A BREEZE TO THE PAST

We might think we're sometimes badly off these days, but what would a trip to medieval England teach, say, a modern vicar?

The Reverend Seymour Indicott was in his element. It was Sunday, and although his church might have been a little fuller there were enough souls there in the need for saving for him to realise just how important he was in the grand scheme of things. These few, maybe a dozen and a half, had come because of their need to be saved. They were sinners, each and every one of them, and if they didn’t sin in a big way they most certainly sinned in a small way, and his Lord would look angrily upon them. Unless they changed they were destined to spend eternity in Hell and amongst the fires he was convinced raged in that dreadful place.

So he scowled and looked around him slowly from his high perch on the pulpit. There was a slight rustle from his congregation as each and every one of them shuddered inwardly at what they knew from experience was coming.

Then he cleared his throat theatrically, and began.

”Sin,” he almost roared. He knew what he meant by that monosyllabic word, but to make sure that they did he elaborated.

“Fornication,” he hissed, and Mrs Bouble who had brought her ten year old William with her covered his ears so that he’d never find out about his own conception.

Seymour noticed, smiled inwardly, and multiplied the decibels in his voice by at least two. William might have giggled if he dared, but Mrs Bouble had a wide range of back hand slaps that would almost certainly be administered afterwards if he did.

“Fornication,” repeted the Reverend Seymour Indicott, thrilled by the repetition whilst forgetting the little bit of fun he had with Mrs Gladstone only yesterday. Mrs Gladstone was his part-time cleaning lady and some of her wages came in the form of half hours between the sheets with the Reverend when Mrs Indicott was away from home on one of her lecture tours. The Reverend’s wife would tour anywhere and debate anything if it took her away from her pretentiously puritanical husband.

Then something happened whilst he was forgetting Mrs Gladstone. There was a breeze whispering through the church, a breeze he assumed was from Heaven because wasn't that where all breezes came from, the fragrant ones that had come via the rose garden tended by Mr Gladstone and the pungent ones that sometimes came via the drains.

But this was a stranger by far breeze because it came from Heaven via the concentrated knot of knowledge that had managed to find a home in the good reverend’s brain after a television broadcast in which some of the truths about medieval history had been illustrated, images augmented by such sound effects as the screams from the dying and the buzzing of insects as they fed from the grey flesh of the dead.

And that breeze blew what he had always called his spirit clean out of his head until he had somehow managed to skip centuries whilst still haranguing the populace from the same pulpit.

And now, suddenly, the church was full. He knew that it was full because he could smell the perspiration and the stains that adhered to clothing that really needed washing, but it being winter wouldn’t get any cleaner until the finer weather came.

And there was he, or his alter-ego haranguing the gathered people. In some strange and possibly magical way he could even see himself as if he was in the congregation, his surplice not quite as white as he liked it and his collar too large for comfort, and stained.

And the first word he said in that long ago version of himself was “Sin!” Then he continued to describe some sins that his Lord would detest more than he detested Satan, and amongst them, of course, was fornication. And then he went on to describe some of the senses that were excited by that act as if he knew all about them, and he supposedly married to one who was largely thought of as a witch, until every man there became aware of the lady sitting in the row in front of him and every woman cringed at the memories of a recent bout of whatever it was the man in the pulpit was getting excited about.

A tiny thread of connection between the past and the present wormed its way into the Reverend Seymour Indicott’s brain as his mind slipped back and forth between the crowd he could see in the church and the aromas that it produced and then the sweet fragrance that drifted from Mrs Gladstone’s underwear at the other end of the thread.

The clergyman in the pulpit moved on. He had exited himself with too much oratory about the sins of the flesh and moved on to other sins which drew a great deal less enthusiasm from him.

“Taking a poor man’s farthing,” he ranted, “is a dire enough sin, but then to use what you have stolen and spend it on ale from the alehouse where you might vomit it back onto the trews of the man from whom you stole it is indeed a fouler sin. And if that poor man seeks retribution and strikes you for the theft, then it seems to me that the good Lord would approve and forgive him and then punish hoim for being poor.”

The good Reverend’s eyes fell on a slouching rogue in the middle of the congregation. “Yes, Wally Toadster, it is you I replrimand, for did you now steal a farthing from Willy Throatspeare, and did you not return it in a foul outflowing from your wretched belly? And when you seek your place in Heaven, will you not be barred from entry? And be ordered to descend down a vicious slope until you land in one of the furnaces of hell, and find yourself being scorched by its flames for all eternity, year in, year out, the pain of burning never lessening, never ceasing?”

Then the Reverend in his pulpit, no dout aware that his collar was irritating him, drew his sermon to a close and the congregation slowly rose and wafted its odour before it as it made its way out into the marginally fresher air of a winter day.

There was woodsmoke in that air, and it hung heavily over a row of what romantics would call cottages but what to the good Reverend’s mind were hovels.

A woman, lying cross legged in a muddy wash of pure filth was giving birth to a child who couldn’t possibly live after she chewed through the umbilical cord that attached it to her womb and was lain on a soaking piece of sacking where it died only minutes after crying its welcome to the world.

He moved on. A boy was being flogged by his father, blood oozing from the scars on his back, and the father loudly accused him of not harkening to the priest and his holy words, but instead, of cursing loud enough for their Lord to be offended. The boy, weakened by his chastisement, fell to the ground and then crawled away, through more mud, until he found a ditch in which he could bleed in peace.

Further on a youth of maybe fourteen cursed a young maiden of perhaps ten or eleven years, for the vileness of her body and warned her against repeating a single syllable of what had occurred between them only yesterday, hissing in foul language unfit for the tender ears of the Reverend, and she wept and ran away before the youth could strike her.

The Reverend Seymour Indicott wanted to intervene in a dozen cruelties that he knew in his heart were sins worse than anything he had preached about in his many vitriolic sermons, but to his shame he had no substance, merely the sight of things he had no physical way of interfering with.

“How do these people survive?” he asked himself, “how come they live long enough to provide the seeds of future generations? Such dirt, such filth, such violence…”

Then a woman, clearly able to see him, approached him. She was young, almost beautiful but for the stains of tears that were running down her face, and she held out one hand to him.

“A groat?” she begged, “lest I die…”

“I have no coin,” he replied honestly, wishing it was not so, and his words did sound in that ancient air, and he couldn’t help adding, “but you can have my love.”

Her pretty, eyes, and despite the general dirt of everything around her they were pretty, and so was the smile that accompanied them when she thanked him, tearfully.

And the breeze that had blown his spirit there returned, and blew it back until he was once again standing in his pulpit with the eyes of the small congregation upon him.

“When you leave this place today,” he said, “remember that I love you, all of you, no matter what sins you commit. Go forth, and if you need to, share your lives and your dreams in love and not as our ancestors did, in disgusting filthy hatred.…”

© Peter Rogerson, 15.04.23

LESSON. In the currencies of long ago a farthing was a quarter of a penny and a penny was one two hundred and fortieth part of a pound. A groat was four pennies. Amen.

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Reviews

[DIVYA]

Those were the days when they covered children's ears lest they hear things unsavoury. And now the internet teaches them everything. An interesting tale with a great ending. Love it.

[Coyote Poetry]

I did like the sermon, it was very interesting. A strong ending to the tale. I liked the many situation you wrote about.
"When you leave this place today,” he said, “remember that I love you, all of you, no matter what sins you commit. Go forth, and if you need to, share your lives and your dreams in love and not as our ancestors did, in disgusting filthy hatred.…”
The above lines. The honest truth for some. Thank you Peter for sharing the amazing story.
Coyote

[Peter Rogerson]

Thank you so much for your thoughts. Each age has its problems. I mean, how about surviving a pendemic during the earilest stone age

[Coyote Poetry]

You are right my friend and you are welcome. Look at old Europe. Lost half the population in the ancient days to sickness.