John Schofield's St. Paul's Before Wren is Celebrated in the Press

 
John Schofield's St Paul's Before Wren, the book which provides -- literally -- the foundations for the Virtual Paul's Cross Project -- is beginning to get very positive notice in the press.

The website of St. Paul's Cathedral happily organizes this response for us, here:

http://www.stpauls.co.uk/News-Press/Latest-News/Archaeological-account-of-St-Pauls-well-received-by-critics

Congratulations to John!

Linguistics Students Record Ambient Sound

Professors Walt Wolfram, Robin Dodsworth, Jeff Mielke, and a host of outstanding graduate students in NC State's Linguistics Program gathered yesterday in Raleigh's PostPro Recording Studio to record ambient noise for the crowd that will fill Paul's Churchyard and respond to Ben Crystal's delivery of Donne's Gunpowder Day Sermon from 1622.

The group used David Crystal's early modern London pronunciation script to record the response "And with thy Spirit" to Ben's "The Lord be with you."

They also recorded the Lord's Prayer, following along with Ben's rendition, and a resounding "Amen" to conclude the sermon.

Finally, they recorded "walla," ambient crowd sounds of indistinguishable syllables to represent crowd response to Ben's/Donne's preaching.

Students participating in this recording included Arika Dean, Jason McLarty, Hayley Heaton, Charles Farrington, Channing Johnson,  Michael Fox, Jon Forrest, Katey McDonald, Caroline Myrick, Christi Schwaller, and Liang Zhang (who took the photo, above).

I am deeply grateful to all these folks for their enthusiastic participation. 

 We are getting close to having all the pieces in place so that Ben Markham and his colleagues at Acentech can work their acoustic magic.

Wall Delivers Paper at Anglican Studies Conference

I delivered a paper entitled "The Early Modern Sermon as a Collaborative Experience: The Case of John Donne at Paul's Cross," at the annual meeting of the New England Anglican Studies Conference, held at Harvard Divinity School on April 20-21, 2012.

This paper was, of course, based on what I have learned about early modern preaching while working on the Virtual Paul's Cross Project.

The Feast of John Donne -- March 31, 2012

March 31 is the Feast of John Donne on the Episcopal Church's Calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

This image of Donne is of a painting in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, made by an unknown artist about 1620. There is another version of this portrait, generally regarded as a copy of the one in the V&A,  that hangs in the Library of the Deanery of St. Paul's Cathedral.

This is the Collect for John Donne's Day in the Episcopal Church's Calendar:

ALMIGHTY God, who in this wondrous world dost manifest thy power and beauty: Open the eyes of all men to see, as did thy servant John Donne, that whatsoever has any being is a mirror wherein we may behold thee, the root and fountain of all being; through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord. Amen.

Rendered Images from Josh Stephens' Draft Model

Josh has rendered some images from his draft model of Paul's Churchyard, which means adding shadows, figures, and the like. The results are stunning.

Here is the Cross with the Cathedral in the background.

Here is the Churchyard as seen through the gateway on the northeast corner.

And the Churchyard with the east end of the Cathedral.

Here is the Crossing and the North Transept.

If you look closely at the figures, you will see that they are in modern dress, so what we see here is how Paul's Churchyard would look today if the Great Fire had not happened and the Cathedral had been restored after the Restoration without Christopher Wren's baroque revisions.

Enjoy!