Helen Constance White: Hildebrand, Matilda, and the Tudors

After my foray into the works of Josephine Ward, I've discovered another rather forgotten Catholic woman writer, the English professor and historical novelist, Helen Constance White. Cluny Media has published several of her historical novels. I just finished reading Not Built With Hands: A Novel. Cluny describes it thus:

Not Built with Hands tells of Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, whose valor and vision proved invaluable in resolving the Investiture Controversy of eleventh-century Christendom. As the staunchest of Pope Gregory VII’s lay advisers, Matilda is called to constant service of the Church’s mission to build the City of God, even at the expense of her own kingdom. Despite the rampant political confusion and domestic strife that threatens to consume her realm, Matilda assumes the role of mediator between Church and State; in that role, she must work with (and against) such giants of history as Pope Gregory and Emperor Henry IV, Hugh of Cluny and Desiderius (the great Benedictine abbot who would become Pope Victor III), to achieve a concordant that will permit the two swords of society, the secular and the spiritual, to together rule in peace and amity.

“If, in fear of violence or through sloth, we suffer the power of the kingdom of God to pass into the hands of the princes of this world, then is the light of the world gone out, and chaos come again.”

Excepting her Norwegian contemporary Sigrid Undset, Helen C. White was peerless in her ability to bring the people and places of the past to brilliant life in the form of historical novels. That ability is on full display in Not Built with Hands (the second of her six novels), with its spirited and gracious heroine the embodiment of her author’s grand style and vision.

White tells a vivid story about Matilda's efforts to negotiate between Pope Gregory VII and Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor during the Investiture Controversy over who should name bishops: the Pope or the Emperor; and of what was the purpose of bishops: to be priests and leaders of their diocese in the Catholic religion or be supporters of the secular aims of the ruler. There are meetings, and synods, and discussions, and battles, and all manner of skirmishes in this long tale and White keeps the pace going as Matilda works with her mother, her (first) husbands, soldiers, monks, bishops, and vassals. The limited omniscient narrator knows Matilda's thoughts and feelings, particularly her care and concern for her friend the pope, formerly Hildebrand, but also for the peace of Church and State in her encounters with Henry IV, a worthy foe, mercurial, powerful, and dangerous. The novel is divided into six Books: Rome, The Fullness of the Year, Another City, Canossa, A Gold Cup, and The Green Fields. White does not miss the opportunities for vivid descriptions of households, landscapes, churches, cities, travel, and battles. 

I also have Cluny's edition of To the End of the World, but instead of jumping from 11th century Tuscany and Rome to late 18th century France, I'm going to pause with one of two Tudor era studies she wrote: Tudor Books of Saints and Martyrs. I have also acquired another withdrawn library book, her Tudor Books of Private Devotion.

Helen Constance White was the first woman Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and there are several on-line tributes to her, including this one by a former graduate student, writing her dissertation on John Donne. Professor White specialized in the Metaphysical poets. You may find a list of her titles in the Library of Congress here.