Jane Austen may have been looking back nostalgically to the Catholic monasteries of England when she wrote Northanger Abbey and other novels. Roger E. Moore describes the "sacred landscape" of England after the Reformation, and how it affected Austen.
Glastonbury is a fascinating historical novel that gives a sweeping view of English church history from the time of Christ to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen 