The Grotesque in Church Art Part 6

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" summons to a miracle play, mention of one Letyce Lytyltrust, 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 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 quant.i.ty, 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 necklace of her vanity, and carried ignominiously and indecorously to h.e.l.l'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 grin he welcomes the latest addition to the collection of evil-doers within. To the right are the usual gaping jaws of h.e.l.l'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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE END OF THE ALE-WIFE, LUDLOW.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FEMALE DRAWER, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.]

There is allusion in a copy of the Chester Mystery of Christ's Descent into h.e.l.l, 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 propitiate one of them by addressing him as "My Sweet Master Sir Sattanas," who returns the compliment by calling her his "dear darling."

She announces that:--

"Some tyme I was a tavernere, 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."

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

"Welckome, 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" 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A HORN OF ALE, ELY.]

At All Souls, Oxford, there is a good carving of a woman drawing ale. It is not, apparently, the ale-wife herself, 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.

Satires without Satan.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SLUMBERING PRIEST, NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.]

There 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 Holderness.

The priory of Swine was a Cistercian nunnery of fifteen sisters and a prioress. Mr. Thomas Blashill states, "There were, however, two canons at least, to a.s.sist in the offices of religion, who did not refrain from meddling in secular affairs."[5] 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 refusing to pay certain t.i.thes, caused the church, with that adjoining, of the lay brethren, to be closed. The nuns defied all authority, broke open the chapels, and in general during the long contest acted in a curiously ungovernable, irresponsible manner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PAPAL MONSTER, SWINE, YORKSHIRE.]

At Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, are some misericordes, which, says Miss Phipson, are stated to have originally belonged to Old St. Paul's.

Among them is the annexed subject. The wicked expression of the face, and the general incorrectness of the composition, are a historical evidence of indecorum akin to the gestures of the Beverley carvers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IMPUDENCE, BISHOP'S STORTFORD, HERTFORDSHIRE.]

From the fine choir carvings of Westminster Abbey yet another example is given. It is one in which the spirit of the old _Comptes a Plaisance_ is well ill.u.s.trated. A well-clad man, 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, the artistic feeling about it would seem to recall slightly the lines of Holbein.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WINKING NUN, SWINE, YORKSHIRE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A QUESTION OF PRICE, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]

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 ill.u.s.trated with the "slumbering priest," the carving of whom is at the right of that of the 'Unseen 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 cla.s.sic 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 coa.r.s.e, insatiable daughter of the horse-leech.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HARPY IN WAIT, WINCHESTER.]

Scriptural Ill.u.s.trations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ADAM AND EVE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]

Mystery Plays, we have seen, drew upon the Apocryphal New Testament for subjects, but it has simply happened that the examples of vice carvings ill.u.s.trate 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 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 sh.o.r.e on which stand trees of the well-known grotesque type in which they are excellent fir-cones.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STORY OF JONAH. THE CASTING OUT.]

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 Salvationis," 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 att.i.tudes 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, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ADORATION OF THE MAGI, WORCHESTER.]

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 n.o.ble 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 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BAPTISMAL SCENE, GUILDFORD.]