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Archive for the ‘Religion in Austen’s England’ Category

Michaelmas

Posted in Anglican Church, Jane Austen's World, Religion in Austen's England, tagged , , , on September 29, 2024| 5 Comments »

By Brenda S. Cox

“Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England . . . he is to take possession before Michaelmas.” –Pride and Prejudice, chapter 1

“People did say you [Mr. Bingley] meant to quit the place entirely at Michaelmas . . .” –Pride and Prejudice, chapter 53

Today, September 29, is Michaelmas (pronounced MICK-ul-muss). In the church calendar, for Catholics and for Anglicans like Austen, this is a “holy day” (from which we get our word holiday). It commemorates St. Michael, the archangel.

Sculpture of the Archangel Michael defeating the devil, from St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague.
Photo by Jakub Hałun, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sometimes other angels are also commemorated on this day: “St. Michael and All Angels,” or specifically Michael, Gabriel and Rafael, the three angels mentioned by name in the Bible. The word “saint,” from Latin “sanctus,” means “holy one,” so the holy angels of heaven can be considered saints.

“Michaelmas” means the mass of Michael, as “Christmas” means the mass of Christ. Mass is the Catholic version of what Anglicans call the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion, the ceremony where Christians eat unleavened bread and drink wine together to remember Christ’s suffering and death on the cross.

On the Calendar

In earlier times, the church and community were closely intertwined. Church holidays gave the year rhythm and consistency. Judicial, financial, and academic schedules came to revolve around four “quarter days” of the year. For England, these were Lady Day, Midsummer Day, Michaelmas, and Christmas.

March 25, Lady Day: Austen mentions this in her letters as the day when an allowance of money was to begin for her brother James, and as a day when someone was moving houses. In the church, it was the Feast of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary (the “Lady”) that she would have a child, Jesus.

June 24, Midsummer Day: In Emma, Jane Fairfax is supposed to leave at Midsummer, though she gets delayed. The Box Hill picnic takes place at “almost Midsummer.” Midsummer is capitalized, so it means a specific date. On this date, the church celebrates the birth of John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus’s coming.

Sept. 29, Michaelmas Day is mentioned in all of Austen’s novels except Northanger Abbey as a date when things happen. Mrs. Jennings thinks Colonel Brandon will be married by Michaelmas. Mr. Bingley is to take possession of Netherfield at Michaelmas, and rumor has it he will leave by the next Michaelmas. In Mansfield Park, Mrs. Norris has been doctoring the coachman for rheumatism from Michaelmas through the winter, and Henry Crawford expects to have a small home nearby at Michaelmas, obviously hoping he and Fanny will be married by then. In Emma, Harriet Smith is amazed that Mr. Elton could be in love with her, since she hardly knew him at Michaelmas. It is probably November when she says this. The Crofts take possession of Kellynch Hall at Michaelmas, and Anne tells her father that Mary has been in “good looks” since Michaelmas. In Sanditon, Lady Denham brings Clara Brereton from London at Michaelmas.

Dec. 25, Christmas Day. In Austen’s novels and shorter works, she mentions Christmas 41 times and Easter 18 times by my count. They often serve to mark dates and times of year.

(For some purposes, Epiphany (Jan. 6) was a quarter day instead of Christmas, and Easter instead of Lady Day. But Midsummer and Michaelmas were still the other quarter days.)

Around these four quarterly dates, rents and payments came due, leases of lands and houses (like Netherfield) began and ended, servants were hired, and local courts held “quarter sessions.”

The academic year also revolved around church dates. The fall term at both Oxford and Cambridge is called Michaelmas term. I was surprised when I was at Cambridge two weeks ago, in mid-September, that the colleges were not yet in session. Then I realized it was not  yet Michaelmas. This year’s fall term starts just after Michaelmas, on Oct. 8. 

In the Church

The Book of Common Prayer (BCP), which gives daily worship services for the Church of England, includes a calendar of saints’ days. By Austen’s time, special services for most of those days were not commonly held in country parishes unless they fell on a Sunday. Christmas Day, though, was celebrated with a church service. In Emma, the weather keeps Emma from going to church on Christmas.

For each saint’s day, the BCP gives relevant Bible readings and a collect (pronounced KAH-lect) prayer for that day. Austen was likely very familiar with these, hearing them every year. For Michaelmas, the clergyman could choose from these readings about angels:

Revelation 12:7-12. “War in heaven”; “Michael and his angels fought against the dragons” [the demons]. Satan is cast out of heaven, but those who believe in Christ “overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” Many depictions of Michael show him defeating Satan, sometimes in the form of a dragon.

Matthew 18:1-10. Jesus says not to despise children, for “their angels do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.”

Genesis 32. Jacob wrestles with an angel. This is the same Jacob who earlier saw a vision of a ladder to heaven, with angels going up and down it. The front of Bath Abbey, which Jane Austen must have seen many times, pictures that ladder.

Angels going up and down the ladder to heaven, on the front of Bath Abbey. Photo © Brenda S. Cox, 2024.

Daniel 10:4-14. An angel sent to Daniel was delayed by the prince of Persia, apparently a demon, until the archangel Michael, “one of the chief princes,” came to help him. The angel looked like a man “clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: his body also was like the beryl [a gem, possibly an emerald], and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude” (Daniel 10:5-6). This angel doesn’t sound much like today’s usual pictures of angels!

Acts 12:5-18 An angel rescues the apostle Peter from prison.

Revelation 14:14-20 Angels pour out God’s wrath and judgment on the earth.

The Collect prayer read on Michaelmas requests the help of angels for those on earth:

“O everlasting God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order: Mercifully grant that, as thy holy Angels always do thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Nowadays most Anglican churches use the more modern Book of Common Worship, but a traditional BCP service might still use this prayer and some of these Bible passages.

Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Hamstall Ridware, where Austen’s first cousin, Edward Cooper, served. Many English parish churches are named for St. Michael.
Photo © Brenda S. Cox, 2023

The church of Austen’s first cousin, Edward Cooper, in Hamstall Ridware, is named after St. Michael and All Angels. Their service this Sunday will be a celebration of Harvest (the British equivalent of America’s Thanksgiving) as well as a “patronal festival,” since it is the day of St. Michael, patron saint of the church. The clergyman, Revd. Jeremy Brading, told me, “The aim of these occasions [patronal festivals] is to celebrate the life of the local church on the occasion of its saint’s day. The celebration is for all that has gone previously, thanking God for his work through the local church. [Just] as important, is praying to God for his leadership and guidance for the future, that the local church might serve him faithfully.”

In Popular Culture

While Michaelmas is not much celebrated in today’s Anglican church, it was a great religious feast day in the Middle Ages, and traditions grew up around it. Michaelmas comes at the end of the harvest and the change of the season. A few old English traditions:

Eating goose and doing good: If you ate goose on Michaelmas, it was supposed to protect you from financial need for the next year. One writer says, “On Michaelmas, families spend the day doing good, dancing, singing, and at the end of the day, sharing a feast of freshly baked bread, roast goose stuffed with potatoes, veggies, and herbs.”

Picking blackberries: According to legend, when the Archangel Michael, with his flaming sword, cast the devil out of heaven, the devil landed in a thorny patch of blackberries. He was so angry that he spat on the blackberries and even urinated on them to make them unfit to eat. Thus blackberries picked after Michaelmas are considered inedible. Since Michaelmas originally fell in what is now mid-October, until the calendar changed (from Julian to Gregorian), that was pretty much the end of blackberry season.

A European Michaelmas daisy, aster amellus.
Photo by Björn S…, CC BY-SA 2.0

Michaelmas daisies: An old rhyme says,

‘The Michaelmas daisy, among dead weeds,

Blooms for St Michael’s valorous deeds.

And seems the last of flowers that stood,

Till the feast of St Simon and St Jude.’

Michaelmas daisies are asters, star-shaped flowers in lilac, blue, pink, or white. The peak of their bloom is around Michaelmas, though many are still blooming at the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude on Oct. 28.

Lawless Hour: An odd custom from Worcestershire: “In Kidderminster the Monday after Michaelmas had Lawless Hour between 12 pm and 1 pm, in between the old constable stepping down and the new one taking office. This led to an hour when people couldn’t be arrested, so groups would fight by throwing cabbage stalks and other fruit and vegetables at each other. The authorities mostly turned a blind eye, but by the mid 19th century this practice ended as it was considerate inappropriate.” Other local areas have their own Michaelmas traditions. 

We don’t know what Michaelmas traditions Jane Austen kept. But she did mention Michaelmas 15 times in her fiction, and now you know what it meant. Happy Michaelmas to you all!

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The Garrison Chapel: Domus Dei, House of God

Posted in 19th Century England, Churches of the Austen family, Jane Austen's World, Mansfield Park, Religion in Austen's England, tagged , , on August 25, 2024| 4 Comments »

By Brenda S. Cox

“The Prices were just setting off for church the next day when Mr. Crawford appeared again. He came, not to stop, but to join them; he was asked to go with them to the Garrison chapel, which was exactly what he had intended, and they all walked thither together.”—Mansfield Park, chapter 42

The Garrison Chapel in Portsmouth, where the Price family and Henry Crawford worshiped.

Real Churches in Austen’s Novels

The Garrison Chapel (now called the Garrison Church) is one of a handful of specific, real churches Jane Austen mentions in her novels. 

  • In Northanger Abbey, John Thorpe passes “Walcot Church,” St. Swithin’s on the edge of Bath. We hear about the “church-yard” in Bath, adjacent to Bath Abbey, though the Abbey is not named. Catherine Morland looks for the “well-known spire” of Salisbury Cathedral on her way home. (See “Churches, Chapels, Abbeys, and Cathedrals in Northanger Abbey”.)
  • In Pride and Prejudice, Wickham and Lydia get married at St. Clement’s in London, possibly St. Clement Danes in London’s city of Westminster, or St. Clement Eastcheap, near London Bridge. By the way, it’s not clear which of those is the St. Clement’s of the old nursery rhyme about London church bells, which begins “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s.” 
  • In Mansfield Park, Mary Crawford mentions St. George’s, Hanover Square (in Mayfair, London) as a place for weddings. Dr. Grant seeks a promotion to Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s Cathedral (he gains a prebendal stall at Westminster). And the Prices attend church at the “Garrison Chapel” in Portsmouth.

All these churches can still be visited, though the Garrison Church is partly in ruins. (Have I missed any churches named in Austen’s novels? Let me know in the comments if you have noticed others!)

The Royal Garrison Church, now run by English Heritage, can be visited on certain days, April through October. Admission is free.

The Garrison Chapel in Portsmouth

What was the Garrison Chapel? It was called a chapel, not a church, at that time, since “church” meant the Church of England main church of a parish. There were several types of chapels. This one was an institutional chapel, connected to a certain place or group of people. It was the chapel for military troops serving in Portsmouth. Since Fanny Price’s father was a “lieutenant of marines,” this was the logical place for her family to worship.

Mansfield Park tells us, “In chapel they were obliged to divide, but Mr. Crawford took care not to be divided from the female branch.” Roger E. Moore, in Jane Austen and the Reformation, explains, “officers and sailors sit separately from civilians” (124). Presumably Fanny’s father joined his friends, his “brother loungers,” in one section, while his family, with Henry Crawford, sat in a different section.

Nave of the Garrison Church, originally a hospital, meaning a place of hospitality for the needy. Beds lined the sides. The roof was destroyed by bombing in World War II.

Origins

The Garrison Church building dates all the way back to 1212 A. D., over 800 years ago. The Bishop of Winchester founded it as a “hospital” called the “Domus Dei,” or “House of God.” It was not a place for medical care, but a place of hospitality. The poor, the ill, and people on pilgrimage could come there and find rest. Beds lined what later became the nave of the church.

Mass was said regularly in a chapel at the east end of the building. Residents would either attend services or listen from their beds if they could not stand. A priest was in charge, aided by twelve poor men or women. They helped look after visitors in exchange for bread, ale, and a place to stay.

According to Moore, the main hall was “surrounded by a complex of auxiliary buildings, including a master’s house and hall, kitchen, bakehouse, stable, and lodgings for the brothers and sisters who staffed it” (124-5). Income from nearby houses and land supported the work, just as medieval monasteries were supported by nearby properties.

Moore says that the mention of this place in Mansfield Park is significant. The “Domus Dei” (which later became the Garrison Chapel) gladly welcomed anyone who appeared there asking for entrance, regardless of social status. It is contrasted with Mansfield Park, where Mrs. Norris does not “gladly” welcome poor Fanny to the parsonage where she and her husband live. Even the Bertrams give Fanny only a small attic room, without even a fire for warmth. Moore also points out that when Fanny sees Henry in Portsmouth, she is impressed that he has been acting as a “friend to the poor and oppressed,” just as the brothers and sisters at the Domus Dei had done for many.

The author (Brenda Cox) at the entrance to the Garrison Church today. All visitors are welcome (at specified times), as in medieval times.

The hospital closed in 1540 when King Henry VIII suppressed the monasteries and other religious houses, including most such hospitals. Valuables were stripped from it, and the buildings were used to store munitions. Queen Elizabeth I expanded the fortifications at Portsmouth, made the large dormitory into a chapel for the garrison, and the rest of the buildings became the home of the garrison’s governor.

©Brenda S. Cox, 2024
Eagle lectern in the Garrison Church, from 1801, commemorates Queen Victoria. Eagles were often used for church lecterns, which held Bibles or the Book of Common Prayer. Eagles were believed to be able to look at the sun, just as Christians look directly into God’s Word. It is also the bird believed to fly closest to heaven, symbolizing carrying God’s Word around the world.
(Source: a guidebook in the church)

In 1826, the Governor’s house next to the chapel was demolished. Forty years later, restoration work began on the church (now called a church rather than a chapel), balancing “the original medieval appearance with Victorian needs and preferences,” according to a sign at the site. A new altar, pulpit, and stalls were added.

Garrison Church chancel today; furnishings are Victorian and later.

Garrison Church Today

The church was bombed in 1941, destroying much of the roof of the nave (the large hall that used to be the hospital). However, the smaller worship area, the chancel, survived and continued to be used. See this site for more about the church’s history. 

Stained glass windows with Bible themes above the altar of the Garrison Church, added in 1957.
Garrison Church stained glass windows, added in 1967, depicting its history. The founder is on the left. Bombing of the church is depicted in the center. The right panel shows St. Nicholas, patron saint of the church. St. Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, and travelers, appropriate for this port city. Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson’s coat of arms and his ship HMS Victory are above and below St. Nicholas.
The choir stalls include memorials to soldiers killed in the Crimean War, and this one to Lord Nelson.

Apparently the church is still in use for occasional services for the military. It is open to the public on certain days and times, for free; check the website before going. 

In Portsmouth Harbor you can also visit HMS Victory, Lord Nelson’s ship, which is undergoing a thorough restoration. The cruise we took of the harbor was lovely. On the same day, my friends and I also visited Netley Abbey. Nearby Southampton has a few sites related to Austen. However, we were not allowed to enter the Dolphin Hotel, where she danced. You can only see it from the street.

There’s so much history and meaning in Jane Austen’s mildest references. I’m thankful for the many people who have preserved and kept alive the places that were important to Austen and to her characters, including the Garrison Chapel.

All photos ©Brenda S. Cox, 2024. Please ask permission before using.

Sources

Roger E. Moore, Jane Austen and the Reformation

Excellent signs and booklet at the church

Garrison Church website

Real Churches in Austen’s Novels and Letters

Garrison Chapel

St. Swithin’s, Walcot and other churches in Northanger Abbey

St. George’s, Hanover Square

London Churches

St. Paul’s, Covent Garden: Actors’ Church

Austen Family Churches

Steventon

Chawton

Deane

Hamstall Ridware and Austen’s First Cousin, Edward Cooper

Adlestrop and the Leigh Family

Stoneleigh Abbey Chapel and Mansfield Park

Great Bookham and Austen’s Godfather, Rev. Samuel Cooke

Ashe and the Lefroy Family

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Visiting Great Bookham: Church of St Nicolas (and, Box Hill)

Posted in Anglican Church, Architecture, Churches of the Austen family, Emma, Jane Austen's World, Religion in Austen's England, tagged , , , , on January 22, 2024| 7 Comments »

by Brenda S. Cox

“I dread the idea of going to Bookham as much as you can do”—Jan. 9, 1799

“My scheme is to take Bookham in my way home for a few days . . . I have a most kind repetition of Mrs. Cooke’s two or three dozen invitations, with the offer of meeting me anywhere” –Nov. 3, 1813

We’ve been looking at some of Jane’s mother’s Leigh family. The Austens also corresponded regularly with the Cooke family in Great Bookham, who are often mentioned in Jane’s letters. Mrs. Cooke was Jane’s mother’s cousin. Her name was the same as Jane’s mother’s: Cassandra Leigh. She was the daughter of Jane’s uncle Theophilus Leigh, master of Balliol College at Oxford.

This cousin’s husband, Rev. Samuel Cooke, was Jane’s godfather. He was the vicar of St. Nicolas’, Great Bookham. He was also rector of Cottisford, Oxon, about 80 miles away, but he and his family lived in Great Bookham.

Godparents play an important role in Anglican families.They promise to pray for the child’s salvation, faith, and obedience, and, at the child’s baptism, they renounce the devil on the child’s behalf. A girl has one godfather and two godmothers.

Memorial plaque in St. Nicolas’ Church, Great Bookham, to Jane Austen’s godfather, Rev. Samuel Cooke, “formerly fellow of Baliol College Oxford, and for fifty-two years the resident and respected vicar of this parish. He died March 29th, 1820, in the eightieth year of his age. Guided by a spirit of piety and benevolence and by an inflexible sense of duty, which sought not the honour that cometh of man, he ran his long course in peace and content; and closed it in an humble trust on that blessed hope, ‘Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'”
The Incumbents (vicars, then rectors) of the Great Bookham church lists Samuel Cooke from 1769 to 1820.

Jane Austen visited the Cookes in Great Bookham, which is between Chawton and London, a number of times. We don’t know why she did not want to go there in 1799, but she visited from May 14 to June 2.

St. Nicolas’ Church, Great Bookham, externally still much as it was when Jane Austen visited there. See this image by JMW Turner.

Great Bookham in Austen’s Novels

Jane made good use of her visit. In 1801, she started writing The Watsons. Its setting in “Stanton” was apparently based on West Humble (now Westhumble), a town near Great Bookham. It is three miles from Dorking, which Austen calls “the town of D. in Surrey.” Betchworth Castle is nearby, so it may be the basis for Osborne Castle in the novel.

After probably visiting several more times, in the summer of 1814, Austen decided to visit the Cookes again. On June 14, she wrote,

“The only Letter to day is from Mrs. Cooke to me. They . . . want me to come to them according to my promise.—And after considering everything, I have resolved on going. . . . In addition to their standing claims on me, they admire Mansfield Park exceedingly. Mr. Cooke says ‘it is the most sensible Novel he ever read’—and the manner in which I treat the Clergy, delights them very much.—Altogether I must go–& I want you [Cassandra] to join me there . . .”

One commentator (Chapman) says the Cookes may have had Evangelical leanings and appreciated Mansfield Park’s protest against lax views of the duties of the clergy. Evangelical or not, Edmund Bertram of Mansfield Park does present a very high view of the clergy. He says, for example:

“I cannot call that situation [of clergyman] nothing which has the charge of all that is of the first importance to mankind, individually or collectively considered, temporally and eternally, which has the guardianship of religion and morals, and consequently of the manners which result from their influence. No one here can call the office nothing. . . . it will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.”

Jane Austen apparently based Highbury in Emma on Great Bookham or the adjacent town of Leatherhead.

When Jane Austen visited in 1814, she was in the midst of writing Emma. She later told her nephew that Leatherhead, next to Great Bookham, was the model for Highbury. Box Hill, where Emma and her friends picnic, is nearby, and Great Bookham had an Old Crown Inn similar to the one in Highbury. (It was, however, demolished in 1930). There was also a Randalls Park, and other features similar to Highbury.

View from Box Hill, where Emma and her friends picnic in Emma. (Tony Grant points out that this wonderful view is not from the exact spot where they held their picnic. “Frank Churchill, when he gets up to to proclaim to the world, says that Dorking is to his left and Mickleham to his right. That can only mean the picnic took place on the Burford Spur of Box Hill.” You can find photos of other views in his posts linked below.)

Box Hill

Box Hill is still a beautiful spot for picnics, hiking, walking, and cycling. The current rector of Great Bookham, Alan Jenkins, kindly took us to visit there. It includes a cycling trail. In the 2012 Olympics, cyclists made nine laps on this trail as part of their route.

The Vicarage

The Cookes’ parsonage, where Jane Austen stayed, was a large one. (A maid working there was named Elizabeth Bennet, by the way.) They had at least six children, but only three survived to adulthood. Their daughter Mary, who apparently did not marry, was a good friend of Jane’s, mentioned in her letters. Their son Theophilus Leigh Cooke (1778-1846) became a clergyman, a fellow of Magdalen College at Oxford, and holder of three church livings. His brother George Leigh Cooke (1779-1853) combined religion and science. He was a fellow of Corpus Christi College and earned a bachelor of divinity (a graduate degree). He also became a professor of Natural Philosophy (science) at Oxford, a keeper of the archives, and published an edition of Newton’s Principia Mathematica. Austen’s nephew, James-Edward Austen-Leigh wrote in his Memoir that George was “an impressive preacher of earnest and awakening sermons,” which, in the jargon of the time, implies that he was an Evangelical. Jane mentions in one of her letters that George “was very kind & talked sense to me every now & then” (Apr. 21, 1805).

Until 1869, Great Bookham had vicars, not rectors, so the parsonage was called a vicarage. The patron of the parish (a person who changed over the years), took part of the tithes and the rest went to the vicar, along with income from the glebe farmland belonging to the living. It is speculated that some of the excommunications in the Vestry Books were for non-payment of tithes (from 1800: Great Bookham at the Time of Jane Austen).

The parsonage was removed in 1961. For early pictures, see here. The parish now has a rector; the term no longer refers to tithes. His rectory is a modern building.

St. Nicolas’ Church, Great Bookham, History

Jane Austen must have worshiped in this church, where her godfather was the vicar, a number of times on her visits to Great Bookham.

When Austen visited, the church was full of box pews with walls around them. Some were three feet high, some were four feet high. The box pews were replaced by regular pews in 1885.

This wooden gate was added to side of the Great Bookham church in 1914. In Austen’s time, there was an external staircase here to an upper room, where Sunday school was held. Sunday schools, run by Christians of all denominations across England, educated the poor and enabled them to build better lives.
The church tower of St. Nicolas’ Great Bookham dates back to the 1100s. The clock in it was not there when Austen visited. Some years ago, the tower was in danger of falling down. The whole village got behind the project of fixing it, and raised even more than the large sum necessary to save the tower.
The chancel of the Great Bookham church was built in the 1300s, though when Jane Austen saw it, it did not have stained glass.

Other Literary Connections at Great Bookham

Great Bookham has a number of literary connections, some of which Jane Austen would have known about.

Cassandra Cooke, Jane Austen’s mother’s cousin, published her novel, Battleridge: An Historical Tale founded on facts, in 1799, by “a lady of quality.” Austen mentions it in her letters. Available on archive.org in two volumes.
Fanny Burney, one of Jane Austen’s favorite authors, lived here at the Hermitage with her husband, General Alexandre D’Arblay. Their son was baptized in the nearby Great Bookham church in 1795.

Fanny Burney wrote of the Cookes, “the father is worthy, the mother is good, so deserving, so liberal and so infinitely kind, that the world certainly does not abound with people to compare them with. The eldest son is a remarkably pleasing young man. The young seems sulky, as the sister is haughty.” She also wrote of Rev. Cooke, “Our vicar is a very worthy man and goodish—though by no means a marvellously rapid preacher.”

She also wrote to her father, Dr. Burney, “Mr. Cooke tells me he longs for nothing so much as a conversation with you on the subject of Parish Psalm singing—he complains that the Methodists run away with the regular congregation from their superiority in vocal devotion.” The Methodists, led by John and Charles Wesley, had been leading a revival in the church. They attracted people with lively hymns. Country churches were mostly singing psalms, often quite poorly, at this time, though hymns were beginning to be introduced into some churches.

Old and new: St. Nicolas’ pipe organ today. In 1800, the Great Bookham church only had a barrel organ that could play ten tunes. It accompanied their choir of Singers who sang from the West Gallery (balcony) of the church. So their music was probably better than that of many country churches at the time, which often had no musical instruments. This photo shows a memorial tomb/statue that Austen would have seen. The pulpit would have been higher, however, to be seen over the box pews. The blue bulletin board is modern, showing charities the church supports.

Playwright and politician Richard Sheridan (1751-1816), who wrote The Rivals and School for Scandal, owned several manors in the area around Great Bookham.

Later, teenaged C. S. Lewis lived in Great Bookham from 1914-1917, being educated by a private tutor, William T. Kirkpatrick.

St. Nicolas’ Church, Great Bookham, Today

St. Nicolas’ is a very active church, larger than the others we have “visited” so far. I was told the parish includes eleven to twelve thousand people. The electoral role of St. Nicolas’ lists about 250 members, and around 140 attend on Sundays. Three other ministers and five staff members assist the rector in serving the church. The church holds services every Sunday, Communion on Thursdays and Sundays, and several weekly prayer meetings. Members also meet in housegroups.

This board welcomes people to St. Nicolas’, Great Bookham, and advertises concerts and other community events held at the church.

The area also includes Baptist, Catholic, and United Reformed churches, and St. Nicolas’ cooperates with them on projects like Alpha Courses, designed to address people’s questions about Christian faith.

A few years ago, the church removed the Victorian pews and substituted chairs. This gives them the flexibility to hold various kinds of services and to host community events.

Religious education and daily worship are required to be offered in British government schools (student participation is optional). The rector, Alan Jenkins, provides some of this in local schools, briefly sharing a Bible story, prayer, and sometimes a song. School groups also come into the church for harvest or Easter services, with programs organized by the teachers.

Prayer stations around the church offer ideas for personal prayer.
An interesting aside for you: St. Nicolas’ Great Bookham has many lovely stained glass windows today, though there were none when Jane Austen visited. This one honors St. George, patron saint of England; St. Michael, who in the Bible defeats the great dragon, the devil; and St. Martin using his sword to cut his cloak in half in order to give half to a beggar in winter. These windows, with military images, are dedicated to Guy Cuthbert Dawnay, a soldier and Conservative politician. A large cross dedicated to Dawnay in the churchyard says he “was killed by a buffalo while on a hunting expedition in Masailand, E. Africa,” Feb. 28, 1889. Both have verses from Isaiah 60:19-20 about the Lord being his everlasting light.
On the day we visited the Great Bookham church, the central kneeling cushion at the altar commemorated Jane Austen’s connection with the church.

I hope you are enjoying learning about Jane Austen’s churches along with me. There is so much history at these old churches, as well as continuing community life and worship today.

All photos copyright Brenda S. Cox, 2024.

Brenda S. Cox is the author of Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England. She also blogs at Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen.

Sources

1800: Great Bookham at the Time of Jane Austen, Fanny Burney, and R. B. Sheridan, published by the Parochial Council of St. Nicolas Great Bookham (booklet available at the church, funded by JASNA)

“The Original of Highbury,” Jane Austen Society Collected Reports II:60,

Church of St. Nicolas, official list entry

St. Nicolas, Great Bookham website and The History of the Building

Special thanks to Tony Grant for telling me that Box Hill was near Great Bookham, and to Rev. Alan Jenkins for taking us up to Box Hill!

Further Exploration

Jane Austen and Great Bookham, by Tony Grant

Box Hill in Jane Austen’s Emma, by Tony Grant (includes the geology, history, and literary connections of Box Hill)

Jane Austen’s Surrey, by Tony Grant (includes views Emma might have seen on her picnic)

Emma Woodhouse’s Surrey, by Tony Grant (includes views Emma might have seen on her picnic)

Other Churches Connected to Jane Austen

Steventon

Chawton

Hamstall Ridware and Austen’s cousin Edward Cooper

Adlestrop Church and the Leigh Family

Stoneleigh Abbey Chapel

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Sense and Sensibility in the City of Gardens (2022 JASNA AGM)

Posted in 2022 JASNA AGM Victoria, Jane Austen's World, Religion in Austen's England, Sense and Sensibility, tagged , , , , , on October 30, 2022| 5 Comments »

by Brenda S. Cox

“I am never too busy to think of S&S. I can no more forget it, than a mother can forget her sucking child; & I am much obliged to you for your enquiries.”—Jane Austen, letter to Cassandra Austen, April 25, 1811, quoted in AGM brochure.

On this day, Oct. 30, 211 years ago (1811), Jane Austen’s first novel was published, Sense and Sensibility! A few weeks ago, the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) met to discuss and celebrate “Sense and Sensibility in the City of Gardens.” The garden city of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, hosted this 2022 AGM.

Lovely logo for the 2022 JASNA AGM, Sense and Sensibility in the City of Gardens (Victoria, Canada)

Getting to Victoria was challenging for those of us on the east coast, but it was rewarding. The city is on an enchanting island on the west coast of Canada. Those who came early or stayed late were able to visit famous Butchart Gardens, a nearby castle, or other local sights. Personally, I chose to go whale watching, which was a delight. We watched a pod of orcas and saw a humpback whale waving his front flippers back and forth at us!

During the conference itself I got to choose between many great options. The schedule overflowed with fascinating talks, fun workshops, and great events. Of course an Emporium offered great books from Jane Austen Books as well as other goodies from Jane Austen’s Regency World and regional JASNA chapters. And I found many wonderful “kindred spirits” to talk with between events.

Plenaries: Cowper, Sin, and Duels

Each speaker showed us Sense and Sensibility through a unique lens. The first plenary speaker,  Dr. Emma Clery, spoke on “‘Our Garden is Putting in Order’: The Place of William Cowper in Jane Austen’s Thought-World.” Having studied Cowper extensively for my own book, I was intrigued by Clery’s ideas on Cowper’s influences in Sense and Sensibility. She said the Dashwoods were expelled from the “garden” of Norland, as Jane Austen was expelled from her “garden” at Steventon. This “paradise” is regained at Delaford, which is described in terms of garden walls and fruit trees. People in Austen’s works are like plants, needing the right conditions to grow. I want to explore the many references to trees, timber, and woods that Clery said are found in S&S.

The most controversial talk of the weekend was Robert Morrison’s “‘Deeper in a Life of Sin’: The Regency Romance of Sense and Sensibility.” Dr. Morrison, author of The Regency Years, showed the bad sides of all the men in S&S, claiming that none were real heroes. He also suggested that the first Eliza’s baby might have been Brandon’s, and that Marianne might have been losing Willoughby’s baby when she was so ill at Cleveland. He got a lot of pushback on these ideas; we can find potential evidence both for and against his suggestions. But his talk did start some great discussions through the rest of the weekend!

Finally, during Sunday brunch, we heard all about “The Many Duels of Sense and Sensibility” from Susannah Fullerton, author of Jane Austen & Crime. Fullerton told us that dueling at this time was not legal, but was rarely prosecuted. In this “Age of Politeness,” looking too closely at a man or brushing against him could result in a duel. She went on to describe the duels in S&S which were fought with words. She sees duels between John and Fanny Dashwood (Fanny wins), Fanny and Elinor’s mother (Fanny wins), Elinor and Lucy (goes back and forth), and more. From this perspective, as a novel of cutting and thrusting, Fullerton challenged us to look at the references to needles, pins, scissors, and knives in S&S, as well as “cut” and “sharp.”

Activities and Options

Outside of the plenaries, we had many great activities to choose from: workshops (including, as always, lots of dancing), special interest sessions, an improvised play, and great breakout sessions. Breakouts focused on a wide range of topics, including the arts, Austen in Spanish, specific characters in S&S, military service in the East India Company, information literacy, landscapes, a “playlet” dramatizing Lucy Steele’s tactics, and much more. Articles based on many of these are likely to appear in the next editions of Persuasions and Persuasions On-Line, so be on the lookout!

Breakout Sessions on Religious Themes

Besides religious echoes in the three main talks, three of the breakout sessions focused on one of my interests, the religious aspects of the novel. Laura Dabundo, author of Jane Austen: A Companion, shared about “Jane Austen’s Ode to Duty: Morality and Conscience in Sense and Sensibility.” Comparing S&S to Wordsworth’s “Ode to Duty,” Dabundo showed that “duty is manifest in one’s principled obligations to family, friends, church, and nation, personally and in community.” 

Roger E. Moore, author of Jane Austen and the Reformation, asked whether S&S might be “Jane Austen’s Most Religious Novel.” He examined the idea of religious enthusiasm, overly emotional reactions to religion, feared in Austen’s day. Many of Marianne’s thoughts, feelings, and actions fit with this religious enthusiasm. So it is possible Austen was showing the pitfalls of that contemporary concern.

I (Brenda S. Cox) also had the privilege of sharing my thoughts about “Faith Words in Sense and Sensibility: A Story of Selfishness and Self-Denial.”  I explored themes of vices and virtues in the novel. Austen, rather than preaching like many of her contemporaries, chose instead to use examples to encourage moral behavior. Elinor’s selfless behavior throughout, and Marianne’s repentance late in the novel, give strong examples to follow. Austen used “faith words” that had strong religious connotations in her time to reinforce her messages.

A Few of My AGM Highlights, in Pictures

Bookbinding workshop: Richelle Funk taught us some basic bookbinding skills, and we made lovely little notebooks; I used mine to take notes during the conference. Here, Baronda Bradley, in one of her gorgeous outfits, prepares her booklet for binding.
Beading with Jane Austen Workshop: Kim Wilson displays a replica of Jane Austen’s bracelet, along with other variations that can be made with her instructions and supplies, soon to be available online; sign up for her newsletter list to be notified. With her instructions and materials, I was able to start a lovely single-strand bracelet, and finish it as soon as I got home.

In a special interest session, Kristen Miller Zohn told us about “Gender and Decorative Arts in Austen’s Novels.” She explored how decorative arts, interiors, and clothing presented in Austen’s novels, particularly Northanger Abbey, speak to the unique roles of women and men in Austen’s era.
Cecily Van Cleave, a historical fiction writer, led another special interest session on “Beyond the Garden Wall: Priscilla Wakefield, Women in Botany, and the Intersection of Art and Science during the Austen Era.” We learned that women wrote science guides in this time, intended to help young ladies replace frivolous pursuits with more serious, intellectual hobbies.
Donna Fletcher Crow, dressed in a replica of Austen’s costume in the Byrne portrait, showed us maps and scenes of “Jane Austen in London with the Dashwoods.” She also explained the significance of Austen’s choices for locations. Listeners, though, seemed to be most fascinated by her mention of pencils as cutting-edge technology of the time, with graphite as a precious English product.
The Banquet and Promenade were a lovely time for many to dress up and show off their outfits. Kristen Miller Zohn and Jennifer Swenson, coordinators of the 2021 Chicago AGM, at the banquet.

For many of us, the Ball is always a joy and delight. Most people dressed in lovely costumes, like those in the above photos of Renata Dennis (head of the diversity committee) and myself, Jeanne Talbot, and Baronda Bradley (whose bustle held a bouquet of fresh flowers) with her husband Eric Fladager. We all danced the night away.

Next year, I hope you will join us at the 2023 AGM in Denver for “Pride & Prejudice: A Rocky Romance.”

All photos © Brenda S. Cox, 2022.

Brenda S. Cox, author of the new book, Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England, writes for Jane Austen’s World and for Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen. You can also visit her on Facebook.

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Edward Cooper: Jane Austen’s Evangelical Cousin, Part 2

Posted in Jane Austen's family, Jane Austen's religion, Jane Austen's World, Religion in Austen's England, tagged , , , on May 23, 2022| 3 Comments »

By Brenda S. Cox

“We do not much like Mr. Cooper’s new sermons;–they are fuller of Regeneration & Conversion than ever–with the addition of his zeal in the cause of the Bible Society” –Jane Austen, letter to Cassandra Austen, Sept. 8, 1816

Last month we talked about Austen’s first cousins, particularly Edward Cooper, son of Jane’s mother’s sister. He became a clergyman like Jane’s father and Edward’s father. Edward was a strong Evangelical, and he and Jane did not always see eye to eye.

Evangelicals in the Church of England

The Evangelical* movement in the Church of England started early in the 1700s. While some evangelicals left the Church of England, others stayed within it. (We use a capital “E” for this movement within the Church of England at that time.) In general, evangelicals stress the centrality of the Bible and of Christ’s death on the cross to redeem sinful people, the need for a personal conversion experience, and Christians’ responsibility to actively lead others toward Christ and do good in the world. These are the messages Edward Cooper and other Evangelicals preached. 

The most famous Evangelical of Austen’s time was William Wilberforce. Wilberforce and other Christians, especially Evangelicals, led the fight against the slave trade, supported campaigns to educate the poor in England, and much more. (While modern evangelicals may be associated with certain political stances, evangelicals in Austen’s England were associated with these issues instead: education for the poor, the campaign against the slave trade and slavery, and others.)

Cooper’s Sermons and Jane Austen’s Responses

In Jane Austen’s time, many clergymen published their sermons. Sermons were popular reading, as well as providing preaching material for other clergymen. Austen enjoyed reading books of sermons. Cooper published a number of volumes of his sermons. Apparently, though, Jane and Cassandra didn’t like them much. In 1809 (Jan. 17), she commented,

“Miss M. conveys to us a third volume of sermons, from Hamstall, just published, and which we are to like better than the two others; they are professedly practical, and for the use of country congregations.”

This was Edward Cooper’s Practical and Familiar Sermons Designed for Parochial and Domestic Instruction (meaning for reading at home and for preaching to churches), first published in 1809. The earlier volumes were one in 1803 criticizing the practice of the militia drilling on Sundays (a day of rest), and then Sermons, Chiefly Designed to Elucidate Some of the Leading Doctrines of the Gospel (1804).

Where did Jane differ from those “leading doctrines” of Evangelical preaching? Evangelicals taught that people needed a conscious, personal conversion experience, a regeneration or rebirth, to become true Christians. Other Anglicans believed that growth in faith was gradual through life, beginning with a person’s baptism as an infant; this was probably Austen’s belief.  Both groups believed that throughout life the person needed to trust in Christ, repent when they sinned, and ask God’s help to live a good life. Edward Cooper’s hymn, “Father of Heaven,” which is still sung today, asks God for His “pardoning love.”

Cover of Edward Cooper’s Practical and Familiar Sermons, which Jane Austen was to “like better than the two others.”

This theological disagreement partly explains Jane’s reaction to a later book which includes two of Edward’s sermons. It’s been speculated that the “we” here might refer to the rest of her family, perhaps to her mother and brother’s opinion more than to her own. But still she does include herself:

“We do not much like Mr. Cooper’s new sermons;–they are fuller of Regeneration & Conversion than ever–with the addition of his zeal in the cause of the Bible Society” (Sept. 8, 1816).

This refers to Two Sermons Preached . . . at Wolverhampton Preparatory to the Establishment of a Bible Institution (1816). I was surprised to find that these sermons do not use the word regeneration, and conversion is used only once (with convert used two further times). However, the concepts are implied.

Cooper does talk about the world’s need for the gospel and for the Bible. Jane Austen apparently did not disagree with these goals. In her third prayer, she wrote,

“May thy [God’s] mercy be extended over all Mankind, bringing the Ignorant to the knowledge of thy Truth, awakening the Impenitent, touching the Hardened.”

Cover of Edward Cooper’s sermons for the Bible Society, which Austen found too full of “regeneration and conversion.”

The SPCK and the Bible Society

So, why would Austen object to Cooper’s supporting the Bible Society? She and her family supported a different institution that distributed the Bible, the SPCK. In fact, Jane herself contributed half a guinea, a substantial amount of her income, to this organization in 1813.

The SPCK, or Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, is a Church of England organization that published and sold Christian literature at that time. However, many felt that they were not supplying enough Bibles in different languages (specifically Welsh, at the beginning), and so the British and Foreign Bible Society was formed.

The Bible Society included both Anglicans and Dissenters (people in other denominations). Because of this, they published and distributed only Bibles, with no commentary (which might support one set of doctrines over another). The SPCK produced the Book of Common Prayer and other materials explaining the Bible from an Anglican perspective. There was some tension or competition between these two groups.

Both societies formed auxiliary groups in various areas to support their work. According to Irene Collins, in 1813, both organizations set up branches in Basingstoke, in the Austens’ part of the country. James Austen, Jane’s brother, organized and spoke at the initial meeting of the SPCK. The Lefroy family, old friends of the Austens’, were leaders of the rival Bible Society auxiliary started at almost the same time.

A copy of James’s speech for the SPCK has been preserved. He said that the SPCK was better than the Bible Society, because along with the Bible it distributed commentaries and the Book of Common Prayer (the “Liturgy”). He explained,

“It [the SPCK] not only puts the Bible in a poor man’s hand, but provides him with the best means of understanding it.”

However, he also said that those supporting the Bible Society did so from “the purest and best of motives,” and encouraged them to support both organizations. He complimented the Bible Society, saying its “exertions” had produced “extreme good.” He called for a spirit of unity in the area and a spirit of “candour”—which meant assuming the best of one another. The speech is gentle and conciliatory; a good model for today’s controversies.

Jane Austen and the Evangelicals

So, Jane Austen had some disagreements with her Evangelical cousin Edward Cooper, and didn’t much like his sermons. However, Cooper had an Evangelical friend in neighbouring Yoxall, Rev. Thomas Gisborne. Both Cooper and Gisborne were involved with Wilberforce in working for the abolition of the slave trade. 

Austen did enjoy Gisborne’s work. In 1805, she told Cassandra,

“I am glad you recommended ‘Gisborne,’ for having begun, I am pleased with it, and I had quite determined not to read it”⁠ (Aug. 30, 1805).

The book was probably An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex. 

In Austen’s letters, she made two specific mentions of the Evangelicals. On Jan. 24, 1809, she wrote, “I do not like the Evangelicals.” She was telling her sister that she did not want to read a new book by Hannah More, a popular Evangelical author. She went on to say, “Of course I shall be delighted when I read it, like other people,” so she doesn’t seem to be very serious. My guess is that she did not like More’s style, which is didactic, clearly teaching lessons through her story. Austen preferred to tell a good story and let readers come to their own conclusions.

Later, on Nov. 18, 1814, she had a serious discussion with her niece Fanny Knight about marrying a man who was leaning toward Evangelicalism. She wrote, “I am by no means convinced that we ought not all to be Evangelicals, & am at least persuaded that they who are so from Reason and Feeling must be happiest & safest. . . . don’t be frightened by the idea of his acting more strictly up to the precepts of the New Testament than others.” So at that point, though she was not Evangelical herself, she admired them.

Austen’s beloved brother Henry later became an Evangelical preacher himself. But he still wrote about his sister, in the introduction to Northanger Abbey and Persuasion:

“She was thoroughly religious and devout . . . On serious [religious] subjects she was well-instructed, both by reading and meditation, and her opinions accorded strictly with those of our Established Church.”

While some have claimed that he was exaggerating here, at the time being “religious” was not necessarily popular. Jane Austen did not always agree with her cousin Edward’s theology or style of writing, but it seems to me that she was serious about her faith, as he was.

 

Brenda S. Cox blogs on Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen. She has written a book called Fashionable Goodness: Faith in Jane Austen’s England, which she hopes will be available by the end of this year.

*Note that “Evangelical” and “evangelism” are two different things, though people sometimes get them confused. Evangelicals, the focus of the article above, were and are groups of Christians with certain common beliefs. Evangelism  means people sharing their religious beliefs with other people.

For Further Reading

Edward Cooper, Jane Austen’s Evangelical Cousin, Part 1

Edward Cooper, Wolverhampton Sermons, Jan. 1, 1816. You can also find seven volumes of his Practical and Familiar Sermons, in various editions, online.

Jocelyn Harris, “Jane Austen and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,” Persuasions 34: 134-139. 

Irene Collins, “’Too Much Zeal for the Bible Society: Jane Austen, Her Family, and the Religious Quarrels of Her Time,” Jane Austen Society Reports, Collected Reports Vol. 6 (2001-2005): 21-38. This article explains the rivalry and cooperation between the Bible Society and the S.P.C.K. in Austen’s community, and Jane’s theological differences with her cousin Edward Cooper. 

Gaye King, “Jane Austen’s Staffordshire Cousin: Edward Cooper and His Circle,” Persuasions 1993 

Gaye King, “Visiting Edward Cooper,” Persuasions 1987 

Donald Greene, “Hamstall Ridware: A Neglected Austen Setting,” Persuasions 1985 (Includes a photo of the rectory where Jane and her family visited Edward and his family)

“Come and Visit Edward Cooper, Jane Austen’s Evangelical Cousin,” Jane Austen House Museum blog, Sept. 17, 2012, Edward’s portrait 

Edward Cooper as a hymn writer 

Edward Cooper’s letter to Jane April 6, 1817 (article also includes commentary on the letter)

“Jane Austen in the Midlands,” scroll down for a section on Cooper. 

“’Cruel Comfort’: A Reading of the Theological Critique in Sense and Sensibility,” Kathleen James-Cavan (springboards from Jane’s comment on Edward Cooper into the ideas in S&S) Persuasions On-Line 32.2 (2012) 

Other Sources

Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, 2nd ed. (p. 262 says Henry Austen became an Evangelical clergyman)

Deirdre Le Faye, ed., Jane Austen’s Letters, 4th ed.

Laura Dabundo, Jane Austen: A Companion

Irene Collins, “Displeasing Pictures of Clergymen,” Persuasions 18 (1996): 110.

Irene Collins, Jane Austen and the Clergy

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