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On 15th of September 1538, in this church in Suffolk, | 0:00:08 | 0:00:13 | |
the priest, John Adryan, was performing a mass | 0:00:13 | 0:00:15 | |
to celebrate the feast of the birth of the Virgin Mary. | 0:00:15 | 0:00:18 | |
A member of his congregation, Robert Ward, sat down next to him | 0:00:18 | 0:00:23 | |
and began to heckle, saying, "That is nonsense". | 0:00:23 | 0:00:27 | |
Adryan responded by emphasising | 0:00:27 | 0:00:29 | |
various parts of the service that he thought that Ward | 0:00:29 | 0:00:32 | |
would find the most offensive, saying, "Is that nonsense too? | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
"And is that nonsense?" | 0:00:36 | 0:00:37 | |
The two men, priest and parishioner, | 0:00:37 | 0:00:40 | |
ended up wrestling with each other for possession of the service book. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:44 | |
This argument took place in a country that only a few years before had been | 0:00:47 | 0:00:51 | |
not just Catholic, but famously, sincerely Catholic. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:54 | |
Foreign visitors remarked on the religious devotion of the English, | 0:00:54 | 0:00:58 | |
with their brightly painted churches packed with images | 0:00:58 | 0:01:01 | |
of Jesus, Mary and the saints. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:05 | |
This was the one beautiful place in the village. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:07 | |
Make your church as beautiful as you can. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:10 | |
The 16th and 17th Centuries were an age of great destruction. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:15 | |
Someone has come along and poked through the face of God himself. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:20 | |
But it was also an age of great innovation, | 0:01:20 | 0:01:23 | |
that still shapes our churches today. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:25 | |
The altar was swept down into the congregation. It was a dining table. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:30 | |
I'm Richard Taylor. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:32 | |
I write books about the messages hidden in Britain's churches. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:35 | |
I believe that even these damaged and defaced medieval buildings can | 0:01:35 | 0:01:40 | |
connect us with our ancestors' deepest beliefs. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
They reveal the startling new ideas about sin and salvation that would | 0:01:43 | 0:01:48 | |
turn the old world upside-down. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:51 | |
I've come to a church that was brand new when Robert Ward and | 0:02:04 | 0:02:07 | |
John Adryan came to blows. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:09 | |
I'm looking for signs of the practice that so outraged Ward - | 0:02:09 | 0:02:14 | |
the adoration of the Virgin Mary. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:17 | |
This is the Lady Chapel, actually the size of a small church, | 0:02:28 | 0:02:33 | |
and its sole purpose was the veneration of the Virgin Mary. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:37 | |
I wonder if anything's survived from those days. | 0:02:37 | 0:02:41 | |
Look at this. Here, there's a symbol of Jesus, I-H, and there | 0:02:45 | 0:02:51 | |
would have been a C here, which are the first letters of Jesus in Greek. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:56 | |
And then, even above it, there's letters for the name of Mary. | 0:02:56 | 0:03:04 | |
It's an M and an R joined together for Maria | 0:03:04 | 0:03:08 | |
Regina, Mary, Queen of Heaven. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:12 | |
And you are swept through the door into the court | 0:03:12 | 0:03:17 | |
of the Queen of Heaven. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
These niches are empty but, once there would have been saints standing | 0:03:26 | 0:03:31 | |
in every one of them, looking down on the priests who are saying mass after | 0:03:31 | 0:03:38 | |
mass in praise and glory to Mary. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:42 | |
Everywhere is one of the most common symbols of Mary, | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
the rose. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:50 | |
Often, it is shown as having a smooth stem. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:53 | |
Mary is called the 'rose without thorns' because she is thought | 0:03:53 | 0:03:58 | |
to be without sin. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:00 | |
And alongside is another flower that represents Mary. | 0:04:00 | 0:04:05 | |
The lily came to be Mary's symbol from the date of her major feast, | 0:04:05 | 0:04:09 | |
the Annunciation, when the birth of Jesus was announced to her. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:13 | |
Because people calculated the date as being nine months before Jesus | 0:04:13 | 0:04:17 | |
was born, 25th of December, back to the 25th of March, the springtime. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:23 | |
And so the scenes were always portrayed | 0:04:23 | 0:04:25 | |
surrounded with spring flowers, which over time became the lily. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:31 | |
And down below it is its heraldic version, | 0:04:31 | 0:04:35 | |
the fleur de lis, the flower of lily, a symbol taken up by royalty. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:41 | |
The coat of arms of the British Royal Family | 0:04:41 | 0:04:44 | |
is covered with symbols of the Virgin Mary. | 0:04:44 | 0:04:47 | |
Medieval images of Mary herself | 0:04:49 | 0:04:51 | |
are now hard to find, but those that survive were made | 0:04:51 | 0:04:56 | |
with care and devotion. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:58 | |
For a remarkable insight into the way that medieval craftsmen | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
depicted Mary, I'm with a lady doubly qualified for that task - | 0:05:17 | 0:05:22 | |
art historian, Sister Wendy Beckett. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
East Harling has a magnificent window that shows scenes from Mary's life. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:31 | |
Many like it were destroyed. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
This one only survived because it was hidden in a house nearby. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:37 | |
Still full of colour, it tells a powerful story. | 0:05:37 | 0:05:42 | |
This is Jesus the young man, just before he sets out on his mission | 0:05:42 | 0:05:46 | |
to teach. He and his mother have gone to a | 0:05:46 | 0:05:49 | |
wedding party, and the wine runs out and she notices and she tells him. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:53 | |
And he said, well it wasn't his business, | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
and she takes no notice of him. | 0:05:56 | 0:05:59 | |
She's saying to the stewards, whatever he tells you, do. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:01 | |
And he has that look of resignation on his face, but he's going to do it | 0:06:01 | 0:06:05 | |
and turn the water into the most wonderful red wine. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:09 | |
And it's a gesture of, oh, mother! | 0:06:09 | 0:06:13 | |
A mother being thoughtful about other | 0:06:13 | 0:06:15 | |
people, about another young couple. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:18 | |
It's this kind of event that made | 0:06:18 | 0:06:20 | |
people feel at home with Mary, you see. | 0:06:20 | 0:06:22 | |
And then you have the great central image | 0:06:22 | 0:06:28 | |
of the death, the Crucifixion. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:30 | |
And she's overcome with sorrow, with St John comforting her. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:36 | |
Often John's shown on the other side but here, | 0:06:36 | 0:06:39 | |
I like it that he's on her side with her. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:43 | |
And then you have what I think's the loveliest | 0:06:43 | 0:06:45 | |
of all these little vignettes, | 0:06:45 | 0:06:47 | |
Jesus taken down from the cross. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:50 | |
The image of holding the body of her dead son, that reflection with images | 0:06:52 | 0:06:56 | |
of Mary holding her baby, it's a powerful pairing. | 0:06:56 | 0:07:02 | |
And also because she's upright, | 0:07:02 | 0:07:05 | |
and he's horizontal. | 0:07:05 | 0:07:06 | |
In a way they're making a cross, the cross of humanity. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:10 | |
Everybody knew theologically that Jesus | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
was fully man as well as fully God. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
But somehow they found it difficult to imagine this emotionally. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:21 | |
Whereas Mary was only human, the ordinary woman. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:25 | |
And does she feel flesh and blood, to you? | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
Oh, yes, very much so. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:31 | |
What else could she be? | 0:07:33 | 0:07:34 | |
She blessed this window, she does bless it. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:39 | |
From the middle of the 16th Century, images of Mary | 0:07:43 | 0:07:45 | |
began to disappear from our churches. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:47 | |
New ideas were sweeping Europe. | 0:07:47 | 0:07:50 | |
The catalyst was a German monk named Martin Luther, who argued that | 0:07:50 | 0:07:54 | |
the Bible showed that we didn't have to earn entry into heaven. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:59 | |
Jesus had already paid for our sins by his death, and the sacrifice | 0:07:59 | 0:08:04 | |
meant that Christians were justified before God by their faith alone. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:09 | |
Established church teaching on matters such as praying for the | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
dead, praying to saints and the role of a priest, were all challenged. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:17 | |
This reformation of the church meant | 0:08:17 | 0:08:20 | |
that the glorious chantry chapels, wall paintings, and venerated statues | 0:08:20 | 0:08:25 | |
of Mary and the saints, were all under threat. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:29 | |
In England, these radical ideas first came to the fore under Henry VIII. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:39 | |
Although he ordered some images to be taken down, very little changed | 0:08:39 | 0:08:43 | |
in his reign. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:45 | |
It is sometimes said that the destruction of the English | 0:08:45 | 0:08:49 | |
churches began under Henry VIII, but that's not really true. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:53 | |
Monasteries, yes, churches, no. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:58 | |
Henry unlatched the door to change, but the forces of destruction were | 0:08:58 | 0:09:03 | |
really unleashed under his son, Edward VI. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:08 | |
Edward came to the throne aged only nine. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
But he soon outdid his father and his own advisors when it | 0:09:11 | 0:09:15 | |
came to Protestant fervour. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:18 | |
He wanted to create a new English church, free of the influence of the | 0:09:18 | 0:09:21 | |
Pope, who he called, "The true son of the devil". | 0:09:21 | 0:09:25 | |
The tools Edward used were two revolutionary books: | 0:09:27 | 0:09:32 | |
The Bible in English and the Book | 0:09:32 | 0:09:34 | |
of Common Prayer are now part of the furniture in every Anglican Church. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:39 | |
But during Edward's reign in the middle of the 16th Century, | 0:09:39 | 0:09:44 | |
they transformed the interiors of English churches. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:48 | |
I've come to Ranworth in search of old copies of these books. | 0:09:50 | 0:09:54 | |
Good grief. | 0:09:57 | 0:09:57 | |
Tudor Bibles and Prayer Books are now mostly | 0:09:57 | 0:10:00 | |
found in museums and libraries. | 0:10:00 | 0:10:03 | |
But many churches have some hidden | 0:10:03 | 0:10:05 | |
away that may not be as old, but are just as evocative. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
-There we are, Richard. -There they are. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:10 | |
What a pile! | 0:10:12 | 0:10:13 | |
Are these books all original to the church? | 0:10:13 | 0:10:15 | |
Yes, they are original. They were bought for the church. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
I see. Oh! | 0:10:18 | 0:10:21 | |
The Book of Common Prayer. It's the parish book, isn't it? | 0:10:21 | 0:10:24 | |
Now what else? It's an old...it's a Bible, the Gospel of St Matthew. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:29 | |
You've had a bit of woodworm getting at these. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
Bookworm. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:33 | |
Well, bookworms, yes. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:34 | |
By Edward's reign, almost every church had a Bible in English. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:41 | |
Today, it's hard to grasp the thrill for people to be able to read the | 0:10:41 | 0:10:45 | |
prophets, the psalms and the gospels, all in their own language. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:50 | |
Just as striking, though, might have been what they didn't find here. | 0:10:50 | 0:10:55 | |
There was less than they might have expected for example, about Mary. | 0:10:55 | 0:11:00 | |
She appears in the early life of Jesus, | 0:11:00 | 0:11:03 | |
and she appears at the Crucifixion as a witness, but there were none of | 0:11:03 | 0:11:05 | |
the exciting stories about her life and about her role in the afterlife | 0:11:05 | 0:11:11 | |
that they might have expected. Which might lead them to conclude | 0:11:11 | 0:11:14 | |
that Mary didn't deserve quite the position | 0:11:14 | 0:11:17 | |
that she'd occupied in the church and in their affections to date. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:22 | |
From then on, scripture came | 0:11:22 | 0:11:25 | |
to occupy a place in the decoration of churches which it hadn't before. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:29 | |
Images were becoming a thing of the past. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
The Book of Common Prayer was introduced in 1549. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
Its words, so familiar now, were revolutionary, | 0:11:53 | 0:11:58 | |
as they invited the congregation to take part for the first time in the | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
full drama of the church service. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:05 | |
Here you start the book, | 0:12:05 | 0:12:06 | |
with morning prayer. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:08 | |
And it starts with these words, "Dearly beloved brethren", | 0:12:08 | 0:12:13 | |
this drawing in of all of the people to pray together with the minister, | 0:12:13 | 0:12:19 | |
not separate from the minister. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
There are so many words and phrases | 0:12:22 | 0:12:24 | |
in here that came to enter the English language permanently. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:29 | |
Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife? | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
To live together after God's ordinance... | 0:12:32 | 0:12:34 | |
..earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:40 | |
So how can you 'read' a church that was affected by Edward's reforms? | 0:12:40 | 0:12:45 | |
The Prayer Book's emphasis on involving the congregation | 0:12:58 | 0:13:02 | |
in the service brought about a fundamental change in the most sacred | 0:13:02 | 0:13:07 | |
Christian rite, the Eucharist, which became known as Holy Communion. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:13 | |
Gone was the belief | 0:13:13 | 0:13:15 | |
that the bread and wine actually became the body and blood of Christ. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:20 | |
Now, the Prayer Book invited the | 0:13:20 | 0:13:22 | |
people to eat together with the priest, in remembrance. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:26 | |
Before, you had an altar made of stone at the far end of the sanctuary | 0:13:26 | 0:13:32 | |
behind a screen, and with the priest having his back to the congregation. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:37 | |
Now, the altar was swept down into the congregation itself. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:43 | |
No longer an altar, this was a communion table. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:46 | |
It was made of wood, it was a dining table. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:49 | |
It was the Prayer Book that brought about this change. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
The 'Dearly beloved brethren,' gathering around the table to | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
share in this meal. | 0:13:56 | 0:13:58 | |
It's always worth keeping an eye out in churches for tables like this one, | 0:13:58 | 0:14:04 | |
often at the back, forgotten, covered in pamphlets and leaflets. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:09 | |
Because once, these were the most important ceremonial | 0:14:09 | 0:14:13 | |
site in the church, at the heart of the congregation. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:17 | |
The priest, now know as a minister, from the Latin for servant, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
moved from his position by the altar, to be closer to the people. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:26 | |
This desk and seat are modern, but they show how things would have been, | 0:14:26 | 0:14:32 | |
even with the service book here and a copy of the Bible, | 0:14:32 | 0:14:36 | |
as the minister stood or sat and led the congregation in prayer. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:41 | |
As well as being a time of innovation, young Edward's reign | 0:14:41 | 0:14:46 | |
was a time of great destruction. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:49 | |
Stained glass windows were attacked, which had never happened before. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:53 | |
These images in glass were of great beauty, | 0:14:53 | 0:14:57 | |
but no-one actually venerated them. | 0:14:57 | 0:14:59 | |
The windows were smashed simply because of what they depicted. | 0:14:59 | 0:15:05 | |
Here there's an image of Jesus crucified and above him, | 0:15:05 | 0:15:09 | |
God the Father. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:10 | |
But someone has come along and poked through the face of God himself. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:16 | |
For centuries, rood screens had divided the sacred | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
space of the sanctuary from the nave. | 0:15:22 | 0:15:24 | |
In Edward's reign, many screens were cut down or disfigured. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:29 | |
This one is covered with saints. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:32 | |
In every case, someone has come along with a chisel | 0:15:32 | 0:15:36 | |
and they have hacked out the faces of each saint. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:40 | |
You can still recognise who some of them are, from what they're carrying. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:46 | |
This is St Jude with his boat. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:49 | |
And this is St Peter carrying the keys of Heaven. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:52 | |
It's like leaving the headless bodies on a battlefield, a symbol of | 0:15:52 | 0:15:58 | |
the victory of this new faith. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:01 | |
Not all rood screens were defaced, some were broken up. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:05 | |
In Needham Market, a minister's chair has been made out of the old screen. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:11 | |
It sends out a clear message of the triumph of new over old. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:16 | |
I think you've got a tremendous sense of loss when you look at this. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:24 | |
The loss of so much art and so much beauty. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:29 | |
That violence is still telling. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:34 | |
Hundreds of years later, it's some powerful propaganda that's going on. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:40 | |
But you also | 0:16:40 | 0:16:42 | |
get what they were getting at, the Bible is quite clear. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:47 | |
The second commandment: You shall not make a graven image. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:51 | |
The upheaval and confusion that faced the 16th Century | 0:16:55 | 0:16:59 | |
churchgoer wasn't over. | 0:16:59 | 0:17:01 | |
The Tudor rollercoaster showed no sign of stopping. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:05 | |
After a reign of just six years, Edward died and was succeeded | 0:17:05 | 0:17:09 | |
by his half-sister, Mary. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:13 | |
An ardent Catholic replaced that ardent Protestant. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:18 | |
Mary briefly reinstated the mass, processions | 0:17:18 | 0:17:22 | |
and veneration of the saints. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:25 | |
Here at Ludham is one of the few surviving | 0:17:28 | 0:17:30 | |
examples of Mary's vain attempt at a mini counter-reformation, | 0:17:30 | 0:17:35 | |
this crucifixion scene. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:38 | |
It's a pale imitation of past triumphs. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:42 | |
What this shows, | 0:17:42 | 0:17:45 | |
is that in many ways you couldn't turn the clock back. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:48 | |
What you've got here is something crude, something half-finished. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:53 | |
The figures blotted out, legs badly drawn. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:59 | |
The people of Ludham were doing their best, but it was going to | 0:17:59 | 0:18:03 | |
be very hard to recapture the glories of the Catholic past. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
When Mary died and Protestant Elizabeth took the throne, | 0:18:11 | 0:18:14 | |
Catholics were finally outlawed. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:16 | |
Driven out of the church, their time-honoured images and | 0:18:20 | 0:18:23 | |
rituals gone, some families headed into the open fields. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:29 | |
Traditionally on All Saints Night, a mass had been said with bells | 0:18:29 | 0:18:32 | |
solemnly rung and prayers for the departed souls in purgatory. | 0:18:32 | 0:18:37 | |
Now, Catholics were reduced to marking their old belief | 0:18:37 | 0:18:41 | |
with what little came to hand. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:43 | |
One member of the group would take a pitch fork full of hay and light it, | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
and the others would kneel and pray for their | 0:18:48 | 0:18:50 | |
departed friends and relatives, for as long as the straw burned. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:55 | |
Nothing was going to tell the living not to pray for their dead. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
While Protestant ideas were transforming the interiors | 0:19:18 | 0:19:21 | |
of English churches, in Scotland they were transforming | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
the shape of the building itself. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
But with mixed results. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:28 | |
John Knox, a former Catholic priest, was a fiery preacher. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:35 | |
He and his fellow Protestants persuaded almost an entire nation | 0:19:35 | 0:19:39 | |
to make a clean break with its Papist past. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:43 | |
What this remarkable national experiment in faith needed | 0:19:43 | 0:19:48 | |
was a remarkable new kind of church. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:52 | |
Well, it looks like a square, | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
with a heavy, stubbed tower in the middle of it. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:16 | |
It's so solid, this was built to last. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:19 | |
And if it looks this different on the outside, I wonder what it | 0:20:19 | 0:20:23 | |
looks like on the inside. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
That square shape just continues. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:38 | |
It's expressing physically what was so crucial about Knox's new church, | 0:20:38 | 0:20:43 | |
an organisation from the bottom up. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:47 | |
The congregation saying how they would be organised, not imposed from | 0:20:47 | 0:20:51 | |
the top down by bishops and kings. | 0:20:51 | 0:20:55 | |
Also, in the centre of all the people, | 0:20:55 | 0:20:58 | |
is the Lord's Table, from where the Lord's Supper would be celebrated. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:02 | |
But the Scots went that much further than the English. | 0:21:02 | 0:21:06 | |
You have to imagine this space as it was then, without these pews here. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:11 | |
And on Communion Sunday, they would bring in trestle tables, lay them up | 0:21:11 | 0:21:16 | |
with stools, and when the Lord's Supper was celebrated, it would be | 0:21:16 | 0:21:20 | |
celebrated as a communal meal. | 0:21:20 | 0:21:23 | |
They weren't going to kneel before some priest, they were going to sit | 0:21:23 | 0:21:27 | |
among equals. | 0:21:27 | 0:21:29 | |
For 500 years, the pulpit here at Burntisland | 0:21:29 | 0:21:33 | |
has symbolised the centrality of the Word of God for Knox's church. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:38 | |
But what's it like to preach here? | 0:21:38 | 0:21:42 | |
It's actually a bit of a nightmare. The pulpit's too high for the size | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
of the building, so you're looking down at people | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
the whole time, and I don't think people will wear that any more. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:52 | |
They don't want to be preached at, they want to be spoken to. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:55 | |
And people will sit on all four sides, so on a Sunday morning you're | 0:21:55 | 0:21:59 | |
constantly sort of looking round to make sure everyone's still awake. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
It must feel awfully grand being up there, though? | 0:22:03 | 0:22:07 | |
I suppose some people would find it reinforces the ego in you. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
You're seven foot above contradiction but, | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
it doesn't work for me. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:15 | |
Burntisland is an example of theology dictating design, when really | 0:22:16 | 0:22:21 | |
if they had just spoken to Alan's 16th Century predecessor, they would | 0:22:21 | 0:22:25 | |
have found out that a square shaped church can blunt God's message. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:31 | |
By the 17th Century, England's Puritans matched their Scottish | 0:22:34 | 0:22:38 | |
neighbours in reformist fervour. | 0:22:38 | 0:22:41 | |
They were in a hurry. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
They believed that the Second Coming of Jesus was imminent, | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
and that they had to build a Godly society to receive Him. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:51 | |
This meant ridding every last church of any remaining Papist trappings. | 0:22:51 | 0:22:56 | |
In August 1644, at the height of the Civil War, | 0:23:04 | 0:23:08 | |
a Puritan by the name of William Dowsing arrived in Suffolk, with | 0:23:08 | 0:23:12 | |
orders from Parliament to destroy any Catholic imagery that he found. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:17 | |
He was very thorough, and kept a journal of his efforts. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:21 | |
In the chancel | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
up there, we break down an angel. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:27 | |
Three orate pro anima, pray for my soul, in the glass. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:34 | |
And above twenty stars on the roof. | 0:23:34 | 0:23:36 | |
Why would you break down stars? | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
Why would that happen? | 0:23:39 | 0:23:41 | |
And we break down the organ cases, | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
and we gave the wood to the poor to be burnt. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
And then he says this. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
There is a vainglorious cover over the font, | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
like a Pope's triple crown. | 0:23:56 | 0:23:59 | |
This 15th Century masterpiece is six metres high. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:05 | |
Each of these empty niches had its own carved saint. | 0:24:05 | 0:24:09 | |
Dowsing destroyed every one. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:11 | |
Once you'd cleared them out, | 0:24:11 | 0:24:14 | |
then it was just a bit of wood and, | 0:24:14 | 0:24:18 | |
here's a proposition, he demolished the organ | 0:24:18 | 0:24:21 | |
case rather than demolished this, which they were rather fond of, | 0:24:21 | 0:24:25 | |
and gave the wood to the poor, which was a good Puritan gesture. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:31 | |
Breaking up wood to give it to the poor, | 0:24:31 | 0:24:33 | |
preserving the font cover once he'd | 0:24:33 | 0:24:35 | |
done what he felt he needed to do, makes you almost begin to like him. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:40 | |
Well, at least you don't have | 0:24:40 | 0:24:42 | |
to say he was a vandal and ruthless, and had no purpose. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:46 | |
He really believed that doing | 0:24:47 | 0:24:49 | |
God's Will and Parliament's will would bring all sorts of benefits. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:55 | |
He would be completing the Reformation, he would be | 0:24:55 | 0:24:59 | |
producing churches in which it was fit for Puritans to worship. | 0:24:59 | 0:25:03 | |
In the heart of England, one man, an Anglican Royalist, was about to | 0:25:09 | 0:25:13 | |
build a church that defied William Dowsing and his fellow Puritans. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:18 | |
In its style and ornamentation, | 0:25:18 | 0:25:21 | |
it looks like a retreat to a Catholic past. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:23 | |
In fact, it was a pointer to an Anglican future. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:29 | |
This tablet takes up the story. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:31 | |
In the year 1653, when all things sacred were throughout the nation | 0:25:31 | 0:25:37 | |
either demolished or profaned, Sir Robert Shirley, Baronet, founded | 0:25:37 | 0:25:41 | |
this church whose singular praise it is to have done the best things | 0:25:41 | 0:25:47 | |
in the worst times. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:49 | |
He was flinging this church in the face of the Government. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:54 | |
What would have infuriated the Puritans is here in the chancel, | 0:26:02 | 0:26:07 | |
the holy end of the church. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:09 | |
This is no longer an ordinary space, it's screened off. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:14 | |
The altar has moved back to the far end of the church, raised on steps. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:18 | |
This is not a return to England's Catholic past. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:24 | |
The walls are whitewashed, the glass is clear, | 0:26:24 | 0:26:27 | |
there are no images of the saints. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:29 | |
In some respects, it's taking the best | 0:26:29 | 0:26:32 | |
of what the Reformation had achieved. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:33 | |
The ceiling is full of monsters and threatening clouds. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:41 | |
But as you walk towards the altar, light overcomes the darkness. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:45 | |
This is an attempt, | 0:26:45 | 0:26:47 | |
by Robert Shirley at least, to bring God's order to a world in chaos. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:53 | |
Shirley soon found that he couldn't withstand that chaos. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:58 | |
Oliver Cromwell said that if he could afford to build a church, | 0:26:58 | 0:27:02 | |
then he could provide him with a regiment of soldiers. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:06 | |
Shirley refused, and died in the Tower of London. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:10 | |
He never saw his church completed. | 0:27:10 | 0:27:14 | |
A tragic end, but Shirley's design pointed the way forward, | 0:27:14 | 0:27:19 | |
with its attempt to reconcile the old expressions of faith with the new. | 0:27:19 | 0:27:24 | |
A good place to reflect on my Reformation journey. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:29 | |
When I was looking at our medieval churches, I was finding myself | 0:27:29 | 0:27:34 | |
falling in love with the drama and the spectacle, and the sheer | 0:27:34 | 0:27:39 | |
rush of life that fills them. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
And outraged that anyone could want to destroy that and all of those | 0:27:42 | 0:27:46 | |
images of faith and art. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:49 | |
But the truth is, that having seen now what it meant to | 0:27:49 | 0:27:54 | |
pull down those screens, to sweep the clergy into the heart of the | 0:27:54 | 0:27:59 | |
congregation at a level with them, all of this fuelled by the words of a | 0:27:59 | 0:28:05 | |
prayer book and the Bible in English, now so embedded in our language, | 0:28:05 | 0:28:11 | |
you realise that behind all of that | 0:28:11 | 0:28:13 | |
lies some beauty of thought and ideal. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:17 | |
In the next episode I'll be looking at what followed - | 0:28:19 | 0:28:22 | |
an extravagant blossoming of | 0:28:22 | 0:28:24 | |
church styles as people became free to worship as they wished. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:28 | |
Sometimes with touching simplicity, | 0:28:28 | 0:28:31 | |
sometimes with elegant sophistication. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:28:50 | 0:28:52 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:28:52 | 0:28:54 |