ABSTRACT
The new Salisbury Cathedral was conceived with liturgy in mind. Its spacious avenues and acoustic properties were crafted to house particular liturgical celebrations and to encourage pilgrims on a liturgical journey as they entered the building. The liturgy was central to the way people's lives were shaped, not just something tacked on to the end of a working week, as an optional extra. Everything in medieval life was influenced and to some degree controlled by the centrality of liturgical worship. One final thought that became apparent in these re-presentations of the Sarum liturgies was the sense of space and spaciousness which they evoked. Performed in the wide processional spaces, it is not difficult to imagine a liturgy which complemented the Gothic splendour of Salisbury. But that sense of spacious splendour was also conveyed through the liturgy in the very contained space of a medieval parish church.
