Larping or Renewing? Rebuilding Culture amidst the Ruins

When modern readers think of Sigrid Undset, they usually picture the fjells and fjords of Kristin Lavransdatter or the austere scenes in Olav Audenssøn. It would be easy to write off her vision of medieval Christendom as a piece of brilliant historical nostalgia and literary escapism into an age when cathedral spires dominated the skyline and life revolved around the liturgical bell.

However, if you read her non-fiction essays, you quickly discover that Undset was in no sense a romantic escapist. She was not interested in a kind of thirteenth century re-enactment. When Undset wrote about the Catholic world of the Middle Ages, she was not suggesting we “larp” as medieval peasants. She was offering a template for how we might live as a Christian in a culture that has strayed far from God and from human connectedness.

Life in a post-Christian society – although I also like that Bishop Varden considers we have moved beyond into a post-secular world – life feels increasingly fragmented. In response, many might be tempted to gravitate toward one of two extremes: Ignoring the cultural malaise, blending into the background, and reducing faith to a private hobby; or heading for the hills to wait out the anti-Christianity that wearies us.

Undset rejected both paths. She recognised that post-Christian secularism – much like the ancient paganism of which she studied and wrote – eventually grinds down the human soul because it reduces life to material production, with the perceived benefit of immediate gratification and the welfare of the socialist state.

Undset’s answer was to build a civilisation infused with faith, wherever we find ourselves. For Undset, what made medieval Catholic society work was not that everyone was a saint; in fact her novels suggest the opposite. What made it work was its social cohesion centred on faith and family.

In the medieval worldview, time was sacred. The week was not a mere cycle of five workdays and a weekend spent consuming goods; it was structured around feasts, fasts, and liturgy. Work was vocational. The purpose of labour was not to benefit a global and soulless corporation; it was tied to family, guild and the local community. In this setting, there was an intrinsic value to the human person, with every king and every beggar understood as created in the image of God and redeemed through the same sacraments.

Culture was not something handed down by a centralised state apparatus or determined by social media. It was generated bottom-up out of a community committed to worship of God and the good of the clan.

Could Undset’s portrayal of community benefit us in a time of hyper-individualism driven by algorithms and contributing to the disintegration of parishes and families?

We can begin by recognising that culture resides in the people, not in the state and much less in media. We cannot wait for some miraculous reconstitution of Christendom. Instead, we look to creating micro-cultures in our own homes and parishes, rooted in charity towards God and neighbour.

Might we reclaim the sacrality of time by resisting the modern sense of Sunday as just another day of shopping and sport? Might we make the Dies Dominica a proper feast day, centred on the Mass and a family meal, with the door open to hospitality? Might we immerse ourselves in our parish? Become acquainted with our neighbours (in the literal and broader sense)? Might we support local craftsmen and small family businesses, and establish networks of mutual support? Might we resist outrage over civil or ecclesiastical politics while keeping a clear view of unhappy trends?

Undset was scorching in her critique of utopian promises. She reminds us that no catastrophe can conquer the activity of divine grace in the soul. Rebuilding a Christian culture is about living out our own Christian vocations with such joyful connection to God, family and neighbour, that a world spiritually starved will in time look over and beg for the bread Christ has to offer.