THE DANCE OF DEATH.--THE PAINTINGS IN THE CHURCH OF LA CHAISE
DIEU.--THE REIGN OF FOLLY.--SEBASTIAN BRANDT; THE "SHIP
OF FOOLS."--DISTURBERS OF CHURCH SERVICE.--TROUBLESOME
BEGGARS.--GEILER'S SERMONS.--BADIUS, AND HIS SHIP OF FOOLISH
WOMEN.--THE PLEASURES OF SMELL.--ERASMUS; THE "PRAISE OF FOLLY."
There is still one cycle of satire which almost belongs to the middle
ages, though it only became developed at their close, and became most
popular after they were past. There existed, at least as early as the
beginning of the thirteenth century, a legendary story of an interview
between three living and three dead men, which is usually told in
French verse, and appears under the title of "Des trois vifs et des
trois morts." According to some versions of the legend, it was St.
Macarius, the Egyptian recluse, who thus introduced the living to the
dead. The verses are sometimes accompanied with figures, and these have
been found both sculptured and painted on ecclesiastical buildings. At
a later period, apparently early in the fifteenth century, some one
extended this idea to all ranks of society, and pictured a skeleton,
the emblem of death, or even more than one, in communication with an
individual of each class; and this extended scene, from the manner
of the grouping--in which the dead appeared to be wildly dancing off
with the living--became known as the "Dance of Death." As the earlier
legend of the three dead and the three living was, however, still
often introduced at the beginning of it, the whole group was most
generally known--especially during the fifteenth century--as the "Danse
Macabre," or Dance of Macabre, this name being considered as a mere
corruption of Macarius. The temper of the age--in which death in every
form was constantly before the eyes of all, and in which people sought
to regard life as a mere transitory moment of enjoyment--gave to this
grim idea of the fellowship of death and life great popularity, and it
was not only painted on the walls of churches, but it was suspended
in tapestry around people's chambers. Sometimes they even attempted
to represent it in masquerade, and we are told that in the month of
October, 1424, the "Danse Macabre" was publicly danced by living
people in the cemetery of the Innocents, in Paris--a fit place for so
lugubrious a performance--in the presence of the Duke of Bedford and
the Duke of Burgundy, who came to Paris after the battle of Verneuil.
During the rest of the century we find not unfrequently allusions
to the "Danse Macabre." The English poet Lydgate wrote a series of
stanzas to accompany the figures, and it was the subject of some of
the earliest engravings on wood. In the posture and accompaniments
of the figures representing the different classes of society, and in
the greater or less reluctance with which the living accept their not
very attractive partners, satire is usually implied, and it is in
some cases accompanied with drollery. The figure representing death
has almost always a grimly mirthful countenance, and appears to be
dancing with good will. The most remarkable early representation of
the "Danse Macabre" now preserved, is that painted on the wall of the
church of La Chaise Dieu, in Auvergne, a beautiful fac-simile of which
was published a few years ago by the well-known antiquary M. Jubinal.
This remarkable picture begins with the figures of Adam and Eve, who
are introducing death into the world in the form of a serpent with a
death's head. The dance is opened by an ecclesiastic preaching from
a pulpit, towards whom death is leading first in the dance the pope,
for each individual takes his precedence strictly according to his
class--alternately an ecclesiastic and a layman. Thus next after the
pope comes the emperor, and the cardinal is followed by the king. The
baron is followed by the bishop, and the grim partner of the latter
appears to pay more intention to the layman than to his own priest, so
that two dead men appear to have the former in charge. The group thus
represented by the nobleman and the two deaths, is copied in our cut
No. 132, and will serve as an example of the style and grouping of this
remarkable painting. After a few other figures, perhaps less striking,
we come to the merchant, who receives the advances of his partner with
a thoughtful air; while immediately after him another death is trying
to make himself more acceptable to the bashful nun by throwing a cloak
over his nakedness. In another place two deaths armed with bows and
arrows are scattering their shafts rather dangerously. Soon follow
some of the more gay and youthful members of society. Our cut No. 133
represents the musician, who appears also to attract the attentions
of two of the persecutors. In his dismay he is treading under foot
his own viol. The dance closes with the lower orders of society, and
is concluded by a group which is not so easily understood. Before the
end of the fifteenth century, there had appeared in Paris several
editions of a series of bold engravings on wood, in a small folio
size, representing the same dance, though somewhat differently treated.
France, indeed, appears to have been the native country of the "Danse
Macabre." But in the century following the beautiful set of drawings by
the great artist Hans Holbein, first published at Lyons in 1538, gave
to the Dance of Death a still greater and wider celebrity. From this
time the subjects of this dance were commonly introduced in initial
letters, and in the engraved borders of pages, especially in books of a
religious character.
[Illustration: _No. 132. The Knight in the Dance of Death._]
[Illustration: _No. 133. The Musician in Death's Hands._]
Death may truly be said to have shared with Folly that melancholy
period--the fifteenth century. As society then presented itself to
the eye, people might easily suppose that the world was running mad,
and folly, in one shape or other, seemed to be the principle which
ruled most men's actions. The jocular societies, described in my last
chapter, which multiplied in France during the fifteenth century,
initiated a sort of mock worship of Folly. That sort of inauguration
of death which was performed in the "Danse Macabre," was of French
growth, but the grand crusade against folly appears to have originated
in Germany. Sebastian Brandt was a native of Strasburg, born in 1458.
He studied in that city and in Bâle, became a celebrated professor in
both those places, and died at the former in 1520. The "Ship of Fools,"
which has immortalised the name of Sebastian Brandt, is believed to
have been first published in the year 1494. The original German text
went through numerous editions within a few years; a Latin translation
was equally popular, and it was afterwards edited and enlarged by
Jodocus Badius Ascensius. A French text was no less successful; an
English translation was printed by Richard Pynson in 1509; a Dutch
version appeared in 1519. During the sixteenth century, Brandt's "Ship
of Fools" was the most popular of books. It consists of a series of
bold woodcuts, which form its characteristic feature, and of metrical
explanations, written by Brandt, and annexed to each cut. Taking his
text from the words of the preacher, "Stultorum numerus est infinitus,"
Brandt exposes to the eye, in all its shades and forms, the folly
of his contemporaries, and bares to view its roots and causes. The
cuts are especially interesting as striking pictures of contemporary
manners. The "Ship of Fools" is the great ship of the world, into which
the various descriptions of fatuity are pouring from all quarters
in boat-loads. The first folly is that of men who collected great
quantities of books, not for their utility, but for their rarity, or
beauty of execution, or rich bindings, so that we see that bibliomania
had already taken its place among human vanities. The second class
of fools were interested and partial judges, who sold justice for
money, and are represented under the emblem of two fools throwing a
boar into a caldron, according to the old Latin proverb, _Agere aprum
in lebetem_. Then come the various follies of misers, fops, dotards,
men who are foolishly indulgent to their children, mischief-makers,
and despisers of good advice; of nobles and men in power; of the
profane and the improvident; of foolish lovers; of extravagant
eaters and drinkers, &c., &c. Foolish talking, hypocrisy, frivolous
pursuits, ecclesiastical corruptions, impudicity, and a great number
of other vices as well as follies, are duly passed in review, and are
represented in various forms of satirical caricature, and sometimes
in simpler unadorned pictures. Thus the foolish valuers of things are
represented by a fool holding a balance, one scale of which contains
the sun, moon, and stars, to represent heaven and heavenly things, and
the other a castle and fields, to represent earthly things, the latter
scale overweighing the other; and the procrastinator is pictured by
another fool, with a parrot perched on his head, and a magpie on each
hand, all repeating _cras, cras, cras_ (to-morrow). Our cut No. 134
represents a group of disturbers of church service. It was a common
practice in former days to take to church hawks (which were constantly
carried about as the outward ensign of the gentleman) and dogs. The
fool has here thrown back his fool's-cap to exhibit more fully the
fashionable "gent" of the day; he carries his hawk on his hand, and
wears not only a fashionable pair of shoes, but very fashionable clogs
also. These gentlemen _à la mode, turgentes genere et natalibus altis_,
we are told, were the persons who disturbed the church service by
the creaking of their shoes and clogs, the noise made by their birds,
the barking and quarrelling of their dogs, by their own whisperings,
and especially with immodest women, whom they met in church as in a
convenient place of assignation. All these forms of the offence are
expressed in the picture. Our second example cut No. 135, which forms
the fifty-ninth title or subject in the "Ship of Fools," represents
a party of the beggars with which, either lay or ecclesiastical, the
country was then overrun. In the explanation, these wicked beggars are
described as indulging in idleness, in eating, drinking, rioting, and
sleep, while they levy contributions on the charitable feelings of the
honest and industrious, and, under cover of begging, commit robbery
wherever they find the opportunity. The beggar, who appears to be only
a deceptive cripple, leads his donkey laden with children, whom he is
bringing up in the same profession, while his wife lingers behind to
indulge in her bibulous propensities. These cuts will give a tolerable
notion of the general character of the whole, which amount in number to
a hundred and twelve, and therefore present a great variety of subjects
relative to almost every class and profession of life.
[Illustration: _No. 134. Disturbers of Church Service._]
[Illustration: _No. 135. Mendicants on their Travels._]
We may remark, however, that after Folly had thus run through all the
stages of society, until it had reached the lowest of all, the ranks
of mendicity, the gods themselves became alarmed, the more so as this
great movement was directed especially against Minerva, the goddess
of wisdom, and they held a conclave to provide against it. The result
is not told, but the course of Folly goes on as vigorously as ever.
Ignorant fools who set up for physicians, fools who cannot understand
jokes, unwise mathematicians, astrologers, of the latter of which the
moraliser says, in his Latin verse--
_Siqua voles sortis prænoscere damna futuræ,
Et vitare malum, sol tibi signa dabit.
Sed tibi, stulte, tui cur non dedit ille furoris
Signa? aut, si dederit, cur tanta mala subis?
Nondum grammaticæ callis primordia, et audes
Vim cœli radio supposuisse tuo._
The next cut is a very curious one, and appears to represent a
dissecting-house of this early period. Among other chapters which
afford interesting pictures of that time, and indeed of all times, we
may instance those of litigious fools, who are always going to law,
and who confound blind justice, or rather try to unbind her eyes;
of filthy-tongued fools, who glorify the race of swine; of ignorant
scholars; of gamblers; of bad and thievish cooks; of low men who seek
to be high, and of high who are despisers of poverty; of men who
forget that they will die; of irreligious men and blasphemers; of
the ridiculous indulgence of parents to children, and the ungrateful
return which was made to them for it; and of women's pride. Another
title describes the ruin of Christianity: the pope, emperor, king,
cardinals, &c., are receiving willingly from a suppliant fool the cap
of Folly, while two other fools are looking derisively upon them from
an adjoining wall. It need hardly be said that this was published on
the eve of the Reformation.
In the midst of the popularity which greeted the appearance of the
work of Sebastian Brandt, it attracted the special attention of a
celebrated preacher of the time named Johann Geiler. Geiler was born
at Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, in 1445, but having lost his father
when only three years of age, he was educated by his grandfather, who
lived at Keysersberg, in Alsace, and hence he was commonly called
Geiler of Keysersberg. He studied in Freiburg and Bâle, obtained a
great reputation for learning, was esteemed a profound theologian, and
was finally settled in Strasburg, where he continued to shine as a
preacher until his death in 1510. He was a bold man, too, in the cause
of truth, and declaimed with earnest zeal against the corruptions of
the church, and especially against the monkish orders, for he compared
the black monks to the devil, the white monks to his dam, and the
others he said were their chickens. On another occasion he said that
the qualities of a good monk were an almighty belly, an ass's back,
and a raven's mouth. He told his congregation from the pulpit that a
great reformation was at hand, that he did not expect to live to see
it himself, but that many of those who heard him would live to see
it. As may be supposed, the monks hated him, and spoke of him with
contempt. They said, that in his sermons he took his texts, not from
the Scriptures, but from the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt; and,
in fact, during the year 1498, Geiler preached at Strasburg a series of
sermons on the follies of his time, which were evidently founded upon
Brandt's book, for the various follies were taken in the same order.
They were originally compiled in German, but one of Geiler's scholars,
Jacob Other, translated them into Latin, and published them, in 1501,
under the title of "Navicula sive Speculum Fatuorum præstantissimi
sacrarum literarum doctoris Johannis Geiler." Within a few years this
work went through several editions both in Latin and in German, some
of them illustrated by woodcuts. The style of preaching is quaint and
curious, full of satirical wit, which is often coarse, according to the
manner of the time, sometimes very indelicate. Each sermon is headed
by the motto, "Stultorum infinitus est numerus." Geiler takes for his
theme in each sermon one of the titles of Brandt's "Ship of Fools," and
he separates them into subdivisions, or branches, which he calls the
bells (_nolas_) from the fool's-cap.
The other scholar who did most to spread the knowledge of Brandt's
work, was Jodocus Badius, who assumed the additional name of Ascensius
because he was born at Assen, near Brussels, in 1462. He was a very
distinguished scholar, but is best known for having established a
celebrated printing establishment in Paris, where he died in 1535. I
have already stated that Badius edited the Latin translation of the
"Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt, with additional explanations of
his own, but he was one of the first of Brandt's imitators. He seems to
have thought that Brandt's book was not complete--that the weaker sex
had not received its fair share of importance; and apparently in 1498,
while Geiler was turning the "Stultifera Navis" into sermons, Badius
compiled a sort of supplement to it (_additamentum_), to which he gave
the title of "Stultiferæ naviculæ, seu Scaphæ, Fatuarum Mulierum," the
Boats of Foolish Women. As far as can be traced, the first edition
appears to have been printed in 1502. The first cut represents the
ship carrying Eve alone of the female race, whose folly involved the
whole world. The book is divided into five chapters, according to the
number of the five senses, each sense represented by a boat carrying
its particular class of foolish women to the great ship of foolish
women, which lies off at anchor. The text consists of a dissertation
on the use and abuse of the particular sense which forms the substance
of the chapter, and it ends with Latin verses, which are given as the
boatman's _celeusma_, or boat song. The first of these boats is the
_scapha stultæ visionis ad stultiferam navem perveniens_--the boat of
foolish seeing proceeding to the ship of fools. A party of gay ladies
are taking possession of the boat, carrying with them their combs,
looking-glasses, and all other implements necessary for making them
fair to be looked upon. The second boat is the _scapha auditionis
fatuæ_, the boat of foolish hearing, in which the ladies are playing
upon musical instruments. The third is the _scapha olfactionis stultæ_,
the boat of foolish smell, and the pictorial illustration to it is
partly copied in our cut No. 136. In the original some of the ladies
are gathering sweet-smelling flowers before they enter the boat, while
on board a pedlar is vending his perfume. One _folle femme_, with her
fool's cap on her head, is buying a pomander, or, as we should perhaps
now say, a scent-ball, from the itinerant dealer. Figures of pomanders
are extremely rare, and this is an interesting example; in fact, it
is only recently that our Shakspearian critics really understood the
meaning of the word. A pomander was a small globular vessel, perforated
with holes, and filled with strong perfumes, as it is represented in
our woodcut. The fourth of these boats is that of foolish tasting,
_scapha gustationis fatuæ_, and the ladies have their well-furnished
table on board the boat, and are largely indulging in eating and
drinking. In the last of these boats, the _scapha contactionis fatuæ_,
or boat of foolish feeling, the women have men on board, and are
proceeding to great liberties with them; one of the gentle damsels,
too, is picking the pocket of her male companion in a very unlady-like
manner.
[Illustration: _No. 136. The Boat of Pleasant Odours._]
Two ideas combined in this peculiar field of satiric literature, that
of the ship and that of the fools, now became popular, and gave rise
to a host of imitators. There appeared ships of health, ships of
penitence, ships of all sorts of things, on the one hand; and on the
other, folly was a favourite theme of satire from many quarters. One of
the most remarkable of the personages involved in this latter warfare,
was the great scholar Desiderius Erasmus, of Rotterdam, who was born in
that city in 1467. Like most of these satirists, Erasmus was strongly
imbued with the spirit of the Reformation, and he was the acquaintance
and friend of those to whom the Reformation owed a great part of its
success. In 1497, when the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt was in
the first full flush of its popularity, Erasmus came to England, and
was so well received, that from that time forward his literary life
seemed more identified with our island than with any other country. His
name is still a sort of household word in our universities, especially
in that of Cambridge. He made here the friendly acquaintance of the
great Sir Thomas More, himself a lover of mirth, and one of those whose
names are celebrated for having kept a court fool. In the earlier years
of the sixteenth century, Erasmus visited Italy, and passed two or
three years there. He returned thence to England, as appears, early
in the year 1508. It is not easy to decide whether his experience of
society in Italy had convinced him more than ever that folly was the
presiding genius of mankind, or what other feeling influenced him,
but one of the first results of his voyage was the Μωρίας Ἐγκώμιον
(_Moriæ Encomium_), or "Praise of Folly." Erasmus dedicated this
little jocular treatise to Sir Thomas More as a sort of pun upon his
name, although he protests that there was a great contrast between
the two characters. Erasmus takes much the same view of folly as
Brandt, Geiler, Badius, and the others, and under this name he writes
a bold satire on the whole frame of contemporary society. The satire
is placed in the mouth of Folly herself (the Mère Folie of the jocular
clubs), who delivers from her pulpit a declamation in which she sets
forth her qualities and praises. She boasts of the greatness of her
origin, claims as her kindred the sophists, rhetoricians, and many of
the pretentious scholars and wise men, and describes her birth and
education. She claims divine affinity, and boasts of her influence over
the world, and of the beneficent manner in which it was exercised.
All the world, she pretends, was ruled under her auspices, and it was
only in her presence that mankind was really happy. Hence the happiest
ages of man are infancy, before wisdom has come to interfere, and old
age, when it has passed away. Therefore, she says, if men would remain
faithful to her, and avoid wisdom altogether, they would pass a life
of perpetual youth. In this long discourse of the influence of folly,
written by a man of the known sentiments of Erasmus, it would be
strange if the Romish church, with its monks and ignorant priesthood,
its saints, and relics, and miracles, did not find a place. Erasmus
intimates that the superstitious follies had become permanent, because
they were profitable. There are some, he tells us, who cherished the
foolish yet pleasant persuasion, that if they fixed their eyes devoutly
on a figure of St. Christopher, carved in wood or painted on the wall,
they would be safe from death on that day; with many other examples
of equal credulity. Then there are your pardons, your measures of
purgatory, which may be bought off at so much the hour, or the day,
or the month, and a multitude of other absurdities. Ecclesiastics,
scholars, mathematicians, philosophers, all come in for their share of
the refined satire of this book, which, like the "Ship of Fools," has
gone through innumerable editions, and has been translated into many
languages.
[Illustration: _No. 137. Superstition._]
In an early French translation, the text of this work of Erasmus
is embellished with some of the woodcuts belonging to Brandt's
"Ship of Fools," which, it need hardly be remarked, are altogether
inappropriate, but the "Praise of Folly" was detained to receive
illustrations from a more distinguished pencil. A copy of the book came
into the hands of Hans Holbein--it may possibly have been presented to
him by the author--and Holbein took so much interest in it, that he
amused himself with drawing illustrative sketches with a pen in the
margins. This book afterwards passed into the library of the University
of Bâle, where it was found in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, and these drawings have since been engraved and added to most
of the subsequent editions. Many of these sketches are very slight, and
some have not a very close connection with the text of Erasmus, but
they are all characteristic, and show the spirit--the spirit of the
age--in which Holbein read his author. I give two examples of them,
taken almost haphazard, for it would require a longer analysis of the
book than can be given here to make many of them understood. The first
of these, our cut No. 137, represents the foolish warrior, who has a
sword long enough to trust to it for defence, bowing with trembling
superstition before a painting of St. Christopher crossing the water
with the infant Christ on his shoulder, as a more certain security for
his safety during that day. The other, our cut No. 138, represents
the preacher, Lady Folly, descending from her pulpit, after she has
concluded her sermon.
[Illustration: _No. 138. Preacher Folly ending her Sermon._]