Keep,  lovely  church,  as  if  by  touch  of  self-­‐restraining  art,The  modest  charm  of  not  too  much;  Part  seen,  imagined  part.

    (Wordsworth)

IntroductionIn this essay I hope to begin a discussion that focuses on Augustus Pugin’s extended ef-

fort to grasp and deal with the mysteries of Christian liturgy. Many architectural historians

focus their reading of Pugin on his two best known books (Contrasts, 1836 & 41, and True Prin-

ciples of Pointed or Christian Architecture 1841),1 I suggest here that what his early writings reveal

is this struggle, and further, the language that he had to incorporate eventually proved to be

too pragmatic -- and consequently inadequate. And, it is not until his final major project, the

Treatise on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts that he begins to find a more appropriate and per-

haps less prescriptive voice. As suggested by the Wordsworth stanza, the potency and mystery

that is somehow strangely embodied in church architecture is due in part not to what it

shows, but rather what it conceals from us.

Haunted EnglandIn 1812, Pugin was born into a haunted world -- occupied by spirits, ghosts, fairies, mon-

sters, and deamons. People were being mesmerized and hypnotized, while others were in

regular communication with the dead and undead, and dictating passages from the Bible

from their sleep. Taxidermy made its way into art and fashion, with dioramas of dead bunnies

sitting at their little desks, and women wearing earrings that were made from the corpses of

hummingbirds. The Victorians were obsessed with the eerie and the supernatural. “They

delighted in ghost stories and fairy tales, and in legends of strange gods, demons and spirits;

in pantomimes and extravaganzas full of supernatural machinery; in gothic yarns of reani-

PuginÊs Apprehension of the SupernaturalRon Jelaco

McGill University26th April, 2010

(1) 1  For  a  reading  of  Pugin  as  the  proto-­‐modern  architect,  see  Phoebe  Stanton’s  seminal  essay,  “Pugin:  Princi-­‐ples  of  Design  versus  Revivalism,”  in  the  Journal  of  the  Society  of  Architectural  Historians,  Vol.  13,  No.  3  (Oct.,  1954),  pp.  20-­‐25

mated corpses and vampires.2 Dickens makes his

intentions clear. He, ‘...wants to make your flesh

creep.’ And of course, the books are read by eve-

ryone with the hope of feeling it creeping. There

was a temptation coming from the horror. “The

supernatural was both fearful and terrible and ar-

dently desired: it was a spooky sense that there

was more to the world than the everyday, and an intimation that reality might be transfigured

by something above and beyond.3 This mixture of terror and desire is not far removed from

the apocalyptic preoccupation of the Premillennialist movement, which will be further dis-

cussed below.

The eerie and otherworldly stories from books like The Castle of Otranto, and Northanger

Abbey had been in minds of for several decades, and a new surge of spine-tingling literature --

in fact gothic fiction’s high point -- was just beginning. Before Pugin reaches his teenage

years, Shelley’s Frankenstein and Polidori's The Vampyre will not only become bestsellers, but

two of the most influential books of the cen-

tury. Gothic horror would remain the dominant

genre throughout Pugin’s entire life.

However, the Victorian’s obsession with

the supernatural was not limited to gothic fic-

tion. The stories, images, ideas, legends, and

beliefs of the supernatural assumed many

forms and genres as it wound its way around all

aspects of everyday life. “The Supernatural was

an important aspect of the Victorians’ intellec-

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(2) 2  Bown,  N.,  Burdett,  C.,  Thurschwell,  P.,  (eds.),  The  Victorian  Supernatural,  Cambridge  University  Press,  Cambridge,  2004.  Introduction.

(3) 3  ibid.,    p.1

tual, spiritual, emotional and imaginative worlds, and took its place in the domestic centre of

their daily lives, from the brush with the spirit world at a seance in the parlour, to a serilised

adventure story set in the Valley of the Kings, replete with mummies and images of ancient

Egyptian deities.”4

The unease and dread that tempted Victorian England was also not always limited to the

Victorians’ imagination, for their fears of the supernatural were found to have quasi-natural

associations. The collapsing of time and distance achieved by modern technologies that were

transforming daily life were often felt to be uncanny, and made people take seriously other-

wise hidden realities and question the realities that they had always trusted. In many cases,

products of new technology shocked and disturbed the

people in Pugin’s world and made the previously uni-

maginable somehow ‘make sense’. Electricity allowed

things to move that had no life. People were unnerved by

the speed and power beyond human understanding

shown by the railway and disembodied messages coming

from far-away places through telegraph wires. And re-

cently invented photography could be unnerving, stir-

ring, “the weird sensation of looking at the ghostly face

of a dead relative staring out of a photograph.”5

Pugin’s Ghosts

It can be established without much controversy that Pugin’s mother, Catherine Welby

Pugin, was an intense and zealous woman. She was well-read, physically attractive and at

times vain, ‘touchy about questions of social distinction’, and consumed by intellectual con-

troversy and trend. And central to the aims of this paper, she had an ardent enthusiasm for

3

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(4) 4  Bown,  N.,  Burdett,  C.,  Thurschwell,  P.,  p.2

(5) 5  ibid.,  p.2

the popular Premillennialist minister, Edward Irving.

Irving and his sermons were by all accounts, simply

sensational. The devoted and the curious -- often in-

cluding royalty, members of Parliament, and intellec-

tual illuminati like Carlyle and Coleridge -- ‘rushed to

his meeting houses as to a theatre,’ consistently filling

them to overflowing. These were spectacular events,

where it would be, “worth enduring a state of suffoca-

tion to see and hear him make his defence from the

Pulpit.”6 His orations often contained rapturous, mil-

lennial prophesies and imminent apocalypse, and he could consistently go on for three hours

without breaking. He mesmerized his listeners, often inducing them into states of frenzy and

hysteria. “I never took my eyes off this strange apparition. Methought some man had escaped

from St. Lukes... [and] before he was restored of his right mind had taken possession of the

Pulpit … Imagine a tall man with high aquiline features and a complexion darkly brilliant

with long raven love locks hanging down to his waist, his sleeves so short as to show part of

his naked arms … and you see Edward Irving. … No posture master ever studied the gro-

tesque more successfully than this extraordinary man. He is like the extravaganzas of the

early romance writers and seems to belong to a bygone age.”7

The exhilarating atmosphere that surrounded Irving was just the sort of world that would

have attracted Pugin’s mother. According to Pugin’s friend and biographer, Benjamin Ferrey,

Catherine was, “a woman of extraordinary intellect,” and never much satisfied with the abili-

ties of the clergy who ministered in her own parish. She would often seek out the most po-

lemic theological controversies, “…frequently wandered to neighbouring churches to hear

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(6) 6  From  a  letter  written  by  Susanna  Moodie,  between  1826-­‐32.  See,  Moodie,  S.,  Letters  of  a  Lifetime,  University  of  Toronto  Press,  1985,  p.  57.

(7) 7  Moodie,  S.,  p.  57.

strange preachers. A moderately eloquent sermon would not satisfy her: she needed strong

stimulants.”8

And, it seems that Irving’s world was just the sort that Catherine wanted her only child to

experience. According to Ferrey, Catherine never missed an Irving sermon, and never once

attended without her son in tow.9 Irving reached the height of his influence and popularity in

the early 1820‘s -- meaning that before the age of ten or eleven, Pugin would have heard from

Irving the most extreme presentations of Victorian England’s apocalyptic foreboding, and

witnessed the most exaggerated ‘manifestations’ of millennial obsessions that he could ever

imagine.

Ferrey confirms that Catherine’s own version of Irving’s Evangelism continued when

they returned to the Pugin house. She ran a very strict household. “Each day started with a

prayer; thereafter, every minute was accounted for by her regime of strict discipline and so-

briety. Every member of the household, including her son and the articled pupils, was ex-

pected to conform or experience her fury.”10 It is also known that she was wont to routinely

provide a mixture of unearthly stories and apocalyptic prophesy -- to Pugin and all -- planting

images of ghosts and immanent catastrophe in the minds of those around her.

The potential of tacit dread of Pugin’s childhood -- in the background of his culture and

then exaggerated and crystallized by his mother and others like Irving -- is well documented.

However, what is less well chronicled is the likely role that Pugin’s father played in the fur-

ther haunting of their son. Auguste Charles Pugin probably first became acquainted with

Rudolf Ackermann and his Repository of the Arts in 1805, and was routinely visiting and do-

ing business with Ackermann and his art gallery before his son was born.  And, it is known

that even at a very young age, Auguste involved his son in nearly all of his numerous artistic

enterprises. Consequently, it’s easy to surmise that he would have wanted to share with his

5

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(8) 8  Ferrey,  B.,  Recollections  of  A.  N.  Welby  Pugin  and  his  Father,  Augustus  Pugin,  with  Notices  of  their  Works.,  Edward  Stanford  Pub.,  London,  1861.  p.  41.

(9) 9  See  Ferrey

(10) 10  Ferrey,  pp.  45,  48.

son the artistic world that was unfolding in the Repository, which was a leading art gallery in

London and a centre of artist criticism and fashion. At the Repository, both father and son

would have seen engravings made by English painter John Martin, whose career was founded

at the Repository.11 Accepting for now that likelihood, the young Pugin would have had close-

up encounters with astonishing paintings of a religious and apocalyptic nature at a very young

age. It seems that young Pugin was not left only to imagine the world-ending scenes de-

scribed in Irving’s churches. Martin’s paintings12 graphically illustrated the very same cata-

strophic events that were being summoned into the minds of Irving’s throngs -- bringing any

remaining mental images of apocalypse one step closer to reality for him.

At the release of 'Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still,' Pugin would have been

four years old, 'The Fall of Babylon,' five; ‘Belshazzar's Feast,’ eight; 'The Destruction of

Pompeii and Herculaneum,' ten; and ‘Pandaemonium,’ thirteen.  There are dozens more of

Martin’s paintings exhibited during that time, predominantly representing terrifying scenes

of divine retribution as described in the Bible.

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(11) 11  See  Woods,  R.,  God’s  Architect,  Pugin  and  the  Building  of  Romantic  Britain,  Penguin  Books,  Lon-­‐don,  2007,  p.  36.  

(12) 12  Martin’s  original  oil  paintings  were  displayed  in  various  other  galleries  in  London.  It  is  certainly  arguable  that  the  Pugins  would  have  undoubtedly  been  willing  to  travel  across  town  to  see  the  paintings,  but  no  evidence  of  that  has  been  found.  Moreover,  Martin’s  apocalyptic  images  arise  in  the  Pugin’s  culture  in  other  ways.  As  an  example,  Martin’s  images  illustrated  the  1923  edition  of  Milton’s  Paradise  Lost.  Catherine  was  a  devoted  reader  of  that  book  and  was  able  to  quote  pas-­‐sages  from  it.  It  is  further  arguable  that  the  overlap  of  Auguste’s  interest  in  the  art  and  Catherine’s  interest  in  the  literature  would  have  led  to  them  to  have  a  copy  of  that  edition  in  their  home.

If Pugin was haunted by Martin’s paintings, there is no record of him saying so. However,

it would be surprising had he admitted their impact on him, since he resolutely refused to

talk about any of his fears. According to employee, son-in-law, and biographer John Powell,

Pugin avoided talking about anything that might be frightening or otherworldly. “There was

nothing speculative in his mind, ... he would never listen to indefinite or mysterious subjects,

clairvoyance, apparitions, diabolical possessions, etc... Any reputed haunted room was a posi-

tive terror.”13 It is also known that as an adult he was frightened by the dark, mirrors, sleep

walkers, and tolling bells14 -- the kind of fears that might have been caused by the everyday

world of the supernatural and gothic fiction as described above; or from being read to as a

child. Pugin did at times betray an apocalyptic preoccupation that may have remained from

his trips to see Irving. In Contrasts, his concluding text is from Daniel 5.27: “They are

weighed in the balance and are found wanting,” and in his Apology, Pugin cites Romans

13.12: “the night of sorrow is far spent, the brightness of returning glory is seen.”15

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(13) 13  Powell,  J.H.,  Pugin  in  his  Home:  A  Memoir  of  J.H.  Powell.,  Wedgewood,  A.  (Ed),  Architectural  His-­‐tory,  Vol.  31  (1988),  pp.  176-­‐77.

(14) 14  From  personal  correspondence  with  Rosemary  Hill.

(15) 15  For  more,  see  Woods,  R.,  “Reformation  to  Millennium:  Pugin’s  Contrasts  in  the  History  of  Eng-­‐lish  Thought”,  Journal  of  Architectural  Historians,  58:1,  March  1999,  pp.  26-­‐40.

As an aside, it is impossible not to recognize Martin’s preoccupation with depicting God’s

wrath as it is being unleashed on scenes of classical architecture -- or, in the case of Pandae-

monium, representing the very dwelling of Satan himself. A question begged is whether Mar-

tin’s paintings may be the true threshold of Pugin’s conviction of classical architecture’s blas-

phemy. That question remains to be pursued elsewhere.

However, Germane to this study, Pugin was again confronted by Martin’s paintings. Pugin

provided architectural work for Charles Scarisbrick at his castle. Among other peculiarities he

collected, Scarisbrick held the largest grouping of Martin’s paintings in the world -- more

than twenty of the apocalyptic scenes. And one of Pugin’s architectural assignments was to

display that collection in Scarisbrick’s house.  So, if Pugin was indeed privately haunted by

the Martin images as speculated here, it is painfully ironic that nearer the end of his life, he

was forced to encounter the very same images that may have terrified him as a boy.16

Historian of Liturgy

By the 1830‘s, the Gothic novel was still the dominant literary genre, and the Victorian

era in England was just beginning. The obsession with the world of the supernatural --

ghosts, fairies, premonitions, speaking with the dead, and exhibitions of mesmerizations and

‘animal magnetism’ was prominent and progressively occupying more of the fascinations of

England. Within the next decade, there would be little likelihood that there could be a per-

son living in Britain who would not know something of the happenings at a seance, or who

could routinely use supernatural allusions in their daily speech.17 And as Victorian reality

grew more and more entangled with the parallel surreality that preoccupied it, Pugin’s own

private world began to collapse. Following what Ferrey described as ‘a very short courtship’,

8

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(16) 16  Additionally,  Pugin  probably  had  other  involvement  with  the  Martin  images  -­‐-­‐  or  in  fact,  their  facsimiles  -­‐-­‐  when  as  a  pre-­‐teenage,  in  his  father’s  dioramas.  Although  Martin’s  paintings  were  not  officially  used  for  the  dioramas,  the  paintings  used  by  Pugin’s  father  and  his  partners  so  closely  resembled  his  own  that  Martin  went  to  court  to  have  them  pulled  down.

(17) 17  See  Winter,  A.,  Mesmerized:  Powers  of  Mind  in  Victorian  Britain,  University  of  Chicago  Press,  Chi-­‐cago,  1998.

Pugin scandalously married his girlfriend, who five months later died after childbirth. His

father died seven months later, followed in four months by his mother. In less than a year, and

at age twenty-one, Pugin’s innermost circle of loved ones was gone. The loss was severe, and

meant longterm concern and anxiety. As biographer Christabel Powell describes him, “Pugin

suffered a feeling of timor mortis brought about by these deaths, which gave him an acute

awareness of his own mortality... Moreover, “a recurring illness made him realize that his life

might be short.”18 According to biographer Purcell, Pugin “had, like Dr. Johnson ... a

strange horror of death.”19

Within two years the final member of Pugin’s extended family, his Aunt Selina, had died,

leaving him a modest inheritance. These consecutive loses seemed to take a real toll on Pu-

gin. To that point, Pugin had only a passive involvement in religious matters -- likely balanc-

ing somewhere between the joy and awe he felt for the ancient gothic churches he sketched

while on the expeditions with his father, and the memories of “his Mother dragging him

when a boy from Church to Church to hear Eminent Preachers.”20 Following these deaths

Pugin made a serious turn towards a religious life. With his inheritance, Pugin took to the

project of discovering the nature of Christian faith; intending to grasp a clearer understanding

of faith through the history of Christian theology in England.

What had begun as an attempt to ground his faith in the Church of England ended after

three years of scholarship with a condemnation of it. Pugin’s reading of church history led

him to a rejection and repulsion of the Protestant overthrow of English Catholicism. It was no

doubt a difficult decision to make, but his reasons were many and went to the core of the

theology. But perhaps he was most profoundly affected by the way the ancient churches in

England were treated by the Protestants. “...and how heart-rending, how deplorable, how

scandalous is it to behold (as, sad to say, we have now fearful examples) even priests of the

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(18) 18  Powell,  C.,  Augustus  Welby  Pugin,  Designer  of  the  British  Houses  of  Parliament,  The  Victorian  Quest  for  a  Liturgical  Architecture,  Edwin  Mellen  Press,  Lewiston,  p.  60

(19) 19  Purcell,  E.S.,  Pugin  and  Turner,  p.  271,  as  quoted  by  Powell,  C.,  p.  60

(20)20  Powell,  J.H.,  p.  176

very temple combining, by word and deed, to break down the carved work of the sanctuary,

and destroying the barriers erected by ancient reverence and faith.”21

And it might be added here that while Pugin may have maintained that he found Edward

Irving’s Evangelical preaching exceedingly ‘boring,’ it does seem possible to agree with his

biographer Christabel Powell, who believes that Irving’s sensational orations describing God’s

divine chastisement of man must have had served some effect on Pugin. Besides instilling in

him “an Evangelical-type enthusiasm” for English Catholicism, “Irving’s influence was ex-

pressed in Pugin’s awareness of the supernatural, a concept of other-worldliness shared by

those converts, such as Newman and Manning, who had also been touched in their youth by

Evangelicalism.”22 And according to John Powell, “He accepted the great mysteries of his

Faith like a man of the Middle Ages, and with the same child-like awe of the Supernatural.”23

This paper advances from here with the proposition that at the point of his commitment to

Catholicism, Pugin’s ‘holy grail’ became the understanding and seizing of those supernatural,

‘great mysteries’, and in the course of that quest, he recognized that all aspects critical to

both understanding and teaching the mysteries are embodied in the controversies of the

chancel-screen.

‘Chancel-screens happen to be the battlefield’

Pugin clearly understood the role that the chancel-screens played in protecting the mys-

teries of the Catholic mass, and that they represented a division that would be difficult to

overcome. But it was a battle that he could not avoid waging:

“I cannot too strongly impress on the minds of my readers that the very vitals of Catholic

architecture are assailed by the opponents of screens.”24

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(21) 21  Pugin,  AWN,  Treatise  on  Chancel  Screens,  p.  6

(22) 22  Powell,  C.,  p  57.

(23) 23  Powell,  J.H.,  p.176

(24)24  Pugin,  AWN,  Treatise  on  Chancel  Screens,  p.  7

But he also struggled to articulate his feelings in ways other than describing the physical

role they play in Christian ritual and history. He is an architect, not a theologian. He accepts

that, but in so doing, I believe, acknowledges the inadequacy of his position.

“… I have to treat the subject in an architectural view, but still I trust to bring forward many facts that may lead to a better understanding and more charity on both sides ...”25

He lost nearly every battle over their presence in his

church designs -- and sometimes saw them pulled from

his projects even after he had solicited patrons to pay for

them. He often found himself in frustrating disagree-

ment with people who refused to accept his arguments --

sometimes even his strongest allies. He just could not

make anyone understand why the chancel-screen was so

important. Polemic disagreements occurred on nearly

every project and at times Pugin was overwhelmed with

frustrations due to his inability to make reasonable peo-

ple understand what just seemed obvious to him. Chris-

tabel Powell retells this story:

“The differences again emerged at Nottingham where Pugin had built another cathedral

- St. Barnabas’ Cathedral. ... Pugin was proudly showing an Anglican friend around the

cathedral and whispered that no one without holy orders should enter the sanctuary.

“Within” he said, “is the Holy of Holies. The people remain outside. Never is the sanc-tuary entered by any save those in sacred orders”. (Ward, V.1, p. 359) As he was speaking a

priest appeared in the sanctuary with two ladies. Pugin was indignant and asked the sac-

ristan to order them out. He was greatly dismayed to be told that it was [The] Bishop

Wiseman conducting two lady friends over the new church. Pugin simply burst into

tears.26

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(25) 25  Pugin,  AWN,  Treatise  on  Chancel  Screens,  p.  6n

(26)26  Powell,  C.,  p.136,  originally  found  in  Wilfrid  Ward’s,  Wiseman,  Vol.  I,  p.  359.

Pugin just could not believe how far away from the traditions of the church in nineteenth-

century had drifted, and in his Treatise on the Chancel Screen, Pugin offers a robust criticism of

the Protestant ‘room-worship,’ showing the breakdown of the sanctity of the Catholic chancel

by tracing its degradation through history. Room-worship is Pugin’s description for the sacri-

ficial act being performed in plain sight as conducted by the Protestant church, with no divi-

sion between clergy and congregants. He was sure that such an arrangement could not but,

“lower the majesty of religion to the level of a common show, and degrade the sacrament before the people, giving occasion for scoffing and ridicule.”27

Pugin feels that the modification of the service just to turn it into only sensory experience for

the congregants is wrong,

“...room-worship, and the all-seeing principles, is a perfect novelty. Those indeed who

would make mass a sight, (his emphasis) are only to be compared to the innovators of the

16th century, who made it essential to be heard; those who compiled the Book of Common

Prayer converted the mass into all-hearing service; this was the great object of the ver-nacular change, that people might hear the priest; they were to be edified by what he

said, more than what he did; the sacrificial act was merged into the audible recitation of

prayers and exhortations.”28

By defending the chancel screen as he does, Pugin is trying to protect the mystery of the

Sacrament.  For without the mystery, the terror -- and simultaneously, the fascination with

the terror -- is lost to history.  And upon that, God has flown and all is just ‘a show’.

‘The Mysteries’

With a closer reading of the two books that define Pugin’s thinking at mid-career -- The

Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture, and An Apology for Christian Architecture (both 1843),

and a comparison with his final book, A Treatise on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts (1851), two

things become apparent. First, his thinking about Christian theology, and the role of the

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(27) 27  Pugin,  AWN,  Treatise  on  Chancel  Screens,  p.  107

(28)28  ibid,  p.  4.

‘mysteries’ seems to have moved into deeper water. And second, even though he has found

needed substantiation for the intuition on which he depended in his earlier work, he contin-

ues to struggle to express himself in ways outside of his familiar architectural language of pre-

scription and historic precedence.

I think that the deepening of his thinking can be traced to his research into the history of

early Christian liturgy. For that, he turned primarily to French-language treatises written by

liturgical historians Jean-Baptiste Thiers, and La Brun de Marettes (pseudonym De Mo-

leon), among others.29 In these treatises, Pugin found positions sympathetic to his own re-

garding the sanctity of the chancel. It seems that their influence was important in shaping

Pugin’s understanding of the liturgy, and in particular in how to conceptualize and explain

the supernatural aspects that seemed to have stayed just beyond his grasp in his earlier work.

For perhaps the first time, Pugin hears a description of the supernatural that he can adopt. As

an example, in his treatise, Sur’Exposition du S. Sacrement de l’autel, Thiers posits that,

“In the Early church the Eucharist was hidden from view because those in

authority in the Church were cautious and fearful; they believed that it was a sin

to look at the Sacrament because of its formidable and awesome nature. If Al-

mighty God was present, who could look on God?”30

Furthermore, according to Thiers, the congregates were in harmony with the significance of

the Eucharist. And through their history in Christianity they had become attuned and satis-

fied in their roles as participants in the celebration of the mass, while holding the highest

respect for the authority of the clergy, and accepting without reason that their participation

was by nature, super-sensory. As Thiers describes,

“While there was nothing more familiar in the early Church than the celebration of the

Eucharist in the first centuries, there was nothing that had more respect from Christians.

But even this familiarity did not authorise them to view the Exposition of the Sacred Sac-

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(29)29  For  more,  see  Powell,  C.,  p.  203.

(30)30  Thiers,  J-­‐B,  Sur’Exposition  du  S.  Sacrement  de  l’autel,  (The  Exposition  of  the  Sacred  Sacrifice)  as  quoted  and  translated  by  Powell,  C.,  p.  330.

rament. The ancient Fathers believed that the sight of the consecrated Host required a state of grace, careful and grand arrangements regarding the celebration of the divine

Mysteries, and, lastly, that it was offensive to God for sinners to view it.31

It is likely that Pugin understood this in his earlier work, but it is not until the Treatise

that he begins to adopt its line. It provides him a fresh perspective in his defense of the

chancel-screen. In The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England (1843), he talks

about the mysteries described by Thiers, and now he is able to reframe Thiers’ observations

into architectural solutions.

“Roodscreens and lofts are not to be regarded as mere architectural enrichments raised

for effect, nor as enclosures for the sole purpose of protecting the chancel from improper

intrusion; for although they contribute to both these ends, yet their real intention must be sought for on profound mystical reasons.”32

Pugin seems here to recognize that the problem he has in trying to explain his thinking

about faith is as it orients around the screen as an architectural element.

“it is not a mere question of architectural detail, respecting a few mullions and a trans-

verse beam, but it involves great principles connected with discipline, and even faith..”33

And, it wasn’t until he turned his attention directly to the chancel screens and found his

answers he sought in the history of the liturgy that he understood the problem: that what he

was asking for was the openness to the irrational. It seems to me that in the Treatise for Chancel

Screens, Pugin makes his newly articulated position hyper-clear.  God is physically present in the

altar (my emphasis). And given the unique wonderfulness of it all, we shouldn't be surprised

that we don't believe it.  Moreover, we should expect neither an explanation or announce-

ment of God's presence. We should just accept it without doubt:

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(31) 31  Thiers,  J-­‐B,  p. 330.

(32) 32  Pugin,  AWN,The  Present  State  of  Ecclesiastical  Architecture  in  England,  Charles,  Dolman,  London,  1843.

(33) 33  Pugin,  AWN,  Treatise  on  Chancel  Screens  p.  1

“Though all this should fill us with admiration, there is nothing to excite surprise, when we reflect on the very sacred nature of the Christian mysteries -- no sign typical and pro-

phetic, as under the Mosaic law, but our blessed Lord truly present and abiding in the

temple in the holy sacrament of the altar..."

Of course, it can be said that all Catholics believe this presence in one way or another,

and you could say that given the various definitions of what 'presence' might mean for the

nineteenth-century Catholic, then presence can conceivably be reduced to symbolism.  But I

think Pugin's insistence on the establishment and protection of the holy of holies, especially

considering his pragmatic understanding of the significance of the physical, then he believes

-- and requires others to believe -- in the embodiment of God, 'present and abiding' in the

church.  

I think that he sees himself as following a single set of divine instructions -- as precisely

handed down to him through his dedication to scholarship and valorization of history -- to

put the church and all the "ecclesiastical things" in predestined order, and that is all he can

do as a Christian architect.  After that, the 'things' are then embodied through consecration,

making them ‘real’.  And, he finds explaining all this unavoidable, reductive, and repulsive.

For the instant its idea is formed and comprehended, it is reduced to symbol:

“In this understanding, this world was unreal since it only symbolized what was real.  It

could give only an imperfect representation of reality, which was beyond man’s abilities to comprehend or demonstrate other than completely superficially.”

This of course also defines Pugin’s dilemma -- and from which there is no way out for

him.  He requires from everyone the same prereflective, pre-rational state of faith into which

he has worked himself.  That aporia eventually brings him to tears as we have seen, and pos-

sibly to insanity.

I now believe that Pugin’s thinking about the sacred went through a major transformation

beginning in his Apology (1843) and was further developed in his Treatise (1851).  Both books

show him caught between being a practical architect/historian, and a meditative historian/

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liturgist.  As an example, in the Apology, he writes like a professor or an architect. His prag-

matic dealing with things that we know he holds as sacred is notable:

“Sacred imagery is a noble field for the exercise of the highest powers of art; and painting and sculpture, when devoted to the service of the Church, are calculated to improve and

elevate the religious feelings of a nation in a surprising degree.”34

This kind of language leads modern historians to reduce him to the proto-modern, for-

ward edge of the Arts and Crafts movement, as well as someone still on a moral crusade. But,

in the Treatise, his thinking shows its deeper side.  He tries to keep a place for the role of

symbol, but he also allows for the possibility of loosing all contact with representation:

“… and symbolically, [the screen ornaments] impress on the minds of the faithful the

great sanctity of all connected with the sacrifice of the altar, and that, like the vicinity of

the “burning bush,” the ground itself is holy. ...  indeed, so sacred, so awful, so mysteri-ous is the sacrifice of the mass, that if men were seriously to reflect on what it really con-

sists, … they would hasten to restore the reverential arrangement of Catholic antiquity,

and instead of striving for front seats and first places, they would hardly feel worthy to

occupy the remotest corner of the temple.”35

The symbol in the carvings of the chancel screen in this discussion is didactic:  it says,

'stay away' or 'shield thy eyes'.  But the role of the architecture behind the symbol is for Pugin

more than that.  It's clearly an embodiment of the supernatural.

ConclusionIt seems that Benjamin Ferrey offers the best interpretation of the work of his friend Pu-

gin at the end of his life. Ferrey concludes this about Pugin’s struggle with the mysteries:

“With its stupendous mysteries Christianity introduced an architecture of its own, sym-

bolical of the sublime doctrines of the Christian religion. It is not the mere beauty …

which renders it so immeasurably superior … but the wonderful power it exhibits, in em-bodying and illustrating the faith and practices of Christianity.”36

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(34)34  Pugin,  AWN.  Treatise  on  Chancel  Screens,  p.  3

(35) 35  ibid,  p.  7

(36)36  Ferrey,  p.  317

With that, I think that a potential reading of Pugin can be this: First, that it can be agreed

that there where some deep aspects of Christian Architecture with which Pugin seems to

have been in touch. And as Ferrey summarizes, the mysteries themselves make its own architec-

ture. It is not in the hands of the architect as creator. And in its own making, true Christian

architecture is rendered immeasurable. In other words, it was not so much that Pugin was reviv-

ing Gothic Architecture (as he argued in his early work), or even Christian Architecture (as he

claimed later), but rather he was reviving the sense of the mysteries of the religious super-

natural.

References & Further Reading

Pugin(1) Belcher,  M.,  (ed.)  The  collected  letters  of  A.  W.  N.  Pugin,  V.  I,  II,  III,  Oxford  University  Press,  2001+

(2) Ferrey,  B.,  Recollections  of  A.  N.  Welby  Pugin  and  his  Father,  Augustus  Pugin,  with  Notices  of  their  Works.,  Edward  Stanford  Publishers,  1861.  

(3) Powell,  C.,  Augustus  Welby  Pugin,  Designer  of  the  British  Houses  of  Parliament,  The  Victorian  Quest  for  a  Liturgical  Architecture,  Edwin Mellen Press, c2006.

(4) Powell,  J.H.,  Pugin  in  his  Home:  A  Memoir  of  J.H.  Powell.,  Wedgewood,  A.  (Ed),  Architectural  History,  Vol.  31  1988.

(5) Pugin,  A.  W.  N.,  The  Present  State  of  Ecclesiastical  Architecture  in  England,  London,  1843.

(6) Pugin,  A.  W.  N.,  The  true  principles  of  pointed  or  Christian  architecture:  set  forth  in  two  lectures  de-­‐livered  at  St.  Marie’s,  Oscott,  by  A.  Welby  Pugin,  Henry  G.  Bohn,  1853.

(7) Pugin,  A.  W.  N.,  Contrasts,  or,  A  parallel  between  the  noble  edifices  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  and  similar  buildings  of  the  present  day  :  shewing  the  present  decay  of  taste,  Lon-­‐don,  Printed  for  the  author,  and  published  by  him,  1836.

(8) Pugin,  A.  W.  N.,  A  Treatise  on  Chancel  Screens  and  Rood  Lofts:  Their  Antiquity,  Use,  and  Symbolic  Signification,  Charles  Dolman,  1851.

(9) Pugin,  A.  W.  N.,  Some  Remarks  which  have  recently  appeared  in  the  Rambler,  relative  to  Ecclesiastical  Architecture  and  Decoration,  Charles  Dolman,  1850.

(10) Purcell,  E.S.,  “Pugin  and  Turner,”  In  The  Dublin  Review,  February,  1862.

(11) Stanton,  P.,  “Pugin:  Principles  of  Design  versus  Revivalism,”  in  the  Journal  of  the  Society  of  Archi-­‐tectural  Historians,  Vol.  13,  No.  3,  Oct.,  1954.

(12) Trappes-­‐Lomax,  M.,  Pugin,  a  mediaeval  Victorian,  Sheed  &  Ward,  1932

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(13) Woods,  R.,  God’s  Architect,  Pugin  and  the  Building  of  Romantic  Britain,  Penguin  Books,  2007.  

(14) Woods,  R.,  “Reformation  to  Millennium:  Pugin’s  Contrasts  in  the  History  of  English  Thought”,  Journal  of  Architectural  Historians,  58:1,  March  1999.

Irving,  Martin,  and  the  Supernatural

(15) Bown,  N.,  Burdett,  C.,  Thurschwell,  P.,  (eds.),  The  Victorian  Supernatural,  Cambridge  University  Press,  2004.

(16) Dallimore,  A.,  Forerunner  of  the  charismatic  movement  :  the  life  of  Edward  Irving,  Moody  Press,  c1983.

(17) Feaver,  W.,  The  art  of  John  Martin,  Clarendon  Press,  1975.

(18) Lewis,  C.  S.,  Surprised  by  joy  :  the  shape  of  my  early  life,  Harcourt,  Bruce,  1956.

(19) Moodie,  S.,  Letters  of  a  Lifetime,  University  of  Toronto  Press,  1985.

(20)Moran,  M.,  Catholic  sensationalism  and  Victorian  literature,  Liverpool  University  Press,  2007.  

(21) Otto,  R.,  The  idea  of  the  holy,  Oxford  University  Press,  1950.  

(22) Strachan,  C.  G.,  The  Pentecostal  theology  of  Edward  Irving,  Darton,  Longman  and  Todd,  1973.  

(23)Winter,  A.,  Mesmerized:  Powers  of  Mind  in  Victorian  Britain,  University  of  Chicago  Press,  1998.  

(24)Zemka,  S.,  Victorian  testaments  :  the  Bible,  christology,  and  literary  authority  in  early-­‐nineteenth-­‐century  British  Culture,  Stanford  University  Press,  c1997..

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