Malvern are varieties doubtless typifying sins.
[Illustration: SINS IN SYMBOL, GREAT MALVERN.]
Rebuses.
[Illustration: BOLT-TON.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM WHITE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]
Rebuses are often met among Gothic sculptures, but not in such frequency,
or with an amount of humour to claim any great attention here. They are
almost entirely, as in the case of the canting heraldry of seals, of late
date, being mostly of the 15th and 16th centuries. They are often met as
the punning memorial of the name of a founder, builder, or architect, as
the bolt-ton of Bishop Bolton in St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, the
many-times-repeated cock of Bishop Alcock in Henry VII's. Chapel, the eye
and the slip of a tree, and the man slipping from a tree, for Bishop
Islip, Westminster; and others well known. In the series of misericordes
in Beverley Minster, there are _arma palantes_ of the dignitaries of the
Church in 1520. William White, the Chancellor, has no less than seven
different renderings of the pun upon his name, all being representations
of weights, apparently of four-stone ponderosity. Thomas Donnington, the
Precentor, whose name would doubtless often be written Do'ington, has a
doe upon a ton or barrel. John Sperke, the Clerk of the Fabric, has a dog
with a bone, and a vigilant cock; this, however, is not a name-rebus so
much as an allusion to the exigencies of his office. The Church of St.
Nicholas, Lynn, had misericordes (some of which are now in the
Architectural Museum) which have several monograms and rebuses.
Unfortunately, they are somewhat involved, and there is at present no key
by which to read them. The least doubtful is that given below.
[Illustration: WEIGHT, REBUS FOR WHITE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]
It has a "ton" rebus which will admit, however, of perhaps three different
renderings. It is most likely Thorn-ton, less so Bar-ton, and still less
Hop-ton, all Lincolnshire names.
[Illustration: MERCHANT MARK, COGNIZANCE AND REBUS, ST. NICHOLAS'S,
LYNN.]
Trinities.
[Illustration: LARVA-LIKE DRAGON, ST. PAUL'S, BEDFORD.]
Repeatedly has the statement been made that the various mythologies are
only so many corruptions of the Mosaic system. Manifestly if this could be
admitted there would be little interest in enquiring further into their
details. But there are three arguments against the statement, any one of
which is effective. Although it is perhaps totally unnecessary to
contradict that which can be accepted by the unreflective only, it is
sufficiently near the purpose of this volume to slightly touch upon the
matter, as pointing strong distinctions among ancient worships.
First, there is the simple fact recorded in the Mosaic account itself,
that there existed at that time, and had done previously, various
religious systems, the rooting out of which was an important function of
the liberated Hebrews. The only reply to this is that, by a slight shift
of ground, the mythologies were corruptions of the patriarchal religion,
not the Mosaic system. Yet paganism surrounded the patriarchs.
The second point is that most of the mythologies had crystallized into
taking the sun as the main symbol of worship, and into taking the
equinoxes and other points of the constellation path as other symbols and
reminders of periodic worship; whereas in the Mosaic system the whole
structure of the solar year is ignored, all the calculations being lunar.
If it be objected that Numbers ix. 6-13, and II. Chronicles xxx. 2, refer
indirectly to an intercalary month, that, if admitted, could only for
expediency's sake, and has no bearing upon the general silence as to the
solar periods. This second point is an important testimony to what may be
termed Mosaic originality.
The third point is that in most of the mythologies there is the distinct
mention of a Trinity; in the Mosaic system, the system of the Old
Testament, none. With the question as to whether the New Testament
supports the notion of a Trinity, we need not concern ourselves here; it
is enough that it has been adopted as an item of the Christian belief.
The mythological Trinities are vague and, of course, difficult or
impossible to understand. Most of them appear to be attempts of great
minds of archaic times to reconcile the manifest contradictions ever
observable in the universe. This is done in various ways. Some omit one
consideration, some another; but they generally agree that to have a
three-fold character in one deity is necessary in explaining the
phenomenon of existence. Some of the Trinities may be recited.
PERSIAN.
OROMASDES, Goodness, the deviser of Creation.
MITHRAS, Eternal Intellect, the architect and ruler of the world,
literally "the Friend."
ARIMANES, the mundane soul (Psyche).
GRECIAN.
ZEUS.
PALLAS.
HERA.
ROMAN.
JUPITER, Power.
MINERVA, Wisdom, Eternal Intellect.
JUNO, Love.
SCANDINAVIAN.
ODIN, Giver of Life.
HAENIR, Giver of motion and sense.
LODUR, Giver of speech and the senses.
AMERICAN INDIAN.
OTKON.
MESSOU.
ATAHUATA.
EGYPTIAN.
CNEPH, the Creator, Goodness.
PTA (Opas), the active principle of Creation (= Vulcan).
EICTON.
The Egyptians had other Trinities than the above, each chief city having
its own form; in these, however, the third personality appears to be
supposed to proceed from the other two, which scarcely seems to have been
intended in the instances already given. Some of the city Trinities were
as follow:--
THEBES.
AMUN-RA (= Jupiter), (RA = the Mid-day Sun.)
MANT or MENTU (= "the mother," Juno.)
CHONSO (= Hercules.)
PHILAE & ABYDOS.
OSIRIS (= Pluto).
ISIS (= Prosperine).
HORUS, the Saviour, the Shepherd (the Rising Sun).
ABOO-SIMBEL.
PTA or PHTHAH.
AMUM-RA.
ATHOR, Love (the wife of HORUS).
So that it is no coincidence that both Hercules and Horus are met in
Gothic carvings as deliverers from dragons.
ELEPHANTINE.
KHUM or CHNOUMIS.
ANUKA.
HAK.
MEMPHIS.
PTAH.
MERENPHTAH.
NEFER-ATUM.
HELIOPOLIS.
TUM (Setting Sun.)
NEBHETP.
HORUS.
Another Egyptian triad, styled "Trimorphous God!" was:--
BAIT.
ATHOR.
AKORI.
Another:--
TELEPHORUS.
ESCULAPIUS.
SALUS.
VEDIC HINDOO.
AGNI, Fire, governing the Earth.
INDRA, The Firmament, governing Space or Mid Air.
SURYA, The Sun, governing the Heavens.
BRAHMINIC HINDOO.
BRAHMA, the Creator.
VISHNU, the Preserver.
SIVA, the Destroyer (the Transformer) (= Fire).
The Platonic and other philosophic Trinities need not detain us; it has
been asserted that by their means the doctrine of the pagan Trinity was
grafted on to Christianity.
Right down through the ages the number three has always been regarded as
of mystic force. Wherever perfection or efficiency was sought its means
were tripled; thus Jove's thunderbolt had three forks of lightning,
Neptune's lance was a trident, and Pluto's dog had three heads. The
Graces, the Fates, and the Furies were each three. The trefoil was held
sacred by the Greeks as well as other triad forms. In the East three was
almost equally regarded. Three stars are frequently met upon Asiatic
seals. The Scarabaeus was esteemed as having thirty joints.
Mediaeval thought, in accepting the idea of the Christian Trinity, lavishly
threw its symbolism everywhere; writers and symbolists, architects and
heralds, multiplied ideas of three-fold qualities.
Heraldry is permeated with three-fold repetitions, a proportion of at
least one-third of the generality of heraldic coats having a trinity of
one sort or another. In all probability the stars and bars of America rose
from the coat-armour of an English family in which the stars were three,
the bars three.
St. Nicholas had as his attributes three purses, three bulls of gold,
three children.
Sacred marks were three dots, sometimes alone, sometimes in a triangle,
sometimes in a double triangle; three balls attached, making a trefoil;
three bones in a triangle crossing at the corners; a fleur-de-lys in
various designs of three conjoined; three lines crossed by three lines;
and many other forms.
God, the symbolists said, was symbolized by a hexagon, whose sides were
Glory, Power, Majesty, Wisdom, Blessing, and Honor. The three steps to
heaven were Oratio, Amor, Imitatio. The three steps to the altar, the
three spires of the cathedral, the three lancets of an Early English
window, were all supposed to refer to the Trinity.
Having seen that the idea of the Trinity is a part of most of the ancient
religious systems, it remains to point to one or two instances where, in
common with other ideas from that source, the Trinity has a place among
church grotesques.
There is a triune head in St. Mary's Church, Faversham, Kent, which was
doubtless executed as indicative of the Trinity. The _Beehive of the
Romishe Church_, in 1579, says: "They in their churches and Masse Bookes
doe paint the Trinitie with three faces; for our mother the holie Church
did learn that at Rome, where they were wont to paint or carve Janus with
two faces." In the Salisbury Missal of 1534 is a woodcut of the Trinity
triangle surmounted by a three-faced head similar to the above. Hone
reproduces it in his _Ancient Mysteries Described_, and asks, "May not the
triune head have been originally suggested by the three-headed Saxon deity
named "Trigla"?" The Faversham tria, it will be noticed, has the curled
and formal beards of the Greek mask.
[Illustration: A TRINITY, ST. MARY'S, FAVERSHAM.]
Another instance of a three-fold head similar to the Faversham carving is
at Cartmel.
A still more remarkable form of the same thing occurs as a rosette on the
tomb of Bishop de la Wich, in Chichester Cathedral, in which the trinity
of faces is doubled and placed in a circle in an exceedingly ingenious and
symmetrical manner. This has oak leaves issuing from the mouths, which we
have seen as a frequent adjunct of the classic mask as indicating Jupiter.
[Illustration: DOUBLE TRINITY OF FOLIATE MASKS, CHICHESTER.]
In carvings three will often be found to be a favourite number without a
direct reference to the Trinity. The form of the misericorde is almost
invariably a three-part design, and, being purely arbitrary, its universal
adoption is one of the evidences of the organization of the craft gild.
As with the misericorde, so with its subjects. At Exeter we have seen
(page 4) the tail of the harpy made into a trefoil ornament, while she
grasps a trefoil-headed rod (just as among Assyrian carvings we should
have met a figure bearing the sacred three-headed poppy). At Gayton (page
87) we have the three-toothed flesh-hook; at Maidstone is another.
Chichester Cathedral and Chichester Hospital have each three groups.
Beverley Minster has three fish interlaced, and three hares running round
inside a circle. In Worcester Cathedral there are three misericordes, in
each of which there are three figures, in which groups the number is
evidently intentional. Three till the ground, three reap corn with
sickles, three mow with scythes.
[Illustration: TRINITY OF MOWERS, WORCESTER.]
From them as being unusual in treatment, even in this stiff Flemish set,
is selected the trinity of mowers. Groups of three in mowing scenes is a
frequent number. Doubtless this carving is indicative of July, that being
the "Hey-Monath" of early times. One of the side supporters or pendant
carvings of this is a hare riding upon the back of a leoparded lion,
perhaps some reference to Leo, the sign governing July.
The three mowers do not make a pleasing carving, owing to the repetition
and want of curve.
Other instances of triplication in Gothic design might be given,
particularly in the choice of floral forms in which nature has set the
pattern. This section, however, is chiefly important as a convenient means
of incorporating a record of something further of the fundamental beliefs
of the world's youth, connected with and extending the question of the
remote origin of the ideas at the root of so many grotesques in church
art.
The Fox in Church Art.
[Illustration: PREACHING FOX, CHRISTCHURCH, HAMPSHIRE.]
The Fox, apostrophized as follows:
"O gentle one among the beasts of prey
O eloquent and comely-faced animal!"
as an important subject in mediaeval art, has two distinct places.
There is a general impression that there was a great popular literary
composition, running through many editions and through many centuries,
having its own direct artistic illustration, and a wide indirect
illustration which, later, by its ability to stand alone, had broken away
from close connection with the epic, yet possessed a derivative identity
with it.
Closer examination, however, proves that there is indeed the Fox in its
particular literature with its avowed illustrations, but also that there
is the Fox in mediaeval art, illustrative of ideas partly found in
literature, but illustrative of no particular work, and yet awaiting a
key. Each is a separate and distinct thing.
Among the grotesques of our churches there are some references to the
literary "Reynard the Fox," but they are few and far between; while
numerous most likely and prominent incidents of Reynard's career, as
narrated in the poem, have no place among the carvings.
The subjects of the carvings are mostly so many variations of the idea of
the Fox turned ecclesiastic and preying upon his care and congregation;
and in this he is assisted by the ape, who also takes sides with him in
carvings of other proceedings; but in none of these scenes is there
evidence of reference to the epic. A great point of difference, too, lies
in the conclusion of the epic, and the conclusion of Reynard's life as
shewn in the carvings. In the epic, the King makes Reynard the Lord
Chancellor and favourite.
The end of the Fox of church art, however, is far different; several
sculptures agree in shewing him hanged by a body of geese.
In the epic, Reynard's victims are many. The deaths of the Hare and the
Ram afford good circumstantial pictures, yet in the carvings there is
neither of these; and it is scarcely Reynard who plots, and sins, and
conceals, but a more vulgar fox who concerns himself, chiefly about geese,
in an open, verminous way, while many of the sculptures are little more
than natural history illustrations, in which we see _vulpes_, but not the
Fox.
To enable, however, a fair comparison to be made between literature and
art in this byway, it will be as well to glance at the history of the
poem, and lay down a brief analysis of its episodes; and, next, to present
sketches of some typical examples from the carvings.
Much of ancient satire owes its origin to that description of fable which
bestows the attributes and capacities of the human race upon the lower
animals, which are made to reason and to speak. Their mental processes and
their actions are entirely human, although their respective animal
characteristics are often used to accentuate their human character. In
every animal Edward Carpenter sees varying sparks of the actual mental
life we call human, in, it may be added, arrested or perverted
development, in which, in each instance, one characteristic has
immeasurably prevailed. For the animal qualities, whether human or not in
kind, man has ever had a sympathetic recognition, which has made both
symbol and fable easily acceptable. Perhaps symbolism, which for so many
ages has taken the various animals as figures to intelligibly express
abstract qualities, gave rise to fable. If so, fable may be considered the
grotesque of symbolism. The same ideas--of certain qualities--are taken
from their original serious import, and used to amuse, and, while amusing,
to strike.
On the other hand, Grimm asserts that animal-fable arose in the
Netherlands, North France, and West Germany, extending neither to the
Romance countries, nor to the Keltic; whereas we find animal symbolism
everywhere. Grimm's statement may be taken to speak, perhaps, of a certain
class of fable, and the countries he names are certainly where we should
expect to find the free-est handling of superstitions. His arguments are
based on the Germanic form of the names given to the beasts, but his
localities seem to follow the course of the editions. Perhaps special
causes, and not the influence of race, decided the localities. The
earliest trace of a connected animal-fable is of that which is also the
most wide-spread and popular--the history of the Fox.
This early production is a poem, called _Isengrinus_, in Latin hexameters,
by a cleric of South Flanders, whose name has not survived. It was written
in the first half of the twelfth century, and first printed, it is said,
so late as 1834.
In this, the narrative is briefly as follows:--The Lion is sick, and calls
a court to choose his successor. Reynard is the only animal that does not
appear. The Wolf, Isengrinus, to ruin Reynard's adherents, the Goat and
the Ram, prescribes as a remedy for the Lion's disorder a medicine of Goat
and Ram livers. They defend the absent Reynard, and pronounce him a great
doctor, and, to save their livers, drive the Wolf by force from before the
throne. Reynard is summoned. He comes with herbs, which, he says, will
only be efficacious if the patient is wrapped in the skin of a wolf four
years old. The Wolf is skinned, the Lion is cured, and Fox made
Chancellor.
In this story is neatly dovetailed another, narrating how the Wolf had
been prevented from devouring a party of weak pilgrim animals by the
judicious display of a wolf's head. This head was cut off a wolf found
hanging in a tree, and, at Reynard's instigation, the party, on the
strength of possessing it, led the Wolf to believe them to be a company of
professional wolf-slayers.
After this poem followed another at the end of the same century with
numerous additions and alterations, by a monk of Ghent. Next came a high
German poem, also of the twelfth century, expanded, but without great
addition. After this came the French version, Roman de Renart, which, with
supplementary compositions, enlarged the matter to no less than 41,748
verses. There is another French version, called Renart le Contrefet, of
nearly the same horrible length.
A Flemish version, written in the middle of the thirteenth century, and
continued in the fourteenth, became the great father of editions.
All these were in verse, but on the invention of printing the Flemish form
was re-cast into prose, and printed at Gouda in 1479, and at Delft in
1485; abridged and mutilated it was often re-printed in Holland.
Caxton printed a translation in 1481, and another a few years later. The
English quarto, like the Dutch, also gave rise in time to a call for a
cheap abridgment, and it appeared in 1639, as "The Most delectable history
of Reynard the Fox."
Meanwhile a Low Saxon form had appeared, "Reinche Bos," first printed at
Lubeck in 1498, and next at Rostock in 1517, a translation, with
alterations, from the Flemish publication. Various other editions in
German followed, with cuts by Amman.
In all these and their successors the incidents were varied. Having seen
that, within at least certain limits, the story must have been exceedingly
well-known and popular, we will run through the incidents narrated in the
most popular of the German Reynard poems, chiefly taken from Goethe's
rendering.
Nouvel, the Lion, calls a parliament, and the Fox does not appear, and is
accused of various crimes. The Wolf accuses him of sullying the honour of
his wife, and blinding his three children. A little Dog accuses him of
stealing a pudding end (this the Cat denies, stating that the pudding was
one of her own stealing). The Leopard accuses him of murder, having only
the day before rescued the Hare from his clutch as he was throttling him,
under pretence of severity in teaching the Creed.
The Badger, Grimbart, now comes forward in defence.
"An ancient proverb says, quoth he,
Justice in an enemy
Is seldom to be found."
He accuses the Wolf in his turn of violating the bonds of partnership. The
Fox and the Wolf had arranged to rob a fish-cart. The Fox lay for dead on
the road, and the carter, taking him up, threw him on the top of the load
of fish, turning to his horse again. Reynard then threw the fish on to the
road, and jumping down to join in the feast found left for him but fin and
scales. The Badger explains away also the story of Reynard's guilt as to
Dame Isengrin, and, with regard to the Hare, asks if a teacher shall not
chastise his scholars. In short, since the King proclaimed a peace,
Reynard was thoroughly reformed, and but for being absorbed in penance
would no doubt have been present to defend himself from any false
reports.
Unfortunately for this justification, at the very moment of its conclusion
a funeral procession passes;
"On sable bier
The relics of a Hen appear,"
while Henning, the Cock, makes a piteous complaint of Reynard's misdeeds.
He said how the Fox had
"Assured him he'd become a friar,
And brought a letter from his prior;
Show'd him his hood and shirt of hair,
His rosary and scapulaire;
Took leave of him with pious grace,
That he might hasten to his place
To read the nona and the sept,
And vesper too before he slept;
And as he slowly took his way,
Read in his pocket breviary."
all of which ended in the devout penitent eating nineteen of Henning's
brood.
The Lion invites his council's advice. It is decided to send an envoy to
Reynard, and Bruno, the Bear, is selected to summon him to court.
Bruno finds him at his castle of Malepart, and thunders a summons.
Reynard, by plausible speech and a story of honey, disarms some of his
hostility, and entices him off to a carpenter's yard, where an oak trunk,
half split, yet has the wedge in. Reynard declaring the honey is in the
cleft, Bruno puts his head and paws in. Reynard draws out the wedge. The
Bear howls till the whole village is aroused, and Bruno, to save his life,
draws himself out minus skin from head and paws. In the confusion the
parson's cook falls into the stream, and the parson offers two butts of
beer to the man who saves her. While this is being done, the Bear escapes,
and the Fox taunts him.
The Bear displaying his condition at court, the King swears to hang
Reynard, this time sending Hinge, the Cat, to summon Reynard to trial.
Hinge is lured to the parson's house in hopes of mice, and caught in a
noose fixed for Reynard. The household wake, and beat the Cat, who dashes
underneath the priest's robe, revenging himself in a cruel and unseemly
way. The Cat is finally left apparently dead, but reviving, gnaws the
cord, and crawls back to court.
"The King was wroth, as wroth could be."
The Badger now offers to go, three times being the necessary number for
summoning a peer of the realm. He puts the case plainly before Reynard,
who agrees to come, and they set out together. On the way Reynard has a
fit of remorse, and confesses his sins. Grimbart plucks a twig, makes the
Fox beat himself, leap over it three times, kiss it; and then declares him
free from his sins. All the time Reynard casts a greedy eye on some
chickens, and makes a dash at one shortly after. Accused by Grimbart, he
declares he had only looked aside to murmur a prayer for those who die in
"yonder cloister."
"And also I would say
A prayer for the endless peace
Of many long-departed geese,
Which, when in a state of sin,
I stole from the nuns who dwell therein."
The Fox arrives at court with a proud step and a bold eye. He is accused,
but
"Tried every shift and vain pretence
To baffle truth and common sense,
And shield his crimes with eloquence."
In vain. He is condemned to die. His friend Martin the Ape, Grimbart the
Badger, and others withdraw in resentment, and the King is troubled.
At the gallows Reynard professes to deliver a dying confession, and
introduces a story of seven waggon-loads of gold and jewels which had been
a secret hoard of his father, stolen for the purpose of bribing chiefs to
depose the Lion and place the Bear on the throne.
Reynard is pardoned on condition of pointing out the treasure. He declares
it to be in Husterlo, but excuses himself from accompanying the King on
his way there, as he, Reynard, is excommunicated for once assisting the
Wolf to escape from a monastery, and must, therefore, go to Rome to get
absolution.