Las catedrales surgieron como una nueva construcción o como evolución de una primigenia iglesia monacal elevada al estatus de sede del obispo. Las actividades misioneras, el poder eclesiástico y las cuestiones demográficas son las que han ido determinando qué iglesias merecían y merecen el título de catedral, al mismo tiempo que surgían, se fusionaban o suprimían las diferentes diócesis.
En un principio, la iglesia sede del obispo y cabeza de las demás iglesias de la diócesis no tuvo una tipología especial. Durante los primeros siglos del cristianismo y el Medioevo (siglos al ) las catedrales no se diferenciaban demasiado de otros centros de culto, como las iglesias monacales o los templos dedicados a los mártires. Es a partir del siglo cuando la catedral va adquiriendo una configuración y unas dimensiones que la diferencian de los demás templos. Esto tuvo su momento álgido durante los siglos , , y parte del , coincidiendo con el surgimiento del arte gótico. En esa época, las catedrales adquirieron, además de la característica que las define, que es ser sede episcopal, otras connotaciones en las que intervenían la imagen y el prestigio de las ciudades en las que se construían, determinando una verdadera carrera por hacer de estos templos edificios grandiosos y monumentales. A día de hoy, la idea de catedral se sigue asimilando con el estilo gótico.
Posteriormente, la aparición de la Reforma protestante y otra serie de factores determinaron que las catedrales fueran moderando su tamaño y su magnificencia, aunque continuaron siendo edificios señeros e imponentes, adaptándose a los cambios de gusto y a los diferentes estilos artísticos.
Origins and characteristics of the first cathedrals
The history of the cathedrals began in the year 313, when Emperor Constantine the Great personally adopted Christianity and initiated the Peace of the Church. In fact, in strict terminology, there could be no "cathedrals" before that date, since before the century there were no Christian "cathedrae"; The bishops were never seated when leading congregational worship, but presided standing on a raised platform or pulpitum. In the 19th century, the phrase "to go up to the platform", ad pulpitum divino, becomes the standard term for Christian ordination. During the siege of Dura Europos in 256, a complete Christian church, or domus ecclesiae was buried in a defensive bank, surviving when it was excavated, in some places to the height of the top of the wall. The church of Dura had been transformed from a large town house with a standard-shaped courtyard, in which two rooms had been joined together to form an assembly hall, with a capacity for 60-75 people standing; while in a room on the opposite side of the patio a cistern had been inserted as a baptistry, with rich mural paintings on it. The large hall was found to have a raised pulpit at one end, large enough for one person to read, preach, and preside in turns, but too low to be surmounted by a throne and too small to contain an altar. The large room was otherwise undecorated and featureless.
In 269, shortly after Dura fell into the hands of the Persian army, a group of clerics drafted a statement of charges against the bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata, in the form of an open letter. Among the accusations was that Paul, who had received the civil rank of ducenarius because of his contacts at the imperial court, had improperly erected an enclosure, or secretum, for himself in the church at Antioch; that within this enclosure he had erected a throne from which he presided over the cult; and that he had trained a female choir to sing hymns of his own invention. All of these practices were condemned as innovations, unduly importing the symbols of their secular Roman magistracy into ecclesiastical ritual, while presumptuously and blasphemously asserting that the person of the bishop in the Eucharistic cult was seated in the place of Christ himself. However, within a hundred years, all the bishops of the Mediterranean world had cathedrals, all sat on thrones within an enclosed sanctuary, and all had established choirs formed to enhance Eucharistic worship.
The driving principle behind this change was the acceptance by the bishops, more or less willingly, of an imperial invitation to adopt and maintain the duties, dignity, and insignia of a public magistrate.[5] Characteristically, a Roman magistrate presided from an elevated throne in a large, richly decorated, aisled rectangular room called a basilica; and now the bishops would do the same. The oldest of these new basilica cathedrals of which there are still visible remains (and perhaps one of the first to be built) is located under the Cathedral of Aquileia, at the northern end of the Adriatic Sea. Dated by a mosaic inscription between 313 and 319, the complex consisted of two parallel east-west rooms of similar size, with a third, smaller north-south transverse room connecting them and which has been interpreted as the presence room of the episcopium or residence of the bishop. The three rooms create an open courtyard, in which an independent baptistery was originally located. Rich mosaic floors have been preserved from the two large basilica rooms showing (among other scenes) Jonah and the whale, and a series of portraits of donors, mostly women. Similar cathedrals with double basilica and baptistery appear to have been erected soon after in Milan, Trier, and Pavia; but later single basilica churches became the most common cathedral model.
Constantine's imperial declaration in favor of Christianity transformed every aspect of Christian life in the Roman Empire. From being a minority religion, largely confined to urban areas and restricted social groups, and subject to official hostility and occasional persecution, Christianity came to have a much larger number of potential adherents of all classes, at first still within urban areas, but over time spreading to the pagus, the rural hinterland of the city. The consequence was a radical expansion of the buildings, financing and staff of the associated ecclesiastical establishments throughout the century. The first cathedrals materially represent this expansion.
The location and layout of the first cathedrals varied substantially from one city to another, although most, as in Aquileia, tended to be located within the city walls but away from the urban center; certain elements are almost always found.
Basilica halls had previously been features of large civic complexes and military barracks, but now became the standard structure for housing large Christian congregations. From then on, the term basilica designates any important ecclesiastical building. The scale of these new basilicas was totally different from that of the previous Christian assembly halls, as was their shape from any non-Christian Roman temple or religious structure. The rooms were longitudinal, with corridors and flooded with light through large clerestories. The floors and walls were richly decorated with mosaics and inlays, usually with abstract or floral motifs. The two original double basilicas of Aquileia were 37 by 17 meters in size, but within 30 years one of the rooms quadrupled to 73 by 31 meters. This expanded basilica now featured three additional features that became characteristic of early cathedrals: an enclosure at the eastern end of the church surrounding the altar; a synthronons to the east of the altar facing west, and consisting of a raised dais with an episcopal throne situated in the center and benches on either side for the clergy of his family; and a divided narthex at the western end to which the catechumens retired during the central act of the Eucharistic liturgy.
The baptistery of the Dura church was approximately one meter square and one meter deep; Candidates for baptism could stand in it, but could not be immersed. In the new cathedrals, as before, only bishops baptized, and ceremonies were held no more than twice a year to allow for adequate periods of instruction. Thus, the baptisteries had to increase considerably in size, with the corresponding spaces to guarantee privacy when undressing, anointing and dressing again; and the baptismal font, normally octagonal, was now deep enough for full immersion, and wide enough to accommodate both the candidate and an assisting deacon or deaconess. The baptisteries generally adopted centralized plan forms derived from funerary chapels; and are invariably separated from the congregational basilica.
No one lived in the Dura church-house; In the conversion, residential facilities such as the latrine and kitchen were eliminated. But cathedral complexes always included an episcopal residence. Among the accusations that had been leveled against Paul of Samosata stood out his alleged excessive familiarity with pious women. As was common, Paul had been married when he was elected bishop; and again, as was universally expected of a bishop, he had ceased sexual contact with his wife and was no longer cohabiting with her. But his accusers charged that by continuing to associate with other women (even without any indication of actual impropriety), he was creating unacceptable potential for scandal. To prevent similar cases from occurring, it was necessary for the new cathedrals to create male-only residences for the bishop and his entire estate; and since, in the churches of the West, all presbyters and deacons also had to live separately from their wives after ordination, these residences, the episcopium, were necessarily of considerable extent. In addition to eating and sleeping rooms for ordained boys and men, the episcopium also usually had private dining rooms for the hospitality expected of the bishop's social status, a private oratory (oratory (building)") or chapel for the bishop, and often a bathhouse.