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This duology by the author of Waverley and Ivanhoe was published in 1820 and concerns the progress of the Protestant reformation in Scotland:
The Protestant Reformation famously, along with the destruction of the political power and wealth of the Catholic church as an institution, produced the physical destruction of numerous beautiful buildings and works of art: in many churches this took the form of removing statues, destroying carvings and stained glass windows, and painting over the wall paintings. But there were also many buildings that were torn down, burned, etc. This mob-violence aspect of the Reformation is presented in both novels in a way that is quite interesting, and succeeds in showing the issue's complexity, I think.
The introduction to The Monastery already warns the reader that Scott approaches the whole project from a perspective of hating Catholicism. Reading this, though, did not exactly prepare me for the prejudices of these novels. Hating the medeival Catholic church, the corrupt institution whose power had a stranglehold on Europe (and indeed much of the world) at the time of the Protestant reformation seemed like a reasonable middle-of-the-road position to me. I wasn't prepared for Scott apparently hating Catholicism:
Don't mistake me: he doesn't hate Catholic people or make them villains. But he views the entire project of struggling for Catholic control of a country to be inherently corrupt and evil, and all the people sincerely engaged in these projects are sadly deluded, or laughably illogical, if sincere. The monks in The Monastery couldn't present a more stark contrast to the monks in the Brother Cadfael novels: he has set two sincerely religious and moral, intelligent, admirable men among them, and the others, however sympathetic, are lazy, cowardly, intellectually negligble social parasites (the monastery is a feudal landowner and its monks are supported by the labor of indentured peasants, until the Protestant troops reposess its lands at the end of the first book).
- The Monastery is set in the 1550s and centers on the takeover by Protestants of the lands of Melrose Abbey (a 12th c. monastery) and the conversion to Protestantism of a fictional noble family. The family's guardian spirit, a sprite called the White Lady who speaks entirely in rhyme, interferes chaotically and helps bring about the happy ending of a romance, the conversion of the young couple and their vindication and installation in a Castle, and the downfall of the abbey. There is a lot of comedy of manners and minor adventures in this novel which I greatly enjoyed and will likely reread sometime; but the surrounding political violence is too real and chilling to go over lightly, so the mood felt uneven.
- The Abbey is a sequel about a young man adopted (sort of) and raised (for about ten years) by the couple who were united in The Monastery: a Protestant knight close in the service of the bastard half-brother of Mary Queen of Scots who was instrumental in deposing her in favor of her infant son, and his wife, the scion of the ancient and noble house of Avenel whose castle they inhabit. The book is about this youth recovering from two sets of very bad parenting and outgrowing the violence, impulsivity, pride, and petulance which resulted from them... by being sent as a representative of BOTH the Protestant government AND the Catholic conspiracy in support of Mary, Queen of Scots to Castle Lochleven where she is being imprisoned. ( Read more... ) Roland is a purely fictional character, but the surrounding history is real, and it's pretty good; but the fact that so much of the interest is the real people makes the protagonist feel pastede on. In short, I think there was a better book hiding in there that was simply a novelization about Mary Queen of Scots at Lochleven without an invented protagonist and definitely without the ties to the other book. ( Also the child abuse plot is not saved by the fact that Scott knew it was what he was portraying. )
The Protestant Reformation famously, along with the destruction of the political power and wealth of the Catholic church as an institution, produced the physical destruction of numerous beautiful buildings and works of art: in many churches this took the form of removing statues, destroying carvings and stained glass windows, and painting over the wall paintings. But there were also many buildings that were torn down, burned, etc. This mob-violence aspect of the Reformation is presented in both novels in a way that is quite interesting, and succeeds in showing the issue's complexity, I think.
The introduction to The Monastery already warns the reader that Scott approaches the whole project from a perspective of hating Catholicism. Reading this, though, did not exactly prepare me for the prejudices of these novels. Hating the medeival Catholic church, the corrupt institution whose power had a stranglehold on Europe (and indeed much of the world) at the time of the Protestant reformation seemed like a reasonable middle-of-the-road position to me. I wasn't prepared for Scott apparently hating Catholicism:
the Catholic, defending a religion which afforded little interest to the feelings, had, in his devotion to the cause he espoused, more of the head than of the heart,
—The Monastery
Don't mistake me: he doesn't hate Catholic people or make them villains. But he views the entire project of struggling for Catholic control of a country to be inherently corrupt and evil, and all the people sincerely engaged in these projects are sadly deluded, or laughably illogical, if sincere. The monks in The Monastery couldn't present a more stark contrast to the monks in the Brother Cadfael novels: he has set two sincerely religious and moral, intelligent, admirable men among them, and the others, however sympathetic, are lazy, cowardly, intellectually negligble social parasites (the monastery is a feudal landowner and its monks are supported by the labor of indentured peasants, until the Protestant troops reposess its lands at the end of the first book).
