As a result of conscious rule by Rome, society is feudal, industrial growth is limited, technology has not developed under Catholicism as it would do under Protestant regimes. The lower classes are prevented from moving about the country by the Papal Bull, "Petroleum Veto". The inquisition is still at work (one of the stories, 'Brother John' describes the uprising caused by this) but technology is sometimes smuggled in. This smuggling, of radios, is described in 'The White Boat', previously excluded from British editions.

Against the developments represented by wireless communication, the rule of Rome is seen in other lines of development: not railways but traction engine drawn caravans cross the countryside between walled towns, harried at times by bandit gangs. There is no police force, only the military; long distance communication is done by relays of semaphore towers, which are under the control of the Guild of Signallers, a powerful body almost independent of the church.

It is at this point that we begin to notice that more things have changed in this alternative history than the non-appearance of the Protestant kings. One of the Guild's signal stations is described: "Silbury 973 was part of the C class chain that ran from near Londinium, from the great relay station at Pontes, along the line to Aquae Sulis": place names have changed. Rather than continuing in development, names have reverted to the Roman. Although the official language is Latin, English being subsidiary and itself subject to class differences, this is not how British place names seemed to be developing in the sixteenth century. Soon it becomes clear that there is a greater divergence between the present world and the world of PAVANE, than the divergence of 1588 could explain. The forces of the church seem at odds with the tendencies of the Counter-Reformation: the phantasmagoric "Fifth Measure", 'The White Boat', with its peasant girl at ease of a yacht, with its sea toilet, wearing "jeans and an old sweater", seems almost to cross into our own times; and finally we learn why the world does not seem to have progressed from 1588 as a knowledge of history suggests it would have, had Elizabeth died: this is not an alternative history but a future history: "The ways of the Church were mysterious, her policies never plain. The Popes knew, as he knew, that given electricity men would be drawn to the atom. That given fission, they would come to fusion. Because once, beyond our time, beyond all memories of men, there was a great civilisation. There was a Coming, a Death and Resurrection; a Conquest, a Reformation, an Armada. And a burning, an Armageddon." AS in Walter M. Miller's A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ, the Roman Catholic Church is the repository of knowledge: "The Church knew there was no halting Progress: but slowing it, slowing it even by half a century, giving men time to reach a little higher toward true Reason; that was the gift she gave this world."

PAVANE is thus more like Keith Robert's other Dorset fantasy, THE CHALK GIANTS, than it is like his own 'Weihnachtabend' (Christmas Eve), or Philip K. Dick's THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE.

PAVANE is a book of images, the writing is elusive. Although about the end of Papal rule it is set in an obscure area and only once or twice deals directly with the issues that bring about the end. The new American Independence that ensures Papal rule is broken is mentioned only in the Coda, for instance. Similarly, 'The Signaller' is an account of a boy join the Guild, given as he lies dying from a wild cat's attack, in which we are told of the Guild's importance, but the boy, Rafe Bigland, does nothing by which history progresses. The Strange family reappear in the series, hauliers who are in the process of expanding, taking over rivals, or driving rivals out of business; a daughter marries the feudal Lord of Purbeck but all of this is without any psychological investigation. The last Lady of Purbeck rebels against Rome and the King, but her rebellion is described again without investigation. Keith Robert externalises all this, especially into descriptions of landscape but also into accounts, for instance, mythology or working practice. In 'Brother John', about a monk drawn to lead a rebellion after seeing the work of the Inquisition, this externalisation is clear: "Brother John ignored the skirmishing; or perhaps he never saw. Riding now, driven forward by the voices and the noises in his brain, he reached the cliff edge. Below was a waste of water, wild and white, tumbling to the horizon and beyond. Here were no rollers: the hurricane into which a man might lean, flung the tops off the waves. From a score of run offs the cliffs spouted water into the bay; but the streams were caught by the wind and held, flung bodily back over the land, wavering upwards arcs that fed a ruffled lake of flood". This is not what John saw ("perhaps he never saw") nor have the following crowd arrived to see it: it is the author's image, pre-empting the battle into John's followers will succumb. This cross reference is evident in the language where words are used abnormally - adjectives as nouns, passive verbs as active etc. The story often relies on image s like this to carry it, the events are not always clear. In the middle stories, 'Lords and Ladies' and 'The White Boat' this is especially true; in 'The White Boat' it is difficult to tell whether the yacht is being used as a metaphor for technical progress, whether there is a great technical hiatus between the Catholic and free world, or whether some sort of time travel is supposed. Many readers like this nebulous narrative style: PAVANE has been called "Moody, eloquent, elegaic", and an F & SF reviewer said "the novel has that lyrical meaning that is so easy to feel and so hard to explain". However, it then means that two other subjects, which are clearly meant to be raised in the novel, are less clear, and less available for discussion.

The two subjects are: the connection of economics and religion; and, the Philosophy of History. One critic (Tom Shippey?) has pointed out that one of the influences on PAVANE is R.H. Tawney's RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM. Tawney showed that from the eleventh century onward Churchmen had to take increased interest in, and control of, three areas: usury (money lending), inflation, and land ownership and distribution. Changes in agriculture, wider reaching trade that required more capital, the early appearance of industrial development, all of these had massive social consequences, and the Church tried to control them: money lending for profit is forbidden in the Bible but as monasteries and churches grew richer they began to lend for profit. Churchmen began to ask not "How can usury be stopped", but "What is a just interest rate?" (just as they stopped trying to stop wars, and instead started teaching the idea of "just war"). Similarly, but less clearly, religious reformation began to be taught by priests who stirred up society and were then punished by Rome. Such priests were often identified with new economic or industrial interests: John Huss, for instance, who taught the English man John Wycliffe, was very popular with the growing ranks of silver miners in Bohemia. When national interests are tied to religion, religion can give a lot of justification to government practices. It can also be a hindrance: Henry VIII received a large income from the sale of monastery lands, and a great many people also got involved in land speculation. On the other hand, just before Philip of Spain sent off the Armada he took off all the doctors and replaced them with additional priests. As a generalisation, Protestantism appeared with and helped justify industrial and monetary progress and reorganisation, the tendency of Catholicism was, intentionally or not, to hinder it. The only major economic development that originated in Catholicism was double entry book keeping.

As PAVANE progresses we see the development of Strange And Sons, Hauliers. They overtake their rivals, and reach a local monopoly. Ruthless in their dealings, one daughter marries into the aristocracy, and her child leads a rebellion against Rome over economic tribute. There is little evidence of church intervention in the Strange business, little evidence of the Strange family considering whether they should charge the "just price". How they overtake their business rivals and how their capital is raised for expansion is never made clear. Some of the mentions of economic organisation are at odds with medieval practice: "(Eli Strange) had never believed in overstaffing, he'd worked his few men hard for the wages he paid, and got his money's worth out of them. Though how long that would go on was anybody's guess with the Guild of Mechanics stiffening its attitude all the time". The Guild here seems to be thought of as a trade union, which they never were, and the Guild's practice are not those of, say, the Signallers. But it does show the increasing separation of Masters and Journeymen, which preceded the division into capitalists and proletarians. The church, of course, as the Coda explains is actively intervening (although it is never seen), and the transition that will occur much faster. Although not a clear exposition it is an interesting introduction to Tawney.

Rafe Bigland's childhood and the social stratification from which the Guild offers him an escape are also well detailed.

The second point about PAVANE is the Philosophy of History: in other words, must things re-occur? Here, PAVANE seems at its weakest: how much oil would be available to a feudal economy, that would necessitate the Papal Bull 'Petroleum Veto'? 'The White Boat' opens in a bay black with coal that was never minded. There are no scarcities of metals and other materials: PAVANE is not set in a scarcity world. Where have these elements come from, if the society destroyed by fission used them as ours does?

How can an organisation like the Popes' have ensured that ages repeat themselves, so that even Kings and Queens have the same names as those of aeons before? It is here than PAVANE's structure shows its weaknesses. The Coda is sometimes ignored, so that people do not mention the repetition. In the light of it, the philosophy of the novel seems much weaker, and other features (like the mummerset spoken by the lower classes) more dubious. Ignore it, regard events as occurring once only, and the novel seems more accurate.

Like THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE events, their sequence and their causes are not stated directly. But "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy (the novel within Dick's novel) is discussed by Dick's characters as though it were a philosophical-historical work (even though it is, from the extracts quoted, a novel about "the boy Eric" in the shelling of Berlin, and "Karl" viewing Hitler's corpse). The characters in THE MAN discuss only how historical events could change, they do not discuss characterisation. And this returns to the problem of what an alternative history is about: characters in a changed world, or how history is not the same. No matter what characters are invented (and the characters of THE MAN are far more rounded than PAVANE, possibly because of Keith Roberts' opaque style), one ends discussing the ideas. Both Philip Dick and Keith Roberts give major roles to individuals, their lives or their deaths; in the end they ignore movements in history. Ironically, Hitler had the same view of the importance of individuals, and he was finally proved wrong. Hitler had great hopes that Roosevelt's death in 1944 would cause the Allies to collapse, as Frederick the Great had been saved by the death of the Russian Empress. History did not repeat itself, no individual was so important. The novel, which has to be about individual people, cannot sustain a full Philosophy of History. It can though, show some of its trends at work. On these, religion and society, PAVANE is very successful; as a generalisation on re-occurrence it is less so.