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THE GROTESQUE . .

IN CHURCH ART . .

By T. TINDALL WILDRIDGE

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART

Only 400 copies of this Book published
for Sale, and this is No. <3/i*

: j i .• :

XLhc Grotesque . ♦
in Cburcb Brt ♦ ♦

Bp Z. GinDall TOU&rttHje. . . .

LONDON :
WILLIAM ANDREWS & CO., 5, FARRINGDON AVENUE, E.G.

1899.

preface.

HE designs of which this book treats
have vast fields outside the English
church works to which it has been
thought good to limit it. Books
and buildings undoubtedly mutually
interchanged some forms of their
ornaments, yet the temple was the
earlier repository of man's ideas
expressed in art, and the proper
home of the religious symbolism
which forms so large a proportion of my subject. In view
also of the ground I have ventured to hint may be taken up
as to the derivation, of a larger number than is generally
supposed, of church designs from heathen prototypes by the
hands of apprenticed masons, it is fitting that the evidences
should be from their chisels. The only exceptions are a
few wall-paintings, which serve to point a difference in style
and origin.

In every case the examples are from churches in our own
land. The conclusions do not nearly approach a complete
study of the questions, the research to the present, great as it
is, chiefly shewing how much has yet to be learned in order
to accurately compare the extant with the long-forgotten.

255270

vi PREFACE.

The endeavour has been to present sufficient to enable general
inferences to be drawn in the right direction.

Of the numerous works consulted in the course of this
essay, the most useful has been " Choir Stalls and their
Carvings," sketched by Miss Emma Phipson. While ten-
dering my acknowledgments for much assistance obtained
from that lady's book, I would add that the ' second series '
suggested cannot but equal the first as a service to the cause
of comparative mythology and folk-lore.

This place may be taken to dispose, of two kinds of
grotesques in church art which belong to my title, though not
to my intention.

The memorial erections put into so many churches after
the middle of the sixteenth century are to be placed in the
same category as the less often ludicrous effigies of earlier
times, and may be dismissed as " ugly monumental vanities,
miscalled sculpture." The grotesqueness of some of these
sepulchral excrescences may in future centuries be still more
apparent, though to many even time cannot supply interest.
Not all are like the imposing monument to a doctor in
Southwark Cathedral, on which, by the way, the epitaph
is mainly devoted to laudation of his pills. Yet, though
the grotesque is not entirely wanting in even these monu-
ments, it is chiefly through errors of taste. The worst of
them are more pathetic than anything else. The grotesque
proper implies a proportion of levity, whereas the earnest-
ness evinced by these effigies are more in keeping with
the solemnity of the church's purpose than the infinitely

PREFACE. vii

more artistic and unobtrusive ornament of the fabric.
The other class of grotesque is the modern imitation of
mediaeval carving, with original design. Luckily, it is
somewhat rare to find the spirit of the old sculptors animating
a modern chisel. One of the best series of modern antiques
of this kind is a set of gargoyles at St. Nicholas's, Abingdon,
executed about 1881, of which I think it worth while to append
a warning sample.

These two classes are left out of account in the following

pages.

MODERN GARGOYLE, ABINGDON, 1881.

Contents.

PAGE

Preface v

Introduction x

Definitions of the Grotesque ------- 5

The Carvers 9

The Artistic Qualities of Church Grotesques - - - 19

Gothic Ornament not Didactic 24

Ingrained Paganism - 27

Mythic Origin - 34

Hell's Mouth 60

Satanic Representations - - 64

The Devil and the Vices 78

Ale and the Alewife

Satires without Satan 106

Scriptural Illustrations - - - - - - - - 112

Masks and Faces - - - - - - - - . 121

The Domestic and Popular 134

The Pig and other Animal Musicians - - - - 152

Compound Forms - - - x^7

Nondescripts - i(,g

Rebuses 173

Trinities - - - " " ■ J75

The Fox in Church Art 184

Situations of Grotesque Ornament in Church Art - 213

Index 219

A ROOF SUPPORTER, EWELME, OXON.

#0e (Brogue in £0urc0 (Jlxt.

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3ntrot)uction.

GOKGONIC MASK. KWKL.MK.

HE more lofty the
earlier manifestations
of man's intellect, the more
complete and immediate
seems to have been their
advancement. That is to
say, where the products of
genius depend mainly upon
the recognition of great
principles and deliberate adherence to them, they are more
satisfying than when success depends upon dexterous manipu-
lation of material. What I have in view in this respect in
connection with architecture has its co-relative in language.
The subtlety and poetic force of Ayran roots shew a refined
application of principle — that of imagery — in far advance of the
languages rising from them. The successive growths of the
detail of language, for use or ornament, — and the useful of
one age would seem to become the ornamental of another —
necessarily often forsake the high purity of the primeval

2 INTRODUCTION.

standard, and give rise, not only to the commonplace, but,
by misconception or wantonness, to perversion of taste. So
in architecture. Temples were noble before their ornaments.
The grotesque is the slang of architecture. Nowhere so
much as in Gothic architecture has the grotesque been
fostered and developed, for, except for a blind adherence
to ancient designs, due to something like gild continuity,
the whole detail was introduced apropos of nothing.
The assisting circumstance would appear to have been
the indifference of the architects to the precise signi-
ficance of the detail ornaments of their buildings. Gothic,
or in fact any architecture admitting ornament, calls for
crisp sub-regular projections, which shall, by their prominence
and broken surface, attract the eye, but by the vagueness of
their general form attract it so slightly as to lose individuality
in a general view. These encrusting ornaments, by their
opposition to the light of what the carvers call a " busy "
surface, increase and accentuate rather than detract from the
effect of the sweep of arches or dying vistas of recurring
pillars. They afford a sort of punctuation, or measurers of
the rhythm of the composition. Led from point to point, the
eye gathers an impression of rich elaboration that does not
interfere with its appreciation of the orderliness of the main
design.

These objects gained, the architects did not, apparently,
enquire what the lesser minds, who carved the boss or
dripstone, considered appropriate ornament. Hence we have
a thousand fancies, often beautifully worked out, but often

INTRODUCTION. 3

utterly incongruous with the intent of the edifice they are
intended to adorn, and unworthy of the architecture of
which they are a part.

As in language the grotesque is sometimes produced by
inadvertency and misconception, so in ornament not all the
grotesque is of set purpose, and here the consideration of the
less development of the less idea has its chief example. As
original meaning became lost, the real merit of earnestness
decreased, and the grotesque became an art.

Moreover, the execution of Gothic ornament is excellent
in proportion to its artistic easiness. Thus the foliate and
florate designs are better carved than the animal forms, and
both better than the human. With the exception of little
else besides the Angel Choir at Lincoln, and portions of the
Percy Shrine at Beverley, there is nothing in Gothic
representation of sentient form really worthy of the perfect
conceptions of architecture afforded by scores of English
churches. It may, of course, be considered that anything but
conventional form is out of place as architectural ornament ;
on the other hand, it must not be ignored that conventionality
is a growth. It is only to be expected, therefore, that where
the artist found character beyond his reach he fell readily into
caricature, though it is a matter for surprise to find such a
high standard of ability in that, and in the carved work
generally. We find no instances of carving so low in
absolute merit as are the best of the wall-paintings of
the same periods.

The sources from which the artists obtained their

4 INTRODUCTION.

material are as wide as the air. A chief aim of this volume
is to indicate those sources, and this is done in some cases
rather minutely, though not in any exhaustively. The point
of view from which the subject is surveyed is that the
original detail of the temples entirely consisted of symbols of
worship and attributes, founded chiefly upon astronomical
phenomena : that owing to the gild organization of the
masons, the same forms were mechanically perpetuated long
after the worship of the heavenly bodies had given way to
Christianity, often with the thinnest veil of Christian
symbolism thrown over them. To this material, descended
from remote antiquity, came gradually to be added a
multitude of designs from nature and from fancy.

HARPY, EXETER.

RAGE AND TERROR, RIPON.

definitions of the (Srotesqne.

THE term "Grotesque," which conveys to us an idea
of humourous distortion or exaggeration, is simply
grotto-esque, being literally the style of art found in the
grottos or baths of the ancients. The term rose towards
the end of the fifteenth century, when exhumation brought
to light the fantastic decorations of the more private
apartments of the licentious Romans. The use at that
period, of a similar style for not unsimilar purposes gave
the word common currency, and it has spread to everything
which, combined with wit or not, provokes a smile by a
real or pretended violation of the laws of Nature and
Beauty. In its later, and not in its original, meaning is
the word applied to the extraordinary productions of church
art. We may usefully inquire as to the causes of those

6 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

remarkable characteristics of Gothic art which have caused
the word Grotesque to fittingly describe so much of its
detail.

The joke has a different meaning for every age. The
capacity for simultaneously recognizing likeness and contrast
between things the most incongruous and wide-sundered,
which is at the root of our appreciation of wit, humour,
or the grotesque, is a quality of slow growth among nations.
No doubt early man enjoyed his laugh, but it was a different
thing from the laughter of our day. Many races have
left no suspicion of their ever having smiled ; even where
there are ample pictorial remains, humour is generally
unrepresented. The Assyrians have left us the smallest
possible grounds for crediting them with its possession.
Instances have been adduced of Egyptian humour, but
some are doubtful, and in any case the proportion of
fun per acre of picture is infinitesimally small. The Greeks,
perhaps, came the nearest to what we consider the comic,
but with both Greek and Roman the humour has something
of bitterness and sterility ; even in what was professedly
comic we cannot always see any real fun. Where it
strikes out unexpectedly in brief flashes it is with a cold
light that leaves no impression of warmth behind. The
mechanical character of their languages, with a multitude of
fixed formulae, is perhaps an index to their mental develop-
ment. The subtleties of wit ran in the direction of gratifying
established tastes and prejudices by satirical references,
but rarely condescending to amuse for mere humour's sake.

DEFINITIONS OF THE GROTESQUE. 7

Where is found the nearest approach to merriness is in what
now-a-days we regard as the least interesting and meritorious
grade of humour, the formal parody. The Greeks had, outside
their fun, let it be noted, something better than jococity, and
that was joyousness. The later Romans became humourous
in a low way which has had a permanent influence upon
literature and art.

Sense of humour grew with the centuries, and by the
time that the Gothic style of architecture arose, appreciation
of the ludicrous-in-general {i.e. that which is without special
reference to an established phase of thought) is traceable as a
characteristic of, at least, the Teuton nations. It must be
admitted that the popular verbal fun of the middle ages
is not always easy to grasp, but it cannot be denied
that where understood, or where its outlet is found in
the graphic or glyphic arts, there is allied to the innocent
coarseness and unscrupulousness, a richness of conceit, a
wealth of humour, and a delicate and accurate sense
of the laughable far beyond Greek wit or Roman
jocularity.

It is to the embodiments of the spirit of humour as
found in our mediseval churches that our present study is
directed.

It may be as well to first say a little upon those comicalities
which may be styled 'grotesques by misadventure.' This is a
branch of the subject to be approached with some diffidence,
for it is in many cases difficult to discriminate between that
which was intended to be grotesque, and that which was

8 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

executed with serious or often devout feelings, but for one
of several causes often presenting to us an irresistibly comic
effect.

The causes may be five. First, the varying mechanical
and constructive incompetency of the artists to embody their
ideas. Second, the copying of an earlier work with executive
ability, with strong perception of its unintentional and latent
humour, but without respect to, or without knowledge of, its
serious meaning. Third, the use of symbolic representation,
in which the greater the skill, often the greater the
ludicrous effect. Fourth, the change of fashion, manners,
and customs. Fifth, a bias of mind which impelled to
whimsical treatment.

Consideration of the causes thus roughly analysed will
explain away a large proportion of the irreverence of the
irreverent paintings and carvings which excite such surprise,
and sometimes disgust, in the minds of many modern observers
of ecclesiological detail.

It will be seen that the placing of carvings in any one of
these five classes, or in the category of intentional grotesques,
must, in many cases, be a mere matter of opinion. For the
present purpose it will not be necessary to separate them,
except so far as the plan of the work does it automatically.
Many ecclesiastical and other seals afford familiar instances of
the ' comic without intention,' parallel to what is said above
as to carvings.

Hbe Carvers.

EEMINGLY probability and evidence go
hand in hand to shew that a great
bulk of the church mason work of this
country was the work of foreigners.
Saxon churches were probably first built
by Roman workmen, whose erections would
teach sufficient to enable Saxons to after-
lincoln, /^m «»/. ward build for themselves. Imported
talent, however, is likely to have been constantly employed.
Edward the Confessor brought back with him from France
new French designs for the rebuilding- of Westminster
Abbey, and doubtless he brought French masons also.
Anglo-Norman is strongly Byzantine in character, and
though the channels through which it passed may be
various, there is little doubt that its origin was the great
Empire of the East. Again, the great workshop of Europe,
where Eastern ideas were gathered together and digested, and
which supplied cathedrals and cathedral builders at command,
was Flanders ; and there is little doubt that during some five
centuries after the Norman Conquest, Flemings were em-
ployed, in a greater or less degree, on English work.
Italians were largely employed. The Angel Choir of

Lincoln is one distinct witness to that. The workmen who

io THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

executed the finely-carved woodwork of St. George's Chapel,
Windsor, King's College, Cambridge, and Westminster
Abbey, in the sixteenth century, were chiefly Italians, under
the superintendence of Torregiano, a Florentine artist. He
was a fellow-pupil of Michael Angelo, and is best known by
the dastardly blow he dealt him with a mallet, disfiguring
him for life. The resentment of Lorenzo de Medici at this
caused Torregiano to leave Florence. He came to England
in 1503.

The architect, however, of King Henry VI I. 's Chapel
was Bishop Alcock, an Englishman, born at Hull, the
already existing Grammar School of which place he endowed,
and, perhaps, rebuilt. Many other architects of English
buildings were Englishmen, probably the majority, and
doubtless a large proportion of the workmen also,* but
it would be idle to deny that imported art speaks loudly from
work of all the styles.

The carved detail may be relied upon to tell us some-
thing, and it speaks of an original reliance upon the East,
which was never outgrown. The carvings found in England
are not marked by anything at all approaching a national
spirit, even in the limited degree that was possible. Except
for a few carvings of armorial designs, and still fewer with
slight local reference, there are none in wood or stone
which would not be equally in place in any Romance
country in Europe. The carvings, also, in the Continental

* Early in the thirteenth century unruly converts of the Abbey of Meaux, Yorkshire,
were, to humble their pride, made stonemasons, etc.

THE CARVERS.

churches present familiar aspects to the student of English
ornament.

But if we have yet to wait some fortunate discovery of
rolls of workmen's names, with their rate of wages, we are
not without such interesting information concerning the old
carvers as is contained in portraits they have left of them-
selves. Just as authors sometimes recognize how satisfactory

AN INDUSTRIOUS CARVER, LYNN.

it is to have their " effigies " done at the fronts of their books,
so have the carvers of old sometimes attached to their works
portraits of themselves or their fellows, in their habits as they
lived, in their attitudes as they laboured.

Our first carver hails from Lincolnshire. In 1852, when
the Church of St. Nicholas, Lynn, was restored, the miseri-
cordes were taken out and not replaced, but passed as articles

12 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

of commerce eventually to the Architectural Museum, Tufton
Street, London. Among these is a view of a carver's studio,
shewing the industrious master seated, tapping carefully
away at a design upon the bench before him. There are
three apprentices in the background working at benches ;
there are at the back some incised panels, and a piece of open
screen-work. Perhaps we may suppose the weather to be
cold, for the carver has on an exceedingly comfortable cloak
or surcoat. At his feet reposes his dog.

There is an interesting peculiarity about these Lynn

CARVERS INITIALS, ST. NICHOLAS S, LYNN.

carvings ; the sides of the misericordes are designs in the
fashion of monograms, or rebuses. The sides supporting the
carver are his initials, pierced with his carving tools, a saw
and a chisel. The difficulty is the same in all of the set ;
the meaning of the monograms is not to be lightly deter-
mined. In this case it may be U.V., or perhaps U is twice
repeated.

The next carvers belong to the following century. Here
also we see the principal figures in the midst of work. In
this case, however, there has arrived an interruption. Either

THE CARVERS.

one of the workers is about to commit mock assault and
battery upon another with a mallet, or a brilliant idea for a
grotesque has just struck him, and he hastens to impart it.
From the expression of the faces, and the attitudes for which
two other workmen have stood as models, at the sides, the

COMMUNICATING A STRIKING IDEA, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

latter may be the more likely. It is not impossible that the
carver of the fine set of sixty-eight misericordes in Beverley
Minster had in mind the incident of the blow given to
Michael Angelo, and it would be interesting to know if any
of Torregiano's Italians worked at Beverley. This aproned,
noisy, jocular crew are very different from the dignified artist

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

we have just left, but doubtless they turned out good work of
the humorous class.

The two " sidesmen " are occupied in the two ways of
shewing intelligence and contempt known as " taking a
sight," etc.

The next carver is a figure at Wellingborough, Northamp-
tonshire. This is locally known as the Wellingborough shoe-
maker, but nearly all local designations of such things are
wrong, and this is no exception. Elsewhere in speaking

MUTUAL CONTEMPT, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

of this sedate figure, I have conjectured he may be cutting
something out of leather, and not making shoes. However, I
have since arrived at Miss Phipson's conclusion : the figure
can only be that of a carver. He is fashioning not a leather
rosette, but a Tudor rose in oak, to be afterwards pinned with
an oak pin in some spandrel. He is rather a reserved-
looking individual, but a master of his craft, if we may
suppose he has " turned out " the two eagles at his right
and left.

THE CARVERS. 15

No doubt there were several ways of building churches,
or supplying them with their art decorations. Some
masons would be attached to a cathedral, and be lent or sent
here and there by arrangement. Others would be ever
wandering, seeking church work. Others might come from
abroad for particular work, and return with the harvest of
English money when the work was done. For special
objects there were depots. It is an acknowledged fact that
the black basalt fonts of Norman times were imported from

A PIECE OF FINE WORK. WELLINGBOROUGH.

Flanders. There are occasionally met other things of this
material with the same class of design, evidently from the
same source, such as the sculptured coffin-lid at Bridlington
Priory, given on a following page. I have not seen it noted,
but I think it will be established that "brasses," so much
alike all over the country, were mostly ready-made articles
also from Flanders. From the stereotyped conventionality
of the altar-tomb effigies, they also may be judged to be
the productions of workshops doing little but this work, and
probably foreign.

16 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

What is required to determine the general facts on these
points is a return from various fabric accounts. We shall
probably find both English and foreign carvers. There is
little or no doubt that the carvers of our grotesques were
members of the mysterious society which has developed into
the modern body of Freemasons. It would be interesting —
if it were not so apparently impossible — to trace in the
records of early Freemasonry, not only the names and
nationalities of the masons and carvers, but the details of
that fine organization which enabled them to develope ideas
and improvements simultaneously throughout Europe ; and
• which would tell us, moreover, something of the master minds
which conceived and directed the changes of style. But the
masonic history of our carvers is much enveloped in error to
the outside world. Thus we are told that in the minority
of Henry VI. the masons were suppressed by statute,
but that on his assuming the control of affairs he repealed the
Act, and himself became a mason ; moreover, we are told he
wrote out " Certayne Questyons with Awnsweres to the same
concerning the Mystery of Maconrye " which was afterwards
" copyed by me Johan Leylande Antiquarius," at the
command of Henry VIII. ; the MS. being gravely stated to
be in the Bodleian Library. No such MS. exists at the
Bodleian Library. If it did, its diction and spelling (which
is all on pretended record in certain books probably repudiated
by the masonic body proper) would instantly condemn it as a
forgery. Certainly an Act was passed, 3 Henry VI., which is
in itself a historical monument to the importance of Free-

THE CARVERS. 17

masonry. It is a brief enactment that the yearly meetings
of the masons, being contrary to the Statute of Labourers
(of 25 Edward III., 1 35 1) fixing the rates of labour, which
the masons varied and apparently increased, were no longer
to be held ; offenders to be judged guilty of felony. The
Commons did not quite know what to style the meetings,
using in this short Act the following terms for them :
Chapters, Assemblies, Congregations, and Confederacies.

But important though this proves the masons to have
been, there is no account of the statute being repealed until the
5 Elizabeth, when another took its place equally intolerant to
the spirit of Freemasonry, and Freemasonry really only
became legal by the Act of 6 George IV.

But the prohibition of 1424 was not abolition. If the
masons were debarred from being allowed to exercise their
advanced notions of remuneration, or to have any legal
recognition whatever, it scarcely seems to have affected their
action. For if they had refrained from exercising their
freedom, and submitted to being put down by statute, it is
probable we should have met them in the form of more
ordinary gilds as instituted by other craftsmen. But we do
not meet them thus, and the inference is that they went on in
their own way, at their own time, and at their own price. It
may be presumed that the more or less migratory habits
of the masons made the Act impossible to be rigidly
enforced.

Coming down towards the end of Gothic times, we find,
at any rate, there was one place where images might be

i8 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

ordered. In the Stanford churchwardens' accounts for 1556
there occur the following entries : —

"It. In expences to Abyndon to speke for ymages ... vijd.

It. for iij ymages, the Rode, Mare, and John ... xxijs. iiijd."

It will have been noticed that the portraits of the carvers
are Late. It is a great merit, on antiquarian grounds, that
Gothic work, prior to the revival in art, was too much uncon-
scious to admit anything so self-personal as a thought of
the workers themselves, though frequently their ' marks '
are unobtrusively set upon their works. By the sixteenth
century, the sculptor's art developed with the rest of
mental effort, and the artists drank fresh draughts from
the springs coming by way of Rome, springs whose waters
had been concerned in the existence of nearly all the art
that had been in Europe for ten centuries.

DOG AND BUNK, HKKCIUN.

£be Hrtistic <&ualit£ of Cburcb (Brotesques,

THE grotesque has been pronounced a false taste, and not
desirable to be perpetuated. Reflection upon the causes
and meanings of Gothic grotesque will shew that perpetuation
is to be regretted for other than artistic reasons. If the taste
be false yet the work is valuable on historic grounds, for
what it teaches of its own time and much more for what it
hints of earlier periods of which there is meagre record
anywhere. Therefore it would be well not to confuse the
student of the future with our clever variations of imperfectly
understood ideas. Practically the grotesque and emblematic
period ended at the Reformation ; and it was well.

But while leaving the falseness of the taste for grotesques
an open question, there is something to be said for them
without straining fact. For it is certain that there is under-
lying Gothic grotesque ornament a unique and, if not
understood, an uncopiable beauty, be the subject never so

2o THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

ugly. The fascinating element appear to be, first, the
completeness of the genius which was exercised upon it. It
not only conveys the travestying idea, but also sufficiently
conveys the original thought travestied.

What is it at which we laugh? It shall be a figure
which is of a kind generally dignified, now with no dignity ;
generally to be respected, but now commanding no respect ;
capable of being feared, but now inspiring no fear ; usually
lovable, but now provoking no love. It shall be a figure of
which the preconceived idea was either worthy or dreadful —
which suddenly we have presented to us shorn of its superior
attributes. Ideals are unconsciously enshrined in the mind,
and when images proclaiming themselves the same ideals
appear in sharp degraded contrast — we laugh. Thus we
affirm the correctness of the original judgments both as to the
great and the contemptible imitating it, for laughter is the
effect of appreciation of incongruity. Custom overrides
nearly all, and blunts contrast of ideas, yet wit, darting here
and there among men, ever finds fresh contrasts and fresh
laughter.

Further counts for something the excellence of the
artistic management, which in the treatment of the most
unpromising subjects filled the composition with beautiful
lines. It was left to Hogarth's genius to insist on the reality
of " the line of beauty " as governing all loveliness, and he
suggests that a perceptive recognition of this existed on the
part of the classic sculptors. This applies to their work in
general, but he also mentions their frequent addition of some

ARTISTIC QUALITY OF CHURCH GROTESQUES. 21

curved object connected with the subject, as though it were a
kind of key to the artistic composition. Whether consciously
or not, the ancients used many such adjunctive curved lines,
and Hogarth's conclusions cannot be styled fanciful. The
helmet, plume, and serpent-edged aegis of Minerva, the
double-bowed bolt and serpents of Jupiter, the ornaments of
the trident, the aplustre and the twisted rope of Neptune, the
bow and serpent of Apollo, the plume of Mars, the caduceus
of Mercury, the ship-prow of Saturn, the gubernum or rudder

DOG AND BONE, CHRISTCHURCH, HAMPSHIRE.

of Venus, the drinking horn of Pan, together with many
another form to be observed in particular works of the
ancients, is each a definite and perfect example of the faultless
line. Now, to repeat, many — an infinite number — of the
ornaments of Gothic architecture, and not less the grotesque
than any other description, are likewise composed of the most
beautiful lines conceivable, either entirely, or combined with
lines of abrupt and ungraceful turn that seem to deliberately
provoke one's artistic protest ; and yet the whole composition
shall, by its curious mixture of beauty and bizarre, its contrast

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

of elegance with awkwardness, leave a real and unique sense
of pleasure in the mind. Doubtless the root of this pleasure
is the gratification of the mind at having secretly detected
itself responding to the call of art to exercise itself in
appreciative discrimination. This may be unconsciously
done ; and in a great measure the qualities which give the

HAWKS OR EAGLES? WELLINGBOROUGH, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.

pleasure would be bestowed upon the work in similar happy
unconsciousness of the exact why and wherefore. Often, as
in the ancient statues, a small curved form is introduced as an
appendage to a mediaeval grotesque.

Thus we see that there are combinations of two kinds of
contrast which make Gothic grotesques agreeable, the artistic
contrasts among the mere lines of the carvings, and the

ARTISTIC QUALITY OF CHURCH GROTESQUES. 23

significatory contrasts evolved by the meanings of the
carvino-s.

As far back as the twelfth century, a critic of church
grotesques recognized their combination of contrasts. This
was St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who, speaking of the ecclesias-
tical decoration of his time, paid the grotesques of church art
the exact tribute they so often merit ; probably the greater
portion of what he saw has given place to succeeding carvings,
though of precisely the same characteristics. He calls them
"a wonderful sort of hideous beauty and beautiful deformity."
He, moreover, put a question, many times since repeated by
hundreds who never heard of him, asking the use of placing
ridiculous monstrosities in the cloisters before the eyes of the
brethren when occupied with their studies.

It is not possible to explain the "use" of perpetuating
the barbarous symbols of a long-forgotten past ; but it will
be interesting to shew that there were actual causes accounting
for their continued existence and their continued production,
unknown ages after their own epoch.

-1

■/>»*;

(Sotbic ©rnament6 not Didactic.

EFLECTION will not lead us to believe carvings to
have been placed in churches with direct intent to
teach or preach. Many writers have coincided in producing
a general opinion that the churches, as containing these
carvings, were practically the picture (or sculpture) galleries
and illustrated papers for the illiterate of the past. This
supposition will not bear examination. It would mean that in
the days when humble men rarely travelled from home, and
then mostly by compulsion, to fight for lord or king, or against
him, the inhabitant of a village or town had for the (say) forty
years sojourn in his spot of Merrie England, a small collection
of composite animals, monsters, mermaids, impossible flowers,
etc. — with perhaps one doubtful domestic scene of a lady
breaking a vessel over the head of a gentleman who is
inquisitive as to boots — with which to improve his mind.
Sometimes his church would contain not half-a-dozen forms,
and mostly not one he could understand or cared to
interpret.

Misericordes, the secondary seats or shelves allowed as a
relaxation during the ancient long standing services, are
invariably carved, and episode is more likely to be found
there than anywhere else in the church. Hence, misericordes

GOTHIC ORNAMENTS NOT DIDACTIC. 25

have been specially selected for this erroneous consideration
of ornament to be the story-book of the Middle Ages. This
is unfortunate for the theory, for they were placed only in
churches having connection with a monastic or collegiate
establishment. They are in the chancels, where the feet of
laymen rarely trod, and, moreover, there would be few
hours out of the twenty-four when the stalls would not
be occupied by the performers of the daily offices or
celebrations.

The fact appears to be that the carvings were the
outcome of causes far different from an intention to produce
genre pictures. It is patent that anything which kept within
its proper mechanical and architectural outline, was admitted.
What was offered depended upon a multitude of considerations,
but chiefly upon the traditions of mason-craft. The Rev.
Charles Boutell has an apt description touching upon the
origin of the carvings: calling them "chronicles," he says
they were " written by men who were altogether unconscious
of being chroniclers at all. . . . They worked under the
impulse, of motives altogether devoid of the historical
element. They were influenced by the traditions of their art,
by their own feelings, and were directed by their own know-
ledge, experience, and observation, and also by the associations
of their every-day lives." This appears to explain in general
terms the sources of iconography. In brief, the sculptor had
a stock-in-trade of designs, which he varied or supplemented,
according to his ability and originality.

That the stock-in-trade, or traditions of the art, handed

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

down from master to apprentice, generation after generation,
persistently retained an immense amount of intellectualia thus
derived from a remote antiquity, is but an item of this
subject, but the most important of which this work has
cognizance.

SEA-HORSE DKAGONIZED, LINCOLN, 14th Cent.

3ngrainefc> paganism.

WE at this day may be excused for not participating in
the good St. Bernard's dislike to the " hideous
beauties " of the grotesque, and for not deploring, as he does,
the money expended on their production. For many of them
are the embodiments of ideas which the masons had perpetuated
from a period centuries before his time, and which could in no
other way have been handed down to us. There are many
reasons why books were unlikely media for early times ;
for later, the serious import of the origin of the designs would
be likely to be doubted ; and for the most part the special
function of the designs has been the adornment of edifices of
religion. They were, in fact, religious symbols which in
various ages of the world have been used with varying
degrees of purity. One of the Rabbis, Maimonides, has an
instructive passage on the rise of symbolic images. Speaking
of men's first falling away from a presumed early pure
religion he says : — " They began to build temples to the stars,
. . and this was the root of idolatry . . . and the
false prophet showed them the image that he had feigned out
of his own heart, and said it was the image of that star which
was made known to him by prophecy ; and they began after
this manner to make images in temples and under trees . . .
and this thing was spread throughout the world — to serve

28 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

images with services different one from another and to
sacrifice unto, and worship them. So in process of time the
glorious and fearful name was forgotten out of the mouth of
all living . . . and there was found on earth no people
that knew aught save images of wood and stone, and temples
of stone which they built." The ancient Hindoo fables also
indicate how imagery arose ; they speak of the god Ram," who,
having no shape, is described by a similitude." The worship
of the " Host of Heaven " was star-worship, or l< Baalim."

The Sabean idolatry was the worship of the stars, to
which belongs much of the earlier image carving, for the
household gods of the ancient Hebrews, the Teraphim (as
the images of Laban stolen by Rachel), were probably in
the human form as representing planets, even in varying
astronomical aspects of the same planet. They are said to
have been of metal. The ancient Germans had similar
household gods of wood, carved out of the root of the
mandragora plant, or alraun as they called it, from the
superstition kindred to that of the East, that the images
would answer questions (from raunen to whisper in the ear).
Examination of many ancient Attic figurines appears to shew
that they had a not unsimilar origin, reminding us that both
Herodotus and Plato state the original religion of the Greeks
to have been star-worship, and hence is derived the 0eos
god, from Qdv to run. Thus in other than the poet's
sense are the stars " elder scripture."

A large number of the forms met in architectural
ornament, it may be fittingly reiterated, have a more or less

INGRAINED PAGANISM. 29

close connection with the worships which existed in times long
prior to Christianity. A portion of them was continuously
used simply because the masons were accustomed to them, or
in later Gothic on account of the universal practice of copying
existing works ; unless we can take it for granted in place of
that practice, that there existed down to Reformation days
''portfolios" of carver's designs which were to the last handed
down from master to apprentice, as must have undoubtedly
been the case in earlier times. Other portions of the ancient
worship designs are found in Christian art because they were
received and grafted upon the symbolic system of the Church's
teaching. The retention of these fragments of superseded
paganism does not always appear to have been of deliberate
or willing intention. The early days of the Church even after
its firm establishment, were much occupied in combating
every form of paganism. The converts were constantly
lapsing into their old beliefs, and the thunders of the early
ecclesiastical councils were as constantly being directed against
the ancient superstitions. Sufficient remains on record to
shew how hard the gods died.

To near the end of the fourth century the chief
intelligence of Rome publicly professed the Olympic faith.
With the next century, however, commenced a more
or less determined programme of persecutory repression.
Thus, councils held at Aries about 452 ruled that a
bishop was guilty of sacrilege who neglected to extirpate the
custom of adoring fountains, trees, and stones. At that of
Orleans in 533 Catholics were to be excommunicated who

3o THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

returned to the worship of idols or ate flesh offered to idols.
At Tours in 567 several pagan superstitions were forbidden,
and at Narborne in 590 ; freemen who transgressed were to
have penance, but slaves to be beaten. At Nicea in 681
image worship was allowed of Christ.* At Augsburgh (?)
in 742 the Count Gravio was associated with the Bishop
to watch against popular lapses into paganism. In
743 Pepin held a council in which he ruled, as his
father had done before, that he who practised any pagan
rites be fined 15 sous (^-| of a livre). To the orders was
attached the renunciation, in German, of the worship of
Odin by the Saxons, and a list of the pagan superstitions of
the Germans. The Council of Frankfort in 794 ordered the
sacred woods to be destroyed. Constantinople had apparently
already not only become a channel for the conveyance of
oriental paganism in astro-symbolic images, but was also
evidently nearer to the lower idolatry of heathenism than the
Church of the West. Thus we find the bishops of Gaul,
Germany, and Italy in council at Frankfort, rejecting with
anathema, and as idolatrous, the doctrines of the Council of
Constantinople upon the worship of images.

While all this repression was going on, the Church was

* Of Christ, the Virgin, and saints only. It is here quoted as evidence of a tendency.
It is plain that the council protected itself, for the following distich is attributed to it, which
sums up the original intent of all images —

" Id Deus est, quod Imago docet, sed non deus ipse ;
Hanc Videas, sed mente colas ; quod cemis in ipse."

which Prideaux, Bishop of Worcester, translates (1681) :

"A God the Image represents,
But is no God in kind ;
That's the eye's object, what it shews
The object of the mind."

INGRAINED PAGANISM. 31

making itself acceptable, just as the Mosaic system had
done in its day, by assimilating the symbols of the
forbidden faiths. Itself instituted without formularies or
ceremonial, both were needed when it became a step-ladder
of ambition and the expedient displacer of the corrupt
idolatries into which sun-worship had disintegrated. Hence
among the means of organization, observance and symbol
took the place of original simplicity, and it is small wonder
that ideas were adopted which were already in men's minds.
Elements of heathenism which, after the lapse of centuries,
still clung to the Church's robes, became an interwoven part
of her dearest symbolism. If men did not burn what they
had adored, they in effect adored that which they had burned.

In spite, however, of edicts and adoptions, paganism has
never been entirely rooted out; what Sismondi calls the "rights
of long possession, the sacredness of time-hallowed opinion, and
the potency of habit," are not yet entirely overcome in the
midst of the most enlightened peoples. The carvings which
point back to forgotten myths have their parallels in curious
superstitions and odd customs which are not less venerable.

There were many compromises made on account of the
ineradicable attachment of the people to religious customs
into which they were born. Christian festivals were erected
on the dates of heathen observances. In the sixth century,
Pope Gregory sent word to Augustine, then in England, that
the idolatrous temples of the English need not be destroyed,
though the idols should, and that the cattle sacrificed to the
heathen deities should be killed on the anniversary of dedication

32 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

or on the nativities of the saints whose relics were within the
church.

It is said that it was, later, usual to bring a fat buck into
St. Paul's, London, with the hunters' horns blowing, in the
midst of divine service, for the cathedral was built on or near
the site of a former temple of Diana. This custom was
made the condition of a feudal tenure. The story of
Prosperine, another form of Diana, was the subject of
heathen plays, and down to the sixteenth century the
character appears in religious mystery plays as the recipient
of much abuse.

Ancient mythology points in one chief direction. " Omnes
Deos referri ad solem," says Macrobius, " All Gods refer to
the sun," and in the light of that saying a thousand complicated
fables of antiquity melt into simplicity. The ancient poets
called the sun (at one time symbolically of a First Great
Cause, at another absolutely) the Leader, the Moderator, the
Depository of Light, the Ordainer of human things ; each of
his virtues was styled a different god, and given its distinct
name. The moon also, and the stars were made the symbols
of deities. These symbols put before the people as vehicles
for abstract ideas, were quickly adopted as gods, the symbolism
being disregarded, and the end was practically the same as
that narrated by the ancient rabbi just quoted. But it may
be doubted whether the pantheism of the classic nations
was ever entirely gross. The great festivals of the gods were
accompanied by the initiation of carefully selected persons
into certain mysteries of which no description is extant.

INGRAINED PAGANISM.

Thirlwall hazards the conjecture "that they were the remains
of a worship which preceded the rise of the Hellenic mythology-
grounded on a view of nature less fanciful, more
earnest and better fitted to awaken both philosophical thought
and religious feeling." Whether a purer system was unfolded
to the initiated on these occasions or not, there is little doubt
that it had existed and was at the root of the symbol rites.

AN IMP ON CUSHIONS, CHRISTCHURCH, HANTS., early l6th Cent.

flD^tbic QviQin of Cburcb Carvings.

TAU CROSS,
WELLINGBOROUGH.

HE discoveries in Egypt in recent years un-
doubtedly press upon us the fact that there was
in Europe an early indigenous civilization, and
that the exchange of ideas between East and
West was at least equal. For the purpose of
this study, however, the theory of independence
is not accepted absolutely ; it is premised that
though there were in numerous parts of the old
world early native systems of worship of much
similarity, yet that such relics of them as are met in archi-
tecture came from the East.

The mythic ideas at the root of Gothic decoration were
probably early disseminated through Europe in vague and
varying ways, whose chief impress is in folk-lore ; but the con-
crete forms themselves appear to have been introduced later,
after being brought, as it were, to a focus, being selected
and assimilated at some great mental centre. Alexandria
was the place where Eastern and Western culture impinged on
each other, and resulted in a conglomerate of ideas. These
ideas, however, were not essentially different in their nature,
though each school, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek,
and Hebrew, had diverged widely if they came from an un-
known common source. But if Alexandria was the furnace

MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHURCH CARVINGS. 35

in which the material was fused, Byzantium appears to have
been the great workshop where the results were utilized, and
from whence they were issued to Europe.

Sculptured ornament is not alone in the fact of its being
a direct legacy from remotely ancient forms, though, on
comparing that with any of the other arts hitherto recognized
as of Eastern origin, it will be found that none bears such
distinct marks of its parentage, or shews such continuity of
form. Thus examination of European glazed pottery, which
comes perhaps the nearest to our subject, shews that the
ornamenting devices occasionally betray an acquaintance with
the old symbolic patterns, but there is less recognition of
meaning, scarcely any intention to perpetuate idea, and no
continuity of design. It was not in the nature of the potter's
purpose that there should be any of these, the difference being
that for the mason's and the sculptor's art there was a very
close association with the gild system. The first Christian
sculptors would be masons brought up in pagan gilds, and the
gild instincts and traditions had undoubtedly as strong an
effect upon their work, on the whole, as any religious beliefs
they might possess.

The symbolism of the animals of the church in the late
points of view of the Bestiaries and of the expository writers of
the Middle Ages, is not here to be made the subject of special
attention. That is a department well treated in other works,
particularly in the volume, " Animal Symbolism in Ecclesias-
tical Architecture," by Mr. E. P. Evans, which yet remains
to be equalled. It is to be noted, however, that the early

•?

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

Christians, seeing the animals and their compounds so integral
a portion of pagan imagery, endeavoured to twist every
meaning to one sufficiently Christian : but what is chiefly
worthy of note is the unconscious resistance of the sculptors
to the treatment. Although a multitude of figures can be
traced as used symbolically in accordance with the Christian
dicta, there are at least as many which shew stronger affinity
to pagan myth. There is evidence that this was early re-
cognized by the propogandists. The Council of Nice in
787, in enjoining upon the faithful the due regard of images,
ordered that the works of art were not to be drawn from the
imagination of the painters, but to be only such as were
approved by the rules and traditions of the Catholic Church.
^- So also ordained the Council of Milan in 1565.

The Artists, however, did not invent the images so much
as use old material, and, the injunctions of the Council notwith-
standing, the ancient symbols apparently held their ground.
The protests of St. Nilus, in the fifth century, against animal
figures in the sanctuary, were echoed by the repudiations of
St. Bernard in the twelfth and Gautier de Coinsi in the
thirteenth, a final condemnation being made at the Council of
1 Milan in 1565, all equally in vain. Though the force of the
myth symbols has passed away, they have left another legacy
than the grotesques of church art. The art works of the
Greeks arose from the same materials, the glorious statues
and epics being the highest embodiment of the symbolic, so
loftily overtopping all other forms by the force of supreme
physical beauty as to almost justify and certainly purify the

MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHURCH CARVINGS.

religion of which they were the outcome ; so, later, the same
ideas clothed with the moral beauty of supreme unselfishness
enabled Christianity to take hold of the nations.

By the diatribes of Bernard we can see what materials
were extant in the twelfth century for a study of worship-
symbols and of the grotesque, though he ignores any possible
meaning they may have. He says, " Sometimes you may see
many bodies under one head ; at other times, many heads to
one body ; here is seen the tail of a serpent attached to the
body of a quadruped ; there the head of a quadruped on the
body of a fish. In another place appears an animal, the fore
half of which represents a horse, and the hinder portion a
goat. Elsewhere you have a horned animal with the hinder
parts of a horse ; indeed there appears everywhere so multi-
farious and so wonderful a variety of diverse forms that, one
is more apt to con over the sculptures than to study the
scriptures, to occupy the whole day in wondering at these
than in meditating upon God's law."

It has now to be observed how far the symbolic fancies
of ancient beliefs have left their impress on the grotesque art
of our churches.

A common representation of the great sun-myth was that
of two eagles, or dragons, watching one at each side of an altar.
These were the powers of darkness, one at each limit of the
day, waiting to destroy the light. This poetic idea has come
down to us in many forms. Greek art was unconsciously
frequent in its use of the form, and mediaeval sculptors, being
often quite ignorant of the significance of the design, use it in

cUl

i>>

3«

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

a variety of ways, in many of which the likeness to the
original is entirely lost, the composition ending in but a semi-

THE ALTAR OF LIGHT AND THE BIRDS OF DARKNESS, LINCOLN.

natural representation of birds pecking at fruit. In the above
block from Lincoln Minster, the altar is well preserved. In
the next block, which is from a carving connected with the
preceding one, the idea is more distantly hinted at.

SYMBOLS OF DARKNESS, LINCOLN.

MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHURCH CARVINGS.

At Exeter, an ingenious grotesque composition of two
duck-footed harpies, one on either side of a fleur-de-lis, is
evidently from the same source. Examples of this could be
multiplied very readily.

THE ALTAR OF LIGHT AND THE BIRDS OF DARKNESS, EXETER.

The Cat and the Fiddle are subjects of carvings at
Beverley and at Wells.

Man has an almost universal passion for the oral trans-
mission of the fruits of his mental activity. In the particular
instances of many lingual compositions this passion has
become an inveterate race habit, and the rhymes or reasons
have been transmitted verbally to posterity long after their
original meaning has been lost or obscured. It is no new
thing that a nursery rhyme has been found to be the relic of
an archaic poem long misunderstood or perverted. The lines
as to " the cat and the fiddle " are an excellent instance of the

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

aptitude to continue the use of metrical composition the sense
of which has departed. The full verse is, as it stands, a
curious jumble of disconnected sentences.

THE WEEKS DANCING TO THE MUSIC OF THE MONTH, BEVERLEY MINSTER

" Hey, diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
While the dish run away with the spoon."

HEY, DIDDLE, DIDDLE, THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE, WELLS.

I am not aware that any attempt has yet been made to
explain this extraordinary verse. Examination seemingly
shews that it was originally a satire in derision of the worship
of Diana. The moon-goddess had a three-fold existence. On

MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHURCH CARVINGS. 41

the earth she was Diana. Among the Egyptians we find her
as Isis, and her chief symbol was the cat. Apuleius calls her
the mother of the gods. In the worship of Isis was used a
musical instrument, the sistrum, which had four metal bars
loosely inserted in a frame so as to be shaken ; on the apex of
this frame, which was shaped not unlike a horse-shoe, was
carved the figure of a cat, as emblematic of the moon. The
four bars are said by Plutarch to represent the elements, but
it is more likely they were certain notes of the diapason.
The worship of Isis passed to Italy, though the Greeks had
previously connected the cat with the moon. The fiddle, as
an instrument played with a bow, was not known to classic
times, but the word for fiddle — -fides — was applied to a lyre.
It is equivalent to a Greek word for gut-string. In the light
of what follows, I suggest that " the Cat and the Fiddle " is a
mocking allusion to the worship of Diana upon earth.

In the heavens the moon-goddess had the name of Luna,
and her chief symbol was the crescent, which is sometimes
met figured as a pair of cow's horns. Images of Isis
were crowned with crescent horns ; she was believed to
be personified in the cow, as Osiris was in the bull, and her
symbol, a crescent moon, is met in sculpture over the back of
the animal. This apparently suggested the second line.

The third personality of the goddess was Hecate, which
was the name by which she was known in the infernal
regions, — which means of course, in nature, when she was
below the horizon. Now another name by which she was
known was Prosperine (Roman), and Persephone (Greek),

42 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

and her carrying down into Hades by Pluto (Roman), or Dis
(Greek), was the fable wrought out of the simple phenomenon
of moon-set. I suggest that the last line of the verse is a
grotesque rendering of the statement that —
" Dis ran away with Persephone."

Dis is equivalent to Serapis the Bull, otherwise Ammon,
^Esculapius, Nilus, etc., that is, the Sun. Why the little dog
laughed to see such sport is not easy to explain. It may be
an allusion to one of the heads of Hecate, that of a dog, to
indicate the watchfulness of the moon. There is another
Hecate (a bad, as the above-mentioned was considered a
beneficient diety), but which was originally no doubt the same,
whose attributes were two black dogs, i.e., the darkness
preceding and following the moonlight in short lunar appear-
ances. Or it may be an allusion to the fact that the dog was
associated with Dis, being considered the impersonation of
Sirius the Dog-star. In various representations of the rape
of Prosperine, Dis is accompanied by a dog, e.g., the grinning
hound in Titian's picture.

Prosperine's symbol of a crescent moon was adopted as
one of those of the Virgin Mary, and Candlemas Day, 2nd
February, takes the place of the Roman festival, the candles
used to illustrate the text, "a light to lighten the Gentiles,"
being the representatives of the torches carried in the pro-
cessions which affected to search for the lost Prosperine.

Hindoo mythology has also a three-fold Isis, or moon-
goddess ; namely, Bhu on earth, Swar in heaven, Patala,
below the earth.

MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHURCH CARVINGS. 43

The moon-deity has not come down to us as in every
case a female personation. This is, however, explained by an
early fable [in the Puranas] of the Hindoos, in which it is
narrated that Chandra, or Lunus, lost his sex in the forest of
Gauri, and became Chandri, or Luna. The origin of this
has yet to be discovered ; it may be nothing more than the
account of an etymological change, produced by a transcript
of dialect.

Whether the Beverley artist knew that the cat was a
moon-symbol may be doubted. The fiddle has four strings,
as the sistrum had four bars. As well as the elements and
the four seasons of the year, the four may mean the four
weeks. It will be observed that as the Hours are said to
dance by the side of the chariot of the sun, so here four weeks
dance to the music of the moon-sphere ; the word moon means
the measurer, and the cat is playing a dance measure !

The cat is not a very frequent subject. At Sherborne
she is shewn hanged by mice, one of the retributive pieces
which point to a confidence in the existence of something
called justice, not always self-evident in the olden-time,
Rats and mice are the emblem of St. Gertrude. The dog
had a higher place in ancient estimation than his mention in
literature would warrant ; the fact that among the Romans he
was the emblem of the Lares, the household gods, is a
weighty testimonial to that effect, while the Egyptians had a
city named after and devoted to the dog.

Among the pre-existing symbols seized by the Christians,
the Egyptian Cross and Druidical Tau must not be over-

44 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

looked. It is found on the capitals of pillars at Canterbury
and other places ; the example given in the initial on page
34 is perhaps the latest example in English Gothic. Its
admission as a grotesque is due to its, perhaps merely
accidental, use as a mask as noted in the chapter on " Masks
and Faces."

The sinuous course of the sun among the constellations
is mentioned in literature as far back as Euripides as an
explanation of the presence of the dragon in archaic systems
of mythology. This may have been the origin of the figure.
Yet in addition to that there always seems to have been the
recognition of an evil principle, of which by a change of
meaning, the dragonic or serpentine star-path of the sun was
made the personification or symbol. According to Pausanius
the " dragon " of the Greeks was only a large snake.

It might not be impossible to collect several hundreds of
names by which the deistic character of the sun has been
expressed by various peoples ; and the same applies, though
in a less degree, to the Darkness, Storm, Cold, and Wet,
which are taken as his antithesis. One of the oldest of these
Dragon-names is Typhon, which is met in Egyptian
mythology. Typhon is said to be the Chinese Tai-fun, the
hot wind, and, if this be so, doubtless the adverse principle
was taken to be the spirit of the desert which ever seeks to
embrace Egypt in its arid arms. The symbol of Typhon
was the crocodile, and doubtless the dragon form thus largely
rose. Rahu, an evil deity in Hindoo mythology, though
generally called a dragon, is sometimes met represented as a

MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHURCH CARVINGS. 45

crocodile, and his numerous progeny are styled crocodiles.
The constellation called by the Japanese the crocodile is that
known to us as the dragon. Can it be that in the universal
draeon we have a chronicle of our race's dim recollection of
some survival of the terrible Jurassic reptiles, and hence of
their period ?

But the myth has ever one ending ; the power of the
evil one is destroyed for a time by the coming of the sun-god,
though eventually the evil triumphs, that is dearth recurs.

In the Scandinavian myth, Odin the son of Bur, broke
for a season the strength of the great serpent Jormungard,
who, however, eventually swallowed the hero. Thus was
Odin the sun ; and his companions, the other Asir, were more
or less sun attributes. In the case of Egypt the god is
Horus (the sun-light), the youthful son of Osiris and Isis,
who drives back Typhon to the deserts ; for that country the
rising of the Nile is the happy crisis. Horus is sometimes
called Nilus. Whether the above derivation of the word
Typhon be correct or not, which may be doubtful,* that of
Horus from the root Hur light, connected with the Sanscrit
Ush to burn (whence also Aurora, etc.,) is certain. When
the great myth became translated to different climates, the
evil principle took on different forms of dread. Water, the

* Yet the Hindoo signification of Typhon is " the power of destruction by heat." In this
we have another piece of evidence that both the good and the bad of the fable are referrable
to the sun as his varying attributes, and probably describe his particular effects at various
portions of the zodiacal year. The true, or rather the close, meaning of the various accounts
is obscured and confused ; firstly, by imperfect knowledge as to the geographical situations
where the idea of the zodiac was conceived and developed ; secondly, by the gradual
precession of the Equinoxes during the ages which have elapsed since such conception.

N^ u.

46 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

rainy season in some countries, the darkness and cold of
winter in others, were the Dragon which the Hero-god, the
Sun, had to overcome — out of which conflict arose myths
innumerable, yet one and the same in essence. Apollo slew
the Python, the sunbeams drying up the waters being his
arrows ; Perseus slew the Dragon, by turning him to stone,
which perhaps means that the spring sun dried up the mud of
the particular locality where the fable rose. Later, Sigurd
slew the Dragon Fafnir. When the Christians found them-
selves by expediency committed to adopt the form, and to a
certain degree the spirit, of heathen beliefs, the Sun versus
Darkness, or the Spring versus Winter myth was a difficulty in
very many places. At first the idea was kept up of a material
victory over the adverse forces of nature, and we find honour-
able mention of various bishops and saints, who — by means of
which there is little detail, but which may be supposed to be
that great monastic beneficence, intelligent drainage — con-
quered the dragons of flood and fen. It is somewhat odd
that the Psalmist attributes to the Deity the victory of
breaking the heads of the " dragons in the waters."

Thus St. Romain of Rouen slew there the Dragon
Gargouille, which is but the name of a draining-gutter after
all, and hence the grotesque waterspouts of our churches are
mostly dragons.

St. Martha slew the Dragon Tarasque at Aix-la-chapelle,
but that name is derived from tarir, to drain. St. Keyne slew
the Cornish Dragon, and, to be brief, at least twelve other
worthies slew dragons, and doubtless for their respective

MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHURCH CARVINGS. 47

districts supplied the place of the older myth. Among these,
St. George is noteworthy. He is said to have been born at
Lydda, in Syria, where his legend awaited the Crusaders,
who took him as their patron, bringing him to the west, as
the last Christian adoption of a sun-myth idea, to become the
patron saint of England. A figure of St. George was a private
badge of English kings till the time of the Stuarts. On the
old English angel the combat is between St. Michael and the
Dragon, and though St. George is generally shewn mounted,
as was also sometimes Horus, the Egyptian deity, he is some-
times represented on foot, like St. Michael. The Dragon is [
generally the same in the two cases, being the Wyvern or
two-legged variety.

Another form of dragon is drake. Certain forms of
cannon were called both dragons and drakes. Sometimes
the dragon is found termed the Linden -worm, or Lind-drake,
in places as widely sundered as Scotland and Germany. It
is said this is on account of the dragon dwelling under the
linden, a sacred tree, but this is probably only, as yet,
half explained.

Perhaps through all time the sun-myth was accompanied
by a constant feeling that good and evil were symbolised by
the alternation of season. It is to be expected that the feeling
would increase and solidify upon the advent of Christianity,
for the periodic dragon of heathendom was become the per-
manent enemy of man, the Devil. The frequent combats
between men (and other animals) and the dragons, met among
church grotesques, though their models, far remote in an-

48 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

tiquity, were representations of sun-myths, would be carved
and read as the ever-continuing- fight between good and
evil. That, however, it is reasonable to see in these Dragon
sculptures direct representatives of the ancient cult, we know
from a fact of date. The festival of Horus, the Egyptian
deity, was the 23rd of April. That is the date of St.
George's Day.

Less than the foregoing would scarcely be sufficient to
explain the frequency and significance of the Dragon forms
which crowd our subject.

During the three Rogation days, which took the place
of the Roman processional festivals of the Ambarvalia and
Cerealia, the Dragon was carried as a symbol both in England
and on the continent. When the Mystery pageantry of
Norwich was swept away, an exception was made in favour of
the Dragon, who, it was ordained, " should come forth and
shew himself as of old."

The Rogation Dragon in France was borne, during the
first two days of the three, before the cross, with a great tail
stuffed with chaff, but on the third day it was carried behind
the cross, with the tail emptied of its contents. This signified,
it is said, the undisturbed dominion of Satan over the world
during the two days that Christ was in Hell, and his complete
humiliation on the third day.

In some countries the figure of the Dragon, or another
of the Devil, after the procession, was placed on the altar,
then drawn up to the roof, and being allowed to fall was
broken into pieces.

MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHURCH CARVINGS.

Early Keltic and other pastoral staves end in two
Dragons' heads, recalling the caduceus of Mercury and rod of
Moses ; the Dragon was a Keltic military or tribal ensign.
Henry VII. assumed a red dragon as one of the supporters
of the royal arms, on account of his Welsh descent ; Edward
IV. had as one of his numerous badges a black dragon. A
dragon issuing from a chalice is the symbol of St. John the
Evangelist, an allusion to the dragon of the Apocalypse.

THE SLAYER OF THE DRAGON. IFFLEY.

The Dragon combat here presented is from the south
doorway of Iffley Church, near Oxford. In this example of
Norman sculpture, the humour intent is more marked than
usual. The hero is seated astride the dragon's back, and,
grasping its upper and lower jaws, is tearing them asunder.
The dragon is rudely enough executed, but the man's face
and extremities have good drawing. The cloak flying behind

50 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

him shew that he has leaped into the quoin of vantage, and
recalls the classic. The calm exultation with which the
hero seizes his enemy is only equalled by the good-natured
amusement which the creature evinces at its own undoing.

We now arrive at a form of the sun-myth which appears
to have come down without much interference. The god
Horus is alluded to as a child, and in a curious series of
carvings the being attacked by a Dragon is a child. It is
attempted, and with considerable success, to be represented
as of great beauty. The point to explain is the position of
the child, rising as it does from a shell. This leads us further
into the various contingent mythologies dealing with the
Typhon story. Horus (also called Averis, or Orus), was in
Egyptian lore also styled Caimis, and is equivalent to Cama,
the Cupid of the Hindoos. Typhon (also known as Smu,
and as Sambar) is stated to have killed him, and left him in
the waters, where Isis restored him to life. That is the
account of Herodotus, but ^Elian says that Osiris threw
Cupid into the ocean, and gave him a shell for his abode.
After which he at length killed Typhon.

Hence the shell in the myth-carvings to be found to-day
in mediaeval Christian churches.

The Greeks represented Cupid, and also Nerites, as
living in shells, and, strangely enough, located them on the
Red Sea coast, adjacent to the home of the Typhon myth. It
is probable that the word sancka, a sea-shell, used in this
connection, is from suca, a cave, a tent ; and we may con-
jecture that there is an allusion to certain dwellers in tents,

MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHURCH CARVINGS. 53

who, coming westward, worked, after a struggle, a political
and dynastic revolution, carrying with it great changes in
agriculture. This is a conjecture we may, however, readily
withdraw in favour of another, that the shell itself is merely a
symbol of the ocean, and that Cupid emerging is a figure of
the sun rising from the sea at some particular zodiacal period.

Another story kindred to that of Typhon and Horus is
that of Sani and Aurva, met in Hindoo literature. They
were the sons of Surya, regent of the Sun (Vishnu) ; Sani
was appointed ruler, but becoming a tyrant was deposed, and
Aurva reigned in his place. This recalls that one of the
names given to Typhon in India was Swarbhanu, " light of
heaven," from which it is evident that he is Lucifer, the fallen
angel ; so that accepting the figurative meaning of all the
narratives, we can see even a propriety in the Gothic trans-
mission of these symbolic representations.

It may be added to this that the early conception of
Cupid was as the god of Love in a far wider and higher
sense than indicated in the later poetical and popular idea.
He was not originally considered the son of Venus, whom he
preceded in birth. It is scarcely too much to say that he
personified the love of a Supreme Unknown for creation ;
and hence the assumption by Love of the character of a
deliverer.

There are other shell deities in mythology. Venus had
her shell, and her Northern co-type, Frigga, the wife of the
Northern sun-god, Odin, rode in a shell chariot.

The earliest of our examples is the most serious and

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

precise. The Dragon is a very bilious and repulsive reptile,
while the child form, thrice repeated in the same carving, has
grace and originality. This is from Lincoln Minster.

The next is also on a misericorde, and is in Manchester
Cathedral. Here the shell is different in position, being
upright. The Child in this has long hair.

The third example is from a misericorde at Beverley
Minster, the series at which place shews strong evidence of
having been executed from the same set of designs as those

DRAGON AND CHILD, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

of Manchester Cathedral, and were carved some twelve years
later. Many of the subjects are identically the same, but in
this case it will be seen how a meaning may be lost by a
carver's misapprehension. The shell would not be recogniz-
able without comparison with the other instances, and the
Dragon has become two. The head of the Child in this
carving appears to be in a close hood, or Puritan infantile cap,
which, as the " foundling cap," survived into this century.
In all the three carvings, the Dragons are of the two-legged

MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHURCH CARVINGS.

kind, which St. George is usually shewn slaying. It is a little
remarkable that the Child's weapon in all three cases is broken
away. The object borne sceptre-wise by the left hand child
in the Lincoln carving, is apparently similar to the Egyptian
hieroglyphic f, the Greek £ European s. It may be worth
while to suggest that the greatly-discussed collar of ss, worn
by the lords chief justices, and others in authority, may
have its origin in this hieroglyphic as a symbol of sovereignty,
rather than in any of the
arbitrary ascriptions of a
mediaeval initial.

The weapon is evi-
dently a form of the falx,
or falcula, for it was with
such a one (and here we
see further distribution of
the myth) that Jupiter
wounded Typhon, and
such was the instrument
with which Perseus slew
the sea-dragon : the falx,

the pruning-hook, sickle or scythe, is an emblem of Saturn, and
the oldest representation of it in that connection shew it in
simple curved form. Saturn's sickle became a scythe, and the
planet deity thus armed became, on account of the length
of his periodical revolution, our familiar figure of Father Time.
Osiris, the father of Horus, is styled " the cause of Time."
An Egyptian regal coin bears a man cutting corn with a

THE SLAYING OF THE SNAIL, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

.58

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

sickle of semi-circular blade. In many parts of England, the
sickle is spoken of simply as "a hook."

Apparently the carver of the Beverley misericorde was
conscious he had rendered the shell very badly, for in the side
-supporter of the carving he had placed, by way of reminder

GROTESQUE ON HORUS IN THE SHELL. THE PALMER FOX EXHIBITING HOLV WATER.
NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.

as to an attack upon the occupant of a shell, a man in a
fashionable dress, piercing a snail as it approaches him. In
mediaeval carvings, as in many of their explanations, it is
scarcely a step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

One other carving which seems to point to the foregoing

MYTHIC ORIGIN OF CHURCH CARVINGS. 59.

is at New College, Oxford. It is a genuine grotesque, and
may be a satire upon the more serious works. It represents,
seated in the same univalve kind of shell as the others, a fox
or ape in a religious habit, displaying a bottle containing,
perhaps, water from the Holy Land, the Virgin's Milk, or
other wondrous liquid. One of the side carvings is an ape
in a hood bringing a bottle.

Ibell's flDoutb.

HELLS MOUTH, HOLY CROSS,
STRATFORD-ON-AVON.

ELL'S Mouth was one of the most popular
conceptions of mediaeval times. Except
so far as concerns the dragon form of the
head whose mouth was supposed to be
the gates of Hell, the idea appears to be
entirely Christian. " Christ's descent into [/
Hell " was a favourite subject of Mystery-
plays. In the Coventry pageant the
"book of words" contained but six
verses, in which Hell is styled the "cindery cell." The
Chester play is much longer, and is drawn from the
Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus. This gospel, which
has a version in Anglo-Saxon of a.d. 950, is no doubt
the source from which is derived a prevalent form of Hell's
Mouth in which Christ is represented holding the hand
of one of the persons engulped in the infernal jaws. This is
seen in a carving on the east window of Dorchester Abbey.

The Mouth is here scarcely that of a dragon, but that of
an exceedingly well-studied serpent ; for intent and powerful
malignity the expression of this fine stone carving would be •
difficult to surpass. The Descent into Hell is one of a series,
on the same window, of incidents in the life of Christ ; all are
exceedingly quaint, but their distance from the ground

HELL'S MOUTH.

improves them in a more than ordinary degree, and their
earnest intention prevails over their accidental grotesqueness.
The beautiful curves in this viperous head are well worthy of

HELLS MOUTH, DORCHESTER, OXON.

notice in connection with the remarks upon the artistic
qualities of Gothic grotesques.

The verse of the Gospel (xix., 12), explains who the person
is. " And [the Lord] taking hold of Adam by his right hand

62 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

he ascended from hell and all the saints of God followed
him." The female figure is of course Eve, who is shewn
with Adam in engravings of the subject by Albert Durer
(15 1 2, etc.,) and others. The vision of Piers Ploughman
{circa 1362), has particular mention of Adam and Eve
among Satan's captive colony. Satan, on hearing the order
of a voice to open the gates of Hell, exclaims : —

" Yf he reve me of my ryght he robbeth me by mastrie,
For by ryght and reson the reukes [rooks] that be on here
Body and soul beth myne both good and ille
For he hyms-self hit seide that Syre is of Helle,
That Adam and Eve and al hus issue

Sholden deye with deol [should die with grief] and here dwell evere
Yf thei touchede a tree othr toke ther of an appel."

A MS. volume in the British Museum, of poems written
in the thirty-fourth year of the reign of Henry VI., has " Our
Lady's Song of the Chyld that soked hyr brest," in which
other persons than Adam and Eve are stated to have been
taken out of hell on the same occasion : —

" Adam and Eve wyth hym he take,
Kyng David, Moyses and Salamon
And haryed hell every noke,
Wythyn hyt left he soulys non."

The belief in the descent in Hell can be traced back to
the second century. The form of Hell as a mouth is much
later.

There is mention of a certain " Mouth of Hell," which in
1437 was used in a Passion play in the plain of Veximiel ;
this Mouth was reported as very well done, for it opened and

HELL'S MOUTH. 63

shut when the devils required to pass in or out, and it had
two large eyes of steel.

The great east window of York Cathedral, the west front
and south doorway of Lincoln, and the east side of the
altar-screen, Beverley Minster, have representations of the
Mouth of Hell. The chancel arch of Southleigh has a large
early fresco of the subject, in which two angels, a good and a
bad (white and black), are gathering the people out of their
graves ; the black spirit is plucking up certain bodies (or
souls) with a flesh-hook, and his companions are conveying
them to the adjacent Mouth. In a Flemish Book of Hours
of the fifteenth century (in the Bodleian Library) there is a
representation with very minute details of all the usual
adjuncts of the Mouth, and, in addition, several basketsful of
children (presumably the unbaptized) brought in on the backs
of wolf-like fiends, and on sledges, a common mediaeval
method of conveyance.

Sackvil mentions Hell as "an hideous hole" that —
" With ougly mouth and griesly jawes doth gape."

Further instances of Hell's Mouth are in the block of the
Ludlow ale-wife on a following page.

Satanic IRepresentations.

WINCHESTER COLLEGE,

14th century.

UAINT as are the grotesques derived
from the great symbolic Dragon, there
is another series of delineations of Evil,
which are still more curious. These
are the representations of Evil which
are to be regarded not so much
symbolic as personal. The constant presence of Satan and
his satellites on capital and corbel, arcade and misericorde, is to
be explained by the exceedingly strong belief in their active
participation in mundane affairs in robust physical shapes.

It would, perhaps, not seem improper to refer the class of
carving instanced by the three cuts, next following, to the
Typhon myth. I think, however,
a distinction may be drawn be-

tween such carvings as represent
combat, and such as represent
victimization ; the former I would —
attribute to the myth, the latter
to the Christian idea of the
Ltorments consequent on sin. At
the same time, the victim-carving,
generally easily disposed of by SATAN AND A SOUL> DORCHESTER> °x™-
styling it "Satan and a Soul," is undoubtedly largely influenced

SATANIC REPRESENTATIONS.

by the myth-idea of Typhon (by whatever name known) as a
seizer, as indicated definitely
in one of his oreneral names,
Graha. The figure was
naturally one according well
with the mediaeval under-
standing of spiritual punish-

ment, and its varieties in ^iEJg
carvingarenumerousenough ^=^=fi
to furnish an adequate in-

SATAN AND A SOUL, EWF.LME, OXON.

ferno. The Dorchester example is a small boss in the groined

ceilinQ- of the sedilia of celebrants ; that at Ewelme is a

weather-worn parapet-ornament on the south of the choir ;

the carving at Farnsham is on a misericorde.

— I Not entirely, though in some

degree, the two next illustrations

support the theory, of punishment

rather than conflict, for the others.

The carving in York Cathedral

is of a graceful type ; there is one

closely resembling it at Wells. The

Glasgow sketch is from the drawing

of a fragment of the cathedral ;

it is more vivid and ludicrous than the other. A comparison

of these two affords a good idea of the excellent in Gothic

ornament. The Glasgow carving lacks everything but vigor ;

the York production, though no exceptional example, has

vigor, poetry, and grace.

REMORSE, YORK.

REMORSF, GLASGOW.

66 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

We will now revert to the more personal and " human "
aspect of Satan.

A writer* in the Art Journal
some years ago offered excellent
general observations upon the
ideas of the Evil One found at
various periods. He pointed out
that the frolicsome character of
the mediaeval demon was im-
parted by Christianity, with its
forbidden Satan coming into contact with the popular belief
in hobgoblins and fairies which were common in the old
heathen belief of this island, and so the sterner teaching
was tinged by more popular fancies.

There is much truth in this, except that for the hobgob-
lins and fairies we may very well read ancient deities, for the
ultimate effect of Christianity upon Pagan reverence was to
turn it into contempt and abhorrence for good and bad deities
alike. We can read this in the slender records of ancient
worships whose traces are left in language. Thus Bo is
apparently one of the ancient root-words implying divinity ;
Bod, the goddess of fecundity ; Boivani, goddess of destruc-
tion ; Bo/ay, the giant who overcame heaven, earth and hell ;
Bonders, or Boudons, the genii guarding Shiva, and Boroon,
a sea-god, are in Indian mythology. Bossum is a good deity
of Africa. Borvo and Bormania were guardians of hot springs,
and with Bouljanus were gods of old Gaul. Borr was the

* Mr. Robert Mann.

SATANIC REPRESENTATIONS. 69

father of Odin, and Bure was Borr's sister. The Bo-tree

of India is the sacred tree of wisdom. In Sumatra boo is a

root-word meaning good (as in booroo). Bog is the Slavonic

for god. These are given to shew a probable connection

among wide-spread worships.

We are now chiefly concerned with the last instance.

The Slavonic Bog, a god, is met in Saxon as a goblin, for the

" boy " who came into the court of King Arthur and laid his

wand upon a boar's head was clearly a "bog" (the Saxon g

being exchanged erroneously for y, as in dag's aeg, day's

eye, etc). In Welsh, similarly, Brog is a goblin, and we have

the evil idea in b?tg.

" Warwick was a bug that feared us all."

— Shakespeare. Henry IV., v., 2.

That is " Warwick was a goblin that made us all afraid."
The Boggart is a fairy still believed in by Staffordshire
peasants. We have yet bugbear, as the Russians have Buka,
and the Italians Buggaboo, of similar meaning.

As with the barbaric gods, so with the classic deities,
who equally supplied material of which to make foul fiends.
Bacchus, with the legs and sprouting horns of a goat, that
haunter of vine-yards, then his fauns constructed on the same
1 symbolic principle, gave rise to the satyrs. These, offering in
their form disreputable points for reprobation, were found to
be a sufficiently appropriate symbol of the Devil. The
reasons of variety in the satyr figure are not far to seek,
beyond the constant tendency of the mediaeval artist to vary
v form while preserving essence. Every artist had his idea of

7o THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

the devil, either drawn from the rich depths of a Gothic
imagination, from the descriptions accumulated by popular
credulity, and most of all from that result of both — the
Devil of the Mystery or Miracle Plays.

The plays were performed by trade gilds. Every town
had many of these gilds, though several would sometimes
join at the plays ; and even very small villages had both gild
and plays. There are yet existing some slight traces of
the reputation which obscure villages had in their own
vicinity for their plays, of which Christmas mumming
i contains the last tattered relic. So that, the Devil being a
favourite character in the pieces so widely performed, it is not
surprising to find him equally at home among the works of
the carvers, who, according to the nature of artists of all time,
would doubtless holiday it with the best, and look with more
or less appreciation upon such drama as was set before them.
Where we see Satan as the satyr, he is the rollicking
fiend of the Mystery stage, tempting with sly good-humour,
tormenting with a grim and ferocious joy, or often merely
posturing and capering in a much to be envied height of the
wildest animal spirits. There is in popular art no trace, so
far as the writer's observation extends, of that lofty sorrow at
man's unworthiness, which has occasionally been attributed to
Satan.

The general feeling is that indicated by the semi-
contemptuous epithets applied to the satyr-idea of "Auld
Clootie" (cloven-footed), and " Auld Hornie," of our Northern
brethren.

SATANIC REPRESENTATIONS.

Horns were among all ancient nations symbolic of power u
and dignity. Ancient coinages shew the heads of kings and
deities thus adorned. The Goths wore horns. Alexander
frequently wore an actual horn to indicate his presumption of
divine descent. The head dress of priests was horned on
this account. This may point to a pre-historic period when
the horned animals were not so much of a prey as we find (^
them in later days ; thus the aurochs of Western Europe
appears to have been more dreaded by the wild men of its
time, than has been, say, the now fast-disappearing bison by

A MAN-GOAT, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.

the North American Indians. On the other hand, the
marvellous continuity of nature's designs lead us to recognize
that the carnivorous animals must always have had the right
to be the symbols of physical power. Therefore, the idea of
power, originally conveyed by the horns, is that carried by the
possession of riches in the shape of flocks and herds. The
pecunia were the means of power, and their horns the symbol
of it. With the Egyptians, the ox signified agriculture and
subsistence. Pharaoh saw the kine coming out of the Nile
because the fertility of Egypt depends upon that river. So
that it is easy to see how the ox became the figure of the sun,

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

and of life. Similar significance attached to the sheep, the
goat, and the ram. Horus is met as " Orus, the Shepherd."
Ammon wore the horns of a ram. Mendes was worshipped

as a goat.

The goat characteristics are well carved on a seat in All
Souls. A goat figure of the thirteenth century at Chichester
has the head of a man with a curious twisted or tied beard,
clutched by one of the hands in which the fore feet terminate.

A CHERISHED BEARD, CHICHESTER.

The clutching of the beard is not uncommon among Gothic
figures, and has doubtless some original on a coin, or other
ancient standard design. At St. Helen's, Abingdon, Berk-
shire, in different parts of the church, three heads, one being
a king, another a bishop, are shewn grasping or stroking
each his own beard. It is to be remembered that the
stroking of the beard is a well-known Eastern habit.

Of close kindred to the goat form is the bull form. Just
as Ceres symbolized the fecundity of the earth in the matter
of cereals, so Pan was the emblem by which was figured its
productiveness of animal life. Thus Priapus was rendered in

SATANIC REPRESENTATIONS. 73

goat form, as the ready type of animal sexual vigor ; but not
less familiar in this connection was the bull, and that animal
also symbolizes Pan, who became, when superstition grew out
of imagery, the protector of cattle in general. An old English
superstition was that a piece of horn, hung to the stable or
cowhouse key, would protect the animals from night-fright and
other ills. When the pagan Gods were skilfully turned into
Christian devils, we find the bull equally with the goat as a
Satanic form, and several examples will be seen in the
drawings.

The ox, as the symbol of St. Luke, is stated to refer, on
account of its cud-chewing, to the eclectic character of this
evangelist's gospel. Irenseus, speaking of the second cheru-
bim of the Revelation, which is the same animal, says the
calf signifies the sacerdotal office of Christ ; but the fanciful
symbolisms of the fathers and of the Bestiaries are often
indifferent guides to original meaning. It may be that in the
ox forms we have astronomical allusions to Taurus, Bacchus,
to Diana, or to Pan. A note on the emblems of the
Evangelists follows in the remarks on the combinatory
forms met in grotesque art.

Before passing on to consider particular examples of satyr
or bull-form fiends, a few words may be said as to another
form which, though allied to the dragon-shape embodiments,
has the personal character. This is the Serpent. The origin
of this appears to be the translation of the word Nachasch for
serpent in the Biblical account of the momentous Eden

episode, a rendering which, without philological certainty, is

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

countenanced by the general presence of the serpent in one
form or another in every system of theology in the world.
Jewish tradition states that the serpent, with beauty of form
and power of flight, had no speech, until in the presence of
Eve he ate of the fruit of the Tree, and so acquired speech,
immediately using the gift to tempt Eve. Other traditions
say that Nachasch was a camel, and became a serpent by the
curse. Adam Clarke maintained that Nachasch was a monkey.
The traditional and mystic form of the angels was that of a
serpent. Seraph means a fiery serpent. In Isaiah's vision,
the seraphim are human-headed serpents. One of the most
remarkable items in the history of worship is the account of
the symbolic serpent erected by Moses, and the subsequent
use of it as an idol until the time of Hezekiah. In the first satire
of Perseus, he says, "paint two snakes, the place is sacred!"

The use of the serpent as the
Church symbol of regeneration and
revival of health or life is not common
in carvings. In these senses it was
used by the Greeks, though chiefly as
the symbol of the Supreme Intellect,
being the special attribute and co-type
of Minerva. The personal apparition
which confronted Eve is not so in-
frequent, though without much variety.

THE SERPENT, ELY.

In a representation of the temptation of Adam and Eve
among the misericordes of Ely, the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil is shewn of a very peculiar shape. The

SATANIC REPRESENTATIONS.

serpent, whose coils are difficult to distinguish from the
foliage of the tree, has the head of a saturnine Asiatic, who is
taking the least possible notice of "our first parents," as they
stand eating apples and being ashamed, one on each side of
the composition.

A carving in the choir of
Chichester Cathedral shews in a
double repetition, one half of
which is here shewn, the evil
head with an attempt at the
legendary comeliness, mingled
with debased traits, that is artis-
tically very creditable to the
sculptor. As though dissatisfied
with the amount of beauty he
had succeeded in imparting to the heads on the serpents,
he adds, on the side-pieces of the carving, two other heads of
females in eastern head-dresses, to which he has imparted a

demure Dutch beauty, due perhaps
to his own nationality. Human-
headed serpents are in carvings at
Norwich and at Bridge, Kent.

With regard to Satan's status as
an angel, a considerable number of
representations of him are to be
found, in which he conforms to a pre-
valent mediaeval idea as to the plumage of the spirit race.
Angels are found clothed entirely with feathers, as repeated

THE OLD SERPENT, CHICHESTER.

13th century.

DEMURENESS MEDITATING MISCHIEF.

DELTCHO-EGYPTIAN MASK,

CHICHESTER.

76 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

some scores of times in the memorial chapel, at Ewelme, of
Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, grand-daughter of Chaucer, who
died in 1475. The annexed block shews a small archangel
which surmounts the font canopy, and is of
the same character as the chapel angels.
At All Souls, Oxford, is a carving of a
warrior-visaged person wearing a morion,
and armed with a falchion and buckler.
He is clad in feathers only, appearing to be
flying downward, and is either a representa-
tion of St. Michael or Lucifer.

Satan is often similarly treated. Loki,
angel, ewelme. the tempter of the Scandinavian Eden, who
was ordered to seek the lost Idun he had deceived, had

ST. MICHAEL, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.

SATANIC REPRESENTATIONS. 77

to go forth clad in borrowed garments of falcon's feathers
with wings. When the pageant at the Setting of the
Midsummer Watch at Chester was forbidden by the
Mayor, in 1599, one of the prohibited figures was "the
Devil and his Feathers."

There may be a connection between the final punishment
of Loki and the idea embodied in the carvings mentioned
above as being at, among other places, Wells, York, and
Glasgow, and which have been considered as conceptions of
Remorse. Loki was condemned to be fastened to a rock to
helplessly endure the eternal dropping upon his brow of
poison from the jaws of a serpent ; only that there is neither
in these carvings, nor any others noted to the present, any
indication of the presence of the ministering woman-spirit
who for even the fiend Loki stood by to catch the death-drops
in a cup of mercy.

£be Devil an& the Dices.

RECORDING IMP.

ST. katherine's, regent's PARK.
(Initial added).

AVING examined the various
lower forms given by man to his
great enemy, and now noting
that to such forms may be added
the human figure in whole or
part, we will next take in review
a few of the sins which brino-

erring humanity into the clutches
of Satan ; for we find some of
the most grotesque of antique carvings devoted to representa-
tion of what may be called the finale of the Sinner's Progress.
These are probably largely derived from the Mystery Plays ;
for the moral teaching has the same direct soundness. The
ideas are often jocosely put, but the principle is one of mere
retribution. The Devil cannot hurt the Saint and he pays
out to the Wicked the exact price of his wrong-doing. Thus
in nearly all of what may be termed the Sin series there is a
Recording Imp who bears a tablet or scroll, on which we are
to suppose the evil commissions and omissions of the sinner
are duly entered, entitling the fiend to take possession. This
reminds of the Egyptian Mercury, Thoth, who recorded upon
his tablets the actions of men, in order that at the Judgment
there might be proper evidence.

THE DEVIL AND THE VICES. 81

There is a series of carvings, examplified at Ely, New
College, Oxford, St. Katherine's (removed from near the
Tower to the Regent's Park) and Gayton, which have Satan
encouraging or embracing two figures apparently engaged in
conversation. I have placed these among the Sins, for
though no very particular explanation is forthcoming as to
the meaning of the group, it is clear that the two human
beings are engaged in some occupation highly agreeable to
the fiend. This evidently has a connection with the monkish
story told of St. Britius. One day, while St. Martin was
saying mass, Britius, who was officiating as deacon, saw the
devil behind the altar, writing on a slip of parchment "as
long as a proctor's bill " the sins which the congregation
were then and there committing. The people, both men
and women, appear to have been doing many other things
besides listening- to St. Martin, for the devil soon filled his
scroll on both sides. Thus far our carvings.

The story goes further, and states that the devil, having
further sins to record, but no further space on which to write
them, attempted to stretch the parchment with teeth and
claws, which, however, broke the record, the devil falling
back against a wall. The story then betrays itself. Britius
laughed loudly, whereat St. Martin, highly displeased,
demanded the reason, when Britius told him what he had
seen, which relation the other saint accepted as being true.

This story is one of a class common among mediaeval

pulpit anecdotes. It cannot well be considered that the

carvings arose from the story, nor the story from the carvings.

$2 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

Probably both arose from something else, accounting for the
number of sinners being uniformly two, and for the attitude
of the fiend in each case being so similar. With regard to
the latter I must leave the matter as it is.

I venture, as to the signification of the two figures,
to make a suggestion to stand good until a better be
found. In the Mystery Play entitled the "Trial of Mary and
Joseph (Cotton MS., Pageant xiv., amplified out of the
Apocryphal New Testament, Protevan, xi.), the story runs
that Mary and Joseph, particularly the former, are defamed
by two Slanderers. The Bishop sends his Summoner for the
two accused persons, and orders that they drink the water of
vengeance " which is for trial," a kind of miraculous ordeal by
poison. Joseph drinks and is unhurt ; Mary likewise and is
declared a pure maid in spite of facts. One of the Slanderers
declares that the drink has been changed because the Virgin
was of the High Priest's kindred, upon which the Slanderer
is himself ordered to drink what is left in the cup. Doing
so he instantly becomes frantic. All ask pardon of Mary for
their suspicions, and, that being granted, the play is ended.

Now the play commences with the meeting of the Two
Slanderers. A brief extract or two will shew their method.

ist. Detractor. — To reyse blawthyr is al my lay,

Bakbyter is my brother of blood
Dede he ought come hethyr in al this day

Now wolde God that he were here,
And, by my trewth, I dare well say
That if we tweyn to gethyr apere
Mor slawndyr we t[w]o schal a rere

THE DEVIL AND THE VICES.

With in an howre thorwe outh this town,

Than evyr ther was this thouwsand yer,

Now, be my trewth, I have a sight

Evyn of my brother . . . Welcome . . .

2nd Detractor. — I am ful glad we met this day.

ist Detractor. — Telle all these pepyl [the audience] what is yor name —

2ND Detractor. — I am Bakbyter, that spyllyth all game,
Both hyd and known in many a place.

Then they fall to, and in terms of some wit and much
freedom describe the physical condition of she who was
" calde mayd Mary."

The Two Slanderers in this play are undoubtedly men,
for each styles the other " brother." Yet there are words in
their dialogue, not suited to these
pages, which could properly only
be used by women. As in at
least one of the carvings the
sinners are women, if my hypo-
thesis has any correctness there
must be some other form of the
story in which the detractors are
female. It is to be noted, also, that the play from which I
have quoted has no mention of the devil.

Years before I met with the play of the trial of Joseph
and Mary, I considered that the sin of the Two might be
scandal, and put down a curious carving adjoining the St.
Katherine group as a reference to it, and suggested it might
be a humorous rendering of a Backbiter. This is shewn in the
accompanying block. It was therefore agreeable to find one

A BACKBITER, ST. KATHERINE S.

84 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

of the Mystery detractors actually named Backbiter. Against
that it may be mentioned that the composite figure with a
head at the rear is not unique. At Rothwell, Northampton-
shire, is a dragon attempt, rude though probably of late
fifteenth century work, with a similar head in the same
anatomical direction ; this is not connected with anything
that can be considered bearing upon the subject of the
Mystery, unless the heads on the same misericorde are meant

to be those of Jews.

The example at Ely shews

the fiend closely embracing the

two sinners who are evidently in

the height of an impressive

conversation. One figure has a

book on its knee, the other is

telling the beads of a rosary. At

the sides are two imps of a

somewhat Robin Goodfellow-like

character, each bearing a scroll

with the account of the misdeeds of the sinners, and which

we may presume are the warrants by which Satan is entitled

to seize his prey. He is the picture of jovial good-nature.

New College, Oxford, has a misericorde of the subject
in which the figures, female in appearance, are seated in a
sort of box. This reminds us of Baldini and Boticelli's
picture of Hell, which is divided into various ovens for
different vices. That may be the idea here, or perhaps the
object is a coffin and is used to emphasize what the wages of

THE DEVIL AND THE VICES.

sin are. They, like the two sinners of Ely, are in animated
conversation. Satan here is of a bull-headed form with wings
rather like those of a butterfly. These are of the end of the
fifteenth century.

THE UNSEEN WITNESS, NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.

There are foreign carvings described by Mr. Evans as
being of the devil taking notes of the idle words of two
women during mass. This is, perhaps, the simple meaning
of all this series, and an evidence of the resentment of
ecclesiastics against the irreverent. There is considerable
evidence that religious service was scarcely a solemn thing
in mediaeval times. If this is the signification the box

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

arrangement described above may be some sort of early-
pew.

The next example, from St. Katherine's (lately) by the
Tower, has the fiend in a fashionable slashed suit. The
ladies here, are only in bust, and though of demurely
interested expression they have not that rapport and
animation which distinguish the two previously noticed.
Satan does not embrace them, but stands behind with legs

THE UNSEEN WITNESS, ST. KATHERINE'S.

outstretched and hands, or rather claws, on knees, ready to
clutch them at the proper moment.

At Gayton, Northants, is a further curious instance of
this group. The two Sinners are in this case unquestionably
males, and, but for the coincidence with the preceding
examples, the men might have been supposed to have been
engaged in some game of chance. It will be observed that
the one to the right has a rosary as in the first-named carving.

THE DEVIL AND THE VICES.

Satan here is well clothed in feathers, and in his left wing is
the head of what is probably one of the instruments of
torture awaiting the very much overshadowed victims. It is
a kind of rake or flesh-hook, with three sharp, hooked teeth ;
perhaps a figure of the tongue of a slanderer, materialized for
his own subsequent scarification ; it may be added as a kind
of satanic badge. Satan bears on his right arm a leaf-shaped
shield.

THE UNSEEN WITNESS, GAYTON, NORTHANTS.

The vice next to be regarded is Avarice. In a miseri-
corde at Beverley Minster we have three scenes from the
history of the Devil. One gives us the avaricious man
bending before his coffers. He has taken out a coin ; if we
read aright his contemplative and affectionate look, it is gold.

88 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

Hidden behind the chest behold Satan, one of whose bullock
horns is visible as he lurks out of the miser's sight, grinning
to think how surely the victim is his.

At the opposite end of the carving is the other extreme,
Gluttony. A man is drinking out of a huge flask, which he
holds in his right hand, while in the other he grasps a ham

THE DEVIL AND THE MISER, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

(or is it not impossible that this is a second bottle). In this
the devil is likewise present ; he is apparently desperately
anxious the victim should have enough.

Between these two reliefs appears Satan seizing a naked
soul. In the original all that remains of the Devil's head is

THE DEVIL AND THE VICES.

the outline and one horn ; of the soul's head there remains
only the outline ; the two faces I have ventured to supply,
also the fore-arm of the Devil. The fiend is here again
presented with the attributes of a bullock, rather than a goat.
Satan has had placed on his abdomen a mask or face, a
somewhat common method of adding to the startling effect
of his boisterous personality. The fine rush which the fiend

THE DEVIL AND THE GLUTTON, BEVEKLEY MINSTER.

is making upon the soul, and the shrinking horror of the
latter, are exceedingly well rendered. The moral is, we
may suppose, that the sinners on either side will come to
the same bad end.

Among the seat-carvings of Henry VII's. Chapel,
Westminster Abbey, we have the vice of Avarice more

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

fully treated, there being two carvings devoted to the subject.
In the first we see a monk suddenly seized by a quaint and
curious devil (to whom I have supplied his right fore-arm).
The monk, horror-stricken, yet angry, has dropped his bag
of sovereigns, or nobles, and the coins fall out. He would
escape if he could, but the claws of the fiend have him fast.

In the companion carving we have the incident — and the
monk — carried a little further. The devil has picked him up,
thrown him down along his conveniently horizontal back, and
strides on with him through a wild place of rocks and trees,

holding what appears to be a flaming
torch, which he also uses as a staff.
The monk has managed to gather
up his dearly-loved bag of money,
and is frantically clutching at the
rocks as he is swiftly borne along.
Satan in the first carving has rather
a benevolent human face, in the
second a debased beast face, unknown to natural history.
There is no explanation of how Sathanus has disposed in
the second scene of the graceful dragon wings he wears
in the first. It is probable that two of the Italians who
carved this set each took the same subject, and we have
here their respective renderings. I mention with diffidence
that if the mild and timorous face of Bishop Alcock (which
may be seen at Jesus College, Cambridge), the architect
of this part of the abbey, could be supposed to have
unfortunately borne at any time the expressions upon either

DISMAY, WESTMINSTER.

THE DEVIL AND THE VICES.

DEMONIACAL DRUMMER, WESTMINSTER.

of these two representations of the monk, the likeness would,

in my opinion, be

rather striking.

On the side carving

of the carrying-away

scene is shewn a

woman, dismayed at

the sight. On the op-
posite side a fiend is

welcoming the monk

with beat of drum, just

as we shall see the ale-
wife saluted with the

drone of the bagpipes.

A carving at St. Mary's Minster, Isle of Thanet, has the

devil looking out with a vexed
frown from between the horns
of a lofty head-dress, which
is on a lady's head. Whether
this be a rendering of the dis-
honest ale-wife, or a separate
warning against the vice of
Vanity, cannot well be decided.
There was a popular opinion
at one time that the bulk of
church carvings were jokes at
vanity, st. mary's minster'' the expense of clergy, probably

largely because every hood was thought to be a cowl. There

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

is, however, no doubt as to the carving here presented. It
may represent the consecration of a bishop. The presence of
Satan dominating both the individuals, and pulling forward

HYPOCRISY, NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.

the cowl of the seated figure, appears to declare that this is
to illustrate the vice of Hypocrisy. It is at New College,
Oxford.

Hie anb the Hle^wife.

THE JOr.LY TAPSTEK,
LUDLOW.

LE, good old ale, has formed the
burden of more songs and satires
ancient and modern, than will ever
be brought together. Ale was the
staple beverage for morning, noon,
and evening meals. It is probable
that swollen as is the beer portion
of the Budget, the consumption of
ale, man for man, is much less than
that of any mediaeval time. The
records of all the authoritative
bodies who dealt with the liquor traffic of the olden time are
crowded with rules and regulations that plainly demonstrate
not only the universal prevalence of beer drinking in a proper
and domestic degree, but also the constant growing abuse of
the sale of the liquor. In the reign of Elizabeth the evils of
the tavern had become so notorious, that in some places
women were forbidden to keep ale-houses.

As far back as a.d. 794, ale-houses had become an
institution, for we find the orders passed at the Council of
Frankfort in that year included one by which ecclesiastics
and monks were forbidden to drink in an ale-house. St.
Adrian was the patron of brewers.

too THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

In some boroughs (Hull may be given as an instance) in
the fifteenth century, the Mayor was not allowed to keep a
tavern in his year of office. Brewers and tavern keepers,
with many nice distinctions of grade among them, were duly
licensed and supervised, various penalties meeting attempts at
illicit trade. The quality of ale was also an object of
solicitude, and an official, called the ale-taster, was in nearly
every centre of population made responsible for the due
strength and purity of the national beverage. It was
customary in some places in the fifteenth century for the
ale-taster to be remunerated by a payment of 4d. a year from
each brewer.

It has to be remembered ale was drunk at the meals at
which we now use tea, coffee, and cocoa ; it will be interesting
to glance at an instance of the rate at which it was consumed.
At the Hospital of St. Cross, founded in 1 132, at Winchester,
thirteen "impotent" men had each a daily allowance of a
gallon and a half of good small beer, with more on holidays ;
this was afterwards reduced to three quarts with some two
quarts extra for holidays. The porter at the gate had only
three quarts to give away to beggars. There was great idea
of continuity at this establishment; even in 1836 there was
spent ^133 5s. for malt and hops for the year's brewing.
The happy thirteen had each yet three quarts every day as
well as a jack (say four gallons) extra among them on
holidays, with 4s. for beer money. Two gallons of beer were
also daily dispensed at the gate at the rate of a horn of not
quite half a pint to each applicant.

ALE AND THE ALE-WIFE.

101

Ale, no more than other things, could be kept out of
church. A carving" at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire,
shews us an interview between a would-be customer on the
one part and an ale-wife on the other part. There is, in a
list of imaginary names in an epilogue or " gagging "

LETTICE I.ITTLETRUST AND A SIMPLE SIMON. WELLINGBOROUGH, 14th Century.

summons to a miracle play, mention of one Letyce Lytyl-
trust, whom surely we see above. Evidently the man is
better known than trusted, and while a generous supply of
the desired refreshment is "on reserve" in a dear old jug,
some intimation has been made that cash is required ; he, like
one Simon on a similar occasion, has not a penny, and with

102 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

one hand dipped into his empty pocket, he scratches his head
with the other. His good-natured perplexity contrasts well
with the indifferent tradeswoman-like air of the ale-wife, who
while she rests the jug upon a bench, does not relinquish the
handle. He is saying to himself, " Nay, marry, an I wanted
a cup o' ale aforetime I was ever served. A thirsty morn is
this. I know not what to say to t' jade ; " while she is
muttering, " An he wipe off the chalk ahint the door even, he
might drink and welcome, sorry rogue tho' he be. But no
use to cry pay when t' barrel be empty."

At Edgeware in 1558, an innkeeper, was fined for selling
a pint and a half of ale at an exorbitant price, namely, one
penny. A quart was everywhere the proper quantity, and
that of the strongest ; small ale sold at one penny for two
quarts. With regard to the then higher value of money,
however, the prices may be considered to be about the same
as at present, and the same may be said of many commodities
which appear in records at low figures.

Of an earlier date is the tapster of the initial block, from
Ludlow, who furnishes a comfortable idea of a congenial, and
to judge from his pouch, a profitable occupation. It is to be
presumed the smallness of the barrel as compared with that of
the jug — probably of copper, and dazzlingly bright — was the
artist's means of getting its full outline within the picture, and
not an indication of the relations of supply and demand.

Alas for the final fate of the dishonest woman who could
cheat men in the important matter of ale ! At Ludlow we are
shewn such a one, stripped of all but the head dress and neck-

ALE AND THE ALE-WIFE.

103

lace of her vanity, and carried ignominiously and indecorously
to Hell's Mouth on the shoulders of a stalwart demon (whose
head is supplied in the block). In her hand, and partaking
of her own reverse, she bears the hooped tankard with which
she defrauded her customers. It is the measure of her woe.
The demon thus loaded with mischief is met by another,
armed with the bagpipes. With hilarious air and fiendish

THE END OF THE ALE-WIFE, LUDLOW.

grin he welcomes the latest addition to the collection of
evil-doers within. To the right are the usual gaping jaws of
Hell's Mouth, into which are disappearing two nude females,
who, we may suppose, are other ale-wifes not more meritorious
than the lady of the horned head dress. To the left is the
Recording Imp.

There is allusion in a copy of the Chester Mystery of

104

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

Christ's Descent into Hell, among the Harleian MSS., to an
ale-wife of Chester, which doubtless suggested this carving.
This lady, a little-trust and a cheater in her day, laments
having to dwell among the fiends ; she endeavours to pro-
pitiate one of them by addressing him as " My Sweet Master

THE FEMALE DRAWER, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.

Sir Sattanas," who returns the compliment by calling her his

" dear darling." She announces that : —

" Some tyme I was a tavemere,
A gentill gossipe and a tapstere,
Of wyne and ale a trustie brewer,

Which wo hath me wroughte.
Of Cannes I kepte no trewe measuer
My cuppes I soulde at my pleasuer,
Deceaving manye a creature,

Tho' my ale were naughte."

ALE AND THE ALE-WIFE.

*°S

The Devil then delivers a short speech, which is one of
the earliest temperance addresses on record. He says : —

" VVelckome, dere ladye, I shall thee wedd,
For many a heavye and droncken head
Cause of thy ale were broughte to bed
Farre worse than anye beaste."

There is an old saying " pull Devil, pull Baker 'r
connected with the representation of a baker who sold his
bread short of weight, and was carried to the lower regions
in his own basket ; the ale-wife, of our carving, however,

does not appear to have retained any
power of resistance, however slight
or ineffectual.

At All Souls, Oxford, there is a
good carving of a woman drawing ale.
It is not, apparently, the ale-wife her-
self, but the maid sent down into the
cellar. The maid, perhaps after a
good draught of the brew, seems to be blowing a whistle to
convey, to the probably listening ears of her mistress upstairs,
the impression that the jug has not received any improper
attention from her. The artful expression of the ale-loving
maid lends countenance to the conjecture that the precaution
has not been entirely efficacious. It is to this day a jocular
expression in Oxfordshire, and perhaps elsewhere, " You had
better whistle while you are drawing that beer."

A carving at Ely represents Pan as an appreciative

imbiber from a veritable horn of ale.

A HORN OF ALE, ELY.

Satires without Satan.

THE SLUMBERING PRIEST,
NEW COLLEGK, OXFORD.

HERE are numbers of grotesques

which are satires evidently aimed

at sins, but which have not the

visible attendance of the evil

one himself.

Among these must be included a
curious carving from Swine, in Holder-
ness. The priory of Swine was a
Cistercian nunnery of fifteen sisters and
a prioress. Mr. Thomas Blashill states, "There were, how-
ever, two canons at least, to assist in the offices of religion,
who did not refrain from meddling in secular affairs."*
There was also a small community of lay-brethren.

The female in the centre of the carving is a nun ; her
hood is drawn partly over her face, so that only one eye is
fully visible, but with the other eye she is executing a well-
known movement of but momentary duration. The two ugly
animals between which she peers are intended for hares, a
symbol of libidinousness, as well as of timidity.

Another carving in the same chancel may be in derision
of some official of the papal court, which, in the thirteenth
century, on an occasion of the contumacy of the nuns in

* " Sutton-in-Holderness."

no THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

suggesting Falstaff in his prime, is seated with a lady among
luxurious foliage. His arm is right round his companion's
waist, while his left hand dips into his capacious and apparently-
well-lined pouch, or gipciere. He has been styled a merchant.
He is manifestly making a bargain. The lady is evidently a
daughter of the hireling {hirudo /), and is crying, " Give,
give." In spite of this being the work of an Italian artist,

A QUESTION OF PRICE, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

the artistic feeling about it would seem to recall slightly the
lines of Holbein.

The small carving to the right of the above is a highly-
elate pig, playing the pipe. This is shewn in a short chapter
hereafter given on Animal Musicians. The initial at the head
of this chapter is illustrated with the "slumbering priest," the
carving of whom is at the right of that of the ' Unseen

SATIRES WITHOUT SATAN.

Witness,' drawn on page 85. This doubtless implies that
some portion of the sin of the people was to be attributed to
the indifference of the clergy. Balancing this, there is in the
original carving an aged person kneeling, and, supported by
a crutch, counting her beads.

In a subsequent chapter (on Compound Forms in Gothic)
the harpy is mentioned, and shewn to be a not uncommon
subject of church art, either as from the malignant classic
form which symbolized fierce bad weather, or as the more
beneficient though not unsimilar figure which was the symbol
of Athor, the Egyptian Venus. A Winchester example which
might seem in place among the remarks on the Compounds,
is included here, as it is evidently intended to embody a sin.
It serves to show that a modern use of the word harpy was
well understood in mediaeval times. The design is simple,
the vulture wings being made to take the position of the hair
of the woman head. She lies in wait spider-wise, her great
claws in readiness for the prey ; and is evidently a character-
sketch of a coarse, insatiable daughter of the horse-leech.

THE HARPY IN WAIT, WINCHESTER.

Scriptural 3Uustration6.

ADAM AND EVE,
BEVERLEY MINSTER.

YSTERY Plays, we have seen, drew
upon the Apocryphal New Testa-
ment for subjects, but it has simply
happened that the examples of vice carvings
illustrate those writings, for Mystery Plays
were in general founded upon the canonical
scriptures. There are many carvings which
have Biblical incidents for their subject,
but it is often impossible to say whether
the text were the sole material of the designer, or whether
his ideas were formed by representations he had seen on the
Mystery stage. It may be presumed that the effect would
not be greatly different in one case from the other.

The story of Jonah furnishes a subject for two misericordes
in Ripon Cathedral. One is in the frontispiece of this volume.
In the first the prophet is being pushed by three men
unceremoniously over the side of the vessel which has the
usual mediaeval characteristics, and, in which, plainly, there is
no room for a fourth person.- The ship is riding easily on
by no means tumultuous waves, out of which protrudes the
head of the great fish. The fish and Jonah appear to regard
the situation with equal complacency.

In the sequel carving Jonah is shewn being cast out by

«w

tfSf

SCRIPTURAL ILLUSTRATIONS. nj

the fish, of which, as in the other, the head only is visible.
The monster of the deep has altered its appearance slightly
during the period of Jonah's incarceration, its square upper
teeth having become pointed. The prophet is represented
kneeling among the teeth, apparently offering up thanks for
his deliverance. The sea is bounded by a rocky shore on
which stand trees of the well-known grotesque type in which
they are excellent fir-cones.

These two carvings are of somewhat special interest, as
their precise origin is known. They are both exceedingly
close copies of engravings in the Biblia Pauperum, or Poor
Man's Bible, otherwise called " Speculum Humanae Sal-
vationis," or the Mirror of Human Salvation. Other Biblical
subjects in the Ripon Series of Misericordes are from the same
source. Did the Sculptor or Sculptors of the series fall short
of subjects, or were their eyes caught by the definite outlines
of the prints in the "Picture Bible" as it lay chained in the
Minster?

The Adoration, in a carving in the choir of Worcester,

comes under the head of unintentional grotesques. It is a

proof that though the manipulative skill of the artist may be

great, that may only accentuate his failure to grasp the true

spirit of a subject ; and render what might have been only

a piece of simplicity, into an elaborate grotesque. The

common-place, ugly features — where not broken away — the

repeated attitudes and the symmetric arrangement join to

defeat the artist's aim. Add to those the anachronisms, the

ancient Eastern rulers in Edward III. crowns and gowns,

ii4 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

seated beneath late Gothic Decorated Arches offering gifts,
and the absurdity is nearly complete. It is difficult to quite
understand the presence of the lady with gnarled features, on
the left, bearing the swathed infant (headless) which seems to
demonstrate that this was carved by a foreigner, or was from
a foreign source ; for though swathing was practised to some
extent in England, I can only find that in Holland, Germany,
etc., and more especially in Italy, the children were swathed
to this extent, in the complete mummy fashion styled
" bambino."

Perhaps the reason of the two figures right and left was
that the artist went with the artistic tide in representing the
recently-born infant as a strapping boy of four or five ; yet his
common-sense telling him that was a violation of fact he put the
other figure in with the strapped infant to show what — in his
own private opinion — the child would really be like at the time.

We might have supposed it to be St. John, but he was
older and not younger than the Divine Child. In the
Scandinavian mythology, Vali, the New Year, is represented
as a child in swaddling clothes.

The Scriptural subjects in carved work may be compared
with the wall paintings which in a few instances have survived
the reforming zeal of bygone white- washing churchwardens.
The comparison is infinitely to the advantage of the carvings.
These paintings are in distemper and were the humble inartistic
precursors of noble frescoes in the continental fanes, but which
had in England no development. To what extent there was
merit in the mural decoration of the English cathedrals cannot

SCRIPTURAL ILLUSTRATIONS. u7

well be stated. Such examples, as in a few churches are left
to us, are simply curiosities. Though changing with the
styles they are more crude than the sculptures, and the
modern eye in search of the grotesque, finds here compositions
infinitely more excruciatingly imbecile than in any other
department of art-work of pretension.

At the same time when they are considered in conjunction

BAPTISMAL SCENE, GUILDFORD.

with the most perfect of the paintings of their period they are
by no means so low in the scale of merit as at the first thought
might be supposed.

Outside the present purpose of looking at them as
unintentional grotesques they are very valuable specimens of
the English art of painting of dates which have, except in
illuminations, no other examples.

n8 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

Those of St. Mary's, Guildford, are very quaint. The
first selected from the series is a representation of Christ
attending the ministration of St. John the Baptist. St. John
has apparently taken down to the river bank a classic font, in
which is seated a convert. The Baptist himself, wearing a
Phrygian cap (probably Saxon), is turning away from the
figures of Christ and the man in the font, and is apparently

CASTING OUT OF DEVILS, GUILDFORD.

addressing a company which does not appear in the picture.
Just as the font was put in to make the idea of baptism easily
understood, so, we may suppose, the curious buttons on
thongs, or whatever they are, were shewn attached to St.
John's wrist, to indicate that he is speaking of the "shoe-
latchets." The waters and bank of the Jordan are indicated
in a few lines.

SCRIPTURAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 119

The other selection is still more bizarre. It evidently
portrays Christ casting out devils. The chief point of
interest in this painting is the original conception of the
devils. Anything more vicious, degraded, and abhorrent, it
would be difficult to produce in so few lines. Roughly
speaking, they are a compound of the hawk, the hog, and the
monkey ; this curious illustration is an excellent pendant to
the marks made upon early Satanic depictions on a previous
page. The faces are Saxon, except in the case of the man
with the sword, who is a distinct attempt at a Roman.
The artist had evidently in his mind one who was set in
authority.

The churches of the Midlands are rich in wall-paintings.

A fine example is in North Stoke Church, Oxfordshire,
which has two Scriptural subjects, a series of angelic figures,
and several other figures, etc., only fragmentally visible.
They were all found accidentally under thick coats of white-
wash. It may be doubted whether they were ever finished.
The two Biblical subjects are " Christ betrayed in the
Garden," and "Christ before Pilate." Christ is a small
apparently blind-folded figure, of which only the head
and one shoulder remains. Pilot is the Saxon lord, posing as
the seated figure of legal authority, poising a hiltless sword in
his right hand. The figure addressing Pilate is apparently a
Roman (Saxon) official ; his hand is very large, but there is
a simple force about his drawing. The fourth figure in a
mitre is doubtless meant for a Jewish priest, and he has a
nasty, clamorous look. Pilate, unfortunately, has no pupils

i2o THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

to his eyes, but his general appearance is as though he was
expostulating with the priest.

There is a carol, printed in 1820, which has a woodcut
of the subject not less rude and not less of an anachronism
than this : but what is curious, as illustrating the main theory of
the present volume — the tenacity with which form is adhered
to in unconscious art — is that the disposition of the figures is
exactly the same in both pictures. Where the Saxon lord is
seated, imagine a bearded magistrate, at a sort of Georgian
quarter-sessions bench, with panelled front. For the simple
Saxon, with vandyked shirt, suppose a Roman half-soldier,
half-village-policeman. Then comes the figure of Christ, with
the head much lower than those of the others because he is
nearer. Lastly, there is an incomplete figure behind.

In this case the perfect correspondence may be mere
coincidence ; it is difficult to explain otherwise. The design,
however, is the same, only the Anglo-Norman filled in his
detail from his observation of a manorial court, the Moorfield
engraver from his knowledge of Bow Street police-court.

To conclude, although these paintings are ludicrous in
the extreme, the artists, who had no easy task, were absolutely
serious, and their works, divested of the comic aspect con-
ferred by haste and manipulative incompetence, are marked
by bold impressiveness.

The initial to this chapter is from one of a series of
similar ornaments on the parapet of the south side of the nave
of Beverley Minster; it illustrates the toilsome nature of the
later portion of Adam's life.

fIDasks anb jfaces.

£^^ }^^Y> HE merriest, oddest, most ill-
^AJfc^g^rtp Sv^ assorted company in the world

meet together in the masks and

faces of Gothic ornament. Space

could always be found for a head,

and skill to execute it. Yet though

the variety is immense, the faces of

Gothic art will be found to classify themselves very definitely.

Perhaps the most prevalent type is the classic mask with

leaves issuing from the mouth. This may be an idea of the

FOLIATE MASK,
THE CHOIK, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

FOLIATE MASK, DORCHESTER, OXON.

122

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

mask which every player in the ancient drama wore, displayed
as an ornament with laurel, bay, oak, ivy, or what not, inserted
in the mouth, because it was pierced for speaking through,

and the only aperture in which
the decorative branches could be
inserted. Or seeds might germ-
inate in sculptured masks and so
have suggested the idea. Masks
were hung in vineyards, etc.

A mask above the internal
tower-doorway in the Lady Chapel
of Dorchester Abbey has a close
resemblance to the classic mask in the protruding lips, which,
for the conveying of the voice for the great distance necessary
in the arrangement of the ancient theatres, were often shaped

FOLIATE MASK, ST. MARY S MINSTER,
ISLE OF THANET.

FOLIATE MASK, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

like a shallow speaking-trumpet. The leaves appear to be
the vine, and so the head, perhaps, that of Bacchus. Between
the eyebrows will be noticed an angular projection. This

MASKS AND FACES.

123

is probably explained by a mask in a misericorde in St.
Mary's Minster, in which some object, perhaps the nasal of
a helmet, comes down the middle of the forehead. The

NDIAN MASK, ST. MAKY's, BEVERLEY.

leaves in this case appear to be oak, which is, indeed, the
prevailing tree used for the purpose.

Occasionallya mask with leaves has the tongue protruding.

LATE ITALIAN FOLIATE MASK, WESTMINSTER.

Perhaps one of the most remarkable masks in Gothic is
on another misericorde in the same town, but in St. Mary's
Church ; in which the features, the head-dress, the treatment
of the ears, are all Indian, while the leaves are those of the

124

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

palm. This is, perhaps, unique as an instance of Gothic work
so nearly purely Indian in its form.

Sometimes the leaves are much elaborated as in one of

ripon, late Fifteenth Century.

the late misericordes of Westminster Abbey ; in a few cases
the original simplicity is quite lost, and we have, as at Ripon,

the mask idea run mad, in-
verted, and the leaves become
a graceful composition of foli-
age, flower, and fruit.

A rosette from the tomb
of Bishop de La Wich, Chich-
ester, has four animal faces in
an excellent design.

Often masks are of the
simple description known as

ROSETTE ON TOMB OF BISHOP DE LA WICH,
CHICHESTER.

the Notch-head ; these are of
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They are generally
found in exposed situations at some elevation, as among the
series of corbels (corbula a small basket) or brackets called

MASKS AND FACES. 125

the corbel-table, supporting a stone course or cornice. The
likeness to the human face caused by the shadows of the T
varies in different examples. That below, by curving back at
the base, suggests the idea of a mouth. Occasionally, as at
Finedon, Northamptonshire, the notch-head has its likeness
to a face increased by the addition of ears.

Norman masks are interesting, as they explain some
odd appearances in later work. In many churches are faces
scored with lines across the cheeks, regardless of the ordinary
lines of expression, in a manner closely resembling the tattoo
incisions of the New Zealand warrior.
This appearance, however, is simply the
too faithful copying of crude Norman
masks, in which the lines are meant
to be the semi-circles round eyes and
mouth. Moreover, the Norman heads
are most often the heads of animals

MASK, BUCKLE, OR NOTCH HEAD,

grinning to shew the teeth, although CULHAM> ™RKSHIRK-

their general effect is that of grotesque human heads. Iffley
west doorway furnishes the best example. Here we have
the well-known "beak head" ornament. The semicircle and
upper portion of the jambs have single heads, not two of
which are exactly alike, though all closely resemble each
other. They are heads of the eagle or gryphon order, with
a forehead ornament very Assyrian in character. The heads
of the jambs are compound, being the head of a grinning
beast, probably a lion, from the mouth of which emerges a
gryphon head of small size. These are sometimes called

126

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

" Cat-heads," and the gryphon head is sometimes considered
(and perhaps occasionally shewn as such) a tongue. A fine
doorway of beak-heads is at St. Peter's-in-the-East, Oxford,
which church was probably executed by the workmen who
were responsible for IfBey.

BEAK HEADS, IFFLEY.

It is probable that the symbolism of this is the swallowing
up of night by day or vice versa. The outer arch of the Iffley
doorway consists of zodiacal signs, and at the south doorway
are other designs elsewhere mentioned in this volume, far
removed from Christian intent.

MASKS AND FACES.

127

NORMAN MASK, ROCHESTER.

The grotesqueness of Norman work is almost entirely
unconscious. The workers were full of Byzantine ideas, and
the severe and awful was their object rather than the comic.
They frequently attempted pretty detail in
their symbolic designs, but in all the forms
which have come from their chisels it is
easy to see how incomplete an embodi-
ment they gave to their conceptions, or
rather to the conceptions of their tradi-
tional school. Norman work, beyond the
Gothic, irrespective of the architectural
peculiarities, has traces of its eastern
origin in the classic connection of its
designs. Adel Church, near Leeds, is peculiar in having
co-mingled with its eastern designs more than ordinarily
tangible references to ancient Keltic worship, but nearly all

Norman ideographic detail
concerns itself with old-world
myths.

An excellent conception,
well carried out, is in a mask
which is one of a series of late
carvings alternating with the
gargoyles of Ewelme. In
this, instead of leaves issuing
from the mouth of the mask, there are two dragons. If those
with leaves are deities, this surely must be one of the Furies.
It is on the north side of the nave ; on the exterior of the aisle,

GORGONIC MASK, KWEI.ME.

FOLIATE MASK. EWELMF.

128 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

at the same side, other sculptures form a kind of irregular
corbel-table, and special attention may be drawn to them as
affording an indication of the derivation of such ornaments

from the "antefixes" or dec-
orated tiles occupying a nearly
corresponding position in classic
architecture.

One of those on the aisle
offers a further explanation of
the mark before mentioned as
being on the foreheads of some
masks. In this case the prominences of the eyebrows branch
off into foliage. This appears also to be the intention in a
capital carving in Lincoln Chapter House.

Roslyn Chapel
has some very real-
istic heads, notably
of apes or. gorillas
near the south door-
way, of which one
is drawn (opposite).
Norman work
has frequently some
very grotesque heads
in corbel tables and
tower corners, to the
odd appearance of which the decay by weather has no
doubt much contributed. Two examples from Sutton

FOLIATE MASK, LINCOLN.

MASKS AND FACES.

129-

Courtney, Oxfordshire, illustrate this weather-worn whim-
sicality. r~

Then comes a crowd of faces
which have no particular significance,
being simply the outcome of the un-
restrainable fun of the carver. Some
are merely oddities, while others are
full of life-like character.

GORILLA, KOSLYN CHAPEL.

WEATHER-WORN NORMAN, SUTTON
COURTNEY, BERKSHIRE.

GARGOYLE, SUTTON COURTNEY.

The knight with the twisted beard, from Swine, may

HUMOUR, YORK.

MASK WITH SAUSAGE,
STRATFORD-UPON-AVON.

A JEALOUS EYE, YORK.

13°

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

be a portrait, and the Gargantuan-faced dominus from St.
Mary's Minster certainly is. An old barbarian head from a

A BEARD WITH A TWIST, SWINE, YORKSHIRE.

A QUIZZICAL VISAGE, BAKEWELL.

croche or elbow-rest at Bakewell is rude and worn, but yet
bold and fine.

GRIMACE MAKER, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

FOOLS HEAPS, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

Some of these are better than the joculators and mimes'
faces in which the artist seriously set himself a humorous

A POKTKAIT, ST. MAKYS MINSTbK. ISl.E OF THANET,

A ROUGH CHAKACTEN, BAKKWELI..

MASKS AND FACES.

i33

task, as in the three heads (page 130) from Beverley Minster,
though the latter are in some respects more grotesque.

Another curious instance of a grimace and posture
maker, assisting his counten-
ance's contortions by the use
of his fingers, is at Dorchester
Abbey. In this the artist has
not been master of the facial
anatomy, and shows a double
pair of lips, one pair in repose,
the other pulled back at the
corners.

Often a grotesque face
will be found added to a beautiful design of foliage, either as
the conventional mask, as in the design in Lincoln Chapter
House, or a realistic head, as the following grim, dour
visage between graceful curves on a misericord at King's
College, Cambridge.

GRIMACE MAKER, DORCHESTER, OXON.

GRACE AND THE GRACELESS, KINGS COLLEGE, CAMBRUGE.

Gbe Domeetic atrt> popular.

OMESTIC and popular inci-
dents are plentiful among the
carvings, of which they form,
indeed, a distinct class ; and
they afford a considerable
amount of material with which
might be built up, in a truly
Hogarthian and exaggerated

spirit, an elaborate account of mediaeval manners in general.

In the majority of cases the incidents have a familiar, if not

an endearing suggestiveness.

THE WEAKER VESSE1 , SHERBORNE.

DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

THE DOMESTIC AND POPULAR.

i35

The records of mankind are not wanting in stormy
incidents in which the gentle female spirit has chafed under
some presumed foolishness or wickedness of the head of the
house, and at length breaking bounds, inflicted on him
personal reminders that patience endureth but for a season.
An example of this is given above, which shews the possibility
of such a thing as far back as 1520, the date of the Beverley
Minster misericordes. While the lady is devoting her

AN UNKIND FARE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

attention to the flagellation of her unfortunate and perhaps
entirely blameless spouse, a dog avails himself of the opport-
unity to rifle the caldron.

The picture in the initial, taken from a carving in the
choir of Sherborne Minster, shews another domestic incident
in which the lady administers castigation. Though in itself
no more than a vulgar satire, it is probable that this carving
was copied from some representation of St. Lucy, who is

136 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART

sometimes shewn with a staff in her hand, and behind her the
devil prostrate.

It is not easy to say what is the meaning of another
carving in Beverley Minster, or whether it has any connection
with that just noted. The probability is that it has not.
This may be a shrewish wife being wheeled in the tumbril to
the waterside, there to undergo for the better ruling of her
tongue, a punishment the authority for which was custom
older than law. But I am inclined to think that another
reading will be nearer the truth. The vehicle is not the
tumbril but a wheelbarrow, and the man propelling it is
younger than the lady, who is pulling his hair. I imagine
the man is apprentice or husband, and is not very cheerfully
trundling his companion home. A similar, but more definite
misericorde is in Ripon Cathedral.

In this barrow, the old woman, wearing a cap with hat
on the top, as yet occasionally seen in country places, is
seated in a mistress-like way. She is not committing any
violence, but apparently is offering the man (call him the
bridegroom) his choice of either a bag of money with dutiful
obedience, or a huge cudgel, which she wields with muscular
power, with dereliction. The gem of the carving is the man's
face. He smiles a quiet, amused, satirical smile, as of one who
would say, " 'Tis no harm to humour these foolish old bodies,
and must be done, I trow."

But the object called a bag of money is as likely to be
a bottle, and the whole subject may be something quite
different. She may be going to the doctor, or offering the

THE DOMESTIC AND POPULAR.

■J39

man a drink ; or it may be Noah wheeling his wife into the
Ark, which, it was one of the jokes in a Mystery play to
suppose she was very unwilling to enter.

l'll.GKIJIAGE IN COMFORT, CANTfcKISU KY.

The block from the capital of a column in the crypt of
Canterbury Cathedral, tells us little of its history. It is given

MART INMAS.

CHRISTMAS,

HOLY TRINITY, HULL,

140

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

as an example of a cheerful grace and ease not common in
early work.

The hunting of the boar is a frequent subject of the
Gothic carver, being generally considered the sport of
September, though Sir Edward Coke says the season for the
boar was from Christmas to Candlemas. It is uncommon to
find the boar's head shewn treated as in the accompanying
block, struck off, and with the lemon in his mouth, ready for

the table. These quatre-
foils are the only two
with a special design upon
them, out of twelve on
the font of Holy Trinity
Church, Hull, the others
having rosettes. There
is no rule in this, but
there are other examples
in which small portions
of fonts are picked out
for significant decoration,
and possibly on the side
originally intended to be turned towards the door of the
church, or the altar.

Hunting scenes frequently occur. A boss in York
Minster shews a huntsman "breaking" a deer as it hangs
from a tree.

The wild sweetness of one stringed and one wind
instrument — not uncommonly met as harp and piccolo near

HUNTSMAN AND DEER, YORK.

THE DOMESTIC AND POPULAR.

141

London "saloon bars" — was a usual duet of the middle ages.
In Stoeffler's Calendarum Romanorum Magnum (of 15 18) in
a series of woodcuts illustrating the months, and which are
otherwise reasonable, he gives one of these duets performed
in a field as a proper occupation of the month of April with
the following highly appropriate distich —

"Aprilis patule nucis sub umbra
post convivia dormio libenter.'

A CURIOUS DUET, CHICHESTER.

In this carving, however, the musicians appear to be
within doors and to be giving a set duet. To the interest of
the ear they add a curious spectacle for the eye, for they are
seated in chairs which have no fore-legs, and their balance is
kept by the flageoletist taking hold of the harp as the players
sit facing, so that while leaning back they form a counter-
poise to each other. The chairs are a curious study in
mediaeval furniture.

It is not unlikely that the sculptor in the case of the

142 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

annexed block had in his mind something similar to the
saying —

" When a man's single he lives at his ease."

A man come in from,
we may presume, frost and
snow, has taken off his
boots, and warms his feet
as, seated on his fald-stool
by the fire, he stirs the
pot with lively anticipation

BACHFLOR QUARTERS, WORCESTER. Ol tne MlCal pTCpaTing in~

side. He is probably a shepherd or swine-herd ; on one side
is seated his dog, at the other are hung two fat gammons
of bacon.

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CrA

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R- ~*J

L -

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feJ

\X*-m

t ~ ,/«i

V ■?• •

-_•- MjA

pst~

^©

ir-cC?l

- —

Shepherds and shepherding furnish frequent subjects to
the carver.

In a Coventry Corpus Christi play of 1534 one of the

THE DOMESTIC AND POPULAR. 143

three shepherds presents his gloves to the infant Saviour in
these words —

" Have here my myttens, to pytt en thi hondis,
Other treysure have I none to present thee with."

This carving has been called the Good Shepherd. If
the artist really meant Christ by this shepherd with a hood
over his head and hat over that, with great gloves and shoes,
with a round beardless face, with his arms round the necks of
two sheep, holding their feet in his hands, it is the finest piece
of religious burlesque extant. But it is not to be supposed
that the idea even occurred to the sculptor.

The Feast of Fools was a kind of religious farce, a
"mystery" run riot. Cedranus, a Byzantine historian, who
wrote in the eleventh century, records that it was introduced
into the Greek Church a.d. 990, by Theophylact, patriarch of
Constantinople. We can partly understand that the popular
craving for the wild liberties of the Saturnalia might be met,
and perhaps modified, by a brief removal of the solemn
constraint of the Christian priest-rule. But licentiousness in
church worship was no new thing, and, long before the time
of Theophylact, the Church of the West, and probably the
Greek Church also, had been rendered scandalous by the
laxity with which the church services were conducted. At
the Council of Orleans, in a.d. 533, it was found necessary to
rule that no person in a church shall sing, drink, or do
anything unbecoming ; at another in Chalons, in a.d. 650,
women were forbidden to sing indecent songs in church.

i44 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

There is in fact every evidence, including the sculptures of
our subject, that religion was not, popularly, a thing solemn
in itself. Cedranus mentions the "diabolic dances" among
the enormities practised at the Feast of Fools, which was
generally held about Christmas, though not confined to
that festival.

In the twelfth century, the abuse increased ; songs of the
most indecent and offensive character were sung in the midst

DANCING FOOLS, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

of the mock services ; puddings were eaten, and dice rattled
on the altar, and old shoes burnt as incense.

This observance, so evidently an expedient parody of
the old-time festivals, is traceable in England, and said to
have been abolished about the end of the fourteenth century.
The carvings in Beverley Minster, here presented, are
supposed to refer to the Feast, and at any rate give us a good
idea of the mediaeval fool. There were innumerable classic

THE DOMESTIC AND POPULAR. 147

dances. The Greeks send down the names of two hundred
kinds. A dance with arms was the Pyrrhic dance, which was
similar in some of its varieties to the military dance known as
the Morris. The Morris was introduced into Spain by the
Moors, and brought into England by John of Gaunt in 1332.
It was, however, little used until the reign of Henry VII.
There were other vivacious dances, called Bayle, of Moorish
origin, which, as well as various kinds of the stately Court
dance, were used by the Spaniards. It is difficult, from
general sources, to ascertain the dances in vogue in old
England. A drawing in the Cotton MSS. shews a Saxon
dancing a reel. The general inference is, however, that the
Morris (of the Moors or Moriscoes) was the chief dance of the
English, and perhaps it is that in which the saltatory fools of
the carving are engaged.

Probably the extraordinary monstrosity shewn in the
annexed block had an actual existence. There are fairly
numerous accounts of such malformities in mediaeval times,
and it was a function of mediaeval humour to make capital out
of unfortunate deformity. This poor man has distorted hands
instead of feet, and he moves about on pattens or wooden
clogs strapped to his hands and legs. There is little meaning
in the side carvings. The fool-ape, making an uncouth
gesture, is perhaps to shew the character- of those who mock
misfortune. The man with the scimitar may represent the
alarm of one who might suddenly come upon the sight of the
abortion, and fearing some mystery or trap, draw his blade.
In a sense this is a humourous carving — yet there is a quality

A MYTHOLOGICAL EPISODE, YORK.

148 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

for which it is much more remarkable, and that is its element

of forcible and realistic pathos.

Two reliefs from York Minster are presumably scenes

from classic mythology, from,
in regard to the costumes, a
Saxon point of view. One may
be supposed to be the rape of
Ganymede. Oak leaves are an
attribute of Jupiter, as is also
the eagle which bore Gany-
mede to Olympus.

The other may be Vulcan
giving Venus " a piece of his
mind."
If these readings are correct these two carvings are

among the very few instances

of representations of circum-
stantial detail of the Olympian

mythology. Most of the
J church references to myth-
ology have more connection

with the earlier symbolic
I meanings than with the later

narrative histories into which

the cults degenerated. Other

examples are in the references

to Hercules in the sixteenth century stalls of Henry VI I. 's

Chapel, Westminster.

MARITAL VIOLENCE, YORK.

THE DOMESTIC AND POPULAR.

'49

There is in mediaeval art several examples remaining of
what may be called topsy-turveyism, in which two figures
mutually lent their parts to each other in such a way that four
figures may be found.

An excellent example of this is at New College, Oxford,
in which, though the four figures are so apparent when once

A CONTINUOUS GROUP OF FOUR FIGURES, OXFORD.

seen, the two (taken as upper and lower), are in a natural and
ingenious acrobatic position. The grotesque head at the
base is put in to balance the composition, and perhaps to
prevent the trick being discerned at once.

The grace of the free if somewhat meagre Corinthian
acanthus as used in Early English work is often rendered

i5°

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

more marked by the introduction of an extraneous subject.
Thus at Wells the foliate design is relieved by the ungainly
figure of a melancholy individual, who, before retiring to rest,
pursues an examination into his pedal callosities, or extracts
the poignant thorn. Or can it be that we have here a
reminder of the Egyptian monarch, Somaraja, mentioned in

the Hindoo accounts of
the Egyptian mythology,
who was dissolute and out-
cast, and who, to shew his
repentance and patience,
stood twelve days upon
one leg ?

This discursive chapter
would not be complete
without a reference to
the alleged impropriety
of church grotesques.
Though it is not to be
denied that in the wide
range of subjects a con-
siderable number of indecent subjects have crept in, yet their
proportion is small. Examination would lead to the belief
that upon the whole the art of the churches is much purer
than the literature or the popular taste of the respective ;
periods. Though there may be sometimes met examples
of grossness of humour and a frank want of reserve, such
as in the annexed drawing from the chapel of All Souls,

A pilgrim's pains, wells.

THE DOMESTIC AND POPULAR.

151

Oxford, yet these are rarely of the most gross or least
reserved character.

It may be well to note, in this connection that the
literature from which we draw the bulk of our ideas as to

A POSTURIST, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.

mediaeval life, are foreign, and . that, ahhough English
manners would not be remotely different in essentials, yet
there would be as many absolute differences as there
are yet remaining to our eyes in architecture and in art
generally.

£be flMg ant) other animal Musicians.

NE might count in the churches
animal musicians, perhaps, by
thousands, and the reason of
their presence is doubtless the
same as that which explains the
frequency of the serious carvings
of musicians which adorn the
arches of nave and choir through-
ape as fipfr, bkveklev out tne country — namely the

prevalent use of various kinds of instrumental music in the
service of the church. The animal musicians are the
burlesques of the human, and the fact that the pig is the
most frequent performer may perhaps suggest that the ability
of the musician had overwhelmed the consideration of other
qualities which might be expected, but were not found, in
the harmony-producing choristers. Clever as musicians, they
may have become merely functionaries as regards interest in
the church, as we see to-day in the case of our bell-ringers,
who for the most part issue from the churches as worshippers
enter them.

It may also be that the frequency of suilline musicians
may have derisive reference to the ancient veneration in which
the pig was held in the mythologies. It was a symbol of the
sun, and, derivatively, of fecundity. Perhaps the strongest

THE PIG AND OTHER ANIMAL MUSICIANS.

J53

trace of this is in Scandinavian mythology. The northern
races sacrificed a boar to Freyr, the patron deity of Sweden
and of Iceland, the god of fertility ; he was fabled to ride
upon a boar named Gullinbrusti, or Golden Bristle. Freyr's
festival was at Yule-tide. Yule is jul or heol, the sun, and
Gehul is the Saxon " Sunfeast." The gods of Scandinavia
were said to nightly feast upon the great boar Saehrimnir,
which eaten up, was every morning found whole again. This
seems somewhat akin to the
Hindoo story of Crorasura, a
demon with the face of a boar,
who continually read the Vedas
and was so devout that Vishnu
(the sun god) gave him a boon.
He asked that no creature
existing in the three worlds
might have power to slay him,
which was granted.

4f^

■ — i

JB?f\

SOW AND FIDDLE, WINCHESTER.

The special sacrifice of the pig was not peculiar to
Scandinavia, for the Druids and the Greeks also offered up a
boar at the winter solstice. The sacrifice of a pig was a
constant preliminary of the Athenian assemblies. As a corn
destroyer the same animal was sacrificed to Ceres.

The above explains the recurrence of the pig rather than

the pig musician. A pregnant sow was, however, yearly

sacrificed to Mercury, the inventor of the harp, and a sow

playing the harp is among the rich set of choir carvings in

Beverley Minster.

i54 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

The chase of the boar was the sport of September, the
ordinary killing season, the swine being then in condition after

their autumn feed of bucon,
or beechmast (hence bacon),
" His Martinmas has come "
passed into a proverb. The
prevalence of the pig as a
food animal had undoubtedly
its share in the frequency of
art reference.

In the Christian adoption
of pagan attributes, the pig
was apportioned to St. An-
thony, it is said, variously, because he had been a swine-
herd, or lived in woods. The smallest or weakling pig in a
litter, called in the north
" piggy-widdy " (small white
pig), and in the south mid-
lands the " dillin " (perhaps
equivalent to delayed), and
is elsewhere styled the
Anthony pig, as specially
needing the protection of
his patron.

A common representa-

SOW AS HARPIST, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

MUSIC AT DINNER, WINCHESTER.

tion of the pig musician is a

sow who plays to her brood. At Winchester, the feast of the

little ones is enlivened by the strains of the double flute. At

THE PIG AND OTHER ANIMAL MUSICIANS.

155

Durham Castle, in a carving formerly in Aucland Castle
Chapel, the sow plays the bagpipes while the young pigs
dance. At Ripon, a
vigorous carving has
the same subject, and
another at Beverley, in
which a realistic trough
forms the foreground.

The " Pig and
Whistle " forms an
old tavern sign. Dr.
Brewer explains this
as the pot, bowl, or
cup (the pig), and the
wassail it contained.
The earthenware vessel

SOW AND BAGPIPES, DURHAM CASTLE

used to warm the feet

in bed is in Scotland yet called "the pig," and to southern

PIGS AND PIPES, RIPON.

i56

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

strangers the use of the word has caused a temporary
embarrassment. If this explanation is not coincident with
some other not at present to hand, the carving of the

pig and whistle in the six-
teenth century carving in
Henry VI I. 's chapel shows
that the corruption of the
" pig and wassail " was
accepted in ignorance as
far back as that period.

But too much stress is
not to be laid upon the pig
as a musician, for at West-
pig and wh.stle, westminstkr. minster the bear plays the

bagpipes, just as at Winchester the ape performs on the harp.
In the Beverley Minster choir an ape converts a cat into an
almost automatic instrument by biting its tail.

APE AS HARPIST, WESTMINSTER.

Compound forms.

N nearly every church compound forms

are met which in a high degree merit

the designation of grotesque. Few

religions have been without these

\ A^y JL symbolic representations of complex

athor, chichester. characters. If the Egyptian had its i

cat-headed and hawk-headed men, the Assyrian its human-ix*'

headed bull, the Mexican its serpent-armed tiger-men, so alsoi-

the Scandinavian mythology had its horse-headed and vulture- u-

headed giants, and its human-headed eagle. Horace, who

doubtless knew the figurative meaning of what he satirizes,

viewed the representations of such compounds in his days,

and asks —

" If in a picture you should see
A handsome woman with a fishes tail,
Or a man's head upon a horse's neck,
Or limbs of beasts of the most diffrent kind,
Cover'd with feathers of all sorts of birds
Would you not laugh?"*

It is, perhaps, a little remote from our subject to inquire
whether the poet or the priest came the first in bringing about
these archaic combinations; yet a word or two may be devoted
to suggesting the inquiry. It is probable that the religious
ideas and artistic forms met in ancient worships first solely

* Roscommon.

158 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

existed in poetic expressions of the qualities of the sun — of
the other members of the solar system — of the gods. Thus
the swiftness of the sun in his course and in his light induced
the mention of wings. Hence the wings of an eagle added
to a circular form arose as the symbol in one place ; in
another arose the God Mercury ; while Jove the great
sun-god is shewn accompanied by an eagle. The fertility
of the earth became as to corn Ceres, as to vines
Bacchus, as to flowers Flora, and so forth. The human
personification, in cases where a combination of qualities or
functions was sought to be indicated, resulted in more or less
abstruse literary fables; on the other hand the artist or symbol
seeker found it easier to select a lower plane of thought for
' his embodiments. Thus, while swiftness suggested the eagle,
strength was figured by the lion : so when a symbol of swift-
ness and strength was required arose the compound eagle-lion,
the gryphon.

The gryphon, however, though constantly met in Gothic,
is rarely grotesque in itself. Another form which also,
to a certain extent, is incorruptible, is that of the sphinx.
This is a figure symbolic of the sun from the Egyptian point
of view, in which the Nile was all-important. Nilus, or
Ammon, the Egyptian Jove, was the sun-god, an equivalent
to Osiris, and the sphinx was similar in estimation, being, it
is reasonably conjectured, a compound of Leo and Virgo, at
whose conjunction the Nile has yearly risen. According to
Dr. Birch, the sphinx is to be read as being the symbol of
Harmachis or "the sun on the horizon." It may be that the

COMPOUND FORMS.

159

SPHINX AND BUCKLER, BEVERLEY MINSTER.

Child rising from the Shell is sunrise over the sea, and the
Sphinx sunrise over the land. It has been conjectured that
the cherubim of the taber-
nacle were sphinx-form.
The cherubim on the
Mosaic Ark are among
the subjects of the earliest
mention of composite
symbols. Ezekiel says
they were composed of
parts of the figures of a
man (wisdom, intellect), a lion (dominion), a bull (strength),
and an eagle (sharp-sightedness, swiftness.) The Persians
and Hindoos had similar figures. A man with buffalo horns

is painted in the Syn-
hedria of the American
Indians in conjunction
with that of a panther
or puma-like beast,
and these are supposed
to be a contraction of
the cherubimical fig-
ures of the man, the
bull, and the lion ;
these, renewed yearly,
are near the carved
figures of eagles common in the Indian sun-worship.

A carving in the arm-rest of one of the stalls of Beverley

SPHINX FIGURE, DORCHESTER, OXON.

160 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

Minster, suggested in the block on page 159, shews a sphinx
with a shield ; there are in the same church several fine
examples seated in the orthodox manner.

On a capital in the sedilia of Dorchester Abbey is a
curious compound which may be classed as a sphinx. One
of the hands (or paws) is held over the eyes of a dog, which
suggests the manner in which animals were anciently sacrificed.
Another sphinx in the same sedilia is of the winged variety.

It has the head cowled ; many of
the mediaeval combinatory forms
are mantled.

In Worcester Cathedral is a
compound of man, ox, and lion,
very different from the sphinx or
cherubim shapes, being a grotesque
deprived of all the original poetry
of the conception.

Virgil describes Scylla (the

COWLED SPHINX, DORCHESTER. OXON.

Punic Sco/, destruction) as a
beautiful figure upwards, half her body being a beautiful
virgin ; downwards, a horrible fish with a wolf's belly (utero).
Homer similarly.

The mermaid is a frequent subject, but more monotonous
in its form and action than any other creature, and is generally
found executed with a respectful simplicity that scarcely ever
savours of grotesqueness. The mermaid, " the sea wolf of the
abyss," and the " mighty sea-woman " of Boewulf, has an
early origin as a deity of fascinating but malignant tendencies.

COMPOUND FORMS.

161

The centaur, perhaps, ranks next to the sphinx in artistic
merit. To the early Christians the centaur was merely a
symbol of unbridled passions, and all mediaeval reference
classes it as evil. Virgil mentions it as being met in numbers
near the gates of Hades, and the Parthenon sculptures shew
it as the enemy of men.

GROTESQUE CHERUBIM, WORCESTER.

The story of the encyclopedias regarding centaurs is that

they were Thessalonian horsemen, whom the Greeks, ignorant

of horsemanship, took to be half-men, half-animals. They

were called, it is said, centaurs, from their skill in killing the

wild bulls of the Pelion mountains, and, later, hippo-centaurs.

162 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

This explanation may, in the presence of other combinatory
forms, be considered doubtful, as it is more probable that this,
like those, arose out of a poetic appreciation of the qualities
underlying beauty of form, that is, out of an intelligent
symbolism. The horse, where known, was always a favourite
animal among men. Innumerable coinages attest this fact.
Early Corinthian coins have the figure of Pegasus. In
most the horse is shewn alone. In the next proportion he
is attached to a chariot. In few is he shewn being ridden, as
it is his qualities that were intended to be expressed, and not
those of the being who has subjected him. One of the old
Greek gold staters has a man driving a chariot in which the
horse has a human head ; while the man is urging the horse
with the sacred three-branched rod, each branch of which
terminates in a trefoil. The centaur has a yet unallotted
place in the symbolism of the sun-myth. Classic myth-
ology says Chiron the centaur was the teacher of Apollo
in music, medicine, and hunting, and centaurs are mostly
sagittarii or archers, whose arrows, like those of Apollo, are
the sunbeams. The centaur met in Gothic ornament is the
Zodiacal Sagittarius, and true to this original derivation, the
centaur is generally found with his bow and arrow.

It is said that the Irish saints, Ciaran and Nessan, are
the same with the centaurs Chiron and Nessus.

A capital of the south doorway, IfHey, has a unique
composition of centaurs. A female centaur, armed with bow
(broken) and 'arrow, is suckling a child centaur after the
human manner. The equine portions of the figures are in

COMPOUND FORMS.

165

exceptionally good drawing, though the tremendous elongation
of the human trunks, and the ill-rendered position, render
the group very grotesque. Both the mother and child wear
the classic cestus or girdle. The bow carried by the mother
is held apparently in readiness in the left hand, while it is
probable that the right breast was meant to be shown re-
moved, as was stated of the Amazons. The mother looks

CENTAUR AS DRAGON SLAYER, EXETER.

off, and there is an air of alertness about the two, which is
explained by the sculpture on the return of the capital, where
the father-centaur is seen slaying a wolf, lion, or other beast.

On a centaur at Exeter of the thirteenth century, the
mythical idea is somewhat retained ; the centaur has shot
an arrow into the throat of a dragon, which is part of the
ornament. This is a very rude but suggestive carving. Is
the centaur but a symbol of Apollo himself?

i66

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

The next block (at Ely) is also of the centaur order,
though not suggestive of aggression. The figure is female, and

MUSICAL CENTAUR, ELY.

she is playing the zither. This is of the fourteenth century.
Another classic conception which has been perpetuated

in Gothic is the harpy, though
in most cases without any-
apparent recognition of the
harpy character. Exceptions
are such instances as that of
the harpy drawn in the chapter
" Satires without Satan." In
one at Winchester a fine
mediaeval effect is produced
by putting a hood on the

^^^j? —=r-^

iitli^31l

ill™ -

liiiN^Ji

HARTY, WINCHESTER.

human head.

COMPOUND FORMS.

167

R /

\ \ i'7

VL.^ ^J

IHIS-HFAOEU FlGl'RF. FROM AN
UNKNOWN CHUKCH.

Another curious bird combination is in a carving in the

Architectural Museum, Tufton Street, London, from an un-
known church. This is a semi-human

figure, whose upper part is skilfully

draped. The head, bent towards the

ground, is that of a bird of the ibis

species, and it is probable that we

have here a relic of the Egyptian

Mercury Thoth, who was incarnated

as an ibis. Thoth is called the God

of the Heart (the conscience), and the

ibis was said to be sacred to him

because when sleeping it assumes the shape of a heart.
An unusual compound is that of a swan with the agreeable

head of a young woman,
in St. George's Chapel,
Windsor. This may be
one of the swan-sisters in
the old story of the " Knight
of the Swan."

The initial letter of this
section is a fine grotesque
rendering of the Egyptian
goddess Athor, Athyr, or
Het-her (meaning the dwell-
ing of God.) She was the

daughter of the sun, and bore in images the sun's disc.

Probably through a lapse into ignorance on the part 0f the

THE SWAN SISTER, ST. GEORGF.'s CHAPEL, WINDSOR.

i68

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

priest-painters, she became of less consideration, and the
signification even of her image was forgotten. She had
always had as one of her representations, a bird with a
human head horned and bearing the disc ; but the disc began
to be shewn as a tambourine, and she herself was styled
"the mistress of dance and jest." As in the cosmogony of
one of the Egyptian Trinities she was the Third Person,
as Supreme Love, the Greeks held her to be the same as
Aphrodite. The name of the sun-disc was Aten, and its
worship was kindred to that of Ra, the mid-day sun. The
Hebrew Adonai and the Syriac Adonis have been considered
to be derived from this word Aten.

Several examples of bird-compounds are in the Exeter
series of misericordes of the thirteenth century. They are
renderings in wood of the older Anglo-Saxon style of design,
and are ludicrously grotesque.

It is scarcely to be considered that the compound figures
were influenced by the prevalence of mumming in the periods
of the various carvings. In this, as in many other respects,
the traditions of the carvers' art protected it from being
coloured by the aspect of the times, except in a limited
degree, shewn in distinctly isolated examples.

BIRD-COMPOUND, EXETER.

JiIESK!

4^g|

^•%»T^c

^!P9iHI R&£sI

a bearded biped, st.
kathbrine's.

IRon^escripts.

HERE is a large number of bizarre
works which defy natural classification,
and though in many cases they are a
branch of the compound order of
figures, yet they are frequently well
defined as non - descripts. These,
though in one respect the most grot-
esque of the grotesques, do not claim
lengthy description. Where they are

not traceable compounds, they are often apparently the

creatures of fancy, without meaning and without history. It

may be, however, that could

we trace it, we should find for

each a pedigree as interesting,

if not as old, as that of any of

the sun-myths. Among the

absurd figures which scarcely

call for explanation are such as

that shown in the initial, from

the Hospital and Collegiate

Church of St. Katherine by

the Tower (now removed to a

substituted hospital in Regent's Park).

In the Architectural Museum, Tufton Street, London,

A CLOAKED SIN, TUFTON STREET.

170 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

is a carving from an unknown church, in which appear two
figures which were not an uncommon subject for artists of the
odd. These are human heads, to which are attached legs
without intermediary bodies, and with tails depending from
the back of the heads.

In the " Pilgremage of the Sowle," printed by Caxton in
1483, translated from a French manuscript of 1435 or earlier,
is a description of a man's conscience, which, there is little
doubt, furnished the idealic material for these carvings. A

THE WORM OF CONSCIENCE.

(From an unknown Church.)

** sowle " being " snarlyed in the trappe " of Satan, is being, by
a travesty on the forms of a court of law, claimed by both the
"horrible Sathanas" and its own Warden or Guardian Angel.
The Devil calls for his chief witness by the name of
Synderesys, but the witness calls himself the Worm of
Conscience. The following is the soul's description : — "Then
came forth by me an old one, that long time had hid himself
nigh me, which before that time I had not perceived. He
was wonderfully hideous and of cruel countenance ; and he
began to grin, and shewed me his jaws and gums, for teeth he

NON-DESCRIPTS.

171

had none, they all being broken and worn away. He had no
body, but under his head he had only a tail, which seemed the
tail of a worm of exceeding length and greatness." This
strange accuser tells the Soul that he had often warned it, and
so often bitten it that all his teeth were wasted and broken,
his function being " to bite and wounde them that wrong
themselves."*

The above examples are scarcely unique. In Ripon
Cathedral, on a misericorde of 1489, representing the bearing

NOBODIES, RIPON.

of the grapes of Eschol on a staff, are two somewhat similar
figures, likewise mere " nobodies," though without tails.
These are a covert allusion to the wonderful stories of the
spies, which, it is thus hinted, are akin to the travellers' tales
of mediaeval times, as well as a pun on the report that they
had seen nobody.

It is evident that the idea of men without bodies came

* Hone.

172 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

from the East, and also that it had credence as an actual fact.
In the Cosmographies Universalis, printed in 1550, they are
alluded to in the following terms : — " Sunt qui cervicibus
carent et in humeris habet oculos ; De India ultra Gangem

fluvium sita."

There are many carvings which
are more or less of the same
character, and probably intended
to embody the idea of conscience
or sins.

The two rather indecorous fig-
ures shewn in the following block
non-descript, christ church, hants. from Great Malvern are varieties
doubtless typifying sins.

SINS IN SYMBOL, GREAT MALVERN.

IRcbuees.

BOLT-TON.

E BUSES 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 archi-
tect, 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 I slip, 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

WILLIAM

BEVERLEY MINSTER.

174 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

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, how-
ever, is not a name-rebus so much
as an allusion to the exigencies
of his office. The Church of
St. Nicholas, Lynn, had miseri-
cordes (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.
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.

( (*\

<L\XW\

L ssMBf'f W

NJ1R m

yq^. yAL f *§

r& M 1

f Ji 1P1L

WEIGHT, REBUS FOR WHITE, BEVERLEY
MINSTER.

MERCHANT MARK, COGNIZANCE AND REBUS, ST. NICHOLAS'S, LYNN.

{Trinities.

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S#>

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LARVA-LIKE DRAGON, ST. PAUL'S,
BEDFORD.

EPEATEDLY has the statement
been made that the various myth-
ologies 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 state-
ment, 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 con-
stellation path as other symbols and reminders of periodic

176 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

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).

TRINITIES.

GRECIAN.

ROMAN.

Zeus.

Jupiter, Power.

Pallas.

Minerva, Wisdom, Eternal

Hera.

Intellect.

Juno, Love.

177

SCANDINAVIAN.

Odin, Giver of Life.

H/ENiR, 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 in-
stances already given. Some of the city Trinities were as
follow : —

THEBES. PHILAE & ABYDOS. ABOO-SIMBEL.

Amun-Ra ( = Jupiter), Osiris (-= Pluto). Pta or Phthah.

(Ra = the Mid-day Sun. Isis ( = Prosperine). Amum-Ra.

Mant or Mentu ( = "the Horus, the Saviour, Athor, Love (the

mother," Juno.) the Shepherd (the wife of Horus).

Chonso ( = Hercules.) the Rising Sun).

So that it is no coincidence that both Hercules and Horus

are met in Gothic carvings as deliverers from dragons.

ry8 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

ELEPHANTINE. MEMPHIS. HELIOPOLIS.

Khum or Chnoumis. Ptah. Tum (Setting Sun.)

Anuka. Merenphtah. Nebhetp.

Hak. Nefer-Atum. 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 perfec-
tion 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.

TRINITIES. 179

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, some-
times 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.

i8o

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

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

A TRINITY, ST. MARY S, FAVERSHAM.

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.

Another instance of a three- fold head similar to the
Faversham carving is at Cartmel.

TRINITIES. 181

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.

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

l82

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

Assyrian carvings we should have met a figure bearing the
sacred three-headed poppy). At Gay ton (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

TRINITY OF MOWERS, WORCKSTER.

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.

TRINITIES. 183

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 im-
portant 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.

Gbe jfoy in Cburcb Hrt

PREACHING FOX, CHRISTCHURCH,
HAMPSHIRE.

HE 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 illus-
tration, 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

THE FOX IN CHURCH ART. 185

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

1 86 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

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

THE FOX IN CHURCH ART. 187

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 pro-
nounce 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

188 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

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
1 5 17, 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

THE FOX IN CHURCH ART. 189

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
resrard 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.

190 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

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

THE FOX IN CHURCH ART. 191

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,"

192 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

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 resent-
ment, 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.

The King announces his pardon to the court. The Bear
and Wolf are thrown into prison, and Reynard has a scrip
made of a piece of the Bear's hide, and shoes of the skin of
the feet of the Wolf and his wife. Blessed by Bellin the
Ram, who is the King's chaplain, and accompanied a short
distance by the whole court, he sets out for Rome. The
chaplain Ram and Lampe the Hare, accompany him home to
bid his wife farewell. He inveigles the Hare inside, and the
family eat him. He puts the Hare's head in the bear-skin

THE FOX IN" CHURCH ART. 193

wallet, and taking it to the impatient Bellin outside, asks him
to take it to the King, as it contains letters of state policy.

The satchel is opened in full court, and Reynard once
more proclaimed a traitor, accursed and banned, the Bear and
Wolf restored, and the Ram and all his race given to them for
atonement. A twelve-day tourney is held. On the eighth
day the Coney and the Crow present complaint against
Reynard ; he had wounded the Coney, and eaten the Crow's
wife. It is resolved, in spite of the Lioness's second inter-
cession, to besiege Malepart and hang Reynard.

Grimbart secretly runs off to warn Reynard, who decides
to return to court once more and plead his cause. They set
out together, and Reynard again confesses his sins. This
introduces a story of how he once fooled the Wolf. Isengrin
coveted to eat a foal, and sent the Fox to inquire the price
from the mare. She replied the price was written on her
hinder hoof. The Fox, seeing the trick, returned to the
Wolf saying he could not understand the inscription. The
Wolf boasts of his learning, having long ago taken his
degrees as Doctor of Both Faculties. The Wolf bends down
to examine the newly-shod hoof, and the rest may be supposed.

On their way to court, Reynard and Grimbart meet

Martin the Ape, who is bound for Rome, and promises his

gold shall buy Reynard's absolution. Arrived at court,

Reynard boldly explains away the stories of the Coney and

the Crow, and demands the trial by battle. The Coney and

Crow, having no witnesses, and being averse to battle,

withdraw. Reynard accuses the dead Bellin of killing the

i94 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

Hare Lampe and secreting rare jewels he sent to the King.
His story is half believed in the hope that the jewels, which
he described at great length, may be found. Reynard's former
services to the state are remembered, and he is about to depart
triumphant, when the Wolf, unable to restrain his rage,
accuses him afresh. In the end, as each accusation is smoothly
foiled, he accepts the wager of battle. They withdraw to
prepare for the lists. Reynard is shorn and shaven, all but
his tail, by his relatives the Apes. He is well oiled. He is
also enjoined to drink plentifully overnight.

They meet in the lists. Reynard kicks up the dust to
blind the Wolf, draws his wet tail across his eyes, and at
length tears an eye out. He is, however, seized by the
Wolfs strong jaw, and is about to be finished off when he
takes advantage of a word of parley to seize the wolf in a
tender part with his hand, and the fight recommences, ending
in the total overthrow of Isengrin. The King orders the
fray to be stayed and the Wolf's life spared. The Wolf is
carried off. All fly to congratulate the victor,

" All gazed in his face with fawning eyes,
And loaded him with flatteries."

The King makes him the Lord Chancellor and takes
him to his close esteem.
The tale winds up :

" To wisdom now let each one turn,
Avoid the base and virtue learn ;
This is the end of Reynard's story,
May God assist us to His glory."

THE FOX IN CHURCH ART.

195

The above is the gist of the matter dealing with the
Fox in letters ; from these lively images we will turn to the
more wooden achievements of the carvers. The general
fact that the Fox is a marauder specially fond of the flesh of
that bird of long descent, the goose, but also partial to that of
other birds, is frequently illustrated by church carvings. In
the churches at the following places he is carved as having
seized his prey : — Beverley (Minster), Boston, Fairford,

THE FOX RETURNING FROM HUNTING, MANCHESTER.

Faversham, Gloucester, Hereford, Norwich, Oxford (Mag-
dalen), Peterborough, Ripon, Wellingborough, Winchester,
and Windsor (St. George's Chapel). At the last-named
he is also shewn as preying upon a hen. At Beverley (Minster)
Ely, Manchester, and Thanet (St. Mary's Minster) the picture
of the abduction of the goose is heightened in interest by his
pursuit by a woman armed with a distaff. Doubtless there

196 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

are others ; the object throughout is to give examples, not an
exhaustive list.

A somewhat unusual subject is one in Manchester
Cathedral, in which the Fox is returning from hunting. A
carving where the Fox is used to point a moral is another, in
St. George's Chapel, Windsor, in which three monks, con-
veyed in a wheel-barrow into Hell's Mouth, are accompanied
by a Fox with a goose in his mouth. Probably the idea
here broadly expressed is intended to be quietly suggested by
some of the above.

Next in frequency is the more definite satire of the Fox
preaching to Geese. We find it at Beverley (both the
Minster and St. Mary's), Boston, Bristol, Cartmel, Ely,
Etchingham, Nantwich, Ripon, Stowlangcroft, and Windsor
(St. George's Chapel). In the last he has a goose in his
cowl.

All those need for their completion the supposition that the
text of the Fox's sermon is the same as was given at length
in a representation of a preaching scene on an ancient stained-
glass window in the church of St. Martin, Leicester, which was
unhappily destroyed in the last century. In this, from the
Fox's mouth proceeded the words "Testis est mihi Deus,
quam cupiam vos omnes visceribus meus " (God is my witness
how I desire you all in my bowels. — Philippians, i., 8). In
Wolfius, a.d. 1300, is a description of another such representa-
tion, in a MS. of yEsop's Fables. It may accord quite well
with the theory of the transmission of designs by the continuity
of the artificers' gild system to suppose that some proportion

THE FOX IN CHURCH ART. 197

of the material found its way into their repertoire through the
medium of manuscripts (not necessarily original in them),
especially for such subjects as were essentially mediaeval. We
have seen how the carvings of Jonah and of Samson, at
Ripon, were taken from the Poor Man's Bible ; here we have
the Preaching Fox mentioned in a book of 1300 as being in
an earlier work. A Fox bearing two Cocks by the neck on a
staff is the initial T in a MS. considered by Montflaucon to be
of the ninth century. Fredegarius, the Frankish historian, in
the middle of the seventh century, has a fable of a Fox at the
court of the Lion, repeated by others in the tenth and eleventh.
Paulin Paris and Thomas Wright agreed in thinking the
whole fable of French origin, and first in the Latin tongue.
So that we may reasonably suppose that the countless tons of
books and MSS. (though it is useless to grope now among
the mere memories of ashes), burnt at the Reformation, would
contain much that would have made clearer our understanding
of this subject of Gothic grotesques. It is clear, however,
that the Fox was used as a means of satirical comment before
the writing of the Isengrine Fable, and that most of the
church carvings refer to what we may call pre-Fable or
co-Fable conceptions.

There may be other material lying hidden in our great
libraries, but search for early Reynard drawings produces
almost nothing.

At Ripon the Fox is shewn without vestments, in a neat
Gothic pulpit adorned with carvings of the trefoil. # His

* The Church Treasury, by William Andrews, 1898, p. 193.

198 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

hands, and what they may have held, are gone. His con-
gregation is to his right a goose, to his left a cock, who appear
to be uttering responses, while his face is significant of
conscious slyness.

In Beverley Minster the Preaching Fox is in a square
panelled pulpit on four legs ; before him are seven geese, one
of whom slumbers peacefully. He wears a gown and cowl,
has a rosary in his right hand, and appears to be performing
his part with some animation. Behind the pulpit stands an
ape with a goose hung on a stick, while another fox — to give
point to the lesson — is slinking off with a goose slung over his

THE PREACHING FOX, RIPON.

back. At St. Mary's, Beverley, the various carvings have a
decidedly manuscript appearance. The one of the Preaching
Fox has labels, upon which, in some unknown original, may
have been inscribed texts or other matter. Here the Fox
wears only his " scapulaire," and has his right hand raised in
correct exhortative manner ; his pulpit is of stone, and is
early. Behind stand two persons, perhaps male and female,
whose religious dress would lead us to suppose them to
represent the class to whose teaching a fox-like character is to
be attributed. At the front are seated two apes, also in

THE FOX IN CHURCH ART. 201

scapularies, or hoods, who, as well as the Fox, may be here
to shew the real character of the supposed sanctified.

It will have been noticed how frequently the carvings
evade explanation ; all these satires on the clergy may mean
either that the system was bad, or that there was much abuse
of it. A remarkable instance of this is in another misericorde
in St. Mary's, Beverley. Here we have the Benedictine with
mild and serene countenance, without a sign of sin, and bearing

THE PREACHING FOX, ST. MARY'S, BEVERLEY.

the scroll of truth and simplicity of life — call it the rule of his
order. Yet how do many of his followers act ? With greed
for the temporalities, they aspire to the pastoral crook, and
devour their flocks with such rapacity as to threaten the
up-rooting of the whole order.

Such might be one rendering ; yet the placid cleric may
be simply introduced to shew the outward appearance of the
ravening ones.

202

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

It has been a favourite explanation of these anti-cleric
carvings to say that they were due to the jealousy which
existed between the regular orders and the preaching friars.
But carvings such as this last are sufficient to prove the
explanation erroneous ; preaching friars carried no croziers.

Yet another instance from St. Mary's shews us two foxes
in scapularies reading from a book placed on an eagle-lectern.

The bird — lectern or not — has round its head a kind of

FOXES AT THE LECTERN, ST. MARV'S, BEVERLEY.

aureola or glory ; it is probably an eagle, but who shall say it
is not a dove ? The religiously-garbed foxes are alone
unmistakable.

At Boston we have a mitred Fox, enthroned in the
episcopal seat in full canonicals, clutching at a cock which
stands near, while another bird is at the side. Close by the
throne, another fox, in a cowl only, is reading from a book.

At Christchurch, Hampshire, we see the Fox on a
seat-elbow, in a pulpit of good design, and near him, on

THE FOX IN CHURCH ART.

203

a stool, the Cock ; it appears in the initial of this article.

At Worcester, a scapularied Fox is kneeling before a
small table or altar, laying his hand with an affectation of
reverence upon — a sheep's head. This is one of the side
carvings to the misericorde of the three mowers, considered
under the head of " Trinities."

The Fox seizing the Hen, at Windsor, reminds of the

EPISCOPAL HYPOCRISY, BOSTON.

Fable, yet in so many other instances it is the Cock who is
the prey. Still further removing the carvings out of the sphere
of the Fable is a carving at Chicester of the Fox playing the
harp to a goose, while an ape dances ; and another at St.
George's, Windsor, in which it is an ape who wears the stole,
and is engaged in the laying on of hands. In the Fable the
Fox teaches the Hare the Creed, yet in a carving at Man-

204 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

Chester it is his two young cubs whom he is teaching from
a book.

The Fox in the Shell of Salvation, artfully discoursing
on the merits of a bottle of holy water, as drawn on page 58,
may be considered a Preaching Fox.

There is at Nantwich a carving which, unlike any of
those already noticed, is closely illustrative of an incident of
the epic. It represents the story told to Nouvel's court by the
widower Crow. He and his wife, in travelling through the
country, came across what they thought was the dead body of
Reynard on the heath. He was stiff, his tongue protruded,
his eyes were inverted. They lamented his unhappy fate,
and "course so early run." The lady approached his chin,
not, indeed, with any idea of commencing a meal ; far from
that, it was to ascertain if perchance any signs of life remained,
when — snap ! Her head was off! The Crow himself had the
melancholy luck to fly to a tree, there to sit and watch his
wife eaten up. In the carving we have the crows first coming
upon the sight of the counterfeit carrion as it lies near a rabbit
warren. To shew how perfect is Reynard's semblance of
death, the rear portions of two rabbits are to be seen as they
hurry into their holes on the approach of the crows, the
proximity of the Fox not having previously alarmed them.

The side figures have no simultaneous connection with
the central composition, being merely representations of
Reynard, once more as a larder regarder. The pilgrim's hat,
borne by one of the figures, is a further reminder of the
Fable, and the monkish garb is of course in keeping. These

THE FOX IN CHURCH ART.

207

two are somewhat singular in being fox-headed men
Chester, also, is a Fox feigning death.

Thus far the examples have been of Reynard's crimes ;
we will now survey his punishment. In the fable he was to
be hanged, but was not, the Wolf and the Bear, whom he
always outwitted, being the disappointed executioners. In the
carvings he is really hanged, and the hangsmen are the geese

THE TEMPTATION.

THE PUNISHMENT.
BEVERLEY MINSTER.

THE WAKE KNOT.

of his despoliation. Beverley Minster has among its fine
carvings an admirable rendering of this subject. Reynard is
hanged on a square gallows, a number of birds, geese, taking
a beak at the rope. To the left of the gallows stand two
official geese, with mace and battle-axe. The left supplemen-
tary carving gives a note of the crime ; Reynard is creeping
upon two sleeping geese. The right hand supporting carving
gives us the Fox after being cut down. His friend, the Ape,

208

THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

is untying the rope from his neck. Observe the twist of the
rope at the end ; it declares that Reynard is dead, for it is a
Wake Knot !

Also at Boston, Bristol, Nantwich, and Sherborne are
carvings of the hanging by geese. The gallows of the Sher-
borne execution is square, and made of rough trees. The
general action is less logical than in the Beverley scene, but
the geese are full of vivacity, evidently enjoying the thorough-

EXECUTION OF REYNARD, SHERBORNE.

ness with which they are carrying out their intentions.

In the hanging scenes there is no suggestion of the
religious dress. Reynard has lost his Benefit of Clergy.
Besides the carving of the Ape laying out the dead Fox, at
Beverley there are also others where the Ape is riding on the
Fox's back, and again where he is tending him in bed. The
Ape succouring the Fox is also instanced at Windsor.

THE FOX IN CHURCH ART.

209

However, after the two broad classes of carvings are
exhausted — the Fox deluding or eating birds, and the Fox
hanged by birds, there is little left to tell of him.

It may be added that his hanging by his one-time
victims has suggested to the carver another subject of the
same kind — the hanging of the cat by mice, or, more pro-
bably, rats, mentioned on page 43. It is there stated to be at
Sherborne, in error, the place being Great Malvern.

EXECUTION OF THE CAT, GREAT MALVERN.

The following curious scene from the Fox-fruitful church
of St. Mary's, Beverley, is perplexing, and gives the Fox
receiving his quietus under unique circumstances. He is,
with anxiety, awaiting the diagnosis of an ape-doctor, who is
critically examining urinary deposits ; his health has been
evidently not all he could wish. When, lo, an arrow, from the
bow of an archer in quilted leather, pierces him through the

heart ! What more this carving means is a mystery.

aio THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

Carvings of the ordinary fables in which the Fox is
concerned are not unknown. At Faversham, Kent, is one of
the Fox and the Grapes ; at Chester is the Fox and the
Stork. The latter is, again, on a remarkable slab, probably
a coffin lid, in the Priory Church of Bridlington, East York-
shire, the strange combination of designs on which may be
described. At the head appear two curious dragon forms

REYNARD IN DANGER, ST. MARY S, BEVERLEY.

opposed over an elaborate embattled temple, suggestive of
Saxon and Byzantine derivation, with a central pointed arch.
This may be a rendering of the sun-myth, noted on page t>7>
At the foot is a reversed lion, the curls and twists of whose
mane and tail closely resembles those of the white porcelain
lions used by the Chinese as incense-burners. Between the
temple and the lion is incised an illustration of the fable of the
Fox and the Stork. The slab, of which a rough sketch is

THE FOX IN CHURCH ART.

annexed, is of black basaltic marble, similar to that of the font
of the church, which is of the type generally considered to
be Norman, and to have been imported ready made from
Flanders, and on which dragons are
sometimes the ornament. The Fox
on this slab is the earliest sculptured
figure of the animal known in England.

There are also hunting scenes in
which the fox is shot with bow and
arrow, as in Beverley Minster ; or
chased with hounds in a way more
commending itself to modern sporting
ideas, as at Ripon.

In conclusion, the satirical intent
of the fox inventions, as we find them
in the library or in the church, may
be summed up, for here indeed lies
the whole secret of their prevalence
and popularity. The section of society
satirized by the epic is large, but is
principally covered by the feudal in-
stitution. The notes struck are its
greed of wealth and its greed of the
table, its injustice under the pretext of
laws, its expedient lying, the immunity from punishment
afforded by riches, the absolute yet revolution-fearing power
of the sovereign, the helplessness of nobles single-handed,
and the general influence of religion thrown over everything,

COFFIN LID, BRIDLINGTON,
YORKSHIRE.

212 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

while for its own sake being allowed to really influence
nothing.

The chief point of the epic is generally considered to be
that power in the hands of the feudal barons was accompanied
by a trivial amount of intelligence, which was easily deceived
by the more astute element of society. The carvings give no
note of this. A further object, however, may be seen. The
whole story of the Fox is meant not only to shew that

" It is not strength that always wins,
For wit doth strength excel,"

by playing on the passions and weaknesses of mankind, but
in particular to hold up to scorn the immunity procured by
professional religion, though it is fair to note that the Fox
does not adopt a religious life because suited to his treacherous
and deceitful character, but to conceal it. Thus so far as they
elucidate the general "foxiness" of religious hypocrisy, the
carvings and the epic illustrate the same theme, but it is
evident that they embodied and developed already-existing
popular recognition of the evil, each in its own way, and
without special reference one to the other.

Situations of tbe (Brotesque ©rnament In
Cburcb art.

THE places chosen for the execution of the work which,
by reason of its intention or its want of conformity
with what we now consider a true taste in art, may be styled
Grotesque, do not seem to be in any marked degree different
from the situations selected for other ornamental work. It
may, however, be permitted to glance at those situations, and
enquire as to such comparisons as they afford, though the
conclusions to be arrived at must necessarily be loose and
general.

In Norman work the chief iconographical interest is to
be found in the capitals of pilasters and pillars, for here is
often told a story of some completeness. Other places are
the arches, chiefly of doorways ; bosses of groining, and the
horizontal corners of pillar plinths ; exteriorly, the gargoyles
are most full of meaning, seconded by the corbels of the
corbel-table. We may expect in Norman grotesque some
reference to ancient mystics ; the forms are bold and rugged,
such appearance of delicacy as exists being attained by inter-
lacing lines in conventional patterns, with, also, the effect of
distance upon repeating ornament.

Transitional Norman retained all the characteristic or-
nament of the purer style, but with the development of Early

2i4 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

English the grotesque for a time somewhat passed out of
vogue, slight but eminently graceful modifications of the
Corinthian acanthus supplying most of the places where
strange beasts had formerly presented their bewildering
shapes. It might not be impossible to connect this partial
purification of ornament with a phase of church history.

But in some portions of structure, as the gargoyles, and
in the woodwork of the choirs, the grotesque still held its

own. As Early English grew distinctly
into the Decorated, every available spot
was enriched with carving. The col-
lections (called " portfolios " elsewhere)
of the old carvers would seem to have
been ransacked and exhausted, all that
had gone before receiving fresh rendering
in wood and stone, while life and nature
were now often called upon to furnish
new material. The pointed arch re-
mained, however, an undecorated sweep
of mouldings, and the plinth corners
were rarely touched ; in fact there was
here scarcely now the same squareness of space which before
had asked for ornament. All the other places ornamented
in Norman work were filled up in Decorated with the new
designs of old subjects. The resting-places of ornament were
multiplied ; the dripstones of every kind of arch, and the
capitals of every kind of pillar, whether in the arcading of
the walls, the heaped-up richness of the reredos, or the single

APE CORBEL, CARRYING ROOF
TIMBER, EWELME.

THE SITUATIONS OF GROTESQUE ORNAMENT 217

subject of the piscina, became nests of the grotesque. In a
single group of sedilia all the architecture of a great cathedral
may be seen in miniature, in arch, column, groined roof, boss,
window-tracery, pinnacle, and finial, each part with its share
of ornament, of grotesque. In the choirs the carvers had
busied themselves with summoning odd forms from out
the hard oak, till the croches or elbow-rests, the bench ends,
the stall canopies, and below all, and above all, the miseri-
cordes, swarmed with all the ideas of Asia and Europe past
and present. Musicians are everywhere, but most persistently
on the intersections of the choir arches, and somewhat less
so on those of the nave.

A favourite place for humourous figures was on the stone
brackets or corbels which bear up timber roofs ; examples are
in the ape corbel in this article, and the responsible yet happy-
looking saint at the end of the list of Contents.

When the Perpendicular style came with other arts from
Italy, and the lavish spread of the Decorated was chastened
and over-chastened into regularity, there came for the second
or third time the same ideas from the never-dying myth-
ologies, their concrete embodiments sometimes with eloquence
rendered, nearly always with vigour. They came to the old
places, but in most fulness to that most full place, the dark
recess where lurks the misericorde.

Upon the whole it would appear that the grotesque, be it
in the relics of a long-forgotten symbolism, in crude attempts
at realism, or in the fantastic whimseys of irresponsibility, is
chiefly met in the portions of the church where would occur,

218 THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART.

in the development of architecture, the problems and diffi-
culties. They occur, so to speak, at the joints of construction.
It may be that the pluteresques (grotesque and other or-
naments made of metal) employed in many Spanish churches
are to be accounted for in this way on the score of the facility
of attachment. Where it may be questioned that the or-
nament was to conceal juncture, it is often to be acknowledged
that it was to give external apparent lightness to masses which
are in themselves joints or centres of weight. To conclude
— to whatever extent we may carry our inquiries into the
meaning of the grotesques in church art, we have in them
undoubtedly objects whose associations are among the most
ancient of the human race ; whatever our opinion of their
fitness for a place in the temple, it is plain that practically
they could be nowhere else.

MUSICIAN ON THE INTERSECTION OF NAVE ARCHES,
ST. HELEN'S, ABINGDON, BERKSHIRE.

-§■ 1/NDEX. *

Jnfcey.

Abdominal Mask, 91

Abingdon, 18, 72, 218, and Preface

Aboo-Simbel Trinity, 177

Abydos Trinity, 177

Acanthus, 149 50, 214

Adam, 61, 62, 74 ; and Eve, 112, 120

Adam Clarke, 74

Adel, Yorkshire, 127

Adonai, 168

Adonis, 168

Adoration, the, 113-5

yElian, 50

^Esculapius, 42

M sop's Fables, 196

Africa, 66

Agni, 178

Aix-la-Chapelle, 46

Akori, 178

Alcock, Bishop, 10, 92, 173

Ale and the Alewife, 99-105

Alewife, 97

Alehouses, 99

Ale-taster, 100

Alexander, 71

Alexandria. 34

All Souls, Oxford, 71, 76, 104-5, 150-1

Alraun images, 28

Altar of the Sun, 37-39

Ambarvalia, 48

American Arms, 179

American -Indian mythology, 159

American-Indian Trinity, 177

Amman, Justus, 188

Ammon, 42, 72, 158

Amun-Ra, 177

Ancient Mysteries described, 180

Ancient Worships, 27-59, 64-77, 152-3,

157-168, 175-183
Angel Choir, Lincoln, 3, 9
Angel (coin), 47
Angels, 63

Animal Musicians, 152-6
Animal symbolism, 35
Anthony pig, the, 154
Anuka, 178
Archers, 205, 209-10
Ape, the, 59, 28-9, 145, 152, 156, 192-4,

198, 201, 203, 207-10, 214
Aphrodite, 168
Apocryphal New Testament, the, 60,

112

Apollo, 21, 46, 162, 165

April, 141

Apuleius, 41

Architectural Museum, Tufton Street,

the, 12, 167, 169, 174
Arimanes, 176
Aries, the Council of, 29
Arma palantes, 173
Arthur, King, 69
Artistic quality of Church grotesques,

19-23, 61
Art Journal, the, 66
Asir, 45

Assyrian myth, 34, 157, 181
Assyrians, no record of their humour, 6
Astronomical symbols a source of Cothic

design, 4, 27-8, 37-59, 73. 157-68,

177
Atahuata, 177
Aten, 168

Athor, 111, 157, 167, 177-8
Athyr, 167
Attic figurines, 28
Auckland Castle, 155
Augsburgh, (?) Council of, 30
" Auld Clootie." 70
" Auld Hornie," 70
Aurva, 53
Avarice, 87, 91-95
Averus (Horus), 50

Baalim, 28
Babylonian myth, 34
Bacon, 142, 154
Bacchus, 69, 73, 158
Backbiter, 82-84
Badger Grimbart, 189, 191-3
Bagpipes, 103, 152, 155
Ba-it, 178
Baker, 105

Bake well, Derbyshire, 130-1
Baldini and Boticelli, 84
Baptism of John, the, 117-8
Barton, Lines., 174
Basketsful of Children, 63
Bayle, a kind of dance, 147
Beakheads, 125-6
Bear Bruno, 190-3
Bear, the, 152-156
Beard, the, 72
Bedford, 175

222

INDEX.

Beehive of the Romishe Church, 180

Bellin the Ram, 192

Berkshire, 18, 72, 125, 129, 218

Bestiaries, the, 73

Beverley, Percy Shrine at, 3 ; Carvings
at, 13, 39, 40, 54, 57, 63. 87, 112,
120-3, 130, 133-6, 144, 152, 154 5,
159, 173, 182, 195-6, 198-9, 201-2,
208-11

Bhu, 42

Bible (as Old and New Testaments), 176

Biblia Pauperum, 113

Birch, Dr., 158

Birds, 4, 9, 22, 38, 39

Bishop Foxes, 199, 203

Bishop's Stortford, 109

Blashill, Mr. Thomas, 106

Bo, Bo-tree, Bod, Bog, Boggart, Boi-
vani, Bolay, Boo, Bouders, Boudons,
Boroon, Bormania, Borr, Borvo,
Bouljanus, Brog, Bug, Bugbear,
Buggaboo, Buka, 66, 69

Boar, 139-40, 152

Boar's Head, 69, 139

Bodleian Library, 16, 63

Bolton, Bishop, 173

Boston, Lincolnshire, 195, 196, 202,
208

Boutell, Rev. C. , 25

Bow and arrow, 162 5

Boy (Bog), 69

Brahma, 178

Brahminic Trinity, 178

Breast, removal of, 165

Bridge, Kent, 75

Bridlington Priory Church, Yorks, 15,
210-1

Bristol, 196, 208

British Museum. 62

Bruno the Bear, 190-3

Buckle Mask, 125

Bull, the, 41-2, 72-3, 85, 88 9, 91, 159

Bur, 45

Byzantine ideas, 127

Byzantium, 35

Caimis, 50

Calendarum Romanorum Magnum, 141

Calf, 73

Cama, 50

Cambridge, 10, 92, 133

Cambridgeshire, 74

Candlemas, 42, 140

Canterbury, 139

Canting heraldry, 173

Caricature in part explained, 3

Carpenter, Mr. Edward ■, 186

Cartmel, 180, 196

Carvers, 9-18

Cat, the, 156, 189, 191, 209

Cat and Fiddle, the, 39-43

Cat-heads. 126

Caxton, 170, 188

Cedranus, 143 4

Centaur, 161-6

Cerealia, 48

Ceres, 72, 153, 158

Cestus, 165

Chairs, 141

Chalons, Council of, 143

Chandra, Chandri, 43

Cherubim, 73. 159, 161

Chester, 60, 77, 103, 207, 210

Chichester, 72, 75, 124, 141, 157, 181,
182. 203

Chiron the Centaur, 162

Chnoumis, 178

Chonso, 177

Christ, 30, 48, 60-62. 104, 114-20

Christchurch (Hants), 21, 33, 172, 184,
202

Christmas, 139 40, 144

Chronicles, the Book of, 176

Church symbolism, expediency, etc., 31

Ciaran (St.), 162

Clergy, the, 97, 111

die ph. 177

Cock, the, 184, 197-8, 202-3

Compound Forms, 37, 111, 157-168

Coney, the, 193, 204-5

Conscience, 170-1

Constantinople, Council of, 30 ; Byzant-
ium, 35

Continuous group, 149

Conventional form a matter of develop-
ment, 3

Corinthian Acanthus, 149-50, 214

Corpus Christi Play, 142-3

Cosmographiw Universalis, 172

Cotton MSS., 82, 147

Councils, Aries, 29 ; Augsburgh (?), 30 ;
Constantinople, 30 ; Frankfurt, 30,
99 ; Narbonne, 30 ; Nicea, 30 ;
Orleans, 29 ; Tours, 30 ; Nice, 36 ;
Milan, 36

Coventry, 60, 142

Cow, the, 41

Creators, Mythological, 176-8

Crescent, the, 41, 42

Cripple, 145, 147

Crocodile, 44-5

Crorasura, 153

Cross, the, 43

Crow and his wife, the, 193, 204-5

Croziers, 198, 202

Crusaders, 47

Culham, Berkshire, 125

Cupid, 50, 51, 53-55

INDEX.

223

Dance, 40, 43, 144, 147

David, King, 62

Decorated Carvings, 214-217

Deer, 140

Definitions of the Grotesque, 5-8

De la Wich, Bishop, 181

Delft, 188

Derbyshire, 130-1

Design, Continuity of Gothic, 4

Detractors, 82 3

Devil and the Vices, the 78-98

Devil, the, 47, 69, 70, 77, 103-5

Devils, 63, 119

Diana, 32, 40 43, 73

Diapason, the, 41

Dillin pig, the, 154

Disc of the Sun, 167-8

Distaff, 195

Dog, 5, 19, 21, 40, 42, 142, 159-60, 189

Domestic and Popular, the, 134-151

Donnington, Thomas (1520), 174

Dorchester Abbey, Oxon , 60. 64 5, 121 2,

133, 159-60
Dragons, 26, 37, 44-57, 60, 64-66, 84, 127,

165, 177, 211
Drake (dragon), 47
Druidical Tau, 43-4
Drum (Tabor), 97
Durer, Albert, 61
Durham, 155

Eagle, the, 22, 37, 148, 158-9, 202
Early English Carvings. 214
Eastern ideas, 9-10, 34 5
Eden, 73, 76
Edgeware, 102
Edward the Confessor, 9
„ III., 17
IV. 49
Egypt, 34, 43-45
Egyptians, little record of their humour,

6
Egyptian myth, etc., 34, 41-5, 47-8,

50 6, 157 8, 177-8

Trinities, 177-8
Eicton, 177

Elephantine Trinity, 178
Ely, 74, 80-1, 84, 105, 166, 195 6
Equinoxes, the, 175
Eschol, 171
Esculapius, 178
Etchingham, 196
Evans, Mr. E. P., 35, 85
Evil, Images of, 1, 26, 33
Eve. 62, 74
Ewelme, Oxon., Carvings at, 1, 65, 67

(not Dorchester), 76, 127-8, 214
Exeter, 4, 39, 165, 168, 181
Ezekiel, 159

Fable, 186

Fafnir the Dragon, 46

Fairford, 195

Fairies, 66

Falx, the, 57

Farnsham, 65

Fates, the, 178

Fauns, 69

Faversham, Kent, 180, 195, 210

Feast of Fools, the. 143-7

Feathered Angels, 75-7

Fecundity, Goddess of, 66, 72

Fiddle, 40, 41, 153

Figurines as lares, 28

Finedon, Northamptonshire, 125

Fire, 178

Fish, 182

Flagellation, 134

Flanders, a church workshop, 9, 15

Flesh hook, 63. 87, 182

Fleur-de-lys, 39, 179

Flora, 158

Fools, 130

Fools, the Feast of, 143-7

Foreign carvers, 9-18

Fox, the, 58-9, 184-212

Fox and Grapes, the, 210

Fox and Stork, the 210 I

France, 48

Frankfort, Council of, 30, 99

Fredegarius, 197

Freemasonry, 16, 17

French work for Saxons, 9

Frigga, 53

Frcyr, 153

Furies, the, 178

Gallows, the, 207-9

Ganges, the, 172

Gargonilles, 46, 129

Gaul, 66

Gaul, Bishops of, 30

Gauri, 43

Gautier de Coinsi, 36

Gay ton, Northants, 81, S6, 87

Geese, Reynard's theft of, etc., 191,

195, 198, 203
Gehul, 153
George IV., 17

German " teraphim," 28 ; paganism, 30
Germany, Bishops of, 30
Ghent, 188
Gild, continuity the explanation of

continuity of design, 4, 35, 196 (see

Freemasonry)
Gilds, 70

Glasgow, 65, 66, 77
Gloucester, 195
Gluttony, 88

224

INDEX.

Goat, the, 69, 71-3, 187

Goethe, 189

Golden Bristle, 153

Gorgon, 127

Gothic ornament, uses of, etc., 2, 3 ;

some characteristics of, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7,

8, 10, 19-23, 24-26, 35-39, 49, 54;

not didatic, 24-26 ; situations of,

213, 218
Gouda, 188
Graces, the, 178
Gravio, Count, 30
Great Malvern, 172, 209
Grecian Trinity, 177
Greek wit, 6 ; star-worship, 28 ; myth,

34, 41, 177 8 ; art, 36-37 ; symbolism

74 ; dances, 147
Grimace-makers, 130, 133
Grimbart, the Badger, 189-191-3
Grimm, 186
Gryphon, 125, 158
Guildford, Surrey, 117-8
Gullinbrusti, 153

Hades, 42, 161

Hsenir, 177

Hak, 178

Hampshire, 21, 33, 172

Hanging of the Cat, 209

Hanging of the Fox, 207-8

Hare, the, 106-7, 182, 189, 192, 194, 203

Harleian MSS., 104

Harmachis, 158

Harp, the, 140,-1, 153, 154, 155

Harpy, the, 4, 111, 166, 181

Hebrew Teraphim, 28

Hecate, 41, 42

Heliopolis, Trinity of, 178

Hell, 48, 84, 104

Hell's Mouth, 60-63, 103, 196

Hen, the, 195, 203

Henning the Cock, 190

Henry VI., 16, 62

„ VII. 's Chapel, 10, 91, 95, 148,
156, 173

„ VIII., 16, 49
Hera, 177

Heraldry, canting, 173
Heraldry and three-fold repetitions, 179
Hercules, 148, 177
Hereford, 195
Herodotus, 28, 50
Hertfordshire, 109
Het-her, 167
Hexagon, symbolic, 179

Hindoo myth, 28, 42-45, 50, 53, 153, 178
Hinge the Cat, 191
Hippocampus, Lincoln, 26

Hippo-centaurs, 161

Hobgoblins, 66

Hogarth, 20, 21

Holy Cross, Stratford-on-Avon, 60

Holy Trinity, Hull, 139-40

Holderness, 106

Homer, 160

Hone, 180

Hopton, 174

Horace, 157

Horns, 70 ; Horn, 73

Horse, the, 162, 139

Horse-leech, 110-1

Horus, 45, 48, 50-56, 57, 72, 177, 178

Hull, 10, 100, 139-40

Humour, of nations, 6, 7 ; defined, 20

Hunting, 140

Huntsman, 139

Husterlo, 192

Hypocrisy, 98

Ibis, 167

Iceland, 153

Idun, 76

Iffley, 49, 126, 162, 163

Imagery in Architecture and Language

compared, 1-3
Impudence, 109

Indecency in church, 143-7, 150-1
India, 172
Indian mask, 123-4
Indian mythology, East, 66, 69, 178
Indian Trinity, American, 177
Indra, 178
Irenoeus, 73

Irreverence in art explained in part, 8
Isaiah, 74
Isengrinus, 187
I sis, 41, 42, 45, 50, 177
Islip, Bishop, 173

Italian workers in England, 9, 10, 13
Italy, 41
,, Bishops of, 30

Janus, 180

Japanese (crocodile) 45

Jesus College, Cambridge, 92

Joke, the, 6

Jonah, 112-3, 197

Jormungard, 45

Jove (Jupiter), 11

July, 183

Juno, 177

Jupiter, 21, 57, 148, 158, 177, 178, 181

Jurassic reptiles, 145

Keltic dragons, 49
Kent, 75, 180, 182
Khum, 178

INDEX.

225

King Arthur, 69

,, Edward the Confessor, 9
,, Edward III., 17
,, Edward IV., 49
,, George IV., 17
„ Henry VI., 16,62
„ VII., 147

„ Chapel, 10, 173
,, VIII.,16, 49
King's College, Cambridge, 10, 133

Lampe the Hare, 192, 194

Lares, 43

Laughter of nations, 6-7, defined, 20

Lectern, 202

Leicester, 196

Leland, John, 16

Lemon, 139-40

Leo, 158

Leopard, The, 189

Lincoln Cathedral, 3, 9, 38, 51, 54, 63,

128, 133
Lincolnshire, 11, 174
Lind-drake, 47
Linden worm, 47
Linden tree, 47
Line of Beauty, 20

Lion, 5, 158, 183, 187, 189-90, 210-1, 215
Lioness, The, 193
Little-trust, Lettice, 101
Lodur, 177
Loki, 76, 77
Love, 53
Lubeck, 188
Lucifer, 53, 76
Ludlow, 99, 102, 103
Luna, 41, 43
Lunar calculations of Mosaic system,

176
Lunus, 43
Lydda, 47
Lynn, 11, 174

Macrobius, 32

Magdalen College, Oxford, 195

Magi, Adoration of the, 113-5

Maidstone, 182

Maimonides, the Rabbi, 27

Malepart, 190, 193

Malvern, Great, 172, 209

Manchester, 54, 55, 203-4, 195, 196

Mandragora images, 28

Mann, Mr. Robert, 66

Mant, 177

Mare and foal, the story of, 193

Mars, 21

Marks, sculptors', ignored ; an example

is on p. 103
Martinmas, 139, 154

Martin the Ape, 192-3

Mary, the Virgin, 34, 42, 82, 83

Masks and Faces, 121-133

Meaux Abbey, Yorkshire, 10

Memphis, Trinity of, 178

Mendes, 72

Mentu, 177

Merchant mark, 174

Mercury, 21, 49, 78, 153, 158, 167

Merenphtah, 178

Mermaid, 160

Messon, 177

Mexican myth, 157

Mice, 40, 43, 209

Michael Angelo, 10, 13

Midsummer Watch, 77

Milan, Council of, 36

Minerva, 21, 74, 177

Miracle Plays, 70

Mirror of Human Salvation, the, 113

Miserico'rdes, 24-5, 181, 215, 217

Mithras, 176

Monstrosity, 147

Montflaucon, 197

Moon worship, 32, 40, 43

Morris Dance, 144, 147

Mosaic system, 31 ; Ark, 159, 175 ; not

the original of pagan myth, 175-6
Moses, 62, 74, 175
Mouth of Hell, 60, 63
Mowers, 182
Mumming, 70, 168,
Music, 140, 152
Monograms, 12
Mystery Plays, 32, 48, 70, 82, 103, 112,

142-3
Mythic origin of Church carvings, 34-59

Nachasch, 73

Nantwich, Cheshire, 196, 204-5, 208

Narbonne, the Council of, 30

Nebhetp, 178

Nefer-Atum, 178

Neptune, 21, 178

Nerites, 50

Nessus the Centaur, 162

New College, Oxford, 58-9, 81, 84-5, 98,

106, 149
Nice, 36

Nicea, the Council of, 30
Nicodemus, the Gospel of, 60
Nile, the River, 45, 71, 158
Nilus, 45, 158 ; St. Nilus, see Saints
Nobodies, 171
Non-descripts, 169-172
Norfolk, 48, 75, 195
Norman carvings, 49, 125, 127, 129, 163,

211, 213; fonts 15
North Stoke, 119

226

INDEX.

Northamptonshire, 14,22, 81, 84,86-7,

101, 125
Norwich, 48, 75, 195
Notch-heads, 124-5
Nouvel the Lion, 189
Numbers, the Book of, 176
Nuns, 106-7
Nursery Rhymes, 39

Oak, the, 148, 181

Odin, 45, 53, 69, 177

Opas, 177

Orleans, the Council of, 143

Ornament, the use of Gothic, 2

Oromasdes, 176

Orus (see Horus) 50, 72

Osiris, 41, 45, 50, 57, 158, 177

Otkon, 177

Ox, 71, 73, 160

Oxford, 58, 59, 71, 76, 81, 84, 85, 97,

104 6, 149, 151, 195
Oxfordshire, 49, 60, 64-5, 67, 105, 121-2,

133, 159

Paganism, ingrained among nations, 27

Pallas, 177

Palmer Fox, 58

Pan, 21, 72-3, 105

Pantheism, 32

Panther, the, 159

Paris, Paulin, 197

Parody, a characteristic of Creek wit, 7

Patala, 42

Pastoral staves, 49

Pausanius, 44

Pegasus, 162

Pepin, 30

Percy Shrine, 3

Perpendicular Ornament, 217

Persephone, 41

Perseus, 46, 57

Persian Trinity, 176

Peterborough, 195

Philsean Trinity, 176

Philippians, the Epistle to the, 196

Phipson, Miss, 14, 109, and preface

Phyrric Dance, the, 147

Picture Bible, the, 113, 197

Pig and Whistle, 155, 156

Pig, and other Animal Musicians, the,

110, 152-6
Piggy-widdy, 154
Pilgremage of the Sowle, the, 170
Pipes, Double, 155
Planet symbols, 28
Plato, 28
Plutarch, 41
Pluteresques, 218
Pluto, 42, 177-8

Poor Man's Bible, the, 113, 197

Poppy, Assyrian, 182

Pottery, 35

Preaching Fox, the, 184, 196-204

Priapus, 73

Prideaux, Bishop, 30

Priest sleeping, 106, 110-1

Prosperine, 32, 41-2, 177

Protevan, 82

Psyche, 176

Pta, 177-8

Pulpits, 184, 197-8, 201

Puranas, 43

Python, the, 46

Ra, 168, 177

Rabbi Maimonides, 27

Rahu, 44

Ram, the, 72, 187, 192

Ram Bellin, 192-3

Ram's Head, 19

Ram, the Hindoo deity, 28

Rebuses, 12, 173-4

Recording Imps, 78-9, 81, 84-5, 103

Red Sea, the, 50

Reinche Bos, 188

Renart le Contrefet, 188

Reynard the Fox, 184

Reynard the Fox, the most delectable

history of, 188
Ripon, 5, 112-3, 124, 136-7, 155, 171,

195 8, 211
Rochester, 127
Rogation, 48
Roman de Renart, 188
Roman Trinity, 177
Roman, Wit bitter and low, 6-7 ; myth,

42-3
Roman work for Saxons, 9
Roscommon, the Poet, 157
Roslyn Chapel, 128-9
Rostock, 188
Rothwell, Northants, 84

Sabean Idolatry, 28
Sackville the Poet, 63
Sacred Marks, 103 (block), 179
Ssehrimnir, 153
Sagittarius, 162-5
Saints — Adrian, 99

Anthony, 154

Augustine, 31

Bartholomew's, Smithfield, 173

Bernard of Clairvaux, 23, 27,
36-7

Britius, 81

Ciaran, 162

Cross, Hospital of, Winchester,
100

INDEX.

227

Saints— George, 47-8, 57

George's Chapel, Windsor, 10,
167, 195-6, 203

Gertrude, 43

Helen's, Abingdon, 218

John, 49, 118

Katherine's, Regent's Park, 78,
81, 83, 86, 169

Keyne, 46

Lucy, 134-5

Luke, 73

Martha, 46

Michael, 47, 76

Martin's, Leicester, 196

Martin, 81

Mary's, Beverley, 123 (see Bev-
erley)

Mary's, Faversham, 180

Mary's Minster, Thanet, 97,
122-3, 130-1, 195

Nessan, 162

Nicholas's, Lynn, 11-2, 174

Nicholas, 179

Nilus, 36

Paul's, Bedford, 175

Paul's, London, 32, 109

Peter's in the-East, Oxford, 126

Romain, 46
Salus, 178
Sambar, 50
Samson, 198
Sani, 53

Satan, 48, 62, 70, 104-6, 170
Satanic Representations, 64-77, 78105
Sathanus, 170
Satire, 185

Satires without Satan. 106-11
Satyrs, 69
Saturn, 21, 57
Saturnalia, 143
Saxon work, 9
Scandinavian mythology, 45, 76, 153,

157 ; Trinity, 177
Scarabams, 178

Scriptural Illustrations, 112-120
Scylla, 160
Scythes, 182

Sea-horse (hippocampus), 26
Seals, 8, and end of Index
September, 140, 154
Seraphim, 74
Serapis, 42

Serpent, the, 44-5, 60-1, 73-5, 77
Sex of the Moon, 43
Sheep, 72, 142
Shell, 50-1, 54-5, 57-9, 159
Shell Child, the, 50-9, 159
Shepherd, 72, 142
Sherborne, 134-5, 208

Shiva, 66

Sigurd, 46

Sin series of carvings, 78-111

Sirius, 42

Sismondi, 31

Sistrum, 4', 43

Situations of Church Grotesques, 213-8

Siva, 178

Slanderers, 82

Sledges, 63

Smu, 50

Snail, 57-8

Solomon, King, 62

Sources of material for Gothic grotes-
ques, General, 4

Southleigh, 63

Speculum Humance Salvationis, 113

Sperke, John (1520), 174

Spinx, the, 158-9

Springs, 66

SS., the letter, and Collar of, 57

Stanford, Berkshire, 18

Star Worship, 27-8

Stars and Stripes, 179

Statute of Labourers, 17

Stoeffler, 141

Stowlangcroft, 196

Stratford-on-Avon, 60, 129

Suffolk, Duchess of (ob. 1475), 76

Sun, 167

Sun Feast, 153

Sun Worship, 32, 37, 42, 44-59, 71, 153,
158, 162, 175, 210-1

Superstition, Horn, 73

Supreme Intellect, the, 74

Surya, 53, 178

Sutton Courtney, 128-9

Sutton-in-Holderness, 106

Swan, 167

Swar, 42

Swathing of Infants, 114

Swarhanu, 53

Sweden, 153

Swine, Yorkshire, 106-7, 109, 129-30

Symbolism and Fable, 186

Symbols of worship a general source of
Gothic ornament, 4, 27

Syderesys, 170

Syria, 47

Tabor (drum) 97

Tarasque, 46

Tau Cross, the, 34, 43-4

Taurus, 73

Telephorus, 178

Teraphim, 28

Teutonic appreciation of humour, 7

Thanet, Isle of, 97, 122, 130-1, 195

Theban Trinity, 177

228

INDEX.

Theophylact, 143

Thirlwall, 33

Thoth, 78, 167

Three, the number, 162 (see Trinities)

Three branched rod, 103 (block), 162,

181-2
Time, Father, 57
Titian, 42

Topsey-turveyism, 149
Torregiano, 10
Tree of Knowledge, the, 74
Trefoil, the, 162, 178-9
Trial of Mary and Joseph, 82
Trigla, 180
Trinities, 168, 175-183
Tufton Street Architectural Museum,

12
Turn, the Setting Sun, 178
Typhon, 44-57, 64-5

Unseen Witness, the, 79, 85, 86, 87

Vali, 114

Vanity, 97

Vedie Trinity, 178

Venus, 21, 53, 111, 148

Veximiel, 62

Virgil, the, 160-1

Virgin Mary, the, 30, 42, 82-3

Virgo, 158

Vishnu, 53, 153, 178

Vulcan, 148, 177

Wall paintings compared with carvings,

114-117, U9 20
Wake Knot, 207 8
Wellingborough, 14, 15, 22, 34, 101,

195, 215
Wells, 65, 77, 150
Westminster Abbey, 9. 10, 91 95, 97,

109-110, 123-4, 156. 173
Wheelbarrows 135-7, 196
Whistling Maid, the, 104-5
Whistling while drawing ale, 105,
White, Wm. (1520), 173-4
Wich, Bishop de la, 124, 181
Winchester, 64, 100, 111, 145, 154, 166,

195
Windsor, 10, 167, 195. 203, 208
Winking Nun, the, 106-7
Wolf, the, 187, 189, 192 ; story of the

wolf's head, 187
Wolfius, 196
Worcester, 113-5, 142, 160, 161, 182-3,

203
Worm of conscience, the, 170
Wright, Thomas, 197
Wyvern, the, 47

York, 63, 65, 77, 129 30, 140, 148
Yorkshire, 10, 63, 65, 77, 106-7, 109, 127

(see Beverley)
Yule, 153

Zeus, 177
Zither, 166
Zodiac, 45, 53

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