all those figures much more attentively than the divine law. Great God! 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 abbé 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 noble love which embraces both the friends and the enemies of God; 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, ecumenical 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 God 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. Jérôme 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 ass?"
Child. "The two ears of the ass signify the two great patron saints of our city."
Priest. "What signifies the head of the ass?"
Child. "The head of the ass 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 ass's mouth?"
Child. "The ass's mouth signifies the great door of the cathedral of the patron saints of our city."
Priest. "What signify the four feet of the ass?"
Child. "The four feet of the ass signify the four great pillars of the cathedral of the patron saints of our city."
Priest. "What signifies the paunch of the ass?"
Child. "The paunch of the ass signifies the great chest wherein Christians put their offerings to the patron saints of our cathedral."
Priest. "What signifies the tail of the ass?"
Child. "The tail of the ass 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 assist the faith and animate the piety of the people of Worms.
CHAPTER VI.
SECULAR CARICATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
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.
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.
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 God 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 God and this malignant spirit; on the side of God 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 appetite, 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.
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,