Church Lit

A conscientious author would conclude such an enormous subject can only be done justice in two volumes and then by just touching on the important bits.

Not being that sort of author I hope to at least give you a flavour in about three hundred words.The subject is the Church in fiction and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales seems a good starting point. You will remember bits, probably the smutty bits, from school but I had to refresh my memory so let me do the same for you. Written in Middle English in 1387 – 1400, thirty pilgrims assemble at Canterbury and twenty-four of them tell a tale. Six (25%) are in the church, I use the term broadly: the parson, monk, friar, nun, prioress and the nun’s priest.  Since then the church has an established place in literature: The Chronicles of Barchester, Brother Cadfael, Don Camillo, The Granchester Mysteries, Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie), Father Brown and The Great Sermon Handicap get us started. To digress, on television All Gas and Gaiters, Father Ted and The Vicar of  Dibley are front runners.

While the importance of the Church in Society has declined since Chaucerian and Victorian England and all points in between, it holds a fascination for readers and TV viewers into the 21st century, disproportionate to attendance at Services. The ecclesiastical protagonists are usually portrayed in a good light, often mocked good-humouredly, seldom villains. In fact I cannot think of a really good baddie in Holy Orders. One reason for the popularity of the genre is it’s a world within our own world; unthreatening comfort reading; whether it’s set in medieval Shrewsbury (Bro Cadfael), the Po valley just after World War II (Don Camillo) or Barsetshire in the 19th century. Browning puts it better.

The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn:
God’s in his heaven—
All’s right with the world!

Pippa Passes, Robert Browning.