Charlotte Brontë’s industrial saga Shirley contains many episodes that seem alien to us today. Take the ruckus that erupts after furious Dissenters confront a Whitsuntide procession at which timid protagonist Caroline Helstone is in attendance. Nowadays, perhaps the gravest offence against such practices is rarely fervour against “Popish” customs, but ignorance that they exist at all.
Whitsunday, the proper English name for Pentecost, was observed as a major feast day in Britain for more than 1,000 years, although many elements were temporarily repressed by the Reformation. For now it has largely been discarded by our transformed tastes for the secular.
