writing_religion | Anglican age of confirmation, 1913 or so

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naraht posting in

writing_religion

The main character in my current story attends an Anglican public school. The time period is just before World War I. I'm trying to figure out how old he might be when he gets confirmed. His faith is not particularly strong but I suspect he would view confirmation as the Thing To Do, especially since he's in a religious environment. Any help would be appreciated.

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From:

quinfirefrorefiddle

The Church of England website says "early teens" which matches up to what my instinct was. http://www.cofe.anglican.org/lifeevents/baptismconfirm/sectionc.html The BBC gives additional information about the types of Confirmation Rites- I think the one you'd want would be the Book of Common Prayer. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/ritesrituals/confirmation_1.shtml#h3

From:

naraht

I would have guessed early teens, just wasn't sure whether the norm would have changed in the last hundred years. I know that the BCP has, although probably not in the essentials. Thanks for the quick reply.

From:

quinfirefrorefiddle

I think the major difference, from the reading I've done, is that the confirmand used to have to do a LOT more memorization than they do now. Now it's all about being able to rephrase things in your own words.

From:

nineveh_uk

It's about a woman rather than a boy, but if you can get hold of a biography of Dorothy L Sayers there's some interesting stuff about her confirmation. Not of least relevance is that she didn't get confirmed when she chose, but when it was chosen for her by her parents and school. Your character would almost certainly get confirmed whenever his school had the boys "done". So biographies of contemporary men might be of relevance (C.S. Lewis must surely have been confirmed as a teenager, and would probably write about it).

(The Sayers story is fascinating, not least in that though a woman of strong religious faith all her life, she hated the experience of confirmation at school, and bitterly resented it as something "done to her". Ironically, I can imagine a boy without strong faith finding it easier, because he'd just go along with it as a social thing.)