Pilgrimage and England's Cathedrals, past and present

'Pilgrimage and England's Cathedrals, past and present' was a three-year, interdisciplinary research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project, led by Dr Dee Dyas, Director of The Centre for the Study of Christianity & Culture, University of York, compared the medieval experience of pilgrimage to cathedrals with the modern experience of visitors to such places. The project brought together the expertise and perspectives of religion specialists, anthropologists and ethnographers to study of the experience of modern cathedral visiting. The overarching aim was to compare past with present and investigate to what extent the experiences of the medieval visitors were similar or different from today, how the experience was shaped by expectation and cultural conditioning, and the role and significance of modern cathedral visitor management practices in shaping and defining that experience.