CHRISTIAN CULTURE
2024 update (see end of section)
It may seem odd to treat Christian Culture as a subject in itself, but it seems to me that at this point in time, as our culture is rapidly becoming predominantly secular, this is something we need to do: to pass onto our children in a more formal way all that is good and noble in the Christian civilisation of the past 2,000 years.
As I've noted elsewhere, Catholic historian Christopher Dawson insists in his enlightening book, The Crisis of Western Education, that 'the study of Christian culture is the missing link which it is essential to supply if the tradition of Western education and Western culture is to survive, for it is only through this study that we can understand how Western culture came to exist and what are the essential values for which it stands....if modern education fails to communicate some understanding of this great tradition, it has failed in one of its most essential tasks.'
With this in mind, it seems a good idea to treat more formally (and make liberal use of as subject matter) all those elements of our own culture which we would normally pass onto our children in a more general way. I'm thinking here of things like lives of the saints, art, architecture, literature etc. There is a lot of scope for imaginative planning here! What follows offers a very broad outline of a suggested approach, but I would be interested to hear about others' thoughts on how to tackle this subject (see below for an update in 2020)
Dawson suggests the following division into 'the six ages of the Church' (though other divisions could be made instead):
1. Apostolic age (1 –300 A.D.)
2. Patristic Age (300 –650 AD)
3. Carolingian Age (650 –900 AD)
4. High Middle Ages (900 – 1500 AD)
5. The Age of Baroque (1500 –1800 AD)
6. The Modern Age (1800 AD – Present)
In the primary years, this might be taught by tying in the lives of the saints to our historical studies (and if you don't study history formally, here is a roundabout way of fitting it in). So, for example, while a child is looking at the era from 0 - 1,000 AD, he might study the Saints of the Apostolic age (1 –300), the Patristic Age (300 –650) and the Carolingian Age (650–900).
In the middle years, he might focus not so much on the lives of individual saints as on the manifestations of Christian culture during whatever historical period he is studying. For example, when studying the Normans, he might investigate ecclesiastical architecture, illuminated manuscripts and the development of religious orders. Alternatively, you could make this a separate study altogether and follow it through chronologically.
At Secondary level, he might cover Church History more formally, from Apostolic times to the 20th century, using a text such as Fr Laux's monumental 'Church History'.
2020 UPDATE
Recently (2019-20), I prepared some classes on this topic at our local home-education co-op for the 11-13 year olds. My plan was to give the children an overview of the historical period and the main features of development in our Catholic culture, followed by a quiz to test their knowledge, and some practical activity. So far we have looked at The Apostolic and the Patristic Age in European history; when we reached the pontificate of Pope Gregory the Great and the sending of Augustine to England, we backtracked and looked specifically at the situation in Britain up to the Norman conquest - so, I did not follow Dawson's outline here. This was partly because I think the study of the development of our own country's culture is important for us, but also because tackling the whole of European history at this point was just not possible.
Here are the notes I used for the classes, together with the quizzes. My main resources were Fr Laux's Church History for the European history, and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England, Belloc's Shorter History of England, various children's history books and some full colour books on the insular manuscripts for the British History. Please bear in mind that this is very much a work in progress and needs much improvement!
- Lesson 1 Origins of Christian Culture
- Lesson 2 The Apostolic Age c 1-300
- Lesson 3 The Patristic Age c 30-600 Notes on expressions of Christian Culture, quiz
Timeline of Church history to 600AD
Timeline of Christian Culture to 600AD
- Lesson 4 Christian Culture in Britain to c 750AD
- Lesson 5 Christian Culture in Britain 750- 1066AD (coming soon)
Practical extension activities
Apostolic and Patristic Ages: At the end of the first three lessons, the children worked on a presentation to the group of various early expressions of Christian culture: they watched videos of the catacombs and reproduced some of the symbols (e.g ICTHUS) in clay and painting; they studied the Ravenna and Hagia Sophia mosaics and created their own simple mosaics; they studied the background to the Chi Rho and the labarum of Constantine. Finally, they studied developments in architecture and drew plans to show the adaptation of the Roman basilica and the differences between Roman and Byzantine styles.
Here are some prompts we used for the project (here are some images for the architecture project; also, a diagram of Old St Peter's).
British Culture to c750/800 After lesson four, the children studied the production of insular manuscripts with particular reference to the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels. They practised Celtic Knot-work, writing in Insular Majuscule script and drawing stylised animals and people.
Here are some of the resources I used to help them (some are taken from the well known books on Celtic art and writing by Aidan Meehan):
Kells: black and white page of Kells; letter practice insular majuscule m/n, r, d, a; some animals to copy; the eagle for St John; St Matthew
Lindisfarne: decorated letter M
Knotwork: Celtic knotwork step by step; how to draw spirals and triskeles
We were working through lesson 5 when our group stopped due to the coronavirus pandemic. We were studying Anglo Saxon writing (and listening to it being read aloud) and were just about to have a go at writing Saxon style verse, including kennings. This was to be followed by a whole lesson on the Saxon epic Beowulf (the earliest epic poem in a vernacular tongue and often considered the beginning of English Literature). There are many translations to choose from (some noted on this Literature Page), and a short animation (narrated by Derek Jacobi and with the voice of Ralph Fiennes as Beowulf) which is worth watching as it keeps the style of the original poem. You can watch some of it here.
Here are my background notes for the Saxon poetry class and here are some examples of Saxon poetry for study.
Extra resources 2024
A year or so ago I organised a series of weekly classes run by a variety of willing volunteers from our parish. One of the classes was Church History. The gentleman who researched, planned and delivered these classes did so in a very imaginative way involving at various times art, map reading, drama (we had great fun acting out 'A Man for All Seasons'), University Challenge style quizzes and a trip to a local Tudor mansion where the teens were encouraged to re-enact a pursuivant raid (the classes ended at the Tudor period). He also introduced me to an excellent source book for anyone preparing a course on this topic: 'How to read Church History' by Jean Comby, and has very kindly agreed to make all his class notes available in case they will be of use to other home-educating parrents (thank you, Graham):
Church History Part 1: c33-843 AD
Church History Part 2 c.840-1580AD
2024 update (see end of section)
It may seem odd to treat Christian Culture as a subject in itself, but it seems to me that at this point in time, as our culture is rapidly becoming predominantly secular, this is something we need to do: to pass onto our children in a more formal way all that is good and noble in the Christian civilisation of the past 2,000 years.
As I've noted elsewhere, Catholic historian Christopher Dawson insists in his enlightening book, The Crisis of Western Education, that 'the study of Christian culture is the missing link which it is essential to supply if the tradition of Western education and Western culture is to survive, for it is only through this study that we can understand how Western culture came to exist and what are the essential values for which it stands....if modern education fails to communicate some understanding of this great tradition, it has failed in one of its most essential tasks.'
With this in mind, it seems a good idea to treat more formally (and make liberal use of as subject matter) all those elements of our own culture which we would normally pass onto our children in a more general way. I'm thinking here of things like lives of the saints, art, architecture, literature etc. There is a lot of scope for imaginative planning here! What follows offers a very broad outline of a suggested approach, but I would be interested to hear about others' thoughts on how to tackle this subject (see below for an update in 2020)
Dawson suggests the following division into 'the six ages of the Church' (though other divisions could be made instead):
1. Apostolic age (1 –300 A.D.)
2. Patristic Age (300 –650 AD)
3. Carolingian Age (650 –900 AD)
4. High Middle Ages (900 – 1500 AD)
5. The Age of Baroque (1500 –1800 AD)
6. The Modern Age (1800 AD – Present)
In the primary years, this might be taught by tying in the lives of the saints to our historical studies (and if you don't study history formally, here is a roundabout way of fitting it in). So, for example, while a child is looking at the era from 0 - 1,000 AD, he might study the Saints of the Apostolic age (1 –300), the Patristic Age (300 –650) and the Carolingian Age (650–900).
In the middle years, he might focus not so much on the lives of individual saints as on the manifestations of Christian culture during whatever historical period he is studying. For example, when studying the Normans, he might investigate ecclesiastical architecture, illuminated manuscripts and the development of religious orders. Alternatively, you could make this a separate study altogether and follow it through chronologically.
At Secondary level, he might cover Church History more formally, from Apostolic times to the 20th century, using a text such as Fr Laux's monumental 'Church History'.
2020 UPDATE
Recently (2019-20), I prepared some classes on this topic at our local home-education co-op for the 11-13 year olds. My plan was to give the children an overview of the historical period and the main features of development in our Catholic culture, followed by a quiz to test their knowledge, and some practical activity. So far we have looked at The Apostolic and the Patristic Age in European history; when we reached the pontificate of Pope Gregory the Great and the sending of Augustine to England, we backtracked and looked specifically at the situation in Britain up to the Norman conquest - so, I did not follow Dawson's outline here. This was partly because I think the study of the development of our own country's culture is important for us, but also because tackling the whole of European history at this point was just not possible.
Here are the notes I used for the classes, together with the quizzes. My main resources were Fr Laux's Church History for the European history, and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England, Belloc's Shorter History of England, various children's history books and some full colour books on the insular manuscripts for the British History. Please bear in mind that this is very much a work in progress and needs much improvement!
- Lesson 1 Origins of Christian Culture
- Lesson 2 The Apostolic Age c 1-300
- Lesson 3 The Patristic Age c 30-600 Notes on expressions of Christian Culture, quiz
Timeline of Church history to 600AD
Timeline of Christian Culture to 600AD
- Lesson 4 Christian Culture in Britain to c 750AD
- Lesson 5 Christian Culture in Britain 750- 1066AD (coming soon)
Practical extension activities
Apostolic and Patristic Ages: At the end of the first three lessons, the children worked on a presentation to the group of various early expressions of Christian culture: they watched videos of the catacombs and reproduced some of the symbols (e.g ICTHUS) in clay and painting; they studied the Ravenna and Hagia Sophia mosaics and created their own simple mosaics; they studied the background to the Chi Rho and the labarum of Constantine. Finally, they studied developments in architecture and drew plans to show the adaptation of the Roman basilica and the differences between Roman and Byzantine styles.
Here are some prompts we used for the project (here are some images for the architecture project; also, a diagram of Old St Peter's).
British Culture to c750/800 After lesson four, the children studied the production of insular manuscripts with particular reference to the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels. They practised Celtic Knot-work, writing in Insular Majuscule script and drawing stylised animals and people.
Here are some of the resources I used to help them (some are taken from the well known books on Celtic art and writing by Aidan Meehan):
Kells: black and white page of Kells; letter practice insular majuscule m/n, r, d, a; some animals to copy; the eagle for St John; St Matthew
Lindisfarne: decorated letter M
Knotwork: Celtic knotwork step by step; how to draw spirals and triskeles
We were working through lesson 5 when our group stopped due to the coronavirus pandemic. We were studying Anglo Saxon writing (and listening to it being read aloud) and were just about to have a go at writing Saxon style verse, including kennings. This was to be followed by a whole lesson on the Saxon epic Beowulf (the earliest epic poem in a vernacular tongue and often considered the beginning of English Literature). There are many translations to choose from (some noted on this Literature Page), and a short animation (narrated by Derek Jacobi and with the voice of Ralph Fiennes as Beowulf) which is worth watching as it keeps the style of the original poem. You can watch some of it here.
Here are my background notes for the Saxon poetry class and here are some examples of Saxon poetry for study.
Extra resources 2024
A year or so ago I organised a series of weekly classes run by a variety of willing volunteers from our parish. One of the classes was Church History. The gentleman who researched, planned and delivered these classes did so in a very imaginative way involving at various times art, map reading, drama (we had great fun acting out 'A Man for All Seasons'), University Challenge style quizzes and a trip to a local Tudor mansion where the teens were encouraged to re-enact a pursuivant raid (the classes ended at the Tudor period). He also introduced me to an excellent source book for anyone preparing a course on this topic: 'How to read Church History' by Jean Comby, and has very kindly agreed to make all his class notes available in case they will be of use to other home-educating parrents (thank you, Graham):
Church History Part 1: c33-843 AD
Church History Part 2 c.840-1580AD