his monks, in his Abbey of Monte Cassino, on the 21st of March,
542.--The “Légende Dorée” says, “At the moment of his death,
one of the monks who had remained in his cell saw him ascend to
heaven; and St. Maur, his disciple in France at the time, also
saw what appeared to be a street, hung with rich tapestry and
brilliantly lighted, which reached from St. Benedict’s cell to
heaven. A man of majestic appearance approached him and said,
‘Behold the road by which Benedict, the servant and friend of
God, is travelling to the presence of the Divine Majesty.’” The
artist has grouped the various incidents of this story into his
painting.--Fresco by Spinelli d’Arezzo (1390), in the Church of
San Miniato, near Florence.]
At that period the kings of the Franks assisted in person at the
obsequies of the kings and queens their predecessors. Thus, Childebert
and Clotaire I. accompanied the body of their mother, Clotilde, from
Tours, where she died, to the Church of St. Geneviève, in Paris, where
she was buried. The four sons of Clotaire brought their father’s
body from Compiègne to the Abbey of St. Médard de Soissons, where it
was finally laid. Louis VI. followed on foot the body of his father,
Philip I., from Melun, where he died, to St. Benoît-sur-Loire, where
he was interred. Philip III. helped to carry his father’s bier from
the Church of Notre-Dame, in Paris, to St. Denis. The three sons of
King John--Charles V., Louis, Duke of Anjou, and Philip, Duke of
Burgundy--followed their father’s body to the grave; but the fourth
son, John, Duke of Berri, detained as hostage in England, was unable
to take part in the ceremony. Henceforward, the kings of France gave up
the custom of being present at the obsequies of their predecessors and
of members of the royal family. The sons of Henry II., however, with
the exception of the dauphin Francis, who merely sprinkled holy water
over the corpse, followed their father to the grave.
[Illustration: Fig. 405.--The Christian professor on his
death-bed--the priest is exhorting him; his disciples are
praying for him; his wife is holding a flaming torch over his
head in token of the resurrection. The dying man contemplates
the image of Christ on the Cross, who died for the sins of
mankind; the Holy Virgin, holding the Infant Jesus in her arms,
implores pardon for the sinner, while evil spirits are searching
in the professor’s works for some heresy which may ensure his
damnation. Death is there.--Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving in
the “Cogitatione della Morte,” by J. Savonarola; the Florence
edition, in 4to (date unknown).]
In former times, the kings of the third dynasty were present at the
funerals even of their relations or friends. Joinville states that
the bodies of several nobles who had been massacred in prison by the
Saracens were given up to King Louis IX., who had them buried in the
Church of St. John of Acre. Amongst the slain was Gautier de Brienne,
whose cousin, Madame de Secte, discharged all the funeral expenses,
while every knight who was present at the ceremony gave as an offering
a taper and a silver denier. “The king,” says Du Tillet, “was present,
and contributed a taper and a besant, which he took from the lady’s
purse, out of his exceeding graciousness, for kings on funeral
occasions always contributed money of their own, and not that of those
who invited them.” Charles V. was present at the funeral of Jean de
la Rivière, his chamberlain, in the Church of the Val des Ecoliers,
Paris. Edward III. of England honoured with his presence the funeral
of G. Mauny, a knight of Hainault, buried in the Carthusian monastery
of London. After the sixteenth century, the sovereign merely went to
sprinkle the body with holy water, but did not assist at the obsequies
of great officers of his household, or of members of his family.
Funeral rites gave rise to a host of interesting and peculiar customs,
which a want of space prevents us from enumerating and describing.
Thus, in the southern provinces of France, it was the usage in former
days to carry the dead to the place of burial upon their state-beds,
which became the property of the officiating priest as a remuneration
for his services.
In Paris, down to the reign of Louis XIV., it was the custom, when any
personage of note died, for the “crier of the dead,” dressed in black,
to go through the streets, ringing a bell and crying out, “Pray God
for the dead!” This usage still exists in certain districts. Another
custom, altogether of ecclesiastical origin, was that of inscribing the
names of the dead upon placards, and so commending them to the prayers
of the worshippers in the monasteries and churches. Upon some of these
“rolls of the dead” (Fig. 407), composed of several sheets of parchment
sewn together, new names were added to the old, and the good works of
the deceased recorded thereon. These were the perpetual rolls. Orderic
Vital, in his “Ecclesiastical History,” speaks of a long roll in the
Monastery of St. Evroul, upon which were inscribed the names of monks,
and of their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters. This roll was
laid upon the altar for the whole year, and only unfolded on the Jour
des Morts (All Souls’ Day).
These annual rolls were sent each year from one religious house to
another, to announce the names of those monks belonging to the same
order who had died during the year. A separate roll was forwarded on
the death of each monk, in order to obtain on his behalf the prayers
of his brethren in Christ. A copy of the document was taken for each
community, or perhaps the same was made to serve for all the abbeys in
the diocese. The style was simple or pompous, according to the rank and
position of the deceased.
[Illustration: Fig. 406.--Jesus Christ descending into Hell,
carrying with him the victorious Standard of the Cross and
trampling under foot the spirit of Evil; the wall of separation
reared by sin falls to the ground, and the saints of the Old
Testament are set free.--Fresco by Simone di Martino, in the
Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence (Fourteenth Century).
(For description, see text, p. 501.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 407.--Mortuary Roll of the blessed Vital,
founder of the Abbey of Savigny (in the diocese of Avranches),
who died on the 16th of September, 1122; it measures twenty-nine
feet nine inches in length by eight and a half inches in
breadth. One of the words in this roll commences with a capital
T, representing Death in the act of devouring men and animals,
while he treads under foot the Cerberus of the pagans.--National
Archives of France.]
With respect to the corporations and brotherhoods, the usages varied
in every district and in every town. Thus, for instance, when a member
of the community of criers died, in Paris, all the others were
present at his funeral in the dress of their order, the body being
borne by four of his colleagues. Two others followed the coffin, one
having a handsome goblet (_hanap_), the other a jar filled with
wine. The remainder of the company walked in front, with little bells
in their hands which they kept ringing as they went along. When they
came to a cross-road the procession halted, and the coffin was placed
upon trestles. The crier who carried the goblet held it out to be
filled by the one who had the wine, and each of the four bearers took
a draught. Any looker-on, or any one who happened to be passing, was
asked to share in the libation. The obsequies of the ecclesiastical
body have alone preserved down to our own day a remnant of the
religious pomp with which they were conducted in the Middle Ages.
To form a correct idea of the pomp of these funeral rites, and of the
strange fascination which caused to be maintained, in the heart of a
city, cemeteries in which whole generations of the dead lay buried
together, we must divest ourselves of the positivism of the present
day, and revert to the poetic spiritualism of the Middle Ages, to the
consoling mysticism which then prevailed. Faith at that time reigned
supreme over men’s minds, and three articles of the Apostles’ Creed,
“Christ died and was buried; he descended into hell; the third day
he rose again from the dead,” diffused over the mystery of death an
ineffable splendour.
Dante, theologian as well as poet, divides hell into successive zones,
with the degree of punishment increasing in intensity as the circles
become narrower. In the first he places “Limbo,” a happy resting-place
for the good who have not been baptized. Virgil, his guide, tells him:
“I had not long been here when I saw a mighty Being, crowned with all
the tokens of victory, come down amongst us. He took back with him
to the realms of bliss our first parent; Abel, his son; Noah; Moses,
the faithful lawgiver; the patriarch Abraham; King David; Israel,
his father and his children; Rachel, for whom Israel made so many
sacrifices, and many others. And you must know that before them no man
had been saved.”[14]
This imaginative idea was very much in accordance with the popular
doctrine of the Middle Ages, based upon the teaching of the Church.
Hell, or the infernal regions, was divided into four parts; the
deepest, the abode of the damned; above that, Limbo, in which
unbaptized children found a peaceful resting-place; the third region
was Purgatory, or the place of expiation for the souls which, after
having been purified by temporary punishment, are destined for Heaven;
lastly, and nearest to the surface, came the Limbo of the elect, the
temporary abode of the pious dead, from Abel to Christ. In this latter
there was supposed to be no other punishment than that of expectant
captivity. It was thither that the Redeemer descended, while his body
was at rest beneath the stone of the sepulchre, awaiting the moment
of His resurrection. The gracious Saviour hastened to gladden these
beloved spirits with the news that his blood had washed out upon the
cross the decree that had so long hung upon the children of Abraham,
and that they would soon be permitted to follow Him to the skies, and
at last enter into the heavenly Jerusalem.
The reader has before him the graceful composition in which the painter
has transferred to canvas (Fig. 406) the poem attributed to Venancius
Fortunatus, the Christian poet of the seventh century. The wall of
separation reared by sin falls to the ground at the approach of the
Saviour; the very doors which had held the elect captive serve as a
bridge for them to cross the abyss, and the spirit of evil, trodden
under foot by Jesus Christ, is convulsed with frenzy as he clutches
in his grasp the once fatal but now useless key. The father of the
human race rushes forward with respectful eagerness towards the new
Adam, who bears the victorious standard of the cross; joy, love, and
gratitude animate the majestic group of elect, amongst whom are to be
distinguished Eve and St. Joseph upon their knees; while Abel, Noah,
Moses, Aaron, David, Judas Maccabæus, St. John the Baptist, and others,
are to be recognised either by their emblems or by their garb.
In the gloomy region hard by, whence flames are shooting up, the
infernal spirits are trembling with wonder and awe. A figure in the
shadow of an embrasure opening into purgatory, depicts the consolation
and the relief which Christ’s visit imparts to those souls whose
purification is accomplished.
That which the painter here typifies to the eye, the anniversary of
Christ’s burial, in the last days of the Holy Week, was brought vividly
to the Christian mind in each recurring year. When the long procession
of the people and the clergy wended its way to the sepulchre as the
resurrection morning drew nigh, a pious dialogue was exchanged between
the chanters and the crowd. It was Fortunatus’ poem which furnished the
faithful with the beautiful form in which they gave utterance to their
sentiments of faith. Voices repeated:--
“O Christ! Thou art the salvation, the Creator, full of goodness, and
the Redeemer of the world. Only-begotten Son of the Father, Author of
the life of the world, Thou didst allow thyself to be buried; Thou hast
trodden the pathway of death to give us the blessings of salvation.
“The gates of hell have fallen before their Master, and chaos has been
seized with terror at the inrush of light.
“Deliver the imprisoned souls from the captivity of hell, and make to
ascend on high all those who have gone down into the abyss.
“Thou snatchest from the dungeon of death a teeming host which, when
set free, follows in the footsteps of its deliverer.
“O holy King! the radiant splendour of Thy triumph shines forth when
the purified souls emerge from the sacred bath of purgatory. They,
resplendent in their newly-acquired liberty, array themselves in robes
of innocence, and the Shepherd contemplates with joy His flock, made
white as snow.”
This divine triumph, which the artist has so vividly depicted, and of
which the poet sings with such enthusiasm, was brought home to every
Christian by the aid of the imagination under the guidance of faith.
Nurtured in the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, the people had got
to be familiar with the wholesome teaching of St. Paul, when he so
eloquently drew a comparison between the seed sown in the ground and
the corruptible body of the Christian changed into the incorruptible.
All men at that time steadfastly believed in the truth of those sublime
words: “The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption:
it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown a natural
body, it is raised a spiritual body.”
These thoughts, which softened the sense of sorrow at death in the
days of deep religious faith, have been beautifully expressed by the
great painter of the Middle Ages, so fitly named Angelico. In his
splendid picture, “The Last Judgment,” the grouping of the elect is
a _chef-d’œuvre_ of Christian art. The green grass, the flowers
springing up on all sides, bring before the mind the resurrection,
and the elevated spiritualism of the faces which are depicted in this
exquisite scene carries the imagination into an ideal world. Man, with
the belief in a life to come, looked on death but as a sleep stealing
over the traveller, wearied with his pilgrimage towards the heavenly
country. The place of burial became the _place of sleep_ (which is
the meaning of the word _cemetery_). The corruption of the tomb
was rendered poetical by comparing it to the corruption of the seed,
which decomposed only to be quickened and to develop into a verdant
stem, branching out into sweet-scented and graceful flowers. The fear
of yielding to the lusts of the flesh drove the faithful into the
extreme rigour of penance, but, when death had dispelled all danger,
the body became an object of pious worship: it was encompassed with
floods of light and clouds of incense before being committed to the
earth, which had been blessed and consecrated to make it a fitting
receptacle for so precious a deposit--for faith saw in imagination the
splendour with which it would one day be clothed; and, to help the
imagination, art placed before the gaze the ineffable visions of the
Apocalypse.
[Illustration: Fragment of Angelico's picture, _the Day of
Judgement_, XV^{th} century. Florence, Academy of
Fine-Arts.]
Van Eyck has allegorically treated this great subject of the
Resurrection (Fig. 408), with as much approach to what the Church
believes to be the truth, and perhaps as artistically, as the painter
of Fiesole. Amidst a landscape flooded with light, bright with verdure
and flowers, the Mystic Lamb, standing upon an altar and shedding his
exhaustless blood into the chalice, is being greeted with homage and
hymns of praise by the celestial host. Upon the front of the altar
is the inscription, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the
sin of the world” (_Ecce Agnus Dei, qui tollet peccata mundi_).
Around the altar, angels form a circle; two of them are scattering
incense over the Lamb, while twelve others, six on each side, are
bearing the instruments of the passion, and singing the praises of the
Divine Victim. In front of the altar, in the foreground, bubbles up a
fountain, which, in the language of the Apocalypse, is thus described,
“The Lamb shall be their shepherd, He shall lead them to fountains of
living water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” M.
Alfred Michiels, in his “Histoire de la Peinture Flamande,” declares
that “no allegory has ever been painted with greater skill.”
Four groups of worshippers are artistically represented amidst verdure
and flowers. Above, on the left side, the holy martyrs are plainly
recognised by the palms in their hands; and foremost amongst these
stand the popes, nearly all of whom, in the early ages, sealed with
their blood their testimony to the divinity of the Lamb. Opposite to
them are the countless virgins who have claimed to be admitted to
the mystic marriage; and below them stand a host of nuns, popes, and
bishops adoring the Celestial Victim, and celebrating His praises.
Upon the other side of the fountain is the not less numerous phalanx
of Old Testament prophets, kings, and illustrious men, whose presence
completes the harmonious whole of this admirable composition. The two
figures standing out in the midst of this group are supposed by many
critics to represent Virgil and Dante. The white robe, the laurel
crown, and the bough with the golden apples seem, in fact, to point
pretty clearly to Dante’s guide in purgatory; but it is difficult to
believe that a painter, who is in other respects the model of pious
orthodoxy, should be guilty of so gross a breach of propriety.
In the distant horizon, churches with their graceful towers and spires
form a connecting link between heaven and earth. They seem to remind
us that it is amidst the notes of sacred music and the splendours of
religious worship, and, above all, by partaking of the mystic banquet
of the Lamb invisible but yet present, that the soul, as it receives
the earnest of the life to come, is enraptured with a prelusive glimpse
of the celestial glories.
[Illustration: Fig. 409.--Christ, risen from the dead, bearing in
one hand the Palm of Martyrdom, and in the other the victorious
Standard of the Cross.--From a Fresco painted by Fra Angelico, in
the Monastery of St. Mark, Florence (Fifteenth Century).]
The dominant idea in this Flemish masterpiece is but the expression of
those mysterious words which connect the thought of the grave with the
vision of eternal bliss: “Christ is the first-born from the dead.” He
is our elder brother in that new life where the bitterness of mourning
and the sorrow of separation are unknown. At the archangel’s voice, at
the blast of the trumpet, the dead bodies of those whom we have loved
shall rise radiant from the earth, within whose bosom they laid in calm
repose, awaiting the morning of the resurrection. They shall appear,
having put on glory and immortality, conformed to the divine image of
Christ their divine brother, their Risen Lord.
PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Neither the bishop nor the emperor can impose upon me any tax or
tribute, nor have they the power to call out the militia, except for
the protection and defence of the town, and then only from cockcrow to
nightfall.”
[2] “Arrivez, ou je vous brûlerai!”
[3] “Dressed like ragamuffins, with puffed trunk hose; some going
barelegged with their stockings hanging to their girdle; singing as
they trudge along to lighten the toil of the road.”
[4] Large-sided.
[5] Poop Guard.
[6] The principal galley of the squadron.
[7] “God wills it.”
[8] Much glory.
[9] “It happened that the king was seized with a serious illness, and
was brought so low that one of the ladies who was tending him, thinking
that he was dead, wished to cover his face with a cloth; while at the
other side of his bed was another lady who would not permit it. But it
fell out that the Lord worked within him and restored him his speech,
so that the good king asked for the cross to be brought to him, which
was done. And when the good lady, his mother, learned that he had
recovered his speech, she was overcome with joy, but when she saw that
he had assumed the cross, she was as much grieved as if she had seen
him a corpse.”
[10] The investiture of knighthood.
[11] This was the night-watch kept over his armour by the candidate for
admission to the order of knighthood.
[12] “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to thy name ascribe the glory.”
[13] Bossuet’s “Histoire Universelle,” p. 101, Firmin-Didot edition.
[14] From Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” p. 15 in the French translation by
Artaud de Montor.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the
original.
3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.
5. In the Table of Illustrations, the page number for "Adoration of the
Lamb" has been changed to "Frontispiece" and the image for "The
Judgment Day" has been added under "J".