Reforming Zeal

 

My last formal history courses were in high school. I don't remember much. I do recall the day a smart classmate asked a show-offy question about terms on our French revolution study list: "Who was General Will?" Always admired her cheeky cleverness.

 I learn most of my history from the study of the art and architecture of each era. Last night I watched an episode of Kenneth Clark's Civilisation series.  It led me through the Reformation and its aftermath, the religious wars that raged through Europe for the next century.

To this point, I had been tutored in the architecture of the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church's push-back - the mightly Baroque. "See, we're the greatest church, after all!" (no offense intended by my over-simplication of the times.)

 One fact hit me like a blast from a bombard. In the so-called 'religious wars' (actually largely about money, land and power) that followed Luther's stand at the doors of Wittenburg church, the destruction of art - mostly religious at the time - was beyond comprehension. 

Whitby Abbey

Think of the dissolution of the monasteries - the English countryside is blessed with their picturesque ruins. They don't quite convey the hatred and ignorance and violence of the time. Here's a helpful essay if my history's a bit weak for you.

This is the line that hit me hardest in my reading. From this Cambridge university article found online, I read with horror: "It is believed that up to 97% of English religious art was destroyed during and after the Reformation." And here's an old article from The Guardian, sharing a sense of dismay at the failure to save the rare extant examples.

Reading about all this took me back to a bucolic bit of England visited with a member of my English family. Down a leafy lane lies the tiny medieval (Anglo-Saxon with Norman upgrades) church of St. Nicholas, at Oddington in Gloucestershire.

Among other breath-stopping details - the Jacobean pulpit, the Norman window openings, the fifteenth century font, the primitive stone bench used for sharpening arrows - the church wall displays a Doom Painting (think a medieval Last Judgement and you get the intent if not the style.)

In Oddington church prevails that "atmosphere of antiquity": intense cold, damp, stillness and something indefinable. Maybe the presence of centuries of the faithful in their certainties and confusion. 

My brother in law explained how rare and wonderful the fresco was - surviving damp and renovations and the depredations of the Restoration and later Puritan eras, uncomfortable with church 'art.' I believe he said it had been rescued from beneath a coating of whitewash.

If you find this fascinating, you will want to explore the church's story more fully in this profile in Great English Churches. Not as stuffy as you might think. The writer quotes Black Adder.

And lest you think there aren't many of these incrediblty rare Doom paintings in England, here's more info at this site. (Sixty in case you're wondering.)

Is anyone still with me? I've been on walking tours that sometimes disintegrate as bored or distracted participants fall away from the group. I'm remembering a particularly bad one in Siena...