Dark Beginnings Churches: How to Read Them

Every Sunday as a child, my parents would bring my brothers and I to St Michael's Church in Highgate.

And as I sat here in the pews, I'd be looking up at this.

The Great East Window.

I'd have known enough, probably, to know that the figure in the middle is Jesus,

but I wouldn't have understood much else about the scene.

Who that is stealing away at the bottom of the scene, or what he's got in his hand.

And above it, there's an array of symbols and images.

Firewood, urns, sheep...

They all clearly mean something, but what?

Questions spring at you from all around the church.

What's the letter M?

Why is the font at the west end of the church and the altar at the east end?

In fact, why an altar at all?

There are hundreds of years of faith and history that pour in to a place like this.

But there's nothing special about this church.

The same questions are asked by every church that you might visit.

What's this?

We seem to have forgotten

how to read the language of these buildings, with the result that they can seem baffling and obscure.

As an author of books that unravel the meaning of churches,

I've made it my mission to rediscover that language.

The fact that you can find something like this is just extraordinary.

Because churches shouldn't be a mystery.

Built to the glory of God, they also tell us a lot about ourselves.

Golly, the Normans built to impress.

In this series I'm going to explain 1,000 years of British Christian art and symbolism,

giving a fresh perspective on the hopes, fears and beliefs of our ancestors.

Someone has come along and poked through the face of God Himself.

I want to overturn the cliches that reduce churches

to little more than dusty museums, or codes for Dan Brown to crack.

They're so much more than that.

There's tremendous beauty in churches,

and it's there in the colours,

in the space and in the form,

and it's people trying, using every skill to create a heaven on earth.

In the beginning there were no churches.

Our story starts in the seventh century, when the country was dominated by the pagan cultures

of the Anglo-Saxons, Jutes, Britons and Picts.

They seem to have tolerated the tiny Christian communities

that survived the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

But there were no church buildings.

Early Christians worshipped in their own homes.

In the sixth century, Celtic Christian missionaries

from Ireland had begun to convert the pagan tribes,

but it's the arrival of missionaries sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 597

that marks the true re-establishment of Christianity in Britain.

The missionaries brought with them the most recognisable of all Christian symbols.

As they moved through Britain, some would erect a wooden cross

to mark a site where they had preached the Gospel.

The early Christians had avoided the cross as a symbol of their faith,

because it was an instrument of execution reserved for the lower orders.

In time, this association faded, as this was now an empty cross, a symbol of hope.

Jesus had conquered death.

The missionaries chose the sites for their crosses very carefully.

Their marketing of the faith was highly astute.

They deliberately chose pagan standing stones and temples

to show that there was a new faith in town.

It was part of a plan.

The missionaries were under specific instructions from Pope Gregory

not to destroy the pagan temples that they found.

Purify them with holy water, set up holy relics, and transform them into temples of the true God.

This was a brilliant strategy,

because people could then come to the sites that they had always come to.

Only this time, they were coming to a Christian site, to worship the Christian God.

Evidence of Gregory's plan still survives.

You can see examples of pagan worship close to some of our parish churches.

Here at Iffley, the church was built in the shadow of this 1,200 year-old sacred tree.

And at Rudston, the church was built next to this impressive standing stone,

the largest in Britain.

It's one thing to build your church by a pagan sacred site.

It's quite another to take pagan symbols and import them into the church.

But the extraordinary thing is that for the next several hundred years,

whenever a new church was built,

it was filled with images that, to our eyes, just shouldn't be there.

I'm going to enter this confusion of faiths and try and make sense of it.

The history of British churches

can be understood only by first recognising the significance of this - the altar.

Perhaps because they're usually at the far east end of the church and covered with ceremonial cloths,

their importance is often overlooked, but it's vital

to understand that the altar is not built for the church.

The church is built for the altar.

The early Christian missionaries had set up altars in the open air next to their preaching crosses,

but they needed protection from the weather,

and so the first churches were built.

The ceremony that took place around the altar was the Eucharist or mass,

and to pagans used to the idea of sacrificing animals to the gods,

the altar must have seemed strangely familiar,

as would the words of the ceremony, with its talk about a body and blood.

In the same night that he was betrayed, took bread and gave you thanks.

You get a great sense of Anglo-Saxon worship here,

in this little chapel of St Laurence in Bradford on Avon.

The people would have stood here, in the less holy part of the church, what would later become known as

the nave, from the Latin navis, meaning ship,

as if everybody is sailing together towards God.

While the ceremony of the mass took place there,

in the chancel, in a far more holy space.

The Eucharist is a re-enactment of the final meal

that Jesus had with his disciples before his trial and crucifixion.

We break this bread to share in the body of Christ...

The Bible says he gave some bread to his disciples, saying,

"This is my body, which is given for you."

He then gave them some wine, saying,

"This is my blood, which is shed for you."

The blood of Christ.

The cup of salvation.

It was quite deliberate that the altar should be built of stone,

like the altars on which animals had been sacrificed to God,

as Jesus's sacrifice was being re-enacted here.

When the priest performed the rite,

the bread and the wine became the actual body and actual blood of Christ.

The people may not have understood the Latin liturgy of the priests

nor even received the bread and wine, but they knew that Christ was in their midst.

It was that moment that made the church so important.

Because of the significance of the Eucharist,

churches have always been more than just a shelter for the altar.

Each generation developed new ways to decorate and design churches to the glory of God.

The earliest examples are by the Anglo-Saxons, who built thousands across England and Wales.

The few survivors are worth seeking out.

Their churches show a puzzling mix of God's kingdom and the animal kingdom,

but also a desire to make sure all eyes are drawn heavenwards.

One of the first things that hits you in an Anglo-Saxon church

is this great whoosh of space,

this huge void over your head

that just pulls you upwards.

The arches, are semi-circular and round and deep and thick,

that's simply, partly because building techniques were quite primitive then.

And even behind me here, it's even more primitive - just two stones,

one balanced against another into a triangle.

Either side of the west door,

and either side of the arch that would have led to the Anglo-Saxon altar,

are these magnificent beasts, carved out of stone.

Originally, these would have been painted in yellow and black and red.

And we believe that their eyes and their nostrils and their ears would have been filled in with jewels.

The effect, if you were in the church, in candlelight, must have been vividly alive.

What they are doing inside the church is hard to say.

Perhaps they're guarding the entrance to the altar

or are a warning against the dark evil of the outside world.

And there's further evidence of the need for protection - this time above the main door.

For the past 1,200 years, congregations have passed

under this intriguing depiction of the Virgin Mary.

It looks so modern, in its carving, to us now.

We know from residue of paint that the face would have been painted on.

And what she's holding is a shield, on which an image of Jesus would have been portrayed.

I love the way her slippered toes are peeping over the edge of the frame.

In 816, the Synod of Chelsea told bishops that when they dedicated a new church to a saint,

they should include an image of the saint in the church,

the idea being that the saint will then be the protector of the church,

while the church repays the compliment by each year holding a feast on the saint's day.

On the outside of the sanctuary, at Deerhurst, were carved more images,

marking the holiness of the spot where the Eucharist took place.

Only one survives, and to get a glimpse, you have to work for it,

by climbing into the attic of the old farmhouse next door.

There he is.

This is the the Deerhurst Angel, and there would once have been

12 of them, standing guard around the sanctuary at Deerhurst.

Different ages imagined angels in different ways.

Emissaries from God, warriors, comforters, messengers.

But no-one imagined them quite like the Anglo-Saxons,

with such softness, gentleness,

you could even say love.

But the Anglo-Saxon way of worship came to a swift end

soon after William the Conqueror landed at Pevensey in 1066.

He didn't just bring with him a few hundred French barons and the feudal system,

he also imported a more extravagant style of worship,

with more ritual, more music, and more processions.

What all that demanded was a new type of church.

CHOIR SINGS

The Pope had been swift to bless William's triumph,

and the new king responded by building hundreds of new churches,

designed also to impress the defeated people of England.

An 11th century historian wrote,

"It was as though the very world had cast off her old age,

"and was clothing herself everywhere in a white robe of new churches."

The Normans may have brought a brand-new style of church to the British landscape,

but strangely, their builders didn't relinquish the old pagan images.

I'm on the border of England and Wales, heading for a church

that I hope will explain why it sometimes looks as if the Normans were hedging their spiritual bets.

William the Conqueror gave this land to his relative, William Fitznorman.

His family built the twin symbols of Norman power, the castle and the church.

The castle is long gone but the church is still here, and it's a gem.

I've seen this doorway in pictures,

but I've never seen it in the flesh before.

It's really weird.

There's so much going on here.

You've got these birds.

Fishes.

I'm not sure I can work out quite what they all are.

You've got something with two dragons coming out of its mouth.

Phoenix?

I don't know. How you could interpret what's going on here is...

..is beyond me.

But one of the things that is extraordinary

is actually how little recognisably

Christian imagery there is here.

You've got an angel.

Well, I suppose the Tree of Life, maybe.

But outside of that, it's birds and beak heads and monsters.

Just below the arch is a character very familiar to British churches,

but who resolutely refuses to be explained -

the famous Green Man.

There are over 1,000 Green Men in British churches,

and you only find them in churches.

I think there's two records of Green Men that aren't in churches.

And they're always recognisable by the human face, from which plants are growing,

or else he's peeping out of thick shrubbery.

No-one, in truth, knows what they are or what they are really meant to be about.

There have been some pious explanations.

When Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden, for disobedience to God,

the story grew up that they took with them some seeds from the Tree Of Good And Evil,

and when Adam died, his son Seth planted them in his mouth,

where they sprouted and grew into the tree

which was used to make the cross on which Jesus was crucified.

And one interpretation of the Green Man is that he is Adam.

It doesn't really hold much water, in truth, as an explanation.

It's all a bit pious. It's all a bit safe.

For one thing, this isn't dead Adam.

This Green Man is thoroughly, vividly alive.

And the Green Men that you'll find in British churches are screaming

or they're laughing or they're looking blankly,

as if they don't particularly care about how we might like to interpret them.

Around the church are a collection of corbels - brackets that help support the roof.

But the vivid designs suggest they have another purpose.

Close to the south door is an immodest lady

sometimes seen in churches across the British Isles.

This character here was described by a Victorian commentator

as being a fool holding open their heart to the devil,

which shows that they had no real sense of anatomy,

because this is a Sheela na Gig, a woman holding open her vagina to the viewer.

And one interpretation of this

is that it's a warning against sexual sin and sexual promiscuity.

As much as anything, holding your genitals open in the 12th century

was no more polite than it is in the 21st,

and it could be that these are nothing more than a rude joke.

The church reflected life in Kilpeck back at itself.

The fairs that were held here are portrayed up here on the wall, with a man playing an instrument,

a pair wrestling, and an entertainer tumbler.

Or, if you prefer, you've got a demon,

tempting people away with musical sin,

a pair caught in a lecherous embrace

and a man tumbling from sin.

Is it a celebration of life?

Are they a warning against the evils of the fair?

Or are they a just a bit of fun?

Just when you think you can impose some sort of meaning,

the church throws some even stranger carvings at you.

Why is this animal's head placed upside-down?

And this Agnus Dei, an ancient image which symbolises Jesus

as a sacrificial lamb holding a flag of victory over death, is all wrong.

Here, in a charming muddle,

the carver, rather than the sacrificial lamb,

what he's actually carved is a sacrificial horse.

But in typical Kilpeck style, this most holy Christian symbol

is surrounded by a demon,

a fish man,

a lion man.

Do you see the shape? What do you think it is?

Such is the fascination with Kilpeck that a group of first-time dowsers

have come to the church, convinced that its pagan past is literally just below the surface.

That's good.

They believe that the church is built on a sacred spring that bubbles up beneath the altar.

I've got to tell you, I'm a dowsing sceptic.

Oh, good. That's fine.

Hold them like that, right.

You think there's a stream running...

..the length of the church.

-The full length of the church?

-Yes.

-Down the middle of the Church?

-Yes.

So you've got the significant place under, around the altar,

and the water coming up from underneath and then spreading out.

So this would have been a holy spring?

My belief would be that it was, yes.

If you'd like to come and stand up here.

And what I'd like you to do is to imagine a stream of water 30 or 40 feet down,

really damp and dark.

I've very rarely come across anybody that can't do it.

-Ah, now!

-LAUGHTER

Now!

Ah...

I'm not sure what I think about that.

Hello, I'm Richard.

I'm meeting James Bailey, churchwarden here for over 20 years and understandably passionate

about Kilpeck's extraordinary collection of carvings.

You've had a good look at some of these corbels, but one of the things I'd like to perhaps point out.

The fourth one along here, you see, is a snake devouring its own tail.

-Oh, yes.

-You see, it's very like a Celtic knot.

-What do you think that is?

-An elephant?

-An elephant.

The strange thing is, you've got a whole human head in its mouth.

-Oh, yes.

-And I'm sure you'll be pleased to find there are two more Green Men here.

Yes. You've got a scene.

You've got a Green Man convention going on.

Wonderful. Wonderful.

James, this place is so full of mystery.

I've been around it and peered and prodded

and I feel no wiser now than I did before I came.

Is it still mysterious for you?

I don't think that matters,

because I feel that the whole of faith anyway is a total mystery.

We are led to believe certain things but we can't actually find perhaps chapter and verse for that.

And so I don't think that matters.

Kilpeck is a mystery, as James says, but I still want to have one last go

at trying to understand its carvings.

And to do that I have to track down a rare book.

This is the Bodleian Library in Oxford, which I hope will help me not only unravel Kilpeck's imagery

but also that of many other churches.

The gold leaf on these images is just glorious.

Every page that you turn

glints and glitters at you.

This is a medieval bestiary.

These books, which became hugely popular in the Middle Ages,

first appeared in the ninth century.

They contain stories of animals and their curious habits.

Nature programmes were as popular then as they are now.

Some of those stories have stayed in the language.

If you've ever been licked into shape, the expression comes from the bestiaries, which told of bears

and how they were born as shapeless blobs of flesh,

before being licked into the shape of bear cubs by their mothers.

The bestiaries also contain parallels between the animals they describe and Christian virtues.

One of the corbels at Kilpeck that intrigued me

was a horned creature with its head upside-down.

There's a story here that could explain it.

This describes how the ibex, that mountain goat, when it falls from the mountain,

supports itself on its horns, like some crash helmet, as it comes falling to earth.

Well, the bestiaries also say that the learned man

uses the Old and the New Testaments in the same way,

to save himself from falling into error.

Many of our churches have an eagle lectern, the stand which holds the Bible.

If you've ever wondered why an eagle was chosen, the answer is here.

The bestiaries said that the eagle was not only king of the birds,

but he was the only one of God's creatures

that was able to look directly into the light of the sun.

What better creature, they reasoned, to hold the Bible, which looks directly into the light of God?

That's fabulous.

This is an image of the pelicans.

Pelicans were said to peck at their breasts to feed their young with their own blood.

Or in another story, their young would die

and they would peck at their breasts to cover them in their blood, and bring them back to new life.

They were seen as forming a direct link with Jesus,

who used his own blood to bring humankind back to life.

Not many people will have the privilege, as I'm having,

of opening and looking into a medieval bestiary.

But anybody can go into a church and see the legacy of these bestiaries

on the walls around them.

Looking at the bestiary has given me a valuable insight into the early medieval mind.

They believed that God had put meaning in every aspect of the world,

and that included the mythical, pagan world.

So why not put those images in your churches?

That's not to say that the people of Kilpeck saw these images as having equal power.

They certainly believed that evil had been defeated by Jesus, as celebrated in the Eucharist,

but it was still a force to be reckoned with.

In the next episode, I'll show how the medieval Church created buildings

that drew people in by their beauty, life and its offer of protection from evil,

from cradle to grave.

As communities grew, the church became the undisputed focus of their lives.

It was their theatre, their schoolroom, their comfort, their celebration.

For churches, this was a golden age.

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