CHAPTER XXIX

CATHEDRAL AND MASS; HYMN AND IMAGINATIVE POEM

I. GUILELMUS DURANDUS AND VINCENT OF BEAUVAIS.

II. THE HYMNS OF ADAM OF ST. VICTOR AND THE _Anticlaudianus_ of ALANUS OF LILLE.

Under sanction of Scriptural interpretation and the sacraments, allegory and symbolism became accepted principles of spiritual verity, sources of political argument, and modes of transcendental truth. They penetrated the Liturgy, charging every sentence and ceremonial act with saving significance and power; and as plastic influences they imparted form and matter to religious art and poetry, where they had indeed been potent from the beginning.

I

In the early Church the office of the Mass, the ordination of priests, and the dedication of churches were not charged with the elaborate symbolism carried by these ceremonies in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,[83] when the Liturgy, or speaking more specifically, the Mass, had become symbolical from the _introit_ to the last benediction; and Gothic sculpture and glass painting, which were its visible illustration, had been impressed with corresponding allegory. Mediaeval liturgic lore is summed up by Guilelmus Durandus in his _Rationale divinorum officiorum_, which was composed in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and contains much that is mirrored in the art of the French cathedrals. It is impossible to review the elaborate symbolical significance of the Mass as set forth in the authoritative work of one who was a bishop, theologian, jurist, and papal regent.[84] But a little of it may be given.

The office of the Mass, says Durandus, is devised with great forethought, so as to contain the major part of what was accomplished by and in Christ from the time when He descended from heaven to the time when He ascended into heaven. In the sacrifice of the Mass all the sacrifices of the Ancient Law are represented and superseded. It may be celebrated at the third hour, because then, according to Mark, Christ ascended the cross, and at that hour also the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles in tongues of fire; or at the sixth hour, when, according to Matthew, Christ was crucified; or at the ninth hour, when on the cross He gave up His spirit.

The first part of the Mass begins with the _introit_. Its antiphonal chanting signifies the aspirations and deeds, the prayers and praises of the patriarchs and prophets who were looking for the coming of the Son of God. The chorus of chanting clergy represents this yearning multitude of saints of the Ancient Law. The bishop, clad in his sacred vestments,[85] at the end of the procession, emerging from the sacristy and advancing to the altar, represents Christ, the expected of the nations, emerging from the Virgin’s womb and entering the world, even as the Spouse from His secret chamber. The seven lights borne before him on the chief festivals are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit descending upon the head of Christ. The two acolytes preceding him signify the Law and the Prophets, shown in Moses and Elias who appeared with Christ on Mount Tabor. The four who bear the canopy are the four evangelists, declaring the Gospel. The bishop takes his seat and lays aside his mitre. He is silent, as was Christ during His early years. The Book of the Gospels lies closed before him. Around him in the company of clergy are represented the Magi and others.

The services proceed, every word and act filled with symbolic import. The reading of the Epistle is reached--that is the preaching of John the Baptist, who preaches only to the Jews; so the reader turns to the north, the region of the Ancient Law. The reading ended, he bows before the bishop, as the Baptist humbled himself before Christ.

After the Epistle comes the Gradual or _responsorium_, which relates to penitence and the works of the active life. The Baptist is still the main figure, until the solemn moment when the Gospel is read, which signifies the beginning of Christ’s preaching. The Creed follows the Gospel, as faith follows the preaching of the truth. Its twelve parts refer to the calling of the twelve apostles. Then the bishop begins his sermon; that is to say, after the calling of the Twelve, the Word of God is preached to the people, and it henceforth behoves the Church to hold fast to the Creed which has just been recited.[86]

The authoritative allegorizing of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries extended the symbolism of the Mass to the edifice in which it was celebrated; as the _Rationale_ sets forth in its opening chapter entitled “De ecclesia et eius partibus.” There it is shown that the corporeal church is the edifice, while the Church, spiritually taken, signifies the faithful people drawn together from all sorts of men as the edifice is constructed of all sorts of stones. The various names ecclesia, synagogue, basilica, and tabernacle are explained; and then why the Church is called the Body of Christ, and also Virgin, also Spouse, Mother, Daughter, Widow, and indeed Meretrix, as it shuts its bosom against no one seeking it. The form of the church conforms to that of Solomon’s temple, in the anterior part of which the people heard and prayed, while the clergy prayed and preached, gave thanks and ministered, in the sanctuary or sacred place. Solomon’s temple in turn was modelled on the Tabernacle of the Exodus, which, because it was constructed on a journey, is the type of the world which passes away and the lust thereof. It was made with the four colours of the arch of heaven, as the world consists of the four elements. Since God is in the world, He is in the tabernacle (which also means the Church militant) and in the midst of the faithful congregation. The anterior part of the tabernacle, where the people sacrificed, is also the _Vita activa_, in which the laity labour in neighbourly love; and the portion where the Levites ministered is the _Vita contemplativa_.

The church should be erected in the following manner: the place of its foundation should be made ready--well-founded is the house of the Lord upon a rock--and the bishop or licensed priest should sprinkle it with holy water to dispel the demons, and should lay the first stone, on which should be carved a cross. The head of the church, that is the chancel, should be set toward the rising sun at the time of the equinox. Now if the Jews were commanded to build walls for Jerusalem, how much more ought we to build the walls of our churches? The material church signifies the Holy Church built of living stones in heaven, with Christ the corner-stone, upon which are set the foundations of Apostles and Prophets. The walls above are the Jews and Gentiles, who believing come to Christ from the four quarters of the world. The faithful people predestined to life are the stones thereof.

The mortar in which the stones are set is made of lime, sand, and water. Lime is fervent love, which takes to itself the sand, that is, earthly toil; then water, which is the Spirit, unites the lime and sand. As the stones of the wall would have no stability without the mortar, so men cannot be set in the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem without love, which the Holy Spirit brings. The stones of the wall are hewn and squared, which means sanctified and made clean. Some stones are borne, but do not themselves bear any burden, and these are the feeble in the Church. Other stones are borne, yet also bear; while still others bear, but are not borne, save by Christ alone, the one foundation; and the last are the perfect.

The Jews were subject to hostile attack while building the walls of Jerusalem,[87] so that with one hand they set stones, while they fought with the other. Likewise are we surrounded by hostile vices as we build the walls of the Church; but we oppose them with the shield of faith and the breastplate of righteousness, and the sword of the Word of God in our hands.

The church edifice is disposed like the human body. The chancel, where the altar is, represents the head, and the cross (transept) the arms and hands. The western portion (nave and aisles) is the rest of the body. But indeed Richard of St. Victor deems that the three parts of the edifice represent in order of sanctity, first the virgins, then the continent, and lastly married people.

Again, the Church is built with four walls; that is, by the teaching of the four evangelists it rises broad and high into the altitude of the virtues. Its length is the long-suffering with which it endures adversity; its breadth is love, with which it embraces its friends in God, and loves its enemies for His sake; its height is the hope of future reward. Again, in God’s temple the foundation is faith, which is as to what is not seen; the roof is charity, which covers a multitude of sins. The door is obedience--keep the commandments if thou wilt enter into life.[88] The pavement is humility. The four walls are the four virtues, righteousness, (_justitia_), fortitude, prudence, and temperance. The windows are glad hospitality and free-handed pity.

Some churches are cruciform, to teach us that we are crucified to the world, or should follow the Crucified. Some are circular, which signifies that the Church is spread through the circle of the world.

The apse signifies the faithful laity; the crypts, the hermits. The nave signifies Christ, through whom lies the way to the heavenly Jerusalem; the towers are the preachers and prelates, and the pinnacles represent the prelates’ minds which soar on high. Also a weather-cock on top of the church signifies the preachers, who rouse the sleeping from the night of sin, and turning ever to the wind, resist the rebellious. The iron rod upholding the cock is the preacher’s sermon; and because this rod is placed above the cross on the church, it indicates the word of God finished and confirmed, as Christ said in His passion, “It is finished.” The lofty dome on which the cross is set, signifies how perfect and inviolate should be the preaching and observance of the Catholic Faith.

The glass windows of the church are the divine Scriptures, which repel the wind and rain, but admit the light of the true sun, to wit God, into the church, that is, into the hearts of the faithful. The windows also signify the five senses of the body.[89]

The door of the church (again) is Christ--“I am the Door”; the doors are also the Apostles. The pillars are the bishops and doctors; their bases are the apostolic bishops; their capitals are the minds of the doctors and bishops. The pavement is the foundation of faith, and also signifies the “poor in spirit,” also the common crowd by whose labours the church is upheld. The rafters are the princes and preachers in the world, who defend the church by deed and word. The seats in a church are the contemplative in whom God rests without offence. The panels in the ceiling are also preachers who adorn and strengthen.

The chancel, the head of the church, by being lower than the rest, indicates how great should be the humility of the clergy. The screens by which the altar is separated from the choir signify the separation of heavenly beings from things of earth. The choir stalls indicate the body’s need of recreation. The pulpit is the life of the perfect. The horologe signifies the diligence with which the priests should say the canonical hours. The tiles of the roof are the knights who protect the church from pagans. The spiral stairways concealed within the walls are the secret knowledge had only by those who ascend to the heavenly places. The sacristy, where the holy utensils are kept and the priest puts on his vestments, signifies the womb of the most holy Virgin, in which Christ put on His sacred garb of flesh. From thence the priest emerges before the public, as Christ went forth from the Virgin’s womb into the world. The lamp signifies Christ, who is the light of the world; or the lamps signify the Apostles and other doctors, whose doctrine lights the church. Moses also made seven lights, which are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Durandus next devotes a whole chapter to the symbolism of the altar, and another to the significance and function of ornaments, pictures, and sculpture. The latter opens with the words: “The pictures and ornaments in a church are the texts and scriptures (_lectiones et scripturae_) of the laity.” This chapter is long; it explains how Christ and the angels, also saints, Apostles and others, should be represented, and describes the proper kinds of church ornament and utensils. Much of the detail is symbolical.

Thus Durandus devised or brought together meanings to fit each bit of the church edifice, its materials and furnishings. In the work of a contemporary are stored the allegorical meanings of the subjects of Gothic sculpture and painted glass. The thirteenth century had a weakness for the word “Speculum,” and the idea it carried of a mirror or compendium of all human knowledge. The chief of mediaeval encyclopaedists was Vincent of Beauvais, a _protégé_ of the saintly King Louis IX. An analysis of his huge _Speculum majus_ is given elsewhere.[90] It was made up of the Mirror of Nature, the Mirror of human Knowledge and Ethics, and the Mirror of History. The compiler and his assistants laboured during the best period of Gothic art, and from their work, industry may draw an exhaustive commentary upon the series of topics presented by the sculpture and glass of a cathedral.[91]

The Mirror of Nature appears carved in the sculpture of Chartres or Bourges. In rendering the work of the Six Days, the Creator is shown (under the form of Christ)[92] contemplating His work, or resting from His toil; here and there a lion, sheep, or goat, suggests the animal creation, and a few trees the vegetable world. This is the necessary symbolism of the sculptor’s art. But Gothic animals and plants sometimes have other definite symbolic meanings, as in the instance of the well-known signs of the four Evangelists, the man, the lion, the ox, the eagle. The allegorical interpretations of Scripture were an exhaustless source of symbolism for Gothic sculptors; another was the _Physiologus_ and its progeny of Bestiaries, with their symbolic explanations of the legendary attributes of animals. Intentional symbolism, however, did not inhere in all this carving, much of which is sheer fancy and decoration. Such was the character of the splendid Gothic flora, of the birds and beasts that move in it, and of the grotesque monsters. They were not out of place, since the Gothic cathedral was itself a Speculum or Summa, and should include the whole of God’s creation, not omitting even the devils who beset men’s souls.

Vincent may have drawn from Hugo of St Victor the current doctrine that the arts have part in the work of man’s restoration; a doctrine abundantly justifying the presence of the sciences and crafts (composing the Mirror of Knowledge) in the sculpture and painting of the cathedral. There the Seven Liberal Arts are rendered, through allegorical figures; and the months of the year are symbolized in the Zodiac and the labours of the field which make up man’s annual toil. Philosophy is shown and Fortune’s wheel; the Virtues and Vices are represented in personifications, and even their conflict, the Psychomachia, may be shown.

At last the Mirror of History is reached. This will teach in concrete examples what has been learned from the figures of the abstract Virtues and Vices. Its chief source is the Bible. Those Old Testament incidents were selected which for centuries had been interpreted as prefigurements of the life of Christ; and each was presented as a pendant to the Gospel scene which it typified. These make the chief subjects of the coloured glass of Chartres and Bourges and other cathedrals where the windows are preserved. Here may be seen the Passion of Christ, surrounded by scenes from the Old Testament typifying it; likewise His Resurrection and its ancient types; and other significant incidents in the life of the Saviour and His virgin mother.[93] The latter is typified by the burning bush, by the fleece of Gideon, by the rod of Aaron, even as in the hymns of Adam of Saint-Victor.[94] Besides these incidents, leading personages of the Old Testament are presented as prefigurative of Christ, as in the great series of statues of Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, on the north portal of Chartres; while the four greater and twelve minor prophets are shown as types of the four Evangelists and the twelve Apostles. Christ himself is depicted on a window at St. Denis, between the allegorical figures of the Ancient Law and the Gospel,--figures which are allied to those of the uncrowned and blinded Synagogue and the triumphant Church, so frequently seen together upon cathedrals. Everywhere the tendency to symbolize is strong. Parts of the Crucifixion scene are rendered symbolically, and many of the parables. That of the Good Samaritan constantly appears upon the windows, and is always designed so as to convey the allegorical teaching drawn from it in Honorius’s sermon.[95]

Obviously this Mirror of History was chiefly sacred history. Pagan antiquity was scantily suggested by the Sibyls, who stand for the dumb pagan prophecy of Christ. Scenes from the history of Christian nations were more frequent; but they always told of some victory for Christ, like the baptism of Clovis, or the crusading deeds of Charlemagne, Roland or Godfrey of Bouillon. God’s drama closed with the Last Judgment, the damnation of the damned and the beatitude of the elect. The Last Judgments, usually over-arching the tympanums above cathedral doors, are known to all--as at Rheims, at Chartres, at Bourges. They are full of symbolism, and full of “historic” reality as well. The treatment becomes entirely allegorical when the sculptor enters Paradise with the redeemed, and portrays in lovely personifications the beatitudes of the blessed, as on the north portal of Chartres.

Those bands of nameless men who carved the statues and designed the coloured glass which were to make Gothic cathedrals speak, faithfully presented the teachings of the Church. They rendered the sacred drama of mankind’s creation, fall, redemption, and final judgment unto hell or heaven: they rendered it in all its dogmatic symbolism, and with a plastic adequacy showing how completely they thought and felt in the allegorical medium in which they worked. They also created matchless ideals of symbolism in art. The statuary of the portals and façades of Rheims and Chartres are in their way comparable to the sculptures of the pediment of the Parthenon. But unlike those masterpieces of antique idealism, these Christian masterpieces do not seek to set forth mortal man in his natural strength and beauty and completeness. Rather they seek to show the working of the human spirit held within the power and grace of God. Theirs is not the strength and beauty of the flesh, or the excellence of the unconquerable mind of man; but in them man’s mind and spirit are palpably the devout creatures of God’s omnipotence, obedient to His will, sustained and redeemed by His power and grace. Attitude, form, feature, alike designed to express the sacred beauty of the soul, are not invested with physical excellence for its own sake; but every physical quality of these statues is a symbol of some holy and beautiful quality of spirit. These statues attain a symbolic, and not a natural, ideal in art. Yet many of them possess the physical beauty of form and feature, inasmuch as such may be the proper envelope for the chaste and eager soul.[96]

On the other hand, in the filling out of the illustrative detail of life on earth, of handicraft and art, the sculptor showed how he could carve these actualities, and present earth’s beauty in the cathedral’s wealth of vine and flower and leaf. The level commonplace of humanity is deftly rendered, the daily doings of the forge and field and market-place, the tugging labourer, the merchant with his stuffs, the scholar with his scrolls. He knew life well, this artist, and had an eye for every catching scene, also for Nature’s subtle beauties. Sometimes a certain passing show was represented because a window was given by some drapers’ guild, desirous of seeing its craft shown in a place of honour; and the artist loved his scenes from busy life, as he loved his ornament from Nature. Such scenes (which rarely held specific allegory) were not unconnected with the rest of the drama of creation and redemption mirrored in the cathedral, nor was the exquisitely cut leaf and rose without its suggestion of the grace incarnate in the Virgin and her Son. Daily life and natural ornament had at least an illustrative pertinency to the whole, of which they were unobtrusive and lovely elements; and since that whole was primarily a visible symbol of the unseen and divine power, these humble elements had part in its unutterable mystery, and were likewise symbols.

Finally, have not these nameless artists--even as Dante and our English Bunyan--presented by their art a synthesis of life’s realities? Their feet were on the earth; with sympathy and knowledge their hands worked in the media of things seen and handled, and fashioned the little human matters which are bounded by the cradle and the grave. Such were the materials from which Dante formed his _Commedia_, and Bunyan drew the Progress of his Pilgrim soul to God. Yet as with Bunyan and Dante, so with these artists in stone and coloured light, the mortal and the tangible were but the elements through which the poem or story, or the carved or painted picture, was made the realizing symbol of the unseen and eternal Spirit.

II

Beneath the Abbey Church of Saint-Victor there was a crypt consecrated to the Mother of God. Here a certain monk was wont to retire and compose hymns in her honour. One day his lips uttered the lines:

“Salve, mater pietatis, Et totius Trinitatis Nobile triclinium; Verbi tamen incarnati Speciale majestati Praeparans hospitium!”

Whereupon a flood of light filled the crypt, and the Virgin, appearing to him, inclined her head.

The monk’s name was Adam,[97] and he is deemed the best of Latin hymn-writers. Breton born, he entered Saint-Victor in his youth, about the year 1130. He was favoured with the instruction of Hugo till the master’s death in 1141. Adam must have been of nearly the same age as Richard of Saint-Victor, that other pupil of Hugo who makes the third member of the great Victorine trio. Their works have been the monastery’s fairest fame. Hugo was a Saxon; Adam a Breton; Richard was Scotch. So Saint-Victor drew her brilliant sons from many lands. Richard, whose writings worthily supplemented those of his master Hugo,[98] died in 1173; his friend Adam outlived him, and died an old man as the twelfth century was closing. He was buried in the cloister, and over him was placed an elegiac epitaph upon human vanity and sin, in part his own composition.

Adam’s hymns were Sequences[99] intended for church use. Their author was learned in Christian doctrine, skilled in the Liturgy, and saturated with the spirit of devotional symbolism. His symbolism, which his gift of verse made into imagery, was that of the mediaeval church and its understanding of the Liturgy; he also shows the special influence of Hugo. Adam’s hymns, with their powerful Latin rhymes, cannot be reproduced in English; but a translation may give the contents of their symbolism. The hymn for Easter, beginning “Zyma vetus expurgetur,”[100] is an epitome of the symbolic prefiguration of Christ in the Old Testament. Each familiar allegorical interpretation flashes in a phrase. Literally translated, or rather maltreated, it is as follows:

“Let the old leaven be purged away that a new resurrection may be celebrated purely. This is the day of our hope; wonderful is the power of this day by the testimony of the law.

“This day despoiled Egypt, and liberated the Hebrews from the fiery furnace; for them in wretched straits the work of servitude was mud and brick and straw.[101]

“Now as praise of divine virtue, of triumph, of salvation, let the voice break free! This is the day which the Lord made, the day ending our grief, the day bringing salvation.

“The Law is the shadow of things to come, Christ the goal of promises, who completes all. Christ’s blood blunts the sword the guardians removed.[102]

“The Boy, type of our laughter, in whose stead the ram was slain, seals life’s joy.[103] Joseph issues from the pit;[104] Christ returns above after death’s punishment.

“This serpent devours the serpents of Pharaoh secure from the serpent’s spite.[105] Whom the fire wounded, them the brazen serpent’s presence freed.[106]

“The hook and ring of Christ pierce the dragon’s jaw;[107] the sucking child puts his hand into the cockatrice’s den, and the old tenant of the world flees affrighted.[108]

“The mockers of Elisha ascending the house of God, feel the bald-head’s wrath;[109] David, feigning madness, the goat cast forth, and the sparrow escape.[110]

“With a jaw-bone Samson slays a thousand and spurns the marriage of his tribe. Samson bursts the bars of Gaza, and, carrying its gates, scales the mountain’s crest.[111]

“So the strong Lion of Judah, shattering the gates of dreadful death, rises the third day; at His father’s roaring voice, He carries aloft His spoils to the bosom of the supernal mother.[112]

“After three days the whale gives back from his belly’s narrow house Jonas the fugitive, type of the true Jonas. The grape of Cyprus[113] blooms again, opens and grows apace. The synagogue’s flower withers, while flourishes the Church.[114]

“Death and life fought together: truly Christ arose, and with Him many witnesses of glory. A new morn, a glad morn shall wipe away the tears of evening: life overcame destruction; it is a time of joy.

“Jesu victor, Jesu life, Jesu life’s beaten way, thou whose death quelled death, bid us to the paschal board in trust. O Bread of life, O living Wave, O true and fruitful Vine, do thou feed us, do thou cleanse us, that thy grace may save us from the second death. Amen.”

From the time of that old third-century hymn ascribed to Clement of Alexandria,[115] hymns to Christ had been filled with symbolism, the symbolism of loving personification of His attributes, as well as with the more formal symbolism of His Old Testament prefigurements. Adam’s symbolism is of both kinds. It has feeling even when dogmatic,[116] and throbs with devotion as its theme approaches the Gospel Christ. Prevailing modes of thought and feeling may prescribe topics for verse which a succeeding age will find curiously unpoetic. Yet if the later time have a sympathetic understanding for the past, it will recognize how fervid and how songful was that bygone verse--the verse of Adam’s hymns, for instance. In one for Christmas Day, beginning:

“Potestate, non natura, Fit Creator creatura,”[117]

a stanza touches on the reason why the Creator thus became creature. It would be impossible to render its feeling in English, and much circumlocution would be needed to express even its literal meaning in any language but mediaeval Latin. This stanza has twelve lines:

“Causam quaeris, modum rei: Causa prius omnes rei, Modus justum velle Dei, Sed conditum gratia.”

“Thou askest cause and _modus_ of the fact: the _causa rei_ was before all, the _modus_ was God’s righteous willing, but seasoned with grace.”

These lines are scholastic. In the next four, the feeling begins to rise, yet the phrases repel rather than attract us:

“O quam dulce condimentum Nobis mutans in pigmentum, Cum aceto fel cruentum Degustante Messya!”

“Oh! how sweet the condiment changing for us into juice, as the Messiah tastes the bloody gall and vinegar.”

The feeling touches its climax with the four concluding lines, in which the parable of the Good Samaritan is invested with the special allegorical significance set forth in the sermon of Honorius:[118]

“O salubre sacramentum, Quod nos ponit in jumentum Plagis nostris dans unguentum Ille de Samaria.”

“O health-giving sacrament which sets us on a beast, giving ointment for our stripes,--he of Samaria.”[119]

Two stanzas from another of Adam’s Christmas hymns will show how curiously intricate could be his symbolism. Having spoken of the ineffable wonder of the Incarnation, he proceeds:

“Frondem, florem, nucem sicca Virga profert, et pudica Virgo Dei Filium. Fert coelestem vellus rorem, Creatura creatorem, Creaturae pretium.

“Frondis, floris, nucis, roris Pietati Salvatoris Congruunt mysteria. Frons est Christus protegendo, Flos dulcore, nux pascendo, Ros coelesti gratia.”[120]

“A dry rod puts forth leafage, flower, nut,[121] and a chaste Virgin brings forth the Son of God. A fleece bears heavenly dew,[122] a creature the Creator, the creature’s price.

“The mysteries of leafage, flower, nut, dew are suited to the Saviour’s tender love (_pietas_). The foliage by its protecting is Christ, the flower is Christ by its sweetness, the nut as it yields food, the dew by its celestial grace.”

One observes that here the symbolism first touches Christ’s birth, the dry rod and the fleece representing the Virgin. Then the leafage, flower, nut and dew typify His qualities. The remaining stanzas of this hymn carry out in further detail the symbolism of the nut.

Besides the hymns devoted to the Saviour, the greater part of Adam’s hymns are symbolical throughout. Those written for the dedication of churches are among the most interesting. One beginning “Quam dilecta tabernacula”[123] sketches the Old Testament facts which prefigure Christ’s holy Church. The keynote is in the lines:

“Quam decora fundamenta Per concinna sacramenta Umbra praecurrentia!”

“How seemly the foundations through the appropriate sacraments, the forerunning shadow.”

The shadow is the Old Testament, and these three lines sum up the teaching of Hugo as to the sacramental nature of the Old Testament narratives. Throughout this hymn Adam follows Hugo closely.[124] In another dedicatory hymn[125] Adam gives the prefigurative meaning of the parts of Solomon’s temple. There is likewise much symbolism in the grand hymns addressed to the Virgin. One for the festival of the Assumption[126] gives the figures of the Virgin in the Old Testament--the throne of Solomon, the fleece of Gideon, the burning bush. Then with more feeling the metaphorical epithets pour forth, voicing the heart’s gratitude to the Virgin’s saving aid to man. A still more splendid example of like symbolism and ardent metaphor is the great hymn beginning:

“Salve mater Salvatoris, Vas electum, vas honoris,”

which won the Virgin’s greeting for the poet.[127]

The lives of Honorius, of Hugo, of Adam, from whose works we have been drawing illustrations of mediaeval symbolism, vie with each other in obscurity; and properly enough since they were monks, for whom self-effacement is becoming. This personal obscurity culminates with one last example to be drawn from monastic sources. The man himself was an impressive figure in his time; a sight of him was not to be forgotten: he was called _magnus_ and _doctor universalis_. Nevertheless it has been questioned whether he lived in the twelfth or the thirteenth century, and whether one man or two bore the name of Alanus de Insulis.

There was in fact but one, and he belongs to the twelfth century, dying almost a centenarian, in the year 1202. The cognomen _de Insulis_ has also been an enigma. From it he has been dubbed a Sicilian, and then a Scot, born on the island of Mona. But the name in reality refers to the chief town of Flanders, which is called Lisle; and Alanus doubtless was a Fleming.

He became a learned man, and lectured at Paris. That he was possessed with no small opinion of his talents would appear from the legend told of him as well as of St. Augustine. He had announced that on a certain day in a single lecture he would set forth the complete doctrine of the mystery of the most Holy Trinity. The afternoon before the day appointed, he walked by the river, thinking how he should arrange his subject so as to include it all. He chanced upon a child who was dipping up the river water with a snail shell and dropping it into a little trench. Smiling, he asked what should be the object of this; and the child told him that he was putting the whole river into his trench. As the great scholar was explaining that this could not be done, he suddenly felt himself chidden and taught--how much less might he perform what he had set for the next morning. He stood speechless at his presumption, and burst into tears. The next day ascending the platform he said to the crowd of auditors, “Let it suffice you to have seen Alanus”;[128] and with that he left them all astonished, and himself hastily set out for Citeaux. On arrival he asked to be admitted as a _conversus_, and was given charge of the monastery’s sheep. Patient and unknown, he long plied this humble vocation. But at length it chanced that the abbot took him to a council at Rome, in the capacity of hostler. And there he beat down the arrogance of a heretic with such arguments that the latter cried out that he was disputing either with the devil or Alanus, and would say no more.

Such is one story. By another he is made to seek the monastery of Clairvaux, and there become a monk under St. Bernard. It is also written that he became an abbot, and then a bishop, but afterwards resigned his bishopric. However all this may have been, he died and was buried, and was subjected to many epitaphs. On what purports to be an old copy of his tomb at Citeaux, he is shown with St. Bernard, and called Alanus Magnus. The title _Doctor universalis_ has always clung to his memory, which will not altogether fade. For if Adam of Saint-Victor was the greatest of Latin mediaeval hymn-writers, Alanus has good claim to be called the greatest of mediaeval Latin poets in the field of didactic and narrative poetry.[129]

The many works ascribed to Alanus include an allegorical Commentary on Canticles, a treatise on the art of preaching, a book of _sententiae_, another of _theologicae regulae_, sundry sermons, and a lengthy work “contra haereticos”; also a large dictionary of Biblical allegorical interpretations, entitled _Liber in distinctionibus dictionum theologicalium_.[130] All these are prose. He composed besides his _Liber de planctu naturae_,[131] and his _Anticlaudianus_, a learned and profound, and likewise highly imaginative allegorical poem upon man.[132] Its Preface in prose casts a curious light upon the author’s enigmatical personality, which combined the wonted or conventional humility of a monk with the towering self-consciousness of a man of genius.

“The lightning scorns to spend its force on twigs, but breaks the proud tops of exalted trees. The wind’s imperious rage passes over the reed and drives the assaults of its wild blasts against the highest summits. Wherefore let not envy’s flame strike the pinched humility of my work, nor detraction’s breath overwhelm the driven poverty of my little book, where misery’s wreck demands a port of pity, far more than felicity provokes the sting of spite.”

More sentences of turgid deprecation follow, and the author begs the reader not to approach his book with disgust and irritation, but with pleasant anticipations of novelty (not all a monk speaks here!).

“For although the book may not bloom with the purple vestment of flowering speech, nor shine with the constellated light of the flashing period, still in the tenuity of the fragile reed the honey’s sweetness may be found, and parched thirst can be tempered with the scant water of a rill. In this book let nothing be made vulgar (_plebescat_) with ribaldry, nor let anything be open to biting reproof, as if it smacked of the coarseness of the moderns [to whom does he refer?]; but let the flower of my talent be presented, and the dignity of diligence; for pigmy humility, thus raised upon a height, may overtop the giant. Let not those dare to tire of this work, who are squalling in the cradles of elementary instruction, sucking milk from nurses’ paps; nor let those seek to cry it down, who are pledged to the service of the higher learning; nor those presume to discredit it, who strike heaven from the top-notch of philosophy. For in this work, the sweetness of the literal meaning will tickle the puerile ear; moral teaching will instruct the more proficient understanding; and the finer subtilty of allegory will sharpen the finished intellect. Wherefore let all those be kept from ingress who, abandoned to the mirrors of the senses, are not charioteered by reason, and, pursuing the sense-image, have no appetite for reason’s truth,--lest indeed what is holy be defiled by dogs, and the pearl be trampled by the feet of swine. But such as will not suffer the things of reason to rest with the base images, and dare to lift their view to forms divine, may thread the narrow passes of my book, while they weigh with discretion’s scales what is suited to the common ear, and what should be buried in silence.”

This Preface of strained sentence and laboured metaphor, of forced humility and overweening self-consciousness, hardly augurs well for the poem of which it is the prelude. But prefaces are authors’ pitfalls, and, moreover, many writers have floundered in one medium of speech while in another they have moved with ease. From the ungainly prose of the _Persones Tale_, no one would expect the ease and force of Chaucer’s verse. And the reader of Alanus’s Preface need not be discouraged from entering upon his poem. Its subject is man; its philosophic or religious purpose is to expound the functions of God, of Nature, of Fortune, of Virtue and Vice, in making man and shaping his career. The poem is an allegory, original in its general scheme of composition, but in many of its parts following earlier allegorical writings.

The opening lines tell of Nature’s solicitude to bestow her gifts so that the finished work may present a fair harmony: as a patient workman she forges, trims and files, and fashions with reason’s chisel. But when she seeks to invest her work with qualities beyond her giving, she is obliged to call on the Celestial Council of her Sisters. Responding, pilgrim-like the Crown of Heaven’s soldiery comes from on high, brightens the earth with its light, and clothes the ground with blessed footprints.

Leading this galaxy, Concord advances, foster-child of Peace; then Plenty comes, and Favour, and Youth with favour anointed, and Laughter, banisher of mental mists; then Shame and Modesty, and Reason the measure of good, and Honesty, Reason’s happy comrade; then Dignity (_decus_) and Prudence balancing her scales, and Piety and true Faith, and Virtue. Last of all Nobility (_nobilitas_), in grace not quite the others’ equal.[133]

In the midst of a great wood blessed with fountains and multitudinous bird-song, a cloud-kissing mountain rose with level top. Nature’s palace was erected here, gemmed and golden; and within was a great hall hung upon bronze columns. Here the painter’s art had rendered the ways of men, and inscriptions made plain the pictured story. “O new wonders of painting,” exclaims the poet; “what cannot be, comes into being; and painting, the ape of truth, deluding with novel art, turns shadows to realities, and transforms particular falsehood into (general) truth.”[134] There might be seen the power of logic pressing its arguments and conquering sophistry. There Aristotle was preparing his arms, and, more divinely, Plato mused on heaven’s secrets. There Seneca moralized, and Ptolemy explained the stars in their times and courses. There spoke the word of Tully, while Virgil’s muse painted many lies, and put truth’s garb on falsehood. There was also shown the might of Alcides and Ulysses’ wisdom, Turnus’s valour prodigal of life, and Hippolytus’s shame, undone by Venus’s reins.[135] Such and many other tropes of things and dreams of truth, this royal art set forth.

Here, standing in the midst of her Council, Nature, with bowed head, spoke her solemn words: “Painfully I remake what my hand’s solicitude has wrought. But the hand’s penitence does not wipe out the flaws. The shortcomings of our works must be repaired by some perfect model, some man divine, not smelling of the earth and earthly, but whose mind shall hold to heaven while his body walks the earth. Let him be the mirror in which we may see what our faith, our potency, and virtue ought to be. As it is, our shame is over all the earth.”

When the Council had approved these words, Prudence arose in all her beauty.[136] She discoursed upon man’s dual nature, spirit and body. Nature and her helpers may be the artificers of his mortal body, but the soul demands its heavenly Artificer, and laughs at our rude arts. God’s wisdom alone can create the soul, as Prudence shows by an exposition of its qualities.

Now Reason raised his reverend form, holding his triple glass in which appear the causes and effects and qualities of things. He humbly disclaimed the power to instruct Minerva,[137] and applauded the plan by which a new Lucifer should sojourn in the world. May he unite all the gifts which they can bestow, and be their champion against the Vices. Now let their suppliant vows be sped to Him who alone can create the divine mind. A legate should be despatched above, bearing their request. For this office none is so fit as Prudence, to whom the secrets of Heaven are known, and whose energy and wisdom will surmount the difficulties of the way.

Prudence at first refuses; but Concordia rises, the inspirer of chaste loves, she who knit the souls of David and Jonathan, Pirithous and Theseus, Nisus and Euryalus, Orestes and Pylades. Persuasively she speaks, and points out all the ills the world had suffered by disobedience to her behests. Prudence is won over to the task, and now wills only as her sisters will. She thinks upon the means and way. Wisdom orders a chariot to be made, in which the sea, the stars, the heavens may be traversed. Its artificers are her seven daughters, wise and fair, who unite the skill and knowledge of all those wise ancients who had excelled in any Art. First Grammar (her functions and great writers being told) forms the pole which goes before the axle-tree (_temo praeambulus axis_). Then Logic makes the axle-tree; and Rhetoric adorns the pole with gems and the axle with flowers. Arithmetic constructs one wheel of the chariot, and Music the second, Geometry the third, and the fourth wheel is made by Astronomy.[138]

Now Reason, at Nature’s nod, yokes to the chariot the five horses, to wit, the Senses disciplined and controlled, Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and Touch. He himself mounts as charioteer, and bids Prudence follow. Amid the farewells and plaudits of all, the chariot soars aloft. As it speeds along, Prudence investigates atmospheric phenomena, and then the spirits of evil who wander through the air. They passed on through the upper ether, reached the citadel and fount of light, where the Sun holds sway; next was reached the region where Venus and the star of Mercury sing together and Lucifer exults, the herald of the day. Then to their rapid flight appeared Mars’ flaming palace, seething with fire and wrath. Onward they passed to the glad light and unhurtful flames of Jupiter, and then to Saturn’s sphere. At length they ascended the stellar region where the Pole stars contend in brightness, where are seen Hercules and Orion, Leda’s twins, the fiery Crab, the Lion, and the rest of the Zodiac’s constellations.[139]

Here at heaven’s entrance the chariot halted. Those five horses of the Senses, charioteered by Reason, could ascend no farther. But a damsel was seen, seated upon the summit of the Pole. She scrutinizes the hidden Cause and End of all things, holding scales in her right hand and in her left a sceptre. On her vestments a subtile point traces God’s secrets, and the formless is figured in form. Reverently Phronesis, that is Prudence, saluted this Queen of the Pole, and set forth the purpose of her journey, telling of Nature’s desire and her limitations. In reply Theology, for it is she,[140] offered herself as a companion, and bade Prudence leave her chariot, but keep the second courser (Hearing) to bear her on. Prudence now surmounted the starry citadels, and marvelled at heaven’s nodes, where the four ways begin and the crystalline waters flow, shot with agreeing fires; for here, in universal harmony transcending Nature’s laws and Reason’s power, Concord unites those elements which war below. Onward leads the way among those joys celestial which know no tears, where there is peace without hate, and light above all brightness. Here dwell the angel bands, the Thunderer’s princes, regulators of the world; here glow the seraphim, and cherubim drain draughts from the mind of God; and here are the Thrones whereon God balances His weighed decrees, and with His band of Powers conquers the tyrants.[141] Here also rest the saints, freed from earth’s dross and passion, clothed in virgin white or martyr’s purple, or wearing the Doctor’s laurel. Joyful alike are they, yet diverse in merit, shining with unequal splendour.[142] Here finally, in honour surpassing all, is the Virgin Mother, clad in the garb of our salvation--Star of the Sea, Way of Life, Port of Salvation, Limit of Piety, Mother of Pity, Garden closed, Sealed Font, Fruitful Olive, Sweet Paradise, Rose without Thorn, Guiltless Grace, Way of the Wanderer, Light of the Blind, Rest of the Tired--untold, unnumbered, and unspeakable are her praises.[143]

Phronesis cannot bear the sight. Queen Theology calls to her sister Faith to aid the fainting one. Faith comes and holds her Mirror before the eyes of Phronesis; and in this glass her eyes can endure the shaded glory of the overpowering vision. She staggers on, her trembling steps supported by Faith and Theology. In the glass she sees the eternal and divine, the enduring, moveless, sure; species unborn, celestial ideas, the forms of men and principles of things, causes of causes and the course of fate, the Thunderer’s mind; why God condemns some, predestines others, prepares that one for life and from this one withdraws His rewards; why poverty presses upon some and want is filled only with tears; why riches pour on others, why one is wise, another lacking, and why the worthies of the past have been endowed each with his several gifts.[144]

Marvelling at all these sights, Prudence, supported by the sisters, reached at last the palace of the King, and fell prostrate before God himself. He bade her rise, and speak. Humbly she set forth Nature’s plight and the evil upon earth, and presented her petition. God accedes benignantly. He will not destroy the earth again, but will send a human spirit endowed with heavenly gifts, a pilgrim to the earth, a medicine for the world. Prudence worships. God summons Mind, and orders him to fashion the type-form, the idea of the human mind. Mind searches among existing beings for the traces of this new _idea_ or type.[145] His difficult search succeeds at last, and in the Mirror which he constructs, every grace takes its abode: Joseph’s form, the intelligence of Judith, the patience of righteous Job, the modesty of Moses, Jacob’s simplicity, Abraham’s faith, Tobias’s piety. He presents this pattern-type to God, who sets an accordant soul therein, and then entrusts the new-made being to Phronesis, while Mind anoints it with an unguent against the attacks of the Vices. Phronesis, with her prize, turned to the way by which she had ascended, regained her chariot and Reason her charioteer. Together they sped back to the congratulations of Nature and her Council.

For this perfect soul Nature now forms a beautiful body. Concord unites the two, and a new man is formed, perfect and free from flaw. Chastity and guardian Modesty endow him with their gifts; Reason adds his, and Honesty. These Logic follows, with her gift of skill in argument; Rhetoric brings her stores, then Arithmetic, next Music, next Geometry, next Astronomy;[146] while Theology and Piety are not behind with theirs; and to these Faith joins her gifts of fidelity and truth. Last of all comes Nobility, Fortune’s daughter. But because she has nothing of her own to give, and must receive all from her mother, she betakes herself to Fortune’s house of splendid mutability. What will Fortune give? The two return to Nature’s palace, and Fortune’s magnificence is proffered by her daughter; but Reason, standing by, will allow only a measured acceptance.[147]

The report of this richly endowed creature reached Alecto. Raging she summoned her pests, the chiefs of Tartarus, doers of ill, masters of every sin--Injury, Fraud, Perjury, Theft, Rapine, Fury and Anger, Hate, Discord, Strife, Disease and Melancholy, Lust, Wantonness and Need, Fear and Old Age. She roused them with a harangue: their rule is threatened by this upstart Creature, whom Parent Nature has prepared for war; but what can his untried imbecility do against them in arms?

All clamour assent, and in a tumult of rage make ready for the strife. The hostile ranks approach. The first attack is made by Folly (_Stultitia_) and her comrades, Sloth, Gaming, Idle Jesting, Ease and Sleep. But faithful Virtues protect the constant youth against these foes. Next Discord leads its mutinous band, but only to defeat. Onslaughts follow from Poverty, next from Ill-Repute, from Old Age and Disease. Then Grieving advances, and is overthrown by Laughter. More deadly still are the attacks of Venus and Lust; then Excess and Wantonness take up the fray; and at the end Impiety and Fraud and Avarice. But still the man conquers with the aid of his Virtues ever true.

The fight is over. The Virtues triumph and receive their Kingdoms; Vice succumbs; Love reigns instead of Discord; the man is blessed; and the earth, adorned with flowers in a new spring of youth, brings forth abundance. The Poet sums up his poem’s teaching: From God must everything begin and in Him end. But our genius may not stand inert; ours is the strife as well, according to our strength and faculty. Let the mind attach itself to the things which are and do not pass, even as Plato sings, from things of sense reaching on ever to the grades Angelic and Olympus’s steeps. Then it shall behold the universal praise of God and the true ascription of all good to Him. He in himself is perfect, Part and likewise Whole, and everywhere uncircumscribed. Nothing has power in itself, but all would fall to nothing, did He close the flux of hidden power.

Alanus, a good Christian Doctor, is also an eclectic in his thought. A consistent system is hardly to be drawn from his poem. It suggests Christ. But its hero is not the God-man of the Incarnation. Its figures are semi-pagan. The virtue Faith, for example, is the Fides, the Good Faith, of the antique Roman, though it is the Christian virtue Faith as well. In language the poem is antique; its verse has vigorous flow; its imagery lacks neither beauty nor sublimity. It is in fact a poem, a creation, having a scheme and unity of its own, although the author borrows continually. Martianus Capella is there and Dionysius the Areopagite; there also is the _Psychomachia_ of Prudentius and its progeny of symbolic battles between the Virtues and the Vices.[148] Yet Alanus has achieved; for he has woven his material into a real poem and has reared his own lofty allegory. His work is another grand example of mediaeval symbolism.

Thus we see the ceaseless sweep of allegory through men’s minds. They felt and thought and dreamed in allegories; and also spent their dry ingenuity on allegorical constructions. It was reserved for one supreme poet to create, out of this atmosphere, a supreme poem which is as complete an allegory as the _Anticlaudianus_. But the _Divina Commedia_ has also the power of its human realities of actually experienced pain and joy, and hate and love. Compared with it, the _Anticlaudianus_ betrays the vapourings of monk and doctor, imaginative indeed, but thin. The author’s feet were not planted on the earth of human life.

But the Middle Ages did not demand that allegory should have its feet planted on the earth, so long as its head nodded high among the clouds--or its sentiments wandered sweetly in fancy’s gardens. In one of these dwelt that lovely Rose, whose _Roman_ once had vogue. In structure the _Roman de la rose_ is an allegory from the beginning of the first part by De Lorris to the very end of that encyclopaedic sequel added by De Meun. The story is well known.[149] One may recall the fact that in De Lorris’s poem and De Meun’s sequel every quality and circumstance of Love’s sentiment and fortunes are figured in allegorical personifications--all the lover’s hopes and fears and the wavering chances of his quest.

In this respect the poem is the courtly and romantic counterpart of such a philosophical or religious allegory as the _Anticlaudianus_. Personifications of the arts and sciences, the vices and virtues, current since the time of Prudentius’s _Psychomachia_ and Capella’s _Nuptials of Philology_, were all in the _Anticlaudianus_, while in the _Roman de la rose_ figure their secular and romantic kin: in De Lorris’s part, Love, Fair-Welcome, Danger, Reason, Franchise, Pity, Courtesy, Shame, Fear, Idleness, Jealousy, Wicked-Tongue; then, with De Meun, others besides: Richesse, False-Seeming, Hypocrisy, Nature, and Genius.[150] The figures of the _Roman de la rose_ have diverse antecedents scattered through the entire store of knowledge and classic literature possessed by the Middle Ages; perhaps their immediate source of inspiration was the scheme of courtly love which the mediaeval imagination elaborated and revelled in.[151] The poem of De Lorris was a veritable romantic allegory. De Meun, in his sequel, rather plays with the allegorical form, which he continues; it has become a frame for his stores of learning, his knowledge of the world, his views of life, his wit and satire, and his great literary and poetic gifts. Yet it ends in a regular _Psychomachia_, in which Love’s barons are hard beset by all the foes of Love’s delight, though Love has its will at last.