Some of the finest churches in England, built in the style
of architecture called 'Norman,' one or more of which you may have
seen, date before the year 1200, as for example, Durham Cathedral,
and the naves of Norwich, Ely, and Peterborough Cathedrals. The great
churches abroad were also beautiful and more elaborately decorated,
in the North with sculpture and painting, in the South with marble
and mosaic. The towns competed one with another in erecting them finer
and larger, and in decorating them as magnificently as they could.
This was done because the church was a place which the people used
for many other purposes besides Sunday services. In the twelfth,
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the parish church, on week-days
as well as on Sundays, was a very useful and agreeable place to most
of the parishioners. The 'holy' days, or saints' days, 'holidays'
indeed, were times of rejoicing and festivity, and the Church
processions and services were pleasant events in the lives of many
who had few entertainments, and who for the most part could neither
read nor write.
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