Churches

St Helen, Ranworth

First appeared in Let's Talk! Norfolk, July 2004

The Reformation sparked in England by Henry VIII's wish to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, led to massive changes in everyone's lives.

The dissolution of the monasteries was a crashing blow to the structure of society that had lasted for centuries - and it made thousands of monks homeless and unemployed.

In the brief reign of Henry's young son Edward VI, even the saints lost their old jobs.

In Catholic England, saints were important intermediaries between the common folk and God. Toothache? Pray to St Apollonia. Eye trouble? Appeal to St Lucy. And so on.

In the new Protestant regime, this was considered dangerous superstition. The images of saints that richly adorned every church were smashed, scratched out or obliterated.

Happily for us, some survived under generations of whitewash. Cleaned up, they give us a wonderful glimpse into the lives of the people who lived here 500 years ago.

The chancel screen at Ranworth, in the heart of the Broads, is possibly the finest surviving painted example in England.

Spanning the width of the church, it has 24 panels with 15th century images of saints. They were exquisitely restored - but not repainted - in 1975.

Here you can see all the apostles, plus saints Stephen, Lawrence, Bartholomew and John the Baptist.

Perhaps more remarkable is the collection of female saints associated with the Holy Family.

Mary Salome is shown with her sons, the apostles James and John, the Virgin with the Christ Child, and Mary Cleophas with her infant sons and future apostles James, Joses, Simon and Jude.

St Margaret, patron saint of childbirth, is also there, triumphing over the dragon that is supposed to have swallowed her.

In fact all three of the saints commonly associated with dragons are here. Facing each other across the nave are St George, identifiable by his red cross, and the archangel Michael, with delightfully feathery wings.

It is a moot point whether any of these dragon-slayers ever really existed in what we would think of today as life. But they retain a vibrant lifelike quality here at Ranworth.

Six apostles: saints Simon, Thomas, Bartholomew, James, Andrew and Peter

Dragon-slayers: St George and St Michael conquering evil