Sorting the Ranks

Reading Anthony Trollope’s novels collectively known as the Barchester Chronicles again—and also reading Joanna Trollope’s memorable novel, The Choir, also set in a cathedral—I am surrounded by clerics and church officials of different ranks. In Anthony’s The Warden there is an amusing exchange which justifies this post. The Dean of Barchester Cathedral has died, and the plot now turns on who will be named to replace him. And there, as the discussion swirls, someone asks: “What is it that the Dean does?” What indeed. Well, if the characters themselves don’t know—but do know, to the pence, what that “preferment” means in income—what is the poor reader to think?

(Parenthetically, nineteenth century English fiction has but one theme—although it is fed by two tributaries. One is what income a woman has (so that she is worth courting at all); the other is the “living” that a cleric can hope to earn (so that he can finally marry).)

I’ve spent a little time trying to inform myself about the ranks within the Church of England, and here is the list: archbishop, bishop, archdeacon, dean, canon, vicar, curate, verger, and sexton. This might be loosely matched to another list: province, diocese, archdeaconry, cathedral, parish, buildings and furnishings, and graveyards—and this because archbishops preside over provinces made up of multiple dioceses headed by bishops; each diocese is divided into archdeaconries; within each of these there might be cathedrals, headed by deans. Archdeaconries also hold parishes. The parish priest is the vicar; his assistant or assistants are curates. Vergers are lay people who manage the physical plant of churches and guide ceremonial events. Sextons, finally, are yet lower-level lay functionaries but have been associated principally with managing graveyards.

Now things need a little further sorting. The parish priest of a cathedral is the dean; and for this reason he is also a vicar; the vicar is always the senior cleric in a jurisdiction. Yes, fine. But what, then, do we do with the bishop? Well, in the Church of England the cathedral’s high priest is the dean, to underline it, and the bishop is viewed as a visitor or a resident. Just knowing this makes Trollope’s plots easier to understand. It’s sort of when the Secretary of the Navy happens to be on board of an aircraft carrier. He ranks the captain but the captain runs the ship. So now, finally, we know what a dean does.

Canon is a generic for any priest, but if he is the canon of a cathedral, that title is an honorific bestowed after long service in a vicarage and entitles its bearer to preach once yearly in a cathedral. In some jurisdictions, such honorees are also known as prebendaries; that word derives from a prebend, meaning an income (related to stipend)—once more emphasizing the important of those “livings.” In Trollope’s England many parishes were actually run by curates, thus junior priests, aka the minor canons; one wonders if that’s still going on. A good living accrues to the vicar, a paltry income to the curate; the curate’s income is rarely sufficient to marry on (or was so in Trollope’s time), especially if children began arriving. The rank of archdeacon, still alive and well in the Church of England, has faded from view in Catholicism; there, however, the same functionality is carried out by auxiliary bishops. To give the lower ranks their due, I show here a photo of Vergers at Work. I have it from The Church of England Guild of Vergers (link). They are shown here at their ceremonial work, thus leading a procession, in robes of their own. Notice that one of them is a lady. Progress, you might say; progress is marching on.

Literary Genes

This tale begins with my library. I love it, of course (because I’ve yet to meet a library I didn’t), but ours here is a poor relative living in a rich neighborhood—suggesting that great wealth and literary aspirations rarely coincide except in members of  the  third or fourth generation following the one that minted gold. Best sellers crowd the fiction shelves here; here and there between them one finds an old book, one of the classics—and sometimes not. In one of the branches I frequently visit while Brigitte does swimnastics, I went looking for Trollope. I found eight volumes by one Joanna Trollope but none by Anthony. Then the other day I was scanning the shelves again; I had no name in mind; I was, however, using my trusted technique: I ignore the slick-bound colorful volumes and look for something pale and old. Here’s one! I pulled it out. The title was The Old Country by Sholom Aleichem. Sholom Aleichem? Who might that be? More puzzlement followed. Julius and Frances Butwin translated this book from the Yiddish, and Frances wrote a foreword. In it she begins thus:

Years ago when Sholom Aleichem came to New York, Mark Twin was among the first to visit him. “I wanted to meet you,” he said, “because I understand that I am the American Sholom Aleichem.” History does not record the answer of the man who is called variously “the Jewish Mark Twain,” “the Jewish Dickens,” “the modern Heine.”

In the wake of these experiences I looked up these individuals—Joanna Trollope and Sholom Aleichem. And that in turn made me think that at least some part of literature might be in the genes.

Joanna Trollope (1943-) turns out to be a very popular British novelist with some twenty-eight novels to her credit, nineteen written under her own name and nine as Caroline Harvey. She is an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, an order of chivalry; she writes OBE behind her name; the award is testimony to her literary rank and reach. Several of her works have been turned into movies and one, The Choir, into a BBC miniseries. One of the Caroline Harvey historical novels is titled Parson Harding’s Daughter. Why goodness gracious. Wasn’t Harding the lead character in Anthony Trollope’s The Warden? Well, gentle reader, it turns out that Joanna and Anthony Trollope are relatives. She is a fifth-generation niece of the famed nineteenth century postal inspector. Joanna wrote her first novel at 14; it isn’t published, was all about herself, she says, and says she keeps it locked up lest her children see it. Fine and good—but also a clear indicator of the born writer. It’s in the genes. And my annoyance at that library shelf, missing Anthony, seeing the slick volumes of someone called Joanna, must now be revised. Next time I go, I’ll check one of them out. Stick with the genes.

Oh, before I forget. Trollop’s mother, Frances (nee Milton) Trollop (1779-1863), was also a writer, predominantly a novelist, with thirty-four novels and seven nonfiction books to her credit; the first of these latter was also her first book, Domestic Manners of Americans, a book said to be acerbic and witty (like mother like son). She’d moved to America and made a name for herself here (Cincinnati)—although in old age she moved to Italy and lies buried in Florence. Milton is a common enough name—but one kind of wonders…

Sholom Aleichem is of course a pseudonym, the Yiddish rendition of shalom aleikhem. Peace be upon you. The man behind it was Solomon Rabinovich (1859-1916), an extraordinarily prolific and popular author. He began writing in Russian and Hebrew then wrote the rest of his works in Yiddish, some forty volumes! Had I not been distracted when young, I would have learned something about Tevye the Milkman, and Tevye and his Daughters, stories that, by various bounces of fate became The Fiddler on the Roof. But my theme is literary genes. Solomon’s daughter Lyalya Kaufman became a Yiddish writer; his son became a painter and teacher of the arts. Lyalya’s daughter, Bel Kaufman, wrote Up the Down Staircase, which I did read and much enjoyed in my younger years. The genes march on. Sometimes they skip a generation or two or three or five. Sometimes they don’t wait.

In my own family the best-known literary figure is my great-uncle Károly Darnay (though only known in Hungary); he wrote histories, memoires, and romances. My aunt Olga was an accomplished writer. And some of those genes even reached Ghulfdom. We are, of course, but servants of our genes—to echo a modernist. When the genes want you to take the pen in hand, can you refuse?