The Friary had been demolished in 1539 during the rein of King Henry the Eighth. The King’s dissolve of several aspects of the Christian church were enforced personally the decline of religious buildings within Lincoln may have been implemented with more subtlety. The collection money from the friaries services would have been there main source of income. During King Henry’s rein this income and the friary became property of Bishop Robert of St. Mary’s church. As Jeff Hill writes:
Bishop Robert obtained from Henry a very special writ by which Henry gave God and the Church of St. Mary of Lincoln and Bishop Robert all the Churches in the Borough of Lincoln, within and without, which the priests held there king, any customary payments to the king being reserved. The effect of this grant being presumably was that if it could be proved that the priest held of an individual Lord then the Lords rights would be undisturbed, but if not, then in the church then the Priest was deemed to hold the king and under the royal grant the Church passed to the Bishop. (1965, P.2)
So it became the task of Bishop Roberts to collect all the money generated by Churches in Lincoln and then to distribute that wealth throughout the borough. Naturally the Bishop would favour his own Church, St. Mary’s, over other Churches. However the position Bishop Roberts had obtained places himself under the kings ruling meaning he would have to adhere to the Kings decisions. If King Henry decided he wanted to withdraw funding from any Churches in the Lincoln area he would simply have to inform Bishop Roberts who would be unable to argue. Meaning that funds would have been greatly reduced, if not completely withdrawn, from the Friary. There are interesting parallels between this grant and the operations of a chain such as Homebase. Revenue is generated by the individual stores and staff all of those takings generate profit for the heads of the company, whose wages are presumably far greater than the staff on the shop floor, and there task, among other things, is to decide where to redistribute funding throughout the company and country. When put in such simple terms the similarities between Bishop Roberts control of Churches in the Lincoln borough and the structure of large companies, such as Homebase and all the shops in the St. Marks shopping centre, becomes clear. The presence of our performance will cause a disruption to the expected experience of shoppers within Homebase. While shoppers first questions will be what are they doing and why hopefully our actions of religious rituals will get the public to consider how our presence has disrupted there expectations and what this means about there expectations. The specific research around the Friary and St.Marks Church will probably not become clear but the connotations of ritual and religion will be clear. Hopefully this will make our audience consider the rituals of a shopping experience through our disruption of that experience.
An extensive amount of repair work was needed for St. Marks church as James Williamson’s book details ‘Erected from the design of Mr. Watkins, Of Lincoln, to replace a very diminutive and mean edifice, patched up in 1786 from the ruins of the ancient Church, which fell into decay during the civil wars.’ (1890, P.2) Again it is interesting to consider the different treatments of two religious buildings, one fallen into disuse and another being refurbished, why one religious building rises up in height with the build of a new spire while the other is put to bed. Using this information and the juxtaposition of these buildings we decided to take two aspects of both sections of Christianity and perform them one immediately after the other. The line ‘We thank you for thousands of years of sustaining and transforming us’ (The British Province of Carmelites, 2012) was taken from a Carmalite prayer because it highlighted the length of time there cell of Christianity had been in existence and the words ‘sustaining and transforming’ have particular significance in the context of a site that has experienced the demolition of a Carmelite building. The interesting thing about this quote is that the prayer itself was created in 2007 to mark the 8th century of the Carmelite rule of St. Albert. Considering how much sustain for this religious group has actually been achieved over the years is an useful contribution to our stimulus. We coupled this with our version of a baptism a very familiar aspect of the Christian religion to highlight how recognizable one aspect of the mainstream Christianity is in comparison to an aspect of the lesser know Carmalite Christians.
Works Cited
The BritishProvinceof Carmelites, Prayers for the Carmelite way of Life, Available at: www.carmelite.org/index.php?nuc=content&id=71 (Accessed:3 May 2012)
Hill, Jeff. Medieval Lincoln, 1965. Syndicates of theCambridge Uni Press:Cambridge.
Williamson, James. Guide Through Lincoln, 1809. 3rd edition, James Williamson,290 High StreetLincoln:Lincoln (Obtained from Lincoln Archives)