The Grotesque in Church Art Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: SATAN AND A SOUL, DORCHESTER, OXON.]

It would, perhaps, not seem improper to refer the cla.s.s of carving instanced by the three cuts, next following, to the Typhon myth. I think, however, a distinction may be drawn between 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 torments consequent on sin. At the same time, the victim-carving, generally easily disposed of by styling it "Satan and a Soul," is undoubtedly largely influenced by the myth-idea of Typhon (by whatever name known) as a _seizer_, as indicated definitely in one of his general names, Graha. The figure was naturally one according well with the mediaeval understanding of spiritual punishment, and its varieties in carving are numerous enough to furnish an adequate inferno. The Dorchester example is a small boss in the groined ceiling 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SATAN AND A SOUL, EWELME, OXON.]

Not entirely, though in some degree, the two next ill.u.s.trations support the theory, of punishment rather than conflict, for the others.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REMORSE, YORK.]

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.

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: REMORSE, GLASGOW.]

A writer[4] 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 imparted 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 hobgoblins 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 wors.h.i.+ps whose traces are left in language. Thus _Bo_ is apparently one of the ancient root-words implying divinity; _Bod_, the G.o.ddess of fecundity; _Boivani_, G.o.ddess of destruction; _Bolay_, the giant who overcame heaven, earth and h.e.l.l; _Bouders_, or _Boudons_, the genii guarding s.h.i.+va, and _Boroon_, a sea-G.o.d, are in Indian mythology.

_Bossum_ is a good deity of Africa. _Borvo_ and _Bormania_ were guardians of hot springs, and with _Boulja.n.u.s_ were G.o.ds of old Gaul. _Borr_ was the 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 G.o.d. These are given to shew a probable connection among wide-spread wors.h.i.+ps.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SATAN AND A SOUL, DORCHESTER.]

We are now chiefly concerned with the last instance. The Slavonic _Bog_, a G.o.d, 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 _bug_.

"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 Staffords.h.i.+re peasants. We have yet _bugbear_, as the Russians have _Buka_, and the Italians _Buggaboo_, of similar meaning.

As with the barbaric G.o.ds, so with the cla.s.sic 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 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 form while preserving essence.

Every artist had his idea of the devil, either drawn from the rich depths of a Gothic imagination, from the descriptions acc.u.mulated 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 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MAN-GOAT, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.]

Horns were among all ancient nations symbolic of power 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 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, 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 wors.h.i.+pped as a goat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHERISHED BEARD, CHICHESTER.]

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. 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, Berks.h.i.+re, 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 goat form, as the ready type of animal s.e.xual vigor; but not less familiar in this connection was the bull, and that animal also symbolizes Pan, who became, when superst.i.tion grew out of imagery, the protector of cattle in general. An old English superst.i.tion 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 G.o.ds 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.

Irenaeus, speaking of the second cherubim 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 pa.s.sing 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 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 wors.h.i.+p 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!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SERPENT, ELY.]

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 infrequent, though without much variety.

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 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD SERPENT, CHICHESTER. _13th century._]

A carving in the choir of Chichester Cathedral shews in a double repet.i.tion, one half of which is here shewn, the evil head with an attempt at the legendary comeliness, mingled with debased traits, that is artistically 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DEMURENESS MEDITATING MISCHIEF. DEUTCHO-EGYPTIAN MASK, CHICHESTER.]

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 prevalent mediaeval idea as to the plumage of the spirit race. Angels are found clothed entirely with feathers, as repeated some scores of times in the memorial chapel, at Ewelme, of Alice, d.u.c.h.ess 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 representation of St. Michael or Lucifer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANGEL, EWELME.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. MICHAEL, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.]

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

The Devil and the Vices.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RECORDING IMP. ST. KATHERINE'S, REGENT'S PARK. (_Initial added_).]

Having 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 bring erring humanity into the clutches of Satan; for we find some of the most grotesque of antique carvings devoted to representation 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, ent.i.tling 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE UNSEEN WITNESS, ELY.

The Account Presented. Satan Satisfied. The Record of Sin.]

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 ma.s.s, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 cla.s.s common among mediaeval pulpit anecdotes. It cannot well be considered that the carvings arose from the story, nor the story from the carvings. Probably both arose from something else, accounting for the number of sinners being uniformly two, and for the att.i.tude of the fiend in each case being so similar. With regard to the latter I must leave the matter as it is.