedrals themselves.
This first comprehensive overview of the process of commissioning and financing the construction of cathedrals in the Middle Ages reveals a financing system almost as monumental as the cathedrals themselves. Here we follow the historian on a fascinating examination of construction accounts and other sources – extant but never so minutely explored – bringing the bishop and the chapter to account, as it were.The book is divided into two parts. The first gives a broad overview of the resources on which medieval commissioners could draw, including contributions from the bishop, chapter, sovereign, city and, above all, the faithful of the diocese in which the cathedral was erected. The second part is a case study of the financing of construction at Utrecht Cathedral, whose archives are among the best preserved in Europe, followed by a brief discussion of the financing of several other cathedral building projects throughout Europe and of the church of St Peter’s in Rome.
Preface, Introduction, Part One the sources of income for cathedral
building in the middle ages
Chapter One Managing the cathedral church: the
cathedral fabric
Chapter Two Sources of income for the building works 1
Short-term diocesan collections 2 Long-term diocesan collections: the
mendicatoria Part Two The Financing of Cathedral Building in the Middle Ages
Chapter 3 The financing of the building works at Utrecht Cathedral: a case
study 1 Contributions from the chapter 1525 2 Gifts and bequests 3 Devotional
and indulgence monies offered in Utrecht Cathedral 4 Episcopal mendicatoria
and synodal statutes 5 The reportationes sancti Martini 6 The quest monies 7
Income from property: rents and annuities 8 Financing transactions: the
cathedral fabric as lender and borrower 9 The sale of building materials and
church treasure
Chapter
4. A survey of construction financing at several
cathedrals, Notes, Appendices, Archives, Bibliography, Index of place-names,
Illustration credits.
Wim Vroom is former director of the Department of Dutch History at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. He was also professor by special appointment of Dutch Cultural History at the University of Amsterdam.
