_From a Dutch book publiſhed by_
VELDENER, A.D. 1483
WITH
_AN INTRODUCTION_
Written and Illuſtrated
By JOHN ASHTON
_PREFACE_
By S. BARING GOULD, M.A.
[Illustration]
+London+
T. FISHER UNWIN
M.D.CCC.LXXXVII
UNWIN BROTHERS,
_Old Style Printers_,
THE GRESHAM PRESS, LUDGATE HILL, E.C.
[Illustration]
_PREFACE._
THE origin of the mediæval romance of the Croſs is hard to diſcover.
It was very popular. It occurs in a good number of authors, and is
depicted in a good many churches in ſtained glaſs.
I may perhaps be allowed here to repeat what I have ſaid in my article
on the Legend of the Croſs, in “Myths of the Middle Ages:”—
“In the churches of the city of Troyes alone it appears in the windows
of four: S. Martin-ès-Vignes, S. Pantaléon, S. Madeleine, and S.
Nizier. It is freſcoed along the walls of the choir of S. Croce at
Florence, by the hand of Agnolo Gaddi. Pietro della Franceſca alſo
dedicated his pencil to the hiſtory of the Croſs in a ſeries of
freſcoes in the chapel of the Bacci, in the church of S. Franceſco at
Arezzo. It occurs as a predella painting among the ſpecimens of early
art at the Accademia delle Belle Arti at Venice, and is the ſubject
of a picture by Beham, in the Munich Gallery. The Legend is told in
full in the ‘Vita Chriſti,’ printed at Troyes in 1517; in the ‘Legenda
Aurea’ of Jacques de Voragine; in a French MS. of the thirteenth
century, in the Britiſh Muſeum. Gervaſe of Tilbury relates a portion
of it in his ‘Otia Imperalia,’ quoting Peter Comeſtor; it appears in
the ‘Speculum Hiſtoriale’ of Gottfried of Viterbo, in the ‘Chronicon
Engelhuſii,’ and elſewhere.”
In the very curious Creation window of S. Neot’s Church, Cornwall, Seth
is repreſented putting three pips of the Tree of Life into the mouth
and noſtrils of dead Adam, as he buries him.
Of the popularity of the ſtory of the Croſs there can be no doubt, but
its origin is involved in obſcurity. It is generally poſſible to track
moſt of the religious and popular folk tales and romances of the Middle
Ages to their origin, which is frequently Oriental, but it is not eaſy
to do ſo with the Legend of the Croſs. It would rather ſeem that it was
made up by ſome romancer out of all kinds of pre-exiſting material,
with no other object than to write a religious novel for pious readers,
to diſplace the ſenſuous novels which were much in vogue.
We know that this was largely done after the third century, and a
number of martyr legends, ſuch as thoſe of S. Apollinaris Syncletica,
SS. Cyprian and Juſtina, the ſtory of Duke Procopius, S. Euphroſyne,
SS. Zoſimus and Mary, SS. Theophanes and Panſemne, and many others
were compoſed with this object. The earlieſt of all is undoubtedly the
Clementine Recognitions, which dates from a remotely early period, and
carries us into the heart of Petrine Chriſtianity, and in which many a
covert attack is made on S. Paul and his teaching. On the other hand,
we know that an Asiatic prieſt, as Tertullian tells us, wrote a romance
on “Paul and Thecla, out of love to Paul.” S. Jerome ſays that a
Pauline zealot, when convicted before his biſhop of having written the
romance, tried to exculpate himſelf by ſaying that he had done it out
of admiration for S. Paul, but the Biſhop would not accept the excuſe,
and deprived him. Unfortunately this romance has not come down to us,
though we have another on S. Paul and his relations to Thecla, who is
ſaid to have accompanied him on his apoſtolic rambles, diſguiſed in
male attire.
The Greek romance literature was not wholeſome reading for Chriſtians.
Some of the writers of theſe tales became Chriſtian biſhops, and
probably devoted their facile pens to more edifying ſubjects than the
difficulties of parted lovers.
Heliodorus, who wrote “Theagenes and Charicheia,” is ſaid to have
become Biſhop of Tricca, in Theſſaly. Socrates, in the fifth century,
in ſpeaking of clerical celibacy, mentions the ſeverity of the rule
impoſed on his clergy by this Heliodorus, “under whoſe name there are
love-books extant, called Ethiopica, which he compoſed in his youth.”
Achilles Tatius, author of the “Loves of Clitophon and Leucippe,” is
ſaid alſo to have become a biſhop. So alſo Euſtathius of Theſſalonica,
author of the “Lives of Hyſemene and Hyſmenias,” but this is more than
doubtful.
Three things conduced to the production of a Chriſtian romance
literature in the early ages of the Church:—(1) The neceſſity under
which the Church lay of ſupplying a want in human nature; (2) The need
there was for producing ſome light wholeſome literature to ſupply the
place of the popular love-romances then largely read and circulated;
(3) The fact that ſome biſhops and converts were experienced novel
writers, and therefore ready to lend their hands to ſome better purpoſe
than amuſing the leiſure and flattering the paſſions of the idle and
young.
Much the ſame conditions exiſted in the Middle Ages. There was an
influx of ſenſuous literature from the Eaſt, through the Arabs of Spain
and Sicily; Oriental tales eaſily took Weſtern garb, in which the
caliphs became kings of Chriſtendom, and the fakirs and imauns were
converted into monks and Catholic prieſts. To counteract theſe ſtories,
collections of which may be found in Le Grand d’Auſſi and Von der
Hagen, and in Boccaccio, the Geſta Romanorum was drawn up, a collection
of moral tales, many of them of ſimilar Oriental parentage. But beſide
theſe ſhort ſtories, or novels, were long romances, ſome heroic, and
founded on early national traditions and ballads. To theſe belong the
Niebelungen Lied and Noth, the Gudrun, the Heldenbuch, the cycles of
Karlovingian and of Arthurian romance.
As it happens, we have two authors in the Middle Ages, living much
about the ſame time, one intenſely heathen in all his conceptions, the
other as entirely Chriſtian, each dealing with ſubjects from the ſame
cycle, and the one writing in avowed oppoſition to the tendency of
the other’s book. I allude to Wolfram of Eschenbach and Gottfried of
Straſſburg. The latter wrote the Triſtram, the former the Parzival. In
Gottfried, the moral ſenſe ſeems to be abſolutely dead; there is no
perception of the ſacredneſs of truth, of chaſtity, of honour, none of
religion. Wolfram is his exact converſe. Wolfram gives us the hiſtory
of the Grail, but he did not invent the myth of the Grail, he derived
it from pre-exiſting material. The Grail myth is almoſt certainly
heathen in its origin, but it has been entirely Chriſtianiſed. The holy
baſin is that in which the Blood of Chriſt is preſerved, and only the
pure of heart can ſee it; but the Grail was really the great cauldron
of Nature, the baſin of Ceridwen, the earth goddeſs of the Kelts, or,
among Teutonic nations, the ſacrificial cauldron of Odin, in which was
brewed the ſpirit of poeſy, of the blood of Mimer. The remembrance
of the myſterious veſſel remained after Kelt and Teuton had become
Chriſtian, and the poets and romanciſts gave it a new ſpell of life by
chriſtening it. It was much the ſame with the ſtory of the Croſs. In
the Teutonic North, tree worſhip was widely ſpread; the tree was ſacred
to Odin, who himſelf, according to the myſterious Havamal, hung nine
nights wounded, as a ſacrifice to himſelf, a voluntary ſacrifice, in
“the wind-rocked tree.”
That tree was Yggdraſill, the world tree, whoſe roots extended to hell,
and whoſe branches ſpread to heaven.
Northern mythology is full of alluſion to this tree, but we have,
unfortunately, little of the hiſtory of it preſerved to us; we know of
it only through alluſions. The Chriſtmas tree is its repreſentative; it
has been taken up out of paganiſm, and rooted in Chriſtian ſoil, where
it flouriſhes to the annual delight of thouſands of children.
Now the mediæval romanciſts laid hold of this tree, as they laid hold
of the Grail baſin, and uſed it for Chriſtian purpoſes. The Grail
cup became the chalice of the Blood of Chriſt, and the Tree of Odin
became the Croſs of Calvary. They worked into the romance all kinds
of material gathered from floating folk-tale of heathen anceſtry, and
they pieced in with it every ſcrap of alluſion to a tree they could
find in Scripture. It is built up of fragments taken from all kinds of
old ſtructures, put together with ſome ſkill, and built into a goodly
romance; but the tracing of every ſtone to its original quarry has not
been done by anyone as yet. The Grail myth has had many ſtudents and
interpreters, but not the Croſs myth. That remains to be examined, and
it will doubtleſs prove a ſtudy rewarding the labour of inveſtigation.