Paul Keenan
The pain and glory of the cathedrals
I have lately being reading a brilliantly illustrated little book, Quand les Cathédrales étaient Peintes, by Alain Erlande-Brandenburg (Gallimard / Descouvertes, €15.80); published in English as The Cathedral Builders of the Middle Ages (Thames & Hudson / New Horizons, £7.95).
The original title gives a better impression of what the eminent author wishes to convey to his readers: the pale stone work of the great medieval cathedrals of Europe is very far indeed from their original polychromatic glory.
In quite a short space he gives a vivid impression of how these great edifices were built, as much for prestige of the community, as the glory of God.
But reading the book set me thinking about the treatment of cathedrals in literature. The most eminent book of that kind has to be Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris (1831), rather vulgarly known in English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In the middle of the narrative Hugo breaks off, to provide an overview of medieval society as impressed upon him from the roof of the cathedral: it is a remarkable essay in evocation.
It may well be that the French do this sort of thing with more elan. Hugo was a believer (of a kind), if often appalled by some of the manifestations of organised religion. J.K. Huysmans, in his later years was a Catholic (indeed an oblate of the Benedictine Abbey at Ligugé). In La Cathedral (1898) his central charatacter, based on the author, mediates on the glories of Chartres cathedral. This was his most successful book, its royalties enabling Huysmans to retire from the civil service. But as a Catholic reflection on what such buildings are and mean it is remarkable.
However, turning to our own English language, we find a different situation. Books dealing with cathedrals are rare. Ruskin’s Stones of Venice of course, with its evocation of St Marks’ cathedral, and Henry Adams’ Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904) are exceptions, both of which reflect not only the power of medieval architecture, but the natures of medieval Christian society.
Aside from these what is there? Harrison Ainsworth’s Old St Pauls’ (1841) uses a sensational novel to evoke London on the eve of the Plague and the Great Fire. Despite its apocalyptic characters, permeated with the religious zealotry of the day, the narrative reflects little of the Middle Ages, but a later corrupt period of history. Other cathedral novels such Trollope’s Barchester series or Dickens’ Edwin Drood are again social novels, with little true religious interest.
But perhaps the most remarkable book in English is a little known novel of William Golding, The Spire (1964), a book eclipsed by the attention paid to Lord of the Flies and to the trilogy To the Ends of the Earth (1980-89). This was inspired by the history of Salisbury cathedral, in which city Golding long lived. But the dangerous tower seems to be based on the collapse of Malmesbury Abbey west tower in 1550. This novel, with its intertwining of paganism and Christianity, of vanity and worship, is certainly one of the author’s most interesting works.
But turning to our own native place, it comes as a great surprise to see how little literary interest is taken in our Irish cathedrals. There is, of course, an element of simple prejudice in this.
By the time a literary class emerged in Ireland this edifices had long been part of the fabric of the Church of Ireland. Some Catholics longed for their return, but they simply came to be seen as largely irrelevant to the religious life of the majority. The saints of Celtic Ireland and the heroes of 19th Century Catholicism, along with the martyrs of the Penal days, filled the imagination of most people who thought about the past. There simply was no interest in St Patrick’s or in Christ Church.
This is very strange. But then Irish writers have showed themselves over the centuries to have little real interest in religion in the manner of a Mauriac, or Graham Greene, or a Heinrich Bȍll. It might lead a stranger to wonder if the Irish are truly interested in religion.