Converted

Our first trip to Europe was spent poking around looking for mason’s marks in old churches and tombs in Germany and France. We got a kick out of the old cathedrals with their leaded glass and high vaulted ceilings and the gargoyles which crouched menacingly along the roofline.

Gargoyles are usually found on the outside of cathedrals, and the main purpose for them seems to be to be their mouths, which are used as downspouts — to aim rainwater away from the sides of the sandstone buildings, and slow down the inevitable erosion. People consider them sort of like scarecrows — reminding the people that evil crouched ’round the churches, but that there was safety inside. For every leering face, there is always one blandly pure angelic face inside, keeping the great balance which was central to the belief system of medieval times.

Strange faces are occasionally also found inside. In Roslinn Chapel, we saw scowling, leering faces peeping from around pillars and near the sacristy. The guide told us that the carvings were specifically representative of death, the devil and his minions, and certain specific evil people who were well-known evildoers in the community. Angelic carvings usually faced them, but it was still a little off-putting to find all of that inside (Of course, Roslinn has a lot going on inside that wouldn’t be in an average chapel or cathedral).

Attending church back then times must have been quite a show. The chapels we visit now are freezing cold, and ill-lit — it would have been much worse back then without leather gloves and thick shoes. Lit by rushlight and smoking, flickering torches, those grim little chapels must have seemed like a waking nightmare. Because motivation by fear was the order of the day, the priests lectured on the Seven Deadly Sins at length, and the evil, sneering faces were illuminated at to illustrate the point that evil was apparently Right There, and Waiting To Take You Away. Even the bland angelic faces didn’t look too interested one way or the other, so no hope of salvation there. The terrified parishioners duly said their prayers in frantic hope of avoiding the fate of the unrighteous, and quaking, they went home. Those poor people.

Things may have been a bit different in less rural parts of Europe, and no doubt this applies to the less rural areas of Scotland as well. As pious a people as any, the Scots were more likely to be Protestants, and less inclined to be terrorized in the same way. (They were terrorized differently, no doubt.) The poet, Robert Burns, was quite vocal about the excesses of every church, and the joyless drudgery of the ‘unco guid’, or the rigidly righteous. To our shock and amusement, we’ve seen a peculiarly Scottish thing in some of the churches on castle grounds or in larger cities, and have been really amused. The gargoyle faces are blowing raspberries, picking their noses, crossing their eyes, and otherwise engaging in obnoxiousness. They look much less sinister than in need of a quick whack. Instead of being frightening, these gargoyle look like they’re part of some kind of a story. We find that this is reflective of churches which were meant to minister to the wealthy, which is quite an irony. (Perhaps when you’ve got lots of cash, all that’s needed is the odd funny face to remind you to put a few quid in the plate? Who knows.)

On our first trip to Europe we were a little horrified to see great old cathedrals being used as settings for flea markets and antique sales. In the United States, most old churches stand until they’re ready to fall, and then are pulled down instead of being repurposed. There must be quite a number of church conversion in back home, but we’d simply never seen a church turned into a shop or a home before. It seemed a bizarre idea, but people in this part of the world believe in saving their handsome old sandstone buildings, and with brand new ticky-tacky, identical matchbox flats going up on every corner, a church conversions at least would be a building with unique features, some character and some really high ceilings.

“Wouldn’t it be weird to live in a church?” we’ve murmured as we’ve walked past the one on the way to our neighborhood library. “It’s just so odd not to know if the steeple you can see down the block is for a flat or an actual congregation.” D. has taken lots of pictures of churches here in the city, and we’ve peered up at their high, high windows. They are such beautiful buildings… so when we found out that there’s a two bedroom flat available in the conversion near the library, we wondered, “wouldn’t it be weird to live in a church?”

Would it? We’re going to go see.

– D & T

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