Old St Paul's and Culture

Old St Paul's and Culture is an interdisciplinary collection of essays that lookspredominantly at the culture of Old St Paul's and its wider precinct in the earlymodern period, while also providing important insights into the Cathedral'smedieval institution. The chapters examine the symbolic role of the site inEngland's Christian history, the London book trade based in and around St Paul's,the place of St Paul's commercial indoor playhouse within the performanceculture of sixteenth and seventeenth-century London, and the intersection ofreligion and politics through events such as civic ceremonies and occasionalsermons. Through the organising theme of culture, the authors demonstrate howthe site, as well as the people and trades occupying the precinct, can be positionedwithin wider fields of representations, practices, and social networks. A focus onSt Paul's is therefore about more than just the specific site on Ludgate Hill: it isabout those practices and representations connected to it, which either extendedbeyond or originated in places other than the Cathedral environs. This points tothe range of localised, regional, national, and transnational relationships inwhich the precinct and its people were situated and to which they contributed.