Caricature and Other Comic Art Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: From Queen Mary's Prayer-book, A.D. 1553.]

As the reader has now before his eyes a sufficient number of specimens of the grotesque ecclesiastical ornamentation of the period under consideration, he is prepared to consider the question which has perplexed so many students besides Mr. Malcolm: How are we to account for these indecencies in places and books consecrated to devotion? A voice from the Church of the fifth century gives us the hint of the true answer. "You ask me," writes St. Nilus to Olympiodorus of Alexandria, "if it is becoming in us to cover the walls of the sanctuary with representations of animals of all kinds, so that we see upon them snares set, hares, goats, and other beasts in full flight before hunters exhausting themselves in taking and pursuing them with their dogs; and, again, upon the bank of a river, all kinds of fish caught by fishermen.

I answer you that this is a _puerility with which to amuse the eyes of the faithful_."[4] To one who is acquainted with the history and genius of the Roman Catholic Church, this very simple explanation of the incongruity is sufficient. The policy of that wonderful organization in every age has been to make every possible concession to ignorance that is compatible with the continuance of ignorance. It has sought always to amuse, to edify, to moralize, and console ignorance, but never to enlighten it. The mind that planned the magnificent cathedral at Rheims, of which Mr. Tomes was so much enamored, and the artists who designed the glorious San Carlo that kindled rapture in the poetical mind of Mr.

Howells, did indeed permit the scandalous burlesques that disfigure their walls; but they only permitted them. It was a concession which they had to grant to the ignorant mult.i.tude whose unquestioning faith alone made these enormous structures possible.

[Footnote 4: Quoted in Champfleury, p. 7, from "Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum," vol. xxvii., p. 323.]

We touch here the question insinuated by Gibbon in his first volume, where he plainly enough intimates his belief that Christianity was a lapse into barbarism rather than a deliverance from it. Plausible arguments in the same direction have been frequently made since Gibbon's time by comparing the best of Roman civilization with the worst of the self-torturing monkery of the early Christian centuries. In a debate on this subject in New York not long since between a member of the bar and a doctor of divinity, both of them gentlemen of learning, ability, and candor, the lawyer pointed to the famous picture of St. Jerome (A.D.

375), naked, grasping a human skull, his magnificent head showing vast capacity paralyzed by an absorbing terror, and exclaimed, "Behold the lapse from Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Seneca, the Plinys, and the Antonines!" The answer made by the clergyman was, "That is _not_ Christianity! In the Christian books no hint of that, no utterance justifying that, can be found." Perhaps neither of the disputants succeeded in expressing the whole truth on this point. The vaunted Roman civilization was, in truth, only a thin crust upon the surface of the empire, embracing but one small cla.s.s in each province, the people everywhere being ignorant slaves. Into that inert ma.s.s of servile ignorance Christianity enters, and receives from it the interpretation which ignorance always puts upon ideas advanced or new, interpreting it as hungry French peasants in 1792 and South Carolina negroes in 1870 interpreted modern ideas of human rights. The new leaven set the ma.s.s heaving and swelling until the crust was broken to pieces. The civilization of Marcus Aurelius was lost. From parchment scrolls poetry and philosophy were obliterated, that the sheets might be used for prayers and meditations. The system of which St. Jerome was the product and representative was a baleful mixture, of which nine-tenths were Hindoo and the remaining tenth was half Christian and half Plato.

The true inference to be drawn is that no civilization is safe, nor even genuine, until it embraces all cla.s.ses of the community; and the promulgation of Christianity was the first step toward that.

As the centuries wore on, the best of the clergy grew restive under this monstrous style of ornamentation. "What purpose," wrote St. Bernard, about A.D. 1140, "serve in our cloisters, under the eyes of the brothers and during their pious readings, those ridiculous monstrosities, those prodigies of beauties deformed or deformities made beautiful? Why those nasty monkeys, those furious lions, those monstrous centaurs, those animals half human, those spotted tigers, those soldiers in combat, those huntsmen sounding the horn? Here a single head is fitted to several bodies; there upon a single body there are several heads; now a quadruped has a serpent's tail, and now a quadruped's head figures upon a fish's body. Sometimes it is a monster with the fore parts of a horse and the hinder parts of a goat; again an animal with horns ends with the hind quarters of a horse. Everywhere is seen a variety of strange forms, so numerous and so odd that the brothers occupy themselves more in deciphering the marbles than their books, and pa.s.s whole days in studying all those figures much more attentively than the divine law.

Great G.o.d! if you are not ashamed of such useless things, how, at least, can you avoid regretting the enormity of their cost?"

How, indeed! The honest abbe was far from seeing the symbolical meaning in those odd figures which modern investigators have imagined. He was simply ashamed of the ecclesiastical caricatures; but a century or two later ingenious writers began to cover them with the fig-leaves of a symbolical interpretation. According to the ingenious M. Durand, who wrote (A.D. 1459) thirty years before Luther was born, every part of a cathedral has its spiritual meaning. The stones of which it is built represent the faithful, the lime that forms part of the cement is an emblem of fervent charity, the sand mingled with it signifies the actions undertaken by us for the good of our brethren, and the water in which these ingredients blend is the symbol of the Holy Ghost. The hideous shapes sculptured upon the portals are, of course, _malign spirits flying from the temple of the Lord, and seeking refuge in the very substance of the walls_! The great length of the temple signifies the tireless patience with which the faithful support the ills of this life in expectation of their celestial home; its breadth symbolizes that large and n.o.ble love which embraces both the friends and the enemies of G.o.d; its height typifies the hope of final pardon; the roof beams are the prelates, who by the labor of preaching exhibit the truth in all its clearness; the windows are the Scriptures, which receive the light from the sun of truth, and keep out the winds, snows, and hail of heresy and false doctrine devised by the father of schism and falsehood; the iron bars and pins that sustain the windows are the general councils, ec.u.menical and orthodox, which have sustained the holy and canonical Scriptures; the two perpendicular stone columns which support the windows are the two precepts of Christian charity, to love G.o.d and our neighbor; the length of the windows shows the profundity and obscurity of Scripture, and their roundness indicates that the Church is always in harmony with itself.

This is simple enough. But M. Jerome Bugeaud, in his collection of "Chansons Populaires" of the western provinces of France, gives part of a catechism still taught to children, though coming down from the Middle Ages, which carries this quaint symbolizing to a point of the highest absurdity. The catechism turns upon the sacred character of the lowly animal that most needed any protection which priestly ingenuity could afford. Here are a few of the questions and answers:

_Priest._ "What signify the two ears of the a.s.s?"

_Child._ "The two ears of the a.s.s signify the two great patron saints of our city."

_Priest._ "What signifies the head of the a.s.s?"

_Child._ "The head of the a.s.s signifies the great bell, and the halter the clapper of the great bell, which is in the tower of the cathedral of the patron saints of our city."

_Priest._ "What signifies the a.s.s's mouth?"

_Child._ "The a.s.s's mouth signifies the great door of the cathedral of the patron saints of our city."

_Priest._ "What signify the four feet of the a.s.s?"

_Child._ "The four feet of the a.s.s signify the four great pillars of the cathedral of the patron saints of our city."

_Priest._ "What signifies the paunch of the a.s.s?"

_Child._ "The paunch of the a.s.s signifies the great chest wherein Christians put their offerings to the patron saints of our cathedral."

_Priest._ "What signifies the tail of the a.s.s?"

_Child._ "The tail of the a.s.s signifies the holy-water brush of the good dean of the cathedral of the patron saints of our city."

The priest does not stop at the tail, but pursues the symbolism with a simplicity and innocence which do not bear translating into our blunt English words. As late as 1750 Bishop Burnet saw in a church at Worms an altarpiece of a crudity almost incredible. It represented the Virgin Mary throwing Christ into the hopper of a windmill, from the spout of which he was issuing in the form of sacramental wafers, and priests were about to distribute them among the people. The unquestionable purpose of this picture was to a.s.sist the faith and animate the piety of the people of Worms.

CHAPTER VI.

SECULAR CARICATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Gog and Magog, the Giants in the Guildhall of London.]

If we turn from the sacred to the secular, we find the ornamentation not less barbarous. Many readers have seen the two giants that stand in the Guildhall of London, where they, or ugly images like them, have stood from time immemorial. A little book sold near by used to inform a credulous public that Gog and Magog were two gigantic brothers taken prisoners in Cornwall fighting against the Trojan invaders, who brought them in triumph to the site of London, where their chief chained them to the gate of his palace as porters. But, unfortunately for this romantic tale, Mr. Fairholt, in his work upon the giants,[5] makes it known that many other towns and cities of Europe cherish from a remote antiquity similar images. He gives pictures of the Salisbury giant, the huge helmeted giant in Antwerp, the family of giants at Douai, the giant and giantess of Ath, the giants of Brussels, as well as of the mighty dragon of Norwich, with practicable iron jaw.

[Footnote 5: "Gog and Magog: the Giants in Guildhall," by F. W.

Fairholt, F.S.A., London, 1859.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Head of the Great Dragon of Norwich.]

We may therefore discard learned theories and sage conjectures concerning Gog and Magog, and attribute them to the poverty of invention and the barbarity of taste which prevailed in the ages of faith.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Souls Weighed in the Balance. (Bas-relief of the Autun Cathedral.)]

One of the subjects most frequently chosen for caricature during this period was that cunning and audacious enemy of G.o.d and man, the devil--a composite being, made up of the Satan who tested Job, the devil who tempted Jesus, and the Egyptian Osiris who weighed souls in the balance, and claimed as his own those found wanting. The theory of the universe then generally accepted was that the world was merely a field of strife between G.o.d and this malignant spirit; on the side of G.o.d were ranged archangels, angels, the countless host of celestial beings, and all the saints on earth and in heaven, while on the devil's side were a vast army of fallen spirits and all the depraved portion of the human race.

The simple souls of that period did not accept this explanation in an allegorical sense, but as the most literal statement of facts familiarly known, concerning which no one in Christendom had any doubt whatever.

The devil was as composite in his external form as he was in his traditional character. All the mythologies appear to have contributed something to his make-up, until he had acquired many of the most repulsive features and members of which animated nature gives the suggestion. He was hairy, hoofed, and horned; he had a forked tail; he had a countenance which expressed the fox's cunning, the serpent's malice, the pig's appet.i.te, the monkey's grin. As to his body, it varied according to the design of the artist, but it usually resembled creatures base or loathsome.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Struggle for the Possession of a Soul between Angel and Devil. (From a Psalter, 1300.)]

In one picture there is a very rude but curious representation of the weighing of souls, superintended by the devil and an archangel. The devil, in the form of a hog, has won a prize in the soul of a wicked woman, which he is carrying off in a highly disrespectful manner, while casting a backward glance to see that he has fair play in the next weighing. This was an exceedingly favorite subject with the artists of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They delighted to picture the devil, in their crude uncompromising way, as an insatiate miser of human souls, eager to seize them, demanding a thousand, a million, a billion, _all_; and when one appeared in the scales so void of guilt that the good angel must needs possess it, he may be seen slyly putting a finger upon the opposite scale to weigh it down, and this sometimes in spite of the angel's remonstrance. In one picture, described by M.

Merimee in his "Voyage en Auvergne," the devil plays this trick at a moment when the archangel Michael has turned to look another way.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lost Souls cast into h.e.l.l. (From Queen Mary's Psalter.)]

It is a strange circ.u.mstance that in a large number of these representations the devil is exhibited triumphant, and in others the victory is at least doubtful. In a splendid psalter preserved in the British Museum there is a large picture (an engraving of which is given on the preceding page) of a soul climbing an extremely steep and high mountain, on the summit of which a winged archangel stands with outstretched arms to receive him. The soul has nearly reached the top; another step will bring him within the archangel's reach; but behind him is the devil with a long three-p.r.o.nged clawing instrument, which he is about to thrust into the hair of the ascending saint; and no man can tell which is to finally have that soul, the angel or the devil. M.

Champfleury describes a capital in a French church which represents one of the minions of the devil carrying a lizard, symbol of evil, which he is about to add to the scale containing the sins; and the spectator is left to infer that fraud of this kind is likely to be successful, for underneath is written, "_Ecce Diabolus!_" It is as if the artist had said, "Such is the devil, and this is one of his modes of entrapping his natural prey of human souls!" From a large number of similar pictures the inference is fair that, let a man lead a spotless life from the cradle to the grave, the devil, by a mere trick, may get his soul at last. Some of the artists might be suspected of sympathizing with the devil in his triumphs over the weakness of man. Observe, for example, the comic exuberance of the above picture, in which devils are seen tumbling their immortal booty into the jaws of perdition.

It is difficult to look at this picture without feeling that the artist must have been alive to the humors of the situation. It is, however, the opinion of students of these quaint relics that the authors of such designs honestly intended to excite horror, not hilarity. Queen Mary probably saw in this picture, as she turned the page of her sumptuous psalter, an argument to inflame her b.l.o.o.d.y zeal for the ancient faith.

In the writings of some of the early fathers we observe the same appearance of joyous exultation at the sufferings of the lost, if not a sense of the comic absurdity of their doom. Readers may remember the pa.s.sage from Tertullian (A.D. 200) quoted so effectively by Gibbon:

"You are fond of all spectacles," exclaims this truly ferocious Christian; "expect the greatest of all spectacles, the last and eternal judgment of the universe. How shall I rejoice, how laugh, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs and fancied G.o.ds groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates who persecuted the name of the Lord liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled against Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in red-hot flames with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers--"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Devils seizing their Prey. (Bas-relief on the Portal of a Church at Troyes.)]

This is a.s.suredly not the utterance of compa.s.sion, but rather of the fierce delight of an unregenerate Roman, when at the amphitheatre he doomed a rival's defeated gladiator to death by pointing downward with his thumb. In a similar spirit such pictures were conceived as the one given above.

The sculptor, it is apparent, is "with" the adversary of mankind in the present case. Kings and bishops carried things with a high hand during their mortal career, but the devils have them at last with a rope round their necks, crown and mitre notwithstanding!

The devil was not always victor. There was One whom neither his low cunning nor his bland address nor his blunt audacity could beguile--the Son of G.o.d, his predestined conqueror. The pa.s.sages in the Gospels which relate the attempts made by Satan to tempt the Lord furnished congenial subjects to the illuminators of the Middle Ages, and they treated those subjects with their usual enormous crudity. In one very ancient Saxon psalter, in ma.n.u.script, preserved at the British Museum, there is a colossal Christ, with one foot upon a devil, the other foot about to fall upon a second devil, and with his hands delivering from the open mouth of a third devil human souls, who hold up to him their hands clasped as in prayer. In this picture the sympathies of the artist are evidently not on the side of the evil spirits. Their malevolence is apparent, and their att.i.tude is ignominious. The rescued souls are, indeed, a pigmy crew, of woe-begone aspect; but their resistless Deliverer towers aloft in such imposing alt.i.tude that the tallest of the saints hardly reaches above his knees. In another picture of very early date, the Lord upon a high place is rescuing a soul from three scoffing devils, who are endeavoring to pull him down to perdition by cords twisted round his legs. _This_ soul we are permitted to consider safe; but below, in a corner of the s.p.a.cious drawing, a winged archangel is spearing a lost soul into the flames of h.e.l.l, using the spear in the manner of a farmer handling a pitchfork.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Temptation.]

These ancient attempts to exhibit the endless conflict between good and evil are too rude even to be interesting. The specimen annexed, of later date, about 1475, occurs in a Poor People's Bible (_Biblia Pauperum_), block-printed, in which it forms part of an extensive frontispiece. The book was once the property of George III., at the sale of whose personal effects it was bought for the British Museum, where it now is. It has the additional interest of being one of the oldest specimens of wood-engraving yet discovered.

The mountain in the background, adorned by a single tree, is the height to which the Lord was taken by the tempter, and from which the devil urged him to cast himself down.