The Grotesque in Church Art Part 3

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 permanent 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 antiquity, 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 h.e.l.l, 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.

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. a.s.sumed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 him shew that he has leaped into the quoin of vantage, and recalls the cla.s.sic. The calm exultation with which the hero seizes his enemy is only equalled by the good-natured amus.e.m.e.nt 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 G.o.d 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 sh.e.l.l. 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 aelian says that Osiris threw Cupid into the ocean, and gave him a sh.e.l.l for his abode. After which he at length killed Typhon.

Hence the sh.e.l.l in the myth-carvings to be found to-day in mediaeval Christian churches.

The Greeks represented Cupid, and also Nerites, as living in sh.e.l.ls, and, strangely enough, located them on the Red Sea coast, adjacent to the home of the Typhon myth. It is probable that the word _sancha_, a sea-sh.e.l.l, used in this connection, is from _suca_, a cave, a tent; and we may conjecture that there is an allusion to certain dwellers in tents, 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 sh.e.l.l 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHILD AND DRAGON, LINCOLN.]

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 transmission of these symbolic representations.

It may be added to this that the early conception of Cupid was as the G.o.d 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 a.s.sumption by Love of the character of a deliverer.

There are other sh.e.l.l deities in mythology. Venus had her sh.e.l.l, and her Northern co-type, Frigga, the wife of the Northern sun-G.o.d, Odin, rode in a sh.e.l.l chariot.

The earliest of our examples is the most serious and 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 sh.e.l.l is different in position, being upright. The Child in this has long hair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRAGON AND CHILD, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]

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 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 sh.e.l.l would not be recognizable 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 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 [symbol], the Greek [Greek: z], 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHILD AND DRAGON, MANCHESTER.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SLAYING OF THE SNAIL, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: GROTESQUE OF HORUS IN THE Sh.e.l.l. THE PALMER FOX EXHIBITING HOLY WATER. NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.]

Apparently the carver of the Beverley misericorde was conscious he had rendered the sh.e.l.l very badly, for in the side supporter of the carving he had placed, by way of reminder as to an attack upon the occupant of a sh.e.l.l, a man in a fas.h.i.+onable 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 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 sh.e.l.l 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.

h.e.l.l's Mouth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: h.e.l.l'S MOUTH, HOLY CROSS, STRATFORD-ON-AVON.]

h.e.l.l'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 h.e.l.l, the idea appears to be entirely Christian. "Christ's descent into h.e.l.l" was a favourite subject of Mystery plays. In the Coventry pageant the "book of words" contained but six verses, in which h.e.l.l 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 h.e.l.l'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 surpa.s.s. The Descent into h.e.l.l 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 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 notice in connection with the remarks upon the artistic qualities of Gothic grotesques.

[Ill.u.s.tration: h.e.l.l'S MOUTH, DORCHESTER, OXON.]

The verse of the Gospel (xix., 12), explains who the person is. "And [the Lord] taking hold of Adam by his right hand he ascended from h.e.l.l and all the saints of G.o.d followed him." The female figure is of course Eve, who is shewn with Adam in engravings of the subject by Albert Durer (1512, 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 h.e.l.l, 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 h.e.l.le, 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 h.e.l.l on the same occasion:--

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

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

There is mention of a certain "Mouth of h.e.l.l," which in 1437 was used in a Pa.s.sion play in the plain of Veximiel; this Mouth was reported as very well done, for it opened and shut when the devils required to pa.s.s 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 h.e.l.l. 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 h.e.l.l as "an hideous hole" that--

"With ougly mouth and griesly jawes doth gape."

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

Satanic Representations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WINCHESTER COLLEGE, _14th century_.]

Quaint 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 partic.i.p.ation in mundane affairs in robust physical shapes.