Professor Norman Doe speaks at inaugural Wells Cathedral lecture

A School of Law and Politics Professor delivered the inaugural Bekynton lecture this October at Wells Cathedral.

Professor Norman Doe, Director of the Centre for Law and Religion, presented to a deeply knowledgeable audience on the legal architecture of English cathedrals. The attendees included dignitaries such as Revd Canon Andrew Featherstone, Chancellor, Mark Hill QC, Chair of the Ecclesiastical Law Society, Stephen Slack, Chief Legal Adviser to the Archbishops' Council and General Synod of the Church of England, and Christopher Jones, Partner at Harris and Harris.

Professor Doe was introduced by the Dean of Wells Cathedral, the Very Revd John Davies, who spoke about the timeliness of the topic in light of the Archbishops' working group on cathedral governance due to report to the Archbishops' Council in December 2017.

The audience, of over 80 people, engaged in lively comments and questions following the lecture which included input from Revd Richard Lewis, former Dean of Wells (1990-2003), who was a member of the Archbishops' Commission on Cathedrals whose report Heritage and Renewal (1994) led to the enactment of the Cathedrals Measure 1999.

Following the lecture, a launch was held to promote Professor Doe’s books The Legal Architecture of English Cathedrals (Routledge, 2017) and Christianity and Natural Law (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

The Bekynton lecture will be held biennially and is a collaboration between Wells Cathedral, Harris and Harris Solicitors (Wells) and the Centre for Law and Religion at the School of Law and Politics. Thomas Bekyton (1390-1465) worked in the fields of law and religion and was a notable canon lawyer, Dean of the Court of Arches (1423), and Bishop of Bath and Wells (1443).