In a long career that extended across much of the seventeenth century, John Cosin was distinguished as an author of important liturgical, polemical, and homiletic works; as a remarkable churchman in an age noted for distinguished clerics; and as an ingenious and gifted ecclesiastical architect and designer. These general areas of interest often intersect, but Cosin's achievements may be conveniently assigned to three periods of his life: at Cambridge--interrupted by periods in London and Durham--before the civil war; in Paris during the Interregnum; and in Durham in the early years of the Restoration.

Cosin was born on 30 November 1595 in Norwich to settled and prosperous parents, Giles and Elizabeth Remington Cosin. Educated at the grammar school in Norwich, Cosin was selected to receive one of the scholarships to Caius College, Cambridge, that were reserved for students at the Norwich school. He took his B.A. in 1614 and his M...