The Art of Faith: 3,500 Years of Art and Belief in Norfolk

This book celebrates the impact of faith on the art of a region with a long history of migration and diverse beliefs. The universality of the theme and its clear relevance to the history of one region and its cultural identity makes this a celebration of more than local importance, with a reach well beyond that of the traditional survey.

Across the centuries, Norfolk has been the home to many varied faiths. Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and Romans all came with their own belief systems. During the Roman period, Christians also settled in this region and eventually, after a period of conflict, Christianity became the official religion. Other religions flourished too. In the middle ages there were thriving Jewish communities in Thetford, Bishops (now Kings) Lynn and Norwich, even though they suffered from severe persecution from their Christian fellow citizens. From the fifteenth century onwards, there was a bewildering number of different branches of Christianity throughout the diocese of Norwich, an area significantly larger than the county boundary of Norfolk today.

In this region, the official and uniform religion of Christianity was only ever a general truth. Amongst others, there were Lollards, Catholics, Calvinists, Laudians, Puritans, Huguenots, Presbyterians and Quakers. Over the past two centuries a new pattern of diversity has emerged. To number but a few of the faiths now practiced by the citizens of Norfolk: there are Sikhs, Muslims, Pagans, Buddhists, Hindus and Mormons, as well as older and more recently formed communities of Jews and Christians. Intriguingly, the low lying landscape of this region of Britain can be seen to have had a lasting impact upon the sacred sites of many of these varied faiths.