Count Saint Germain and the Reformation

[bibliogramma]

States of Grace, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Another Saint Germain novel is always a source of great delight for me. I freely admit that there’s a formula to the Saint Germain books, and the key plot points can be seen coming in advance, but as always, the way that Yarbro particularises her selected themes to a specific time and place delight the history buff in me.

This episode in the vampire count’s life takes place in Europe during the Reformation. Saint Germain is heavily invested in the new business of publishing, owning presses in both Venice and Germany, and must deal with issues of censorship fueled by religious intolerance on both sides of the great spiritual debate – even though the books he aims to publish are not in themselves religious books, but rather what in the time of the Reformation would be the best available scientific and cultural studies.

I can’t help thinking that this book, which addresses censorship of the press directly (censorship and religious intolerance are frequently depicted in the Saint Germain books), is Yarbro’s comment on the growing interference (at least in North America) of a particular religious view – fundamentalist Christianity – on the teaching and publishing of science, and more generally, the dangers that religious fundamentalisms of all kinds pose to true intellectual inquiry when they gain the power to dictate what is and is not acceptable in a society.