Chapter 1 looks at depictions of human perfection in sources not usually consulted within Christian ethics. The first source is church memorials, first in Westminster Abbey -- particularly the twentieth-century Memorial to the Unknown Warrior and the seventeenth-century memorial to Isaac Newton -- and then seventeenth- and eighteenth-century family memorials in three parish churches near Canterbury Cathedral. The second source is recent depictions of perfection within the arts and sport mostly gleaned from the columns of The Times. And the last source is John Bayley’s autobiographical account of a ‘perfect’ meal cooked by his future wife, the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch. Together they indicate that a dynamic form of ‘perfection’ was, and still is, readily attributed to human endeavours.

Gervase of Canterbury gives a detailed account of the fire that ravaged Canterbury Cathedral in the 1170s, after which an excerpt from the fire regulations published in 1212 in London after another major fire in the city is included. Building and repairs are exemplified by documents recording work done at WIndsor Castle and Westminster Abbey, as well as the accounts of payment made for repair to the clock on Westminster Palace, now replaced by Big Ben. Finally a contract is included between a builder and the authorities at St. Paul’s regarding the building of a large merchant’s house in the City of London, with details as to the plan of the house and the sourcing of the materials.