St Paul's Cross
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Paul's Cross was a preaching cross and open-air pulpit in St Paul's Churchyard, the grounds of Old St Paul's Cathedral, City of London. It was the most important public pulpit in Tudor and early Stuart England, and many of the most important statements on the political and religious changes brought by the Reformation were made public from here. The pulpit stood in 'the Cross yard', the open space on the north-east side of St Paul's Churchyard, adjacent to the row of buildings that would become the home of London's publishing and book-selling trade.
A sermon preached from Paul's Cross (in the lower-left corner) in 1614 (note the cathedral's central tower is missing its spire, lost after a fire in 1561).
Open-air preaching at St Paul's Cross
"John Bradford Appeasing the Riot at St Paul's Cross," from a later edition of 1563's Foxe's Book of Martyrs illustrated by Kronheim. According to Foxe, Mr. Bourne, a Catholic bishop and speaker, had nearly driven his Protestant listeners to riot, but Bradford came to his rescue and calmed the mob.
Sir Reginald Blomfield's Paul's Cross
Old St Paul's Cathedral
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Old St Paul's Cathedral was the cathedral of the City of London that, until the Great Fire of 1666, stood on the site of the present St Paul's Cathedral. Built from 1087 to 1314 and dedicated to Saint Paul, this building was perhaps the fourth such church at this site on Ludgate Hill, going back to the 7th century.
Digital reconstruction giving an impression of Old St Paul's during the Middle Ages. The image is based on a model of the Cathedral in the Museum of London, composited with a modern city background.
St Erkenwald, foundational figure in the history of St Paul's Cathedral
Shrine of St Erkenwald, relics removed 1550, lost as a monument in the Great Fire of London
A 1916 engraving of Old St Paul's as it appeared before the fire of 1561 in which the spire was destroyed