I am currently in a doctoral program, studying semiotics—cultural symbols—which requires a great deal of reading. Probably the greatest benefit of an education is the wise guide (teacher) who can give a curated tour of the best there is in any given subject, and such is the case with this program. Dr. Leonard Sweet has opened the door to an entire world of scholars and theologians who look beneath the surface of things and reveal mysteries. Now I would like to open that world to you.
How It All Began …
Pope Gregory the Great (64th Bishop of Rome from 590 to 604) wanted English “temples” to be preserved in the hopes that people would accept the transference of worship and adoration from their old gods to the one true and living God through faith in Christ (p. 21). It seems that ever since, English church architecture sought to incorporate local symbology with the church. And, from the beginning, the pope in Rome exercised authority over all the churches in the west, creating, as it were, a Christian empire that overlay the Roman one, extending Christendom’s borders and increasing the western Church’s wealth even as the Roman empire’s power waned (p. 22).
People’s actual life of faith, their internal growth as Christians, appears not to have been a matter of concern so much as their outer devotion to the cultic centers, including not only their presence but even more importantly, their tithes (p. 54). Very early on, there were the bells summoning people to the church, and lecterns for people to hear the word spoken to them, as well as Masses to listen to and prayers to recite (pp. 60, 76). Perhaps it was not the scope of this book to record whether the people were ever mentored or discipled.
Henry VIII: Usurpation of Sacred Power
In any case, since that was the template England’s Christians had been living with for centuries, it makes sense that Henry VIII (1491–1547) only took a step sideways and assumed the mantle of authority for himself, changed furniture arrangements and decorations (replacing the cross of Christ with the king’s crest, ahem), and how the services ran. But the bones of hierarchy, wealth, and power remained untouched.
I could feel the hairs on my arm prickle up reading about how “the spirit of militarism and Christian piety” were “implicit in medieval knighthood,” explaining all the effigies of people in their armor, and the stained glass windows depicting knights, archers, and fallen soldiers (p. 144). Christian nationalism, it seems, is at least five hundred years old.
I could really see the Reformation’s concern about Catholic teaching in this quote:
To those in their throes there existed only one source of succour: the charity of the living in the form of good deeds and prayers undertaken on behalf of a suffering soul. And no action had more potent power in this respect than the celebration of the Mass, a re-enactment of Christ’s Incarnation and Sacrifice. The importance and potency of this ritual was enormously enhanced by the dogma of Transubstantiation. It also underlined the special status of priests, the men at whose hands this miracle was performed.
John Goodall, Parish Church Treasures: The Nation’s Greatest Art Collection, 103 (italics added)
I remember as a kid being reprimanded once for calling the communion table an “altar.” I got a lecture I will never forget about the “heresy” of transubstantiation and the very act of sacrificing Jesus again and again.
Yet, I can so easily understand how incredible and wonderful high mass must have seemed to the people of that time, who lived so viscerally in a physical world that was rife with spiritual activity, in their minds. This was a time of elves and fairies, of brownies and ogres, of carved turnips and treats discouraging the roaming spirits of those now died from entering and haunting a person’s home, of the Green Man ruling in his wild forest realm while the church occupied the domesticated domain of homes and farms.
Meaning, Mystery, and Magic
With this book, in particular, I have been thinking a lot about what these churches must have meant to people down through the centuries, especially so filled with imagery not just of the Gospels, nor even the Bible as a whole, but of actual people, places, and non-Christian lore. This was the people’s sacred building that they all shared together and enjoyed together, a place where Jesus literally resided in his tiny golden house that everyone could see anytime they wanted, just peeking through a squint.
Angels were there, and the saints, and all their people who had died, but lived on in effigy and memorials. This is where all of life’s rites of passage happened, where every season was celebrated, where all the important town meetings took place, where justice was meted out, where blessings were obtained, where magic happened on a daily basis.
Reformation Iconoclasts
Fencing of the Communion Table
The Reformers were angsting about putting things on the communion table that might in some way dishonor it. I about spluttered my tea right out of my mouth. They wanted a whole fence built around the table, forcing people to kneel to receive communion, just in case someone might be tempted to be irreverent, or touch the table (p. 280).
Reformers distanced the people from their own Lord in such a huge way. And yet some Reformers were having themselves buried right over where the destroyed stone Catholic altar had been (which the Reformers had taken sledge hammers to), in the sacred space of the chancel (p. 260). In fact, how is getting oneself buried inside a church at all not, in some way, profaning the sacred space? How is replacing the Cross of Christ with a coat of arms not profaning God’s sacred space; “God … is decidedly subsidiary to the Queen …” (p. 264)
And yet, Reformers posted the Ten Commandments right there for everyone to see. That cannot have been lost on the populace.
Destruction
I was grieved to read about all the destruction, so needless. Reformers smashed the stained glass windows of cathedral and country chapel alike. The smashed the statues of biblical figures and saints. They painted lime wash over the murals. They tore down crosses and replaced them with the king’s coat of arms. They slashed paintings, and burned wooden artifacts. And I was also grieved about how the Reformers stripped the churches’ function of being the heart of the community. Churches up till then had been filled with life,
“… Plays, Feasts, Banquets, Suppers, Church-Ales, Drinkings, Temporal Courts, or Leets, Lay-Juries, Musters, or any other profane Usage to be kept in the Church, Chapel or Church-yard, neither the Bells to be rung superstitiously.”
John Goodall, Parish Church Treasures: The Nation’s Greatest Art Collection, 272, quoting a Reformation edict
Purchased Seating
And then, on top of all that, people were going to have to pay for their seats in the church, or be stuffed like sardines into the tower where they likely saw little and heard less (p. 272) Just like the theater, the rich sat in front in their special (and expensive) box seating, with seats becoming more affordable the closer they got to the back of the room.
Reformation of the Reformation
It all came full circle, though, semiotically speaking, in the nineteenth-century return to the classical temple architecture:
Not only did this idea of converting pagan forms to Christian usage appeal intrinsically to an eighteenth-century audience, but it played upon the perennially resonant idea that Anglican worship after the Reformation marked a return to primitive Christianity.
John Goodall, Parish Church Treasures: The Nation’s Greatest Art Collection, 350
I instantly recognized the architecture, it is the iconic image of “church.”
The evolution of the lectern to a triple-decker, then back to a pulpit on one side and the lectern on the other with the communion table in full view is a nice compromise, visually, as it keeps the echo of the earliest church architecture in mind while also bringing in the innovations that increase seating, speak to the Reformation concerns, and provide something spiritual to gaze upon. The basic original format is back in most churches, with
- stained glass standing in for a reredos (an ornamental screen or decorative structure, often made of wood or stone, positioned behind the altar in a church).
- the empty cross standing in for the crucifix.
- the communion table positioned as an altar against that backdrop.
- a railing in those churches, which, in its way, has echoes of the screen that used to separate chancel and nave.
Our modern-day big-box churches have a stage with a band on it (no organ), an enormous screen (rather than stained glass) and a table, chair, and cup for the speaker. If I were to guess at the semiotics of that, I’d say modern, western church has come full circle as well, “… the special status of [pastors], the men at whose hands this miracle [is] performed.”
But we have also come full circle in bringing the life of the Christian community back into the church building, beginning with the
… pragmatic need to create space for informal mingling and conversation. The reinvention of the church as a social as well as a liturgical building has also encouraged other innovations borrowed from domestic life. Fitted carpets, for example, are now an increasingly common feature of church interiors
John Goodall, Parish Church Treasures: The Nation’s Greatest Art Collection, 503
Just a couple of pages later, Goodall surmises that the
… successful transformation of a church is usually a direct comment on the health of the congregation and the local community,” since they are the ones who will need to pay for it and take care of it, and also use the building.
John Goodall, Parish Church Treasures: The Nation’s Greatest Art Collection, 505
Imagine Being Rooted
Though I never have had that home-church-for-a-thousand-years experience, I find myself wishing I had experienced what that must have been like:
The Gothic churches and all their finery, the magic of transubstantiation happening right before my very eyes, and the privilege of baptizing my babies with the same font my ancestors were baptized in.
- The idea of sitting near my family tomb, where all my people are buried, awaiting the day of resurrection.
- Seeing the imagery of my people’s antiquity, the Green Man, the foliage, fauna, and flowers that grow all around me in the ancient lands of my ancestors.
- Of seeing the presence of angels scaring away evil spirits, and the forms of saints I can talk to freely and know they will maybe bring my baby back to life if I make them a good enough deal, and that they will help me and mine make it through purgatory (stories regaled in this book, pp. 114–117).
- The peals of bells from the tower, the dark oak timbers redolent with centuries of incense, the kaleidoscope of carvings and paintings, and glass, and draperies.
What a wonderful, sensurround experience that must have been, what rich, sensual tapestry for the imagination to course in.
Epilogue
Revisiting a number of images from the previous book through Goodall’s lens helped to get a more rounded view. For example, the font with Jesus dragging a man out of the vines is now Jesus dragging Adam out of sin, and the warring men on the other side represent those who remain entangled, as I had thought (p. 78). It also confirmed my suspicions about the effigies and other depictions of donors and nobility in the churches:
… the effigy literally becomes the person it represents.
John Goodall, Parish Church Treasures: The Nation’s Greatest Art Collection, 151
