Part 2

What is required to determine the general facts on these points is a return from various fabric accounts. We shall probably find both English and foreign carvers. There is little or no doubt that the carvers of our grotesques were members of the mysterious society which has developed into the modern body of Freemasons. It would be interesting--if it were not so apparently impossible--to trace in the records of early Freemasonry, not only the names and nationalities of the masons and carvers, but the details of that fine organization which enabled them to develope ideas and improvements simultaneously throughout Europe; and which would tell us, moreover, something of the master minds which conceived and directed the changes of style. But the masonic history of our carvers is much enveloped in error to the outside world. Thus we are told that in the minority of Henry VI. the masons were suppressed by statute, but that on his assuming the control of affairs he repealed the Act, and himself became a mason; moreover, we are told he wrote out "Certayne Questyons with Awnsweres to the same concerning the Mystery of Maconrye" which was afterwards "copyed by me Johan Leylande Antiquarius," at the command of Henry VIII.; the MS. being gravely stated to be in the Bodleian Library. No such MS. exists at the Bodleian Library. If it did, its diction and spelling (which is all on pretended record in certain books probably repudiated by the masonic body proper) would instantly condemn it as a forgery. Certainly an Act was passed, 3 Henry VI., which is in itself a historical monument to the importance of Freemasonry. It is a brief enactment that the yearly meetings of the masons, being contrary to the Statute of Labourers (of 25 Edward III., 1351) fixing the rates of labour, which the masons varied and apparently increased, were no longer to be held; offenders to be judged guilty of felony. The Commons did not quite know what to style the meetings, using in this short Act the following terms for them: Chapters, Assemblies, Congregations, and Confederacies.

But important though this proves the masons to have been, there is no account of the statute being repealed until the 5 Elizabeth, when another took its place equally intolerant to the spirit of Freemasonry, and Freemasonry really only became legal by the Act of 6 George IV.

But the prohibition of 1424 was not abolition. If the masons were debarred from being allowed to exercise their advanced notions of remuneration, or to have any legal recognition whatever, it scarcely seems to have affected their action. For if they had refrained from exercising their freedom, and submitted to being put down by statute, it is probable we should have met them in the form of more ordinary gilds as instituted by other craftsmen. But we do not meet them thus, and the inference is that they went on in their own way, at their own time, and at their own price. It may be presumed that the more or less migratory habits of the masons made the Act impossible to be rigidly enforced.

Coming down towards the end of Gothic times, we find, at any rate, there was one place where images might be ordered. In the Stanford churchwardens' accounts for 1556 there occur the following entries:--

"It. In expences to Abyndon to speke for ymages vijd. It. for iij ymages, the Rode, Mare, and John xxijs. iiijd."

It will have been noticed that the portraits of the carvers are Late. It is a great merit, on antiquarian grounds, that Gothic work, prior to the revival in art, was too much unconscious to admit anything so self-personal as a thought of the workers themselves, though frequently their 'marks' are unobtrusively set upon their works. By the sixteenth century, the sculptor's art developed with the rest of mental effort, and the artists drank fresh draughts from the springs coming by way of Rome, springs whose waters had been concerned in the existence of nearly all the art that had been in Europe for ten centuries.

The Artistic Quality of Church Grotesques.

The grotesque has been pronounced a false taste, and not desirable to be perpetuated. Reflection upon the causes and meanings of Gothic grotesque will shew that perpetuation is to be regretted for other than artistic reasons. If the taste be false yet the work is valuable on historic grounds, for what it teaches of its own time and much more for what it hints of earlier periods of which there is meagre record anywhere. Therefore it would be well not to confuse the student of the future with our clever variations of imperfectly understood ideas. Practically the grotesque and emblematic period ended at the Reformation; and it was well.

But while leaving the falseness of the taste for grotesques an open question, there is something to be said for them without straining fact. For it is certain that there is underlying Gothic grotesque ornament a unique and, if not understood, an uncopiable beauty, be the subject never so ugly. The fascinating element appear to be, first, the completeness of the genius which was exercised upon it. It not only conveys the travestying idea, but also sufficiently conveys the original thought travestied.

What is it at which we laugh? It shall be a figure which is of a kind generally dignified, now with no dignity; generally to be respected, but now commanding no respect; capable of being feared, but now inspiring no fear; usually lovable, but now provoking no love. It shall be a figure of which the preconceived idea was either worthy or dreadful--which suddenly we have presented to us shorn of its superior attributes. Ideals are unconsciously enshrined in the mind, and when images proclaiming themselves the same ideals appear in sharp degraded contrast--we laugh. Thus we affirm the correctness of the original judgments both as to the great and the contemptible imitating it, for laughter is the effect of appreciation of incongruity. Custom overrides nearly all, and blunts contrast of ideas, yet wit, darting here and there among men, ever finds fresh contrasts and fresh laughter.

Further counts for something the excellence of the artistic management, which in the treatment of the most unpromising subjects filled the composition with beautiful lines. It was left to Hogarth's genius to insist on the reality of "the line of beauty" as governing all loveliness, and he suggests that a perceptive recognition of this existed on the part of the classic sculptors. This applies to their work in general, but he also mentions their frequent addition of some curved object connected with the subject, as though it were a kind of key to the artistic composition. Whether consciously or not, the ancients used many such adjunctive curved lines, and Hogarth's conclusions cannot be styled fanciful. The helmet, plume, and serpent-edged ægis of Minerva, the double-bowed bolt and serpents of Jupiter, the ornaments of the trident, the aplustre and the twisted rope of Neptune, the bow and serpent of Apollo, the plume of Mars, the caduceus of Mercury, the ship-prow of Saturn, the gubernum or rudder of Venus, the drinking horn of Pan, together with many another form to be observed in particular works of the ancients, is each a definite and perfect example of the faultless line. Now, to repeat, many--an infinite number--of the ornaments of Gothic architecture, and not less the grotesque than any other description, are likewise composed of the most beautiful lines conceivable, either entirely, or combined with lines of abrupt and ungraceful turn that seem to deliberately provoke one's artistic protest; and yet the whole composition shall, by its curious mixture of beauty and bizarre, its contrast of elegance with awkwardness, leave a real and unique sense of pleasure in the mind. Doubtless the root of this pleasure is the gratification of the mind at having secretly detected itself responding to the call of art to exercise itself in appreciative discrimination. This may be unconsciously done; and in a great measure the qualities which give the pleasure would be bestowed upon the work in similar happy unconsciousness of the exact why and wherefore. Often, as in the ancient statues, a small curved form is introduced as an appendage to a mediæval grotesque.

Thus we see that there are combinations of two kinds of contrast which make Gothic grotesques agreeable, the artistic contrasts among the mere lines of the carvings, and the significatory contrasts evolved by the meanings of the carvings.

As far back as the twelfth century, a critic of church grotesques recognized their combination of contrasts. This was St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who, speaking of the ecclesiastical decoration of his time, paid the grotesques of church art the exact tribute they so often merit; probably the greater portion of what he saw has given place to succeeding carvings, though of precisely the same characteristics. He calls them "a wonderful sort of hideous beauty and beautiful deformity." He, moreover, put a question, many times since repeated by hundreds who never heard of him, asking the use of placing ridiculous monstrosities in the cloisters before the eyes of the brethren when occupied with their studies.

It is not possible to explain the "use" of perpetuating the barbarous symbols of a long-forgotten past; but it will be interesting to shew that there were actual causes accounting for their continued existence and their continued production, unknown ages after their own epoch.

Gothic Ornaments not Didactic.

Reflection will not lead us to believe carvings to have been placed in churches with direct intent to teach or preach. Many writers have coincided in producing a general opinion that the churches, as containing these carvings, were practically the picture (or sculpture) galleries and illustrated papers for the illiterate of the past. This supposition will not bear examination. It would mean that in the days when humble men rarely travelled from home, and then mostly by compulsion, to fight for lord or king, or against him, the inhabitant of a village or town had for the (say) forty years sojourn in his spot of Merrie England, a small collection of composite animals, monsters, mermaids, impossible flowers, etc.--with perhaps one doubtful domestic scene of a lady breaking a vessel over the head of a gentleman who is inquisitive as to boots--with which to improve his mind. Sometimes his church would contain not half-a-dozen forms, and mostly not one he could understand or cared to interpret.

Misericordes, the secondary seats or shelves allowed as a relaxation during the ancient long standing services, are invariably carved, and episode is more likely to be found there than anywhere else in the church. Hence, misericordes have been specially selected for this erroneous consideration of ornament to be the story-book of the Middle Ages. This is unfortunate for the theory, for they were placed only in churches having connection with a monastic or collegiate establishment. They are in the chancels, where the feet of laymen rarely trod, and, moreover, there would be few hours out of the twenty-four when the stalls would not be occupied by the performers of the daily offices or celebrations.

The fact appears to be that the carvings were the outcome of causes far different from an intention to produce genre pictures. It is patent that anything which kept within its proper mechanical and architectural outline, was admitted. What was offered depended upon a multitude of considerations, but chiefly upon the traditions of mason-craft. The Rev. Charles Boutell has an apt description touching upon the origin of the carvings: calling them "chronicles," he says they were "written by men who were altogether unconscious of being chroniclers at all.... They worked under the impulse of motives altogether devoid of the historical element. They were influenced by the traditions of their art, by their own feelings, and were directed by their own knowledge, experience, and observation, and also by the associations of their every-day lives." This appears to explain in general terms the sources of iconography. In brief, the sculptor had a stock-in-trade of designs, which he varied or supplemented, according to his ability and originality.

That the stock-in-trade, or traditions of the art, handed down from master to apprentice, generation after generation, persistently retained an immense amount of intellectualia thus derived from a remote antiquity, is but an item of this subject, but the most important of which this work has cognizance.

Ingrained Paganism.

We at this day may be excused for not participating in the good St. Bernard's dislike to the "hideous beauties" of the grotesque, and for not deploring, as he does, the money expended on their production. For many of them are the embodiments of ideas which the masons had perpetuated from a period centuries before his time, and which could in no other way have been handed down to us. There are many reasons why books were unlikely media for early times; for later, the serious import of the origin of the designs would be likely to be doubted; and for the most part the special function of the designs has been the adornment of edifices of religion. They were, in fact, religious symbols which in various ages of the world have been used with varying degrees of purity. One of the Rabbis, Maimonides, has an instructive passage on the rise of symbolic images. Speaking of men's first falling away from a presumed early pure religion he says:--"They began to build temples to the stars, ... and this was the root of idolatry ... and the false prophet showed them the image that he had feigned out of his own heart, and said it was the image of that star which was made known to him by prophecy; and they began after this manner to make images in temples and under trees ... and this thing was spread throughout the world--to serve images with services different one from another and to sacrifice unto, and worship them. So in process of time the glorious and fearful name was forgotten out of the mouth of all living ... and there was found on earth no people that knew aught save images of wood and stone, and temples of stone which they built." The ancient Hindoo fables also indicate how imagery arose; they speak of the god Ram, "who, having no shape, is described by a similitude." The worship of the "Host of Heaven" was star-worship, or "Baalim."

The Sabean idolatry was the worship of the stars, to which belongs much of the earlier image carving, for the household gods of the ancient Hebrews, the Teraphim (as the images of Laban stolen by Rachel), were probably in the human form as representing planets, even in varying astronomical aspects of the same planet. They are said to have been of metal. The ancient Germans had similar household gods of wood, carved out of the root of the mandragora plant, or alraun as they called it, from the superstition kindred to that of the East, that the images would answer questions (from _raunen_ to whisper in the ear). Examination of many ancient Attic figurines appears to shew that they had a not unsimilar origin, reminding us that both Herodotus and Plato state the original religion of the Greeks to have been star-worship, and hence is derived the [Greek: Theos] god, from [Greek: Thein] to run. Thus in other than the poet's sense are the stars "elder scripture."

A large number of the forms met in architectural ornament, it may be fittingly reiterated, have a more or less close connection with the worships which existed in times long prior to Christianity. A portion of them was continuously used simply because the masons were accustomed to them, or in later Gothic on account of the universal practice of copying existing works; unless we can take it for granted in place of that practice, that there existed down to Reformation days "portfolios" of carver's designs which were to the last handed down from master to apprentice, as must have undoubtedly been the case in earlier times. Other portions of the ancient worship designs are found in Christian art because they were received and grafted upon the symbolic system of the Church's teaching. The retention of these fragments of superseded paganism does not always appear to have been of deliberate or willing intention. The early days of the Church even after its firm establishment, were much occupied in combating every form of paganism. The converts were constantly lapsing into their old beliefs, and the thunders of the early ecclesiastical councils were as constantly being directed against the ancient superstitions. Sufficient remains on record to shew how hard the gods died.

To near the end of the fourth century the chief intelligence of Rome publicly professed the Olympic faith. With the next century, however, commenced a more or less determined programme of persecutory repression. Thus, councils held at Arles about 452 ruled that a bishop was guilty of sacrilege who neglected to extirpate the custom of adoring fountains, trees, and stones. At that of Orleans in 533 Catholics were to be excommunicated who returned to the worship of idols or ate flesh offered to idols. At Tours in 567 several pagan superstitions were forbidden, and at Narborne in 590; freemen who transgressed were to have penance, but slaves to be beaten. At Nicea in 681 image worship was allowed of Christ.[2] At Augsburgh (?) in 742 the Count Gravio was associated with the Bishop to watch against popular lapses into paganism. In 743 Pepin held a council in which he ruled, as his father had done before, that he who practised any pagan rites be fined 15 sous (15/22 of a livre). To the orders was attached the renunciation, in German, of the worship of Odin by the Saxons, and a list of the pagan superstitions of the Germans. The Council of Frankfort in 794 ordered the sacred woods to be destroyed. Constantinople had apparently already not only become a channel for the conveyance of oriental paganism in astro-symbolic images, but was also evidently nearer to the lower idolatry of heathenism than the Church of the West. Thus we find the bishops of Gaul, Germany, and Italy in council at Frankfort, rejecting with anathema, and as idolatrous, the doctrines of the Council of Constantinople upon the worship of images.

While all this repression was going on, the Church was making itself acceptable, just as the Mosaic system had done in its day, by assimilating the symbols of the forbidden faiths. Itself instituted without formularies or ceremonial, both were needed when it became a step-ladder of ambition and the expedient displacer of the corrupt idolatries into which sun-worship had disintegrated. Hence among the means of organization, observance and symbol took the place of original simplicity, and it is small wonder that ideas were adopted which were already in men's minds. Elements of heathenism which, after the lapse of centuries, still clung to the Church's robes, became an interwoven part of her dearest symbolism. If men did not burn what they had adored, they in effect adored that which they had burned.

In spite, however, of edicts and adoptions, paganism has never been entirely rooted out; what Sismondi calls the "rights of long possession, the sacredness of time-hallowed opinion, and the potency of habit," are not yet entirely overcome in the midst of the most enlightened peoples. The carvings which point back to forgotten myths have their parallels in curious superstitions and odd customs which are not less venerable.

There were many compromises made on account of the ineradicable attachment of the people to religious customs into which they were born. Christian festivals were erected on the dates of heathen observances. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory sent word to Augustine, then in England, that the idolatrous temples of the English need not be destroyed, though the idols should, and that the cattle sacrificed to the heathen deities should be killed on the anniversary of dedication or on the nativities of the saints whose relics were within the church.

It is said that it was, later, usual to bring a fat buck into St. Paul's, London, with the hunters' horns blowing, in the midst of divine service, for the cathedral was built on or near the site of a former temple of Diana. This custom was made the condition of a feudal tenure. The story of Prosperine, another form of Diana, was the subject of heathen plays, and down to the sixteenth century the character appears in religious mystery plays as the recipient of much abuse.

Ancient mythology points in one chief direction. "Omnes Deos referri ad solem," says Macrobius, "All Gods refer to the sun," and in the light of that saying a thousand complicated fables of antiquity melt into simplicity. The ancient poets called the sun (at one time symbolically of a First Great Cause, at another absolutely) the Leader, the Moderator, the Depository of Light, the Ordainer of human things; each of his virtues was styled a different god, and given its distinct name. The moon also, and the stars were made the symbols of deities. These symbols put before the people as vehicles for abstract ideas, were quickly adopted as gods, the symbolism being disregarded, and the end was practically the same as that narrated by the ancient rabbi just quoted. But it may be doubted whether the pantheism of the classic nations was ever entirely gross. The great festivals of the gods were accompanied by the initiation of carefully selected persons into certain mysteries of which no description is extant. Thirlwall hazards the conjecture "that they were the remains of a worship which preceded the rise of the Hellenic mythology ... grounded on a view of nature less fanciful, more earnest and better fitted to awaken both philosophical thought and religious feeling." Whether a purer system was unfolded to the initiated on these occasions or not, there is little doubt that it had existed and was at the root of the symbol rites.

Mythic Origin of Church Carvings.

The discoveries in Egypt in recent years undoubtedly press upon us the fact that there was in Europe an early indigenous civilization, and that the exchange of ideas between East and West was at least equal. For the purpose of this study, however, the theory of independence is not accepted absolutely; it is premised that though there were in numerous parts of the old world early native systems of worship of much similarity, yet that such relics of them as are met in architecture came from the East.

The mythic ideas at the root of Gothic decoration were probably early disseminated through Europe in vague and varying ways, whose chief impress is in folk-lore; but the concrete forms themselves appear to have been introduced later, after being brought, as it were, to a focus, being selected and assimilated at some great mental centre. Alexandria was the place where Eastern and Western culture impinged on each other, and resulted in a conglomerate of ideas. These ideas, however, were not essentially different in their nature, though each school, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, and Hebrew, had diverged widely if they came from an unknown common source. But if Alexandria was the furnace in which the material was fused, Byzantium appears to have been the great workshop where the results were utilized, and from whence they were issued to Europe.