Being a part of Dr. Arnold’s Castles and Cathedrals Travel-Learning Course has been one of my favorite experiences as an OWU student. It allowed me to truly experience the material that I have spent the past three years learning. To copy from another program, I got to put “theory into practice.”
One of the things I was most excited about seeing were the gargoyles and grotesques on the cathedrals. Grotesques have always interested me, especially after a research paper I wrote for Dr. Livingston’s Medieval Margins class. Their appearance and apparent separation from other church imagery fascinated me and inspired me to find out more about them. I wanted to understand the relationship of the grotesque images to the church, beyond their practical function as a drain pipe.
During my research, I spent a lot of time looking at images of gargoyles and grotesques in various cathedrals. But being able to stand outside a cathedral in the United Kingdom and look up at the grotesques gave me an entirely new perspective. When looking at images in a book, the reader is separated from the whole of the place. The reader loses some understanding of the image when they cannot see its location in the cathedral. Being able to stand in the nave of a cathedral and experience the relationship and interplay between grotesques and ‘holy’ images for myself was one of my favorite parts about the trip.
Some of my favorite sites we visited in relation to gargoyles were Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland and York Minster Cathedral in England. I probably took about 60 pictures of Rosslyn Chapel’s exterior because it was covered with gargoyles and grotesques of angels, animals, Green Men, saints, monsters, and demons. I was de- termined to get a picture of them all. York Minster was also wonderful because I got to see how far gargoyles really extend out from the wall. I could tell that some of these gargoyles were used as drain pipes, but there were many others that were not. As someone who has a mild obsession with pigs, the fact that I found a pig gargoyle on the outside of York made my day.
Besides actually visiting the castles and cathedrals, just walking around the cities was a new experience. This was my first time outside the country and it was educational just interacting with a culture different from my own. I think my favorite part, though, was being able to walk around cities such as York, Canterbury, and Edinburgh and see- ing architecture from the medieval period still being used. We bought chocolate from a shop in the Shambles, the old meat district in York, and had high tea in a former medieval merchant’s house in Canterbury. It’s so different from the United States. One of the charms of OWU’s campus is its historic architecture. However, the buildings here are only 200 years old or younger. When in relation to buildings that were built in the 12th century, they don’t seem that old anymore.
I could go on and on about this trip, but my last piece of advice would be take advantage of the opportunities OWU has to offer through the Travel Learning program. Go abroad if you have the chance, and you will learn things you never expected.
