INTRODUCTION

Anybody participating in a project dealing with faith should start with a confession of faith, even if the faith in question seems to be related mainly to intellectual inquiry. This essay posits that the geographical and geological situation of a place influences how the people living in that place are directed to give shape to their beliefs and to the material and spiritual artefacts through which these beliefs are represented. In analysing the situation in Norfolk, I will be reviewing several types of data which are essential to such an enterprise.

The first is foregrounding Norfolk's geographical position in the world: where is Norfolk? Norfolk's position on the map of the world had a determining role in its history, including its religious history. A second set of data is that relating to what is under Norfolk, its geology: what is Norfolk made of? Even a quick glance at Ashwin and Davison's maps shows an immediate relationship between the cultural finds (dotted) and the geology. For example, in the Fens, which were hardly habitable before the nineteenth century, there are only non-conformist chapels. The abundance of faith-related sites in the river valleys provides another example of a particular geographical given influencing the cultural situation. A third set of data which may help us to define traits distinct to Norfolk is that relating to the movement of people and the spiritual artefacts that they brought and left in Norfolk, and thus added to the local perceptions and belief systems.

WHENEVER AND WHEREVER in the world settlements took on characteristics we now associate with cities, we can find architectural images that reflect the community's social, even emotional, priorities. One of the earliest is the wall painting reconstructed from a shrine at Çatal Hüyük (c. 6500 bc) representing a town plan with recurring rows of architectural units set beneath a black silhouette thought to represent an erupting volcano. It seems as if the orderliness of the man-made environment, the regularity of the city's layout and the neatness of the dwellings was intended to guarantee the transformation of the volcanic threat into an agricultural benefit. Instead of fearing being burned by lava, the community could enjoy the promise of soil fertilization.

With the development of cities and the intensification and complication of commercial and legal interaction within and between them, visible and tangible symbols of authority, legality and identity became a requirement. These materialized as flat objects about the size of a hand made of stone or metal (mainly bronze) carrying an image in sculpted relief. The image was to be printed on clay or wax and could be attached to a document for legal purposes or carried as a passport to avoid paying tolls. These items, now known as seals, were employed from the Neolithic period onward in Sumerian city-states, in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran, the Indus Valley and China, and were widely used in the Greco-Roman world. Individual cities often chose to represent themselves with architectural features considered to be distinctive of them, simultaneously reflecting and highlighting local preoccupations.