On a small hill at the western end of the City of London stands St Paul's Cathedral, built by Sir Christopher Wren in succession to the medieval cathedral that formerly soared above the city rather as Lincoln Cathedral rises over the Lincolnshire fenland today. It was one of the wonders of medieval Europe, an immense building nearly 600 feet long with a tower and spire that rose 400 feet above the city.

These three books offer rich insights both into the life of the pre-Fire cathedral and its complex of associated buildings and into Christopher Wren's magnificent building, its treasures and its current community of canons, staff and volunteers.

John Schofield, the cathedral's archaeologist, has written the first comprehensive account of the archaeology of the cathedral from Roman times to the Great Fire of 1666. The first St Paul's was built by Mellitus, who came from Rome with St Augustine. He was consecrated bishop and reached London in ad 604. His church was destroyed, rebuilt in 675 and destroyed again twice. It was Maurice, William the Conqueror's chaplain, who finally began the creation of one of the largest buildings in Europe.

Schofield expertly summarises the results of the eight archaeological investigations since 1969, which have examined a total of eighty-four sites and others within the medieval precinct. As a result of this evidence the construction of the cathedral has been divided into six periods: Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Romanesque, medieval, post-Reformation and Wren's rebuilding. Against this background the seventeen buildings that have been identified from archaeological and antiquarian investigations since 1675 are numbered and examined in detail. Many of the architectural fragments of the medieval cathedral are illustrated and described. Maps, charts and diagrams illuminate the development of the religious complex and the lives of those who lived and worshipped there.

It is above all through the drawings of Wenceslaus Hollar that we can see something of the splendour of the medieval building, the vast length of the nave, the side chapels with their altars, the tombs and memorial brasses of senior churchmen covering the floor and, behind the high altar, the shrine of St Erkenwald, the bishop who had given so much of his own substance to build the Anglo-Saxon cathedral.

But if we feel frustrated by these fragmentary pictorial glimpses of the life of the medieval foundation, then Marie-Héléne Rousseau's new book on the chantries of St Paul's helps to bring to life the devotional landscape not only of this building but of medieval England. The impulse for the devotional regime of this period was the pressing desire on the part of individuals to be remembered and prayed for so that their souls would be released from purgatory and rise to heaven. For a wide range of wealthier people, including merchants, noblemen and bishops, the establishment of a chantry provided for the celebration of masses and the saying of prayers by chaplains who were paid to do so.

Rousseau shows how St Paul's Cathedral became a powerhouse of commemoration and intercession, serviced by a large number of chantry priests, who were first established in the late twelfth century and who formed a community that linked the life of the cathedral with that of the city of London. Her book is divided into six sections, beginning with the foundation of the chantries. During the period in question eighty-four in all were established, mostly by members of the cathedral staff, supplemented in many cases by the placing of tombs near these altars. Thus these chantry founders contributed to the increasing numbers of monuments in the cathedral, which secured a continuous flow of prayers on behalf of the deceased.

Later sections of the book deal with the impact of the chantry chaplains on the life of the cathedral, including the proliferation of altars, and how these clergy were housed and managed by the chapter, not forgetting the punishment of misbehaviour and neglect of duty. Rousseau devotes a section to the careers of the chantry priests and identifies a total of 810 who served the cathedral between 1250 and 1548, with details of their origins and backgrounds. The chantries proved remarkably resilient until swept away at the Reformation, which radically changed the character and purpose of the building.

Ann Saunders, in her pictorial study of the cathedral as a working building and community, takes up the story at the point when the crumbling and compromised building was engulfed by the Great Fire of September 1666. Christopher Wren had already produced a report on the fabric of Old St Paul's and he immediately set to the task of designing a new building in the classical style, surmounted by a mighty dome. Saunders takes the reader through the intricacies and politics of the design process, and emphasises Wren's genius in holding together a large team of men over such a long period to make his vision a reality. The cost was considerable, more than £750,000, but as Wren recorded in his memoir Parentalia:

Soon the building became a mausoleum for heroes, with a range of monuments to military, naval, literary and artistic men, and, of course, Admiral Horatio Nelson. Saunders charts the building's interior decoration with elaborate mosaics and its dramatic twentieth-century history, especially during the Second World War. She ends with a brief account of the worshipping life and mission of the contemporary cathedral community and the celebration of HM Queen Elizabeth ii's Diamond Jubilee in June 2012.

These three books create an intricate and detailed panorama of the mother church of London, and give us a better understanding of the complex of buildings that Wren's building replaced. We are given a scholarly insight into the spiritual purpose of the cathedral, and its increasing round of services, the Opus Dei, which still continues today. Between them Schofield, Rousseau and Saunders help us appreciate the continuum of its history and its links to the life not only of London but of the whole nation.