0:00:05 > 0:00:09In the Middle Ages, death was never far from our ancestors' minds.
0:00:13 > 0:00:18And inside their churches, warnings about death were writ large,
0:00:18 > 0:00:23leaving no doubt as to what would greet them on the other side.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26This is an image of the Last Judgment.
0:00:26 > 0:00:30The choice is between heaven and hell.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33The dead rise naked from their graves.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36Their souls are weighed against their sins.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39The saved are welcomed into heaven,
0:00:39 > 0:00:42and the damned are being hauled into hell.
0:00:45 > 0:00:49What do images like this tell us about the medieval fixation with death,
0:00:49 > 0:00:54and the epic drama awaiting them beyond the grave?
0:00:57 > 0:00:58By the Middle Ages,
0:00:58 > 0:01:02the church was an institution so influential
0:01:02 > 0:01:04that you lived and died in its shadow.
0:01:04 > 0:01:08And dying well mattered just as much as living well.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14I'm Richard Taylor.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17I write books about the meaning of Britain's churches.
0:01:17 > 0:01:21I believe we've forgotten how to read the language of these buildings.
0:01:24 > 0:01:26But if we care to look,
0:01:26 > 0:01:29we can connect directly with our ancestors' deepest hopes
0:01:29 > 0:01:31and fears.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36I'll be looking at medieval images of mortality,
0:01:36 > 0:01:38heaven and hell, to find out
0:01:38 > 0:01:42how they dealt with the threat of death, and the hereafter.
0:01:58 > 0:02:00Death in the Middle Ages was ever-present.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04Anything from plague, childbirth or the simplest infection
0:02:04 > 0:02:06could suddenly take you from this life.
0:02:09 > 0:02:13BELLS PEAL
0:02:13 > 0:02:18Inside Holy Trinity Church, at Westbury on Trym, lies a morbid
0:02:18 > 0:02:20and graphic reminder of mortality.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34This is a cadaver tomb,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37so known because, rather than
0:02:37 > 0:02:40the usual tombs where the person buried underneath it
0:02:40 > 0:02:44is shown in the pink of health and in their best clothes,
0:02:44 > 0:02:46this tomb shows the person underneath it
0:02:46 > 0:02:49as they are now...
0:02:49 > 0:02:51dead...
0:02:51 > 0:02:53rotting. I have to say it makes me feel
0:02:53 > 0:02:57quite uncomfortable being this close to one.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02Cadaver tombs came into being
0:03:02 > 0:03:06in the wake of the Black Death in the mid-14th century,
0:03:06 > 0:03:11which decimated Europe, killing as much as one third of the population,
0:03:11 > 0:03:16destroying whole communities and often taking the hale and the hearty.
0:03:16 > 0:03:21And it shows an intense response
0:03:21 > 0:03:26to the experience of death in the mind of the living.
0:03:26 > 0:03:30But it also contains a message,
0:03:30 > 0:03:36"As I am, so tomorrow you may be."
0:03:36 > 0:03:39DISCORDANT PEAL OF BELLS
0:03:58 > 0:04:03The medieval preoccupation with mortality is reinforced
0:04:03 > 0:04:05by a representation of death
0:04:05 > 0:04:09that dominated the interior of nearly every church in the land.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20Deep in Devon, St Andrew's has a 19th-century
0:04:20 > 0:04:23re-imagining of this central scene -
0:04:23 > 0:04:26the Crucifixion.
0:04:29 > 0:04:35This is a rood screen that separates the nave,
0:04:35 > 0:04:39where the people would have stood, from the sanctuary beyond,
0:04:39 > 0:04:43where the holy mystery of the Mass would be performed.
0:04:43 > 0:04:48The word "rood" comes from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning "cross".
0:04:48 > 0:04:50It's spelt R-O-O-D.
0:04:50 > 0:04:54And above it is the rood itself.
0:04:56 > 0:05:01It's an image of Christ crucified, nailed to the cross.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04And what's being shown is the moment of his death
0:05:04 > 0:05:09as his head falls forward, usually to the right.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12In many ways, it's an appalling scene.
0:05:13 > 0:05:19This is an image of torture, of execution and of death.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24And for it to be standing here,
0:05:24 > 0:05:29in the most central spot of the church, is...
0:05:29 > 0:05:35striking and...moving and perplexing.
0:05:35 > 0:05:41Why put a torture scene at the heart of a church?
0:05:45 > 0:05:49Although it's an image of pain, it's also an image of hope,
0:05:49 > 0:05:51because it represents
0:05:51 > 0:05:54Christ's sacrifice for the sins of mankind.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00And it was through his suffering and death
0:06:00 > 0:06:02that you were offered salvation.
0:06:13 > 0:06:18The concentration on the suffering of Jesus was a new development.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23Early Christianity had used an empty cross
0:06:23 > 0:06:26to symbolise Jesus conquering death.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32This aversion to showing Christ's suffering
0:06:32 > 0:06:35continued into Saxon times. If he was shown
0:06:35 > 0:06:40on the cross he was robed, arms outstretched and triumphant.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44It was only in the 13th century
0:06:44 > 0:06:50that artists began to portray a dying Christ, hanging heavily on his arms.
0:06:51 > 0:06:58This was because of a growing theological emphasis on the humanity of Christ.
0:06:58 > 0:07:02Passion scenes start to be depicted with realism and symbolic detail.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16And it is within the Priory Church at Great Malvern
0:07:16 > 0:07:18that the full extent of this devotion can be found.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33This is an amazing survival.
0:07:34 > 0:07:36These are medieval tiles
0:07:36 > 0:07:42of the sort that once would have covered the floors and the walls.
0:07:42 > 0:07:48But I'm here trying to find one in particular. Oh, yes, here we are.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52It's down here.
0:07:56 > 0:08:00This is a tile showing what's known as "the instruments of the Passion".
0:08:00 > 0:08:04And you have the crown of thorns.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07You've got the whip that was used to beat Christ.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11You've got the nails, you've got the spear that pierced his side.
0:08:11 > 0:08:17There are dice here that the soldiers used to gamble for Christ's clothes.
0:08:18 > 0:08:23Images like this one appeared everywhere in the Middle Ages,
0:08:23 > 0:08:28and they are a kind of aide-memoire of what Christ had suffered,
0:08:28 > 0:08:32and they fired the popular imagination.
0:08:32 > 0:08:34Actually, as I'm looking,
0:08:34 > 0:08:39this section here is covered with these images.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41Here.
0:08:41 > 0:08:43Here. Here.
0:08:44 > 0:08:46There.
0:08:47 > 0:08:52It gives you a sense of how often you would have encountered
0:08:52 > 0:08:57images like this, reminders of the suffering that Christ had endured.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04And here you have them again,
0:09:04 > 0:09:07up here in the windows.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11There's a crown of thorns,
0:09:11 > 0:09:15the rods that were used to beat Christ with nails coming out of them.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19There's a hammer with two nails on either side of it.
0:09:19 > 0:09:24There's the three dice appearing again.
0:09:24 > 0:09:26I don't recognise that.
0:09:26 > 0:09:28Oh! Except that it's the wounds.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31Those are the five wounds of Christ.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34They're always in these groups of five - one for each hand,
0:09:34 > 0:09:36one for each foot, and one for the heart.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38And they're... Eurgh!
0:09:38 > 0:09:41They're pouring blood.
0:09:41 > 0:09:45It's a very visceral, powerful image.
0:09:48 > 0:09:50Cathy, I've been exploring those images
0:09:50 > 0:09:53of the instruments of the Passion and I'm amazed
0:09:53 > 0:09:57by just how many of them there are there. What were they intended to achieve?
0:09:57 > 0:10:01This emphasis on thinking about Christ's suffering has a great deal
0:10:01 > 0:10:03to do with lifting Christ's death
0:10:03 > 0:10:07out of the historical context of dying,
0:10:07 > 0:10:10you know, in the first part of the 1st century AD, as it were,
0:10:10 > 0:10:14and an idea that Christ is dying all the time,
0:10:14 > 0:10:17that he's suffering all the time.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19And every time you do something wrong,
0:10:19 > 0:10:23like the people who originally crucified him made him suffer,
0:10:23 > 0:10:25you make him suffer in the same way.
0:10:25 > 0:10:29And if you're aware that what you do makes Christ suffer,
0:10:29 > 0:10:32then you can make amends for it. And these devotions
0:10:32 > 0:10:34play a very good part in that,
0:10:34 > 0:10:35in bringing these things to one's consciousness.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38They were there to influence people's day-to-day behaviour.
0:10:38 > 0:10:42Because they're such vivid and imaginative images,
0:10:42 > 0:10:44- they make people feel. - Mm.
0:10:44 > 0:10:49And it's making people feel that enables them to understand.
0:10:49 > 0:10:54And this would enable people to feel that Christ was on their side as well.
0:11:01 > 0:11:06When you sit here, where medieval people would have sat,
0:11:06 > 0:11:08and you contemplate these...
0:11:08 > 0:11:14bits of glass and these tiles, just as they would have contemplated them,
0:11:14 > 0:11:19I understand how you could look at these images
0:11:19 > 0:11:21and feel your way into them
0:11:21 > 0:11:25by breaking down and unpacking the Crucifixion.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29By focusing on each element of the Passion,
0:11:29 > 0:11:35you would feel what had happened more and more and more.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42Increasingly, people identified their lives
0:11:42 > 0:11:44with the life and death of Jesus.
0:11:44 > 0:11:49The Crucifixion embodied the awful reality of their own mortality.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53Although you didn't know when death would come,
0:11:53 > 0:11:57you fervently believed that it wasn't the end.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07Our medieval churches would be changed dramatically
0:12:07 > 0:12:10by one particular conviction about the afterlife.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13It became an obsession for the medieval Christian.
0:12:14 > 0:12:19The fate for anybody who died without having confessed
0:12:19 > 0:12:25and repented of their sins, was the state known as purgatory.
0:12:25 > 0:12:27Purgatory was not hell,
0:12:27 > 0:12:31it was a kind of outpatients' department of hell,
0:12:31 > 0:12:35a place where you would be punished for the sins
0:12:35 > 0:12:39that you had not confessed and been absolved of in your life.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42Often the punishment fitted the crime,
0:12:42 > 0:12:48so that gluttons, for example, would be fed on a diet of snakes and worms.
0:12:48 > 0:12:53Or the greedy would be fed on molten gold until they sickened of it,
0:12:53 > 0:12:57the purpose being to purge you of these sins.
0:12:57 > 0:12:59But purgatory could be avoided,
0:12:59 > 0:13:02or at least, your time in it could be reduced,
0:13:02 > 0:13:05by living well and by dying well.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10It was too big a risk to wait until your final breath
0:13:10 > 0:13:13before contemplating the eternal fate of your soul.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16Far better to make preparation
0:13:16 > 0:13:19for Judgment Day while you were alive and well.
0:13:19 > 0:13:24And the interiors of many of our churches benefited from this need to prepare
0:13:24 > 0:13:28for death, as it was thought that gifts to your parish church
0:13:28 > 0:13:30could ease your way through purgatory.
0:13:30 > 0:13:32I've come here
0:13:32 > 0:13:36to All Saints, Bristol, to find the story of just one woman -
0:13:36 > 0:13:41Alice Chestre - who, like tens of thousands up and down the country,
0:13:41 > 0:13:45was concerned with the remembrance of her soul after her death.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49And what I want to find out is what she left behind.
0:13:51 > 0:13:52- Hello.- Hello.
0:13:52 > 0:13:54- I'm Richard.- I'm Peter.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57This church is now a Christian education centre.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01It might look as though Alice is long forgotten, but a very special record -
0:14:01 > 0:14:06The All Saints Church Book - reveals her legacy.
0:14:06 > 0:14:09- OK. What did she give? - Well, there's an awful lot of stuff.
0:14:09 > 0:14:14Towels, jugs, and ewers and that sort of thing, and torches,
0:14:14 > 0:14:15these are big candles,
0:14:15 > 0:14:18to just about every church in the middle of Bristol,
0:14:18 > 0:14:20down to...
0:14:20 > 0:14:23"being in good prosperity", absolutely in good prosperity,
0:14:23 > 0:14:27"and health of body, has led to be made a new rood screen
0:14:27 > 0:14:29"at her own proper cost".
0:14:29 > 0:14:32What did Alice fear might happen to her,
0:14:32 > 0:14:36and how did she think that these gifts were going to help?
0:14:36 > 0:14:40Well, in common with everybody else, she was very worried about purgatory.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43So, basically, when you die,
0:14:43 > 0:14:46if you've been very, very bad indeed you go straight to hell.
0:14:46 > 0:14:48If you've been very, very good you go to heaven.
0:14:48 > 0:14:50But most people, they go to purgatory.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54But at the end of that, you go to heaven and that's for eternity.
0:14:54 > 0:14:59So to get there, somebody like Alice Chestre is doing good works.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02Basically, it's a kind of spiritual economy.
0:15:02 > 0:15:05You want to have made recompense
0:15:05 > 0:15:08for as much sin as possible,
0:15:08 > 0:15:10and to ease your passage through purgatory.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17Many medieval Christians like Alice
0:15:17 > 0:15:20made bequests to secure a place in heaven.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24But there was a more ostentatious method of chipping away
0:15:24 > 0:15:26at your time in purgatory -
0:15:26 > 0:15:27the chantry chapel.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32Churches up and down the land were built,
0:15:32 > 0:15:36rebuilt and modified to accommodate these memorials
0:15:36 > 0:15:38to the dead.
0:15:39 > 0:15:43Chantry chapels housed the tomb of their wealthy founder,
0:15:43 > 0:15:47and also an altar, around which priests were paid to say Mass
0:15:47 > 0:15:49for their soul's redemption.
0:15:50 > 0:15:53This one is tucked away inside the parish church
0:15:53 > 0:15:56at Dennington in Suffolk.
0:16:04 > 0:16:06Gosh! What a fine church.
0:16:08 > 0:16:11I'm struggling to find my way into this one.
0:16:11 > 0:16:15And of course, they were a chantry chapel for a particular individual.
0:16:15 > 0:16:19So actually, the only access that you really wanted was for the priests.
0:16:19 > 0:16:22You certainly didn't want any common people coming in.
0:16:24 > 0:16:25Here we go.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31You can even tell that by the spikes on the door.
0:16:33 > 0:16:38Chantry chapels were... the Belgravia of death.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41You'd set them up just for yourself.
0:16:41 > 0:16:47But here, you have the people who endowed the chantry
0:16:47 > 0:16:51lying in prayer for eternity.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55I always find this a knockout when I visit places like this.
0:16:55 > 0:16:57But when these were put here,
0:16:57 > 0:16:59these costumes were contemporary,
0:16:59 > 0:17:02this is what people were wearing at the time.
0:17:02 > 0:17:03At her head,
0:17:03 > 0:17:08she's being cradled on a cushion by two angels on either side,
0:17:08 > 0:17:11both of whom are looking heavenward.
0:17:11 > 0:17:15Here you've got his sword firmly in place, at his side.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18It's so realistic, you feel as if you could just give it a tug
0:17:18 > 0:17:21and pull it out now, and he'd be jumping up
0:17:21 > 0:17:23and back at war.
0:17:23 > 0:17:25They're very fine.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28And then at this end,
0:17:28 > 0:17:30this is the raised area
0:17:30 > 0:17:33where the priest would have been saying Masses for the dead.
0:17:33 > 0:17:35And I suspect for these people,
0:17:35 > 0:17:38they would have given a sufficient endowment
0:17:38 > 0:17:42for Masses to be said for their souls forever.
0:17:42 > 0:17:47BELL TOLLS
0:17:52 > 0:17:57Roy, I've had a look around the glorious chantry chapel
0:17:57 > 0:18:01that you've got here, and I've done my best to work out what's going on
0:18:01 > 0:18:03but I don't actually know who these people were.
0:18:03 > 0:18:05What can you tell me about them?
0:18:05 > 0:18:10He is Sir William Phelip, who married Lady Joan Bardolph
0:18:10 > 0:18:15and therefore became Lord Bardolph in her right.
0:18:15 > 0:18:18He fought at Agincourt and was a Garter Knight.
0:18:18 > 0:18:23He was a person of national repute, and she was very much a lady.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27What sort of money would it have taken to set up
0:18:27 > 0:18:32a chantry chapel like this and have priests saying Masses for your soul?
0:18:32 > 0:18:35He gave £20 per annum
0:18:35 > 0:18:42to pay two chantry priests to offer Mass daily for the Bardolph family.
0:18:42 > 0:18:47And this church would have been filled with the sound of the murmuring
0:18:47 > 0:18:50of Masses being said for the dead, day in, day out.
0:18:50 > 0:18:55Yes. And the Sanctus bell booming out from the tower at the climax of the Mass,
0:18:55 > 0:19:01so that all the people in the fields and in the homes would pause.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04It was worth what you paid to know
0:19:04 > 0:19:09that you were being remembered before God daily.
0:19:09 > 0:19:15BELL TOLLS, CHORISTERS SING
0:19:30 > 0:19:35Some families went overboard on how much they paid.
0:19:35 > 0:19:37And nowhere more so than in Scotland.
0:19:37 > 0:19:39The Scottish nobility
0:19:39 > 0:19:43seem to have been particularly concerned for their souls.
0:19:45 > 0:19:50This church at Seton, east of Edinburgh, is one enormous chantry.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56Well, if you ever doubted how seriously
0:19:56 > 0:20:01people took the idea of purgatory, come here.
0:20:01 > 0:20:06This entire church is built for one purpose,
0:20:06 > 0:20:11and that is to protect the souls of the dead of one family,
0:20:11 > 0:20:14the local lairds - the Seton family.
0:20:14 > 0:20:20And, as well as building this church for that purpose, they left an endowment
0:20:20 > 0:20:23for priests to say Masses for their souls -
0:20:23 > 0:20:27several tending the altar up there, two tending another altar here,
0:20:27 > 0:20:28two another altar there.
0:20:28 > 0:20:33All of these resources pouring into one family.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37Not clothing the naked or feeding the hungry,
0:20:37 > 0:20:41not even saying prayers for somebody else. Just them.
0:20:41 > 0:20:44But it's difficult in a place like this,
0:20:44 > 0:20:49at 500 years' distance, to feel that outraged,
0:20:49 > 0:20:52because it is so very beautiful.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03While the wealthy spent a fortune to ensure their souls' speedy passage
0:21:03 > 0:21:07through purgatory, the poor relied on friends in high places -
0:21:07 > 0:21:09the saints.
0:21:10 > 0:21:12One of the most popular saints then
0:21:12 > 0:21:18is still well-known to us now - St Christopher, the patron saint
0:21:18 > 0:21:19of travellers.
0:21:29 > 0:21:34St Christophers are familiar to us from a thousand travellers' medallions,
0:21:34 > 0:21:38but this is the daddy of them.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42The legend was that St Christopher was a devil-worshipper originally,
0:21:42 > 0:21:44who converted to Christianity.
0:21:44 > 0:21:50And, as part of his duties, he escorted people across a swollen river.
0:21:51 > 0:21:57One day a small boy came to him and asked to be carried across the river.
0:21:57 > 0:22:02He did this, but the weight of the boy was tremendous.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06He got him across, but when he'd got to the other side and let the boy down,
0:22:06 > 0:22:11the boy told him that he had carried the weight of the world
0:22:11 > 0:22:14and of the creator of the world. And, of course,
0:22:14 > 0:22:18the boy was Jesus, the infant Jesus.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21The name Christopher means "Christ carrier".
0:22:21 > 0:22:25You wanted to see images like this at least once a day
0:22:25 > 0:22:28because, if you saw an image of St Christopher,
0:22:28 > 0:22:32then you would not die that day unshriven.
0:22:32 > 0:22:38In other words, they wouldn't die without their sins having been confessed.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42I love the idea that people in the Middle Ages
0:22:42 > 0:22:45might have just popped into the church door there,
0:22:45 > 0:22:47just to have a quick look at St Christopher,
0:22:47 > 0:22:49before going about their daily business.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53But why St Christopher?
0:22:53 > 0:22:58What was it about looking at him as opposed to any other saint?
0:22:58 > 0:23:02You're crossing from life into death,
0:23:02 > 0:23:06and it was the man who'd carried Christ
0:23:06 > 0:23:08who would give you comfort in that crossing.
0:23:19 > 0:23:27Your crossing into the next world mattered just as much as life itself.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30Everyone believed literally in the Day of Judgment,
0:23:30 > 0:23:35when their sins would be weighed in front of the risen Christ.
0:23:42 > 0:23:44Holy Trinity in Coventry
0:23:44 > 0:23:48has the most compelling medieval depiction of this scene in Britain.
0:23:54 > 0:23:56So this is it. This is the end.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00This is the Day of Judgment.
0:24:00 > 0:24:03This is what it's all been there for -
0:24:03 > 0:24:06all those prayers, all those good works,
0:24:06 > 0:24:08all that repentance,
0:24:08 > 0:24:12all that expenditure on items and on chantry chapels.
0:24:12 > 0:24:17You rise from the grave, often in your burial clothes,
0:24:17 > 0:24:22and stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
0:24:22 > 0:24:24The just are ushered into heaven
0:24:24 > 0:24:27and the damned are condemned to hell.
0:24:30 > 0:24:35This scene has been described as being about control and dominance.
0:24:35 > 0:24:39But what would you have felt if you were a medieval person
0:24:39 > 0:24:44standing down here, seeing it from where it was meant to be seen?
0:24:44 > 0:24:49You would have seen the rood, the crucifix below the arch there.
0:24:49 > 0:24:54That sacrifice for your sins and for everybody's sins.
0:24:54 > 0:24:59You would see Christ there in judgment showing his wounds,
0:24:59 > 0:25:01not as a stern judge,
0:25:01 > 0:25:05but as a fellow sufferer, sharing his humanity with you.
0:25:05 > 0:25:10You'd see the saints beneath Christ, pleading for your soul.
0:25:10 > 0:25:16And the whole thing told with these little touches of medieval humour.
0:25:16 > 0:25:21The ale wives in their ridiculous headdresses being pulled down to hell
0:25:21 > 0:25:24for selling watered-down beer.
0:25:24 > 0:25:27And lined up for judgment
0:25:27 > 0:25:32are kings in their crowns, are clergy in their red cardinal's hats.
0:25:32 > 0:25:34The rich with the poor,
0:25:34 > 0:25:36the powerful with the weak.
0:25:36 > 0:25:38There must have been some comfort
0:25:38 > 0:25:44that, at the day of final judgment, everybody would be judged together.
0:25:44 > 0:25:46Like the cadaver tomb,
0:25:46 > 0:25:51this isn't an image that's designed to terrorise you with death.
0:25:51 > 0:25:56It's an image designed to encourage you about how to live.
0:25:56 > 0:26:01And put like that, is it any wonder that medieval men and women
0:26:01 > 0:26:03embraced this drama
0:26:03 > 0:26:08of life and death, and life after death?
0:26:19 > 0:26:24But soon there would be a seismic upheaval in this system of belief.
0:26:25 > 0:26:27Crucifixes, saints
0:26:27 > 0:26:31and prayers for the dead that comforted so many for centuries
0:26:31 > 0:26:33would be obliterated.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38This church in Kedington in Suffolk, holds a clue
0:26:38 > 0:26:41to the dramatic change that turned Christianity
0:26:41 > 0:26:43and the church on its head.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03You are surrounded here by images of death,
0:27:03 > 0:27:08by skulls and bones, and monuments to the departed.
0:27:08 > 0:27:10The choice between heaven and hell
0:27:10 > 0:27:15and the reality of the afterlife were still very much with you.
0:27:15 > 0:27:17But as you move deeper into the church,
0:27:17 > 0:27:21you see that there's something terribly wrong.
0:27:21 > 0:27:25This is the old church rood screen
0:27:25 > 0:27:28that once was lined with images of the saints,
0:27:28 > 0:27:31but which now have been aggressively scrubbed out
0:27:31 > 0:27:33and the screen ripped out
0:27:33 > 0:27:36from where it once stood in the heart of the church
0:27:36 > 0:27:39and used for a completely new purpose...
0:27:39 > 0:27:41as a pew.
0:27:41 > 0:27:48There was no time now for dooms and chantries, or saints or crucifixes.
0:27:48 > 0:27:50A new age was coming
0:27:50 > 0:27:54with wholly new ideas about God and how he should be worshipped.
0:27:54 > 0:27:57Next time,
0:27:57 > 0:28:01I'll be exploring how a clash of ideologies spawned an English church
0:28:01 > 0:28:05unrecognisable from all that had gone before.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09I'll be discovering how, in the 16th and 17th centuries,
0:28:09 > 0:28:16destruction and innovation went hand-in-hand in the Reformation.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:28:19 > 0:28:22E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk