CHAPTER V.

Saules cam so thyk now late unto helle,As everOure porter at helle gateIs halden so strate,Up erly and downe late,He rystys never.—Ib., p. 314.

Saules cam so thyk now late unto helle,

As ever

Oure porter at helle gate

Is halden so strate,

Up erly and downe late,

He rystys never.—Ib., p. 314.

With such popular notions on the subject, we have no reason to be surprised that the artists of the middle ages frequently chose the figures of demons as objects on which to exercise their skill in burlesque and caricature, that they often introduced grotesque figures of their heads and bodies in the sculptured ornamentation of building, and that they presented them in ludicrous situations and attitudes in their pictures. They are often brought in as secondary actors in a picture in a very singular manner, of which an excellent example is furnished by the beautifully illuminated manuscript known as “Queen Mary’s Psalter,” which is copied in our cut No. 43. Nothing is more certain than that in this instance the intention of the artist was perfectly serious. Eve, under the influence of a rather singularly formed serpent, having the head of a beautiful woman and the body of a dragon, is plucking the apples and offering them to Adam, who is preparing to eat one, with evident hesitation and reluctance. But three demons, downright hobgoblins, appear as secondary actors in the scene, who exercise an influence upon the principals. One is patting Eve onthe shoulder, with an air of approval and encouragement, while a second, with wings, is urging on Adam, and apparently laughing at his apprehensions; and a third, in a very ludicrous manner, is preventing him from drawing back from the trial.

No. 43. The Fall of Man.

In all the delineations of demons we have yet seen, the ludicrous is the spirit which chiefly predominates, and in no one instance have we had a figure which is really demoniacal. The devils are droll but not frightful; they provoke laughter, or at least excite a smile, but they create no horror. Indeed, they torment their victims so good-humouredly, that we hardly feel for them. There is, however, one well-known instance in which the mediæval artist has shown himself fully successful in representing the features of the spirit of evil. On the parapet of the external gallery of the cathedral church of Notre Dame in Paris, there is a figure in stone, of the ordinary stature of a man, representing the demon, apparently looking with satisfaction upon the inhabitants of the city as they were everywhere indulging in sin and wickedness. We give a sketch of this figure in our cut No. 44. The unmixed evil—horrible inits expression in this countenance—is marvellously portrayed. It is an absolute Mephistophiles, carrying in his features a strange mixture of hateful qualities—malice, pride, envy—in fact, all the deadly sins combined in one diabolical whole.

No. 44. The Spirit of Evil.

EMPLOYMENT OF ANIMALS IN MEDIÆVAL SATIRE.—POPULARITY OF FABLES; ODO DE CIRINGTON.—REYNARD THE FOX.—BURNELLUS AND FAUVEL.—THE CHARIVARI.—LE MONDE BESTORNÉ.—ENCAUSTIC TILES.—SHOEING THE GOOSE, AND FEEDING PIGS WITH ROSES.—SATIRICAL SIGNS; THE MUSTARD MAKER.

The people of the middle ages appear to have been great admirers of animals, to have observed closely their various characters and peculiarities, and to have been fond of domesticating them. They soon began to employ their peculiarities as means of satirising and caricaturing mankind; and among the literature bequeathed to them by the Romans, they received no book more eagerly than the “Fables of Æsop,” and the other collections of fables which were published under the empire. We find no traces of fables among the original literature of the German race; but the tribes who took possession of the Roman provinces no sooner became acquainted with the fables of the ancients, than they began to imitate them, and stories in which animals acted the part of men were multiplied immensely, and became a very important branch of mediæval fiction.

Among the Teutonic peoples especially, these fables often assumed very grotesque forms, and the satire they convey is very amusing. One of the earliest of these collections of original fables was composed by an English ecclesiastic named Odo de Cirington, who lived in the time of Henry II. and Richard I. In Odo’s fables, we find the animals figuring under the same popular names by which they were afterwards so well known, such as Reynard for the Fox, Isengrin for the wolf, Teburg for the cat, and the like. Thus the subject of one of them is “Isengrin made Monk” (de Isengrino monacho). “Once,” we are told, “Isengrin desired to be a monk. By dint of fervent supplications, he obtained the consent of thechapter, and received the tonsure, the cowl, and the other insignia of monachism. At length they put him to school, and he was to learn the ‘Paternoster,’ but he always replied, ‘lamb’ (agnus) or ‘ram’ (aries). The monks taught him that he ought to look upon the crucifix and upon the sacrament, but he ever directed his eyes to the lambs and rams.” The fable is droll enough, but the moral, or application is still more grotesque. “Such is the conduct of many of the monks, whose only cry is ‘aries,’ that is, good wine, and who have their eyes always fixed on fat flesh and their platter;” whence the saying in English—

They thou the vulf horehod to preste,they thou him to skole settesalmes to lerne,hevere bet hise geresto the grove greneThough thou the hoary wolfconsecrate to a priest,though thou put him to schoolto learn Psalms,ever are his ears turnedto the green grove.

They thou the vulf horehod to preste,they thou him to skole settesalmes to lerne,hevere bet hise geresto the grove grene

They thou the vulf hore

hod to preste,

they thou him to skole sette

salmes to lerne,

hevere bet hise geres

to the grove grene

Though thou the hoary wolfconsecrate to a priest,though thou put him to schoolto learn Psalms,ever are his ears turnedto the green grove.

Though thou the hoary wolf

consecrate to a priest,

though thou put him to school

to learn Psalms,

ever are his ears turned

to the green grove.

No. 45. The Fox in the Pulpit.

These lines are in the alliterative verse of the Anglo-Saxons, and show that such fables had already found their place in the popular poetry of the English people. Another of these fables is entitled “Of the Beetle (serabo) and his Wife.” “A beetle, flying through the land, passed among most beautiful blooming trees, through orchards and among roses and lilies, in the most lovely places, and at length threw himself upon a dunghill among the dung of horses, and found there his wife, who asked him whence he came. And the beetle said, ‘I have flown all round the earth and through it; I have seen the flowers of almonds, and lilies, and roses, but I have seen no place so pleasant as this,’ pointing to the dunghill.” The application is equally droll with the former and equally uncomplimentary to the religious part of the community. Odo de Cirington tells us that, “Thus many of the clergy, monks, and laymen listen to the lives of the fathers, pass among the lilies of the virgins, among the roses of the martyrs, and among the violets of the confessors, yet nothing ever appears so pleasant and agreeable as a strumpet, or the tavern, or a singing party, though it is but a stinking dunghill and congregation of sinners.”

No. 46. Ecclesiastical Sincerity.

No. 47. Reynard turned Monk.

Popular sculpture and painting were but the translation of popular literature, and nothing was more common to represent, in pictures andcarvings, than individual men under the forms of the animals who displayed similar characters or similar propensities. Cunning, treachery, and intrigue were the prevailing vices of the middle ages, and they were those also of the fox, who hence became a favourite character in satire. The victory of craft over force always provoked mirth. The fabulists, or, we should perhaps rather say, the satirists, soon began to extend their canvas and enlarge their picture, and, instead of single examples of fraud or injustice, they introduced a variety of characters, not only foxes, but wolves, and sheep, and bears, with birds also, as the eagle, the cock, and the crow, and mixed them up together in long narratives, which thus formed general satires on the vices of contemporary society. In this manner originated the celebrated romance of “Reynard the Fox,” which in various forms, from the twelfth century to the eighteenth, has enjoyed a popularity which was granted probably to no other book. The plot of this remarkable satire turns chiefly on the long struggle between the brute force of Isengrin the Wolf, possessed only with a small amount of intelligence, which is easily deceived—under which character is presented the powerful feudal baron—and the craftiness of Reynard the Fox, who represents the intelligent portion of society, which had to hold its ground by its wits, and these were continually abused to evil purposes. Reynard is swayed by a constant impulse to deceive and victimise everybody, whether friends or enemies, but especially his uncle Isengrin. It was somewhat the relationship between the ecclesiastical and baronial aristocracy. Reynard was educated in the schools, and intended for the clerical order; and at different times he is represented as acting under the disguise of a priest, of a monk, of a pilgrim, or even of a prelate of the church. Though frequently reduced to the greatest straits by the power of Isengrin, Reynard has generally the better of it in the end: he robs and defrauds Isengrin continually, outrages his wife, who is half in alliance with him, and draws him into all sorts of dangers and sufferings, for which the latter never succeeds in obtaining justice. The old sculptors and artists appear to have preferred exhibiting Reynard in his ecclesiastical disguises, and in these he appears often in the ornamentation of mediæval architectural sculpture, in wood-carvings, inthe illuminations of manuscripts, and in other objects of art. The popular feeling against the clergy was strong in the middle ages, and no caricature was received with more favour than those which exposed the immorality or dishonesty of a monk or a priest. Our cut No. 45 is taken from a sculpture in the church of Christchurch, in Hampshire, for the drawing of which I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt. It represents Reynard in the pulpit preaching; behind, or rather perhaps beside him, a diminutive cock stands upon a stool—in modern times we should be inclined to say he was acting as clerk. Reynard’s costume consists merely of the ecclesiastical hood or cowl. Such subjects are frequently found on the carved seats, or misereres, in the stalls of the old cathedrals and collegiate churches. The painted glass of the great window of the north cross-aisle of St. Martin’s church in Leicester, which was destroyed in the last century, represented the fox, in the character of an ecclesiastic, preaching to a congregation of geese, and addressing them in the words—Testis est mihi Deus, quam cupiam vos omnes visceribus meis(God is witness, how I desire you all in my bowels), a parody on the words of the New Testament.[25]Our cut No. 46 is taken from one of the misereres in the church of St. Mary, at Beverley, in Yorkshire. Two foxes are represented in the disguise of ecclesiastics, each furnished with a pastoral staff, and they appear to be receiving instructions from a prelate or personage of rank—perhaps they are undertaking a pilgrimage of penance. But their sincerity is rendered somewhat doubtful by the geese concealed in theirhoods. In one of the incidents of the romance of Reynard, the hero enters a monastery and becomes a monk, in order to escape the wrath of King Noble, the lion. For some time he made an outward show of sanctity and self-privation, but unknown to his brethren he secretly helped himself freely to the good things of the monastery. One day he observed, with longing lips, a messenger who brought four fat capons as a present from a lay neighbour to the abbot. That night, when all the monks had retired to rest, Reynard obtained admission to the larder, regaled himself with one of the capons, and as soon as he had eaten it, trussed the three others on his back, escaped secretly from the abbey, and, throwing away his monastic garment, hurried home with his prey. We might almost imagine our cut No. 47, taken from one of the stalls of the church of Nantwich, in Cheshire, to have been intended to represent this incident, or, at least, a similar one. Our next cut, No. 48,is taken from a stall in the church of Boston, in Lincolnshire. A prelate, equally false, is seated in his chair, with a mitre on his head, and the pastoral staff in his right hand. His flock are represented by a cock and hens, the former of which he holds securely with his right hand, while he appears to be preaching to them.

No. 48. The Prelate and his Flock.

Another mediæval sculpture has furnished events for a rather curious history, at the same time that it is a good illustration of our subject. Odo de Cirington, the fabulist, tells us how, one day, the wolf died, and the lion called the animals together to celebrate his exequies. The hare carried the holy water, hedgehogs bore the candles, the goats rang the bells, the moles dug the grave, the foxes carried the corpse on the bier. Berengarius, the bear, celebrated mass, the ox read the gospel, and the ass the epistle. When the mass was concluded, and Isengrin buried, the animals made a splendid feast out of his goods, and wished for such another funeral. Our satirical ecclesiastic makes an application of this story which tells little to the credit of the monks of his time. “So it frequently happens,” he says, “that when some rich man, an extortionist or a usurer, dies, the abbot or prior of a convent of beasts,i.e.of men living like beasts, causes them to assemble. For it commonly happens that in a great convent of black or white monks (Benedictines orAugustinians) there are none but beasts—lions by their pride, foxes by their craftiness, bears by their voracity, stinking goats by their incontinence, asses by their sluggishness, hedgehogs by their asperity, hares by their timidity, because they were cowardly where there was no fear, and oxen by their laborious cultivation of their land.”[26]

No. 49. The Funeral of the Fox.

A scene closely resembling that here described by Odo, differing only in the distribution of the characters, was translated from some such written story into the pictorial language of the ancient sculptured ornamentation of Strasburg Cathedral, where it formed, apparently, two sides of the capital or entablature of a column near the chancel. The deceased in this picture appears to be a fox, which was probably the animal intended to be represented in the original, although, in the copy of it preserved, it looks more like a squirrel. The bier is carried by the goat and the boar, while a little dog underneath is taking liberties with the tail of the latter. Immediately before the bier, the hare carries the lighted taper, preceded by the wolf, who carries the cross, and the bear, who holds in one hand the holy-water vessel and in the other the aspersoir. This forms the first division of the subject, and is represented in our cut No. 49. In thenext division (cut No. 50), the stag is represented celebrating mass, and the ass reads the Gospel from a book which the cat supports with its head.

No. 50. The Mass for the Fox.

This curious sculpture is said to have been of the thirteenth century. In the fifteenth century it attracted the attention of the reformers, who looked upon it as an ancient protest against the corruptions of the mass, and one of the more distinguished of them, John Fischart, had it copied and engraved on wood, and published it about the year 1580, with some verses of his own, in which it was interpreted as a satire upon the papacy. This publication gave such dire offence to the ecclesiastical authorities of Strasburg, that the Lutheran bookseller who had ventured to publish it, was compelled to make a public apology in the church, and the wood-engraving and all the impressions were seized and burnt by the common hangman. A few years later, however, in 1608, another engraving was made, and published in a large folio with Fischart’s verses; and it is from the diminished copy of this second edition—given in Flögel’s“Geschichte des Komisches Literatur”—that our cuts are taken. The original Sculpture was still more unfortunate. Its publication and explanation by Fischart was the cause of no little scandal among the Catholics, who tried to retort upon their opponents by asserting that the figures in this funeral celebration were intended to represent the ignorance of the Protestant preachers; and the sculpture in the church continued to be regarded by the ecclesiastical authorities with dissatisfaction until the year 1685,when, to take away all further ground of scandal, it was entirely defaced.

No. 51. The Fox Provided.

Reynard’s mediæval celebrity dates certainly from a rather early period. Montflaucon has given an alphabet of ornamental initial letters, formed chiefly of figures of men and animals, from a manuscript which he ascribes to the ninth century, among which is the one copied in our cut No. 51, representing a fox walking upon his hind legs, and carrying two small cocks, suspended at the ends of a cross staff. It is hardly necessary to say that this group forms the letter T. Long before this, the Frankish historian Fredegarius, who wrote about the middle of the seventh century, introduces a fable in which the fox figures at the court of the lion. The same fable is repeated by a monkish writer of Bavaria, named Fromond, who flourished in the tenth century, and by another named Aimoinus, who lived about the year 1,000. At length, in the twelfth century, Guibert de Nogent, who died about the year 1124, and who has left us his autobiography (de Vita sua), relates an anecdote in that work, in explanation of which he tells us that the wolf was then popularly designated by the name of Isengrin; and in the fables of Odo, as we have already seen, this name is commonly given to the wolf, Reynard to the fox, Teburg to the cat, and so on with the others. This only shows that in the fables of the twelfth century the various animals were known by these names, but it does not prove that what we know as the romance of Reynard existed. Jacob Grimm argued from the derivation and forms of these names, that the fables themselves, and the romance, originated with the Teutonic peoples, and were indigenous to them; but his reasons appear to me to be more specious than conclusive, and I certainly lean to the opinion of my friend Paulin Paris, that the romance of Reynard was native of France,[27]and that it was partly founded upon old Latin legendsperhaps poems. Its character is altogether feudal, and it is strictly a picture of society, in France primarily, and secondly in England and the other nations of feudalism, in the twelfth century. The earliest form in which this romance is known is in the French poem—or rather poems, for it consists of several branches or continuations—and is supposed to date from about the middle of the twelfth century. It soon became so popular, that it appeared in different forms in all the languages of Western Europe, except in England, where there appears to have existed no edition of the romance of Reynard the Fox until Caxton printed his prose English version of the story. From that time it became, if possible, more popular in England than elsewhere, and that popularity had hardly diminished down to the commencement of the present century.

The popularity of the story of Reynard caused it to be imitated in a variety of shapes, and this form of satire, in which animals acted the part of men, became altogether popular. In the latter part of the twelfth century, an Anglo-Latin poet, named Nigellus Wireker, composed a very severe satire in elegiac verse, under the title ofSpeculum Stultorum, the “Mirror of Fools.” It is not a wise animal like the fox, but a simple animal, the ass, who, under the name of Brunellus, passes among the various ranks and classes of society, and notes their crimes and vices. A prose introduction to this poem informs us that its hero is the representative of the monks in general, who were always longing for some new acquisition which was inconsistent with their profession. In fact, Brunellus is absorbed with the notion that his tail was too short, and his great ambition is to get it lengthened. For this purpose he consults a physician, who, after representing to him in vain the folly of his pursuit, gives him a receipt to make his tail grow longer, and sends him to the celebrated medical school of Salerno to obtain the ingredients. After various adventures, in the course of which he loses a part of his tail instead of its being lengthened, Brunellus proceeds to the University of Paris to studyand obtain knowledge; and we are treated with a most amusingly satirical account of the condition and manners of the scholars of that time. Soon convinced of his incapacity for learning, Brunellus abandons the university in despair, and he resolves to enter one of the monastic orders, the character of all which he passes in review. The greater part of the poem consists of a very bitter satire on the corruptions of the monkish orders and of the Church in general. While still hesitating which order to choose, Brunellus falls into the hands of his old master, from whom he had run away in order to seek his fortune in the world, and he is compelled to pass the rest of his days in the same humble and servile condition in which he had begun them.

A more direct imitation of “Reynard the Fox” is found in the early French romance of “Fauvel,” the hero of which is neither a fox nor an ass, but a horse. People of all ranks and classes repair to the court of Fauvel, the horse, and furnish abundant matter for satire on the moral, political, and religious hypocrisy which pervaded the whole frame of society. At length the hero resolves to marry, and, in a finely illuminated manuscript of this romance, preserved in the Imperial Library in Paris, this marriage furnishes the subject of a picture, which gives the only representation I have met with of one of the popular burlesque ceremonies which were so common in the middle ages.

No. 52. A Mediæval Charivari.

Among other such ceremonies, it was customary with the populace, on the occasion of a man’s or woman’s second marriage, or an ill-sorted match, or on the espousals of people who were obnoxious to their neighbours, to assemble outside the house, and greet them with discordant music. This custom is said to have been practised especially in France, and it was called acharivari. There is still a last remnant of it in our country in the music of marrow-bones and cleavers, with which the marriages of butchers are popularly celebrated; but the derivation of the French name appears not to be known. It occurs in old Latin documents, for it gave rise to such scandalous scenes of riot and licentiousness, that the Church did all it could, though in vain, to suppress it. The earliest mention of this custom, furnished in theGlossariumof Ducange, is contained in the synodal statutes of the church of Avignon, passed in theyear 1337, from which we learn that when such marriages occurred, people forced their way into the houses of the married couple, and carried away their goods, which they were obliged to pay a ransom for before they were returned, and the money thus raised was spent in getting up what is called in the statute relating to it aChalvaricum. It appears from this statute, that the individuals who performed thecharivariaccompanied the happy couple to the church, and returned with them to their residence, with coarse and indecent gestures and discordant music, and uttering scurrilous and indecent abuse, and that they ended with feasting. In the statutes of Meaux, in 1365, and in those of Hugh, bishop of Beziers, in 1368, the same practice is forbidden, under the name ofCharavallium; and it is mentioned in a document of the year 1372, also quoted by Ducange, under that ofCarivarium, as then existing at Nîmes. Again, in 1445, the Council of Tours made a decree, forbidding, under pain of excommunication, “the insolences, clamours, sounds, and other tumults practised at second and third nuptials, called by the vulgar aCharivarium, on account of the many and grave evils arising out of them.”[28]It will be observed that these early allusions to thecharivariare found almost solely in documents coming from the Roman towns in the south of France, so that this practice was probably one of the many popular customs derived directly from the Romans. When Cotgrave’s “Dictionary” was published (that is, in 1632) the practice of thecharivariappears to have become more general in its existence, as well as its application; for he describes it as “a public defamation, or traducing of; a foule noise made, blacke santus rung, to the shame and disgrace of another; hence an infamous (or infaming) ballad sung, by an armed troupe, under the window of an old dotard, married the day before unto a yong wanton, in mockerie of them both.” And, again, acharivaris depoellesis explained as “the carting of an infamous person, graced with the harmonie of tinging kettles and frying-pan musicke.”[29]The word is now generally used in the sense of a great tumult of discordant music, produced often by a number of persons playing different tunes on different instruments at the same time.

No. 53. Continuation of the Charivari.

As I have stated above, the manuscript of the romance of “Fauvel” is in the Imperial Library in Paris. A copy of this illumination is engraved in Jaime’s “Musée de la Caricature,” from which our cuts Nos. 52 and 53 are taken. It is divided into three compartments, one above another, in the uppermost of which Fauvel is seen entering the nuptial chamber to his young wife, who is already in bed. The scene in the compartment below, which is copied in our cut No. 52, represents the street outside, and the mock revellers performing thecharivari; and this is continued in the third, or lowest, compartment, which is represented in our cut No. 53. Down each side of the original illumination is a frame-work of windows, from which people, who have been disturbed by the noise, are looking out upon the tumult. It will be seen that all the performers wear masks, and that they are dressed in burlesque costume. In confirmation of the statement of the ecclesiastical synods as to the licentiousness of these exhibitions, we see one of the performers here disguised as a woman, who lifts up his dress to expose his person while dancing. The musical instruments are no less grotesque than the costumes, for they consist chiefly of kitchen utensils, such as frying-pans, mortars, saucepans, and the like.

No. 54. The Tables Turned.

There was another series of subjects in which animals were introduced as the instruments of satire. This satire consisted in reverting the position of man with regard to the animals over which he had been accustomed to tyrannise, so that he was subjected to the same treatment from the animals which, in his actual position, he uses towards them. This change of relative position was called in old French and Anglo-Norman,le monde bestorné, which was equivalent to the English phrase, “the world turned upside down.” It forms the subject of rather old verses, I believe,both in French and English, and individual scenes from it are met with in pictorial representation at a rather early date. During the year 1862, in the course of accidental excavations on the site of the Friary, at Derby, a number of encaustic tiles, such as were used for the floors of the interiors of churches and large buildings, were found.[30]The ornamentation of these tiles, especially of the earlier ones, is, like all mediæval ornamentations, extremely varied, and even these tiles sometimes present subjects of a burlesque and satirical character, though they are more frequently adorned with the arms and badges of benefactors to the church or convent. The tiles found on the site of the priory at Derby are believed to be of the thirteenth century, and one pattern, a diminished copy of which is given in our cut No. 54, presents a subjecttaken from themonde bestorné. The hare, master of his old enemy, the dog, has become hunter himself, and seated upon the dog’s back he rides vigorously to the chace, blowing his horn as he goes. The design is spiritedly executed, and its satirical intention is shown by the monstrous and mirthful face, with the tongue lolling out, figured on the outer corner of the tile. It will be seen that four of these tiles are intended to be joined together to make the complete piece. In an illumination in a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E iv.), the hares are taking a still more severe vengeance on their old enemy. The dog has been caught, brought to trial for his numerous murders, and condemned, and they are represented here (cut No. 55) conducting him in the criminal’s cart to the gallows. Our cut No. 56, the subject of which is furnished by one of the carved stalls in Sherborne Minster (it is here copied from the engraving in Carter’s “Specimens of Ancient Sculpture”), represents another execution scene, similar in spirit to the former. The geese have seized their old enemy, Reynard, and are hanging him on a gallows, while two monks, who attend the execution, appear to be amused at the energetic manner inwhich the geese perform their task. Mr. Jewitt mentions two other subjects belonging to this series, one of them taken from an illuminated manuscript; they are, the mouse chasing the cat, and the horse driving the cart—the former human carter in this case taking the place of the horse between the shafts.

No. 55. Justice in the Hands of the Persecuted.

No. 56. Reynard brought to Account at Last.

“The World turned upside down; or, the Folly of Man,” has continued amongst us to be a popular chap-book and child’s book till within a very few years, and I have now a copy before me printed in London about the year 1790. It consists of a series of rude woodcuts, with a few doggrel verses under each. One of these, entitled “The Ox turned Farmer,” represents two men drawing the plough, driven by an ox. In the next, a rabbit is seen turning the spit on which a man is roasting, while a cock holds a ladle and bastes. In a third, we see a tournament, in which the horses are armed and ride upon the men. Another represents the ox killing the butcher. In others we have birds netting men and women; the ass, turned miller, employing the man-miller to carry his sacks; the horse turned groom, and currying the man; and the fishes angling for men and catching them.

In a cleverly sculptured ornament in Beverley Minster, represented in our cut No. 57, the goose herself is represented in a grotesque situation,which might almost give her a place in “The World turned upside down,” although it is a mere burlesque, without any apparent satirical aim. The goose has here taken the place of the horse at the blacksmith’s, who is vigorously nailing the shoe on her webbed foot.

No. 57. Shoeing the Goose.

No. 58. Food for Swine.

Burlesque subjects of this description are not uncommon, especially among architectural sculpture and wood-carving, and, at a rather later period, on all ornamental objects. The field for such subjects was so extensive, that the artist had an almost unlimited choice, and therefore his subjects might be almost infinitely varied, though we usually find them running on particular classes. The old popular proverbs, for instance, furnished a fruitful source for drollery, and are at times delineated in an amusingly literal or practical manner. Pictorialproverbs and popular sayings are sometimes met with on the carved misereres. For example, in one of those at Rouen, in Normandy, represented in our cut No. 58, the carver has intended to represent the idea of the old saying, in allusion to misplaced bounty, of throwing pearls to swine, and has given it a much more picturesque and pictorially intelligible form, by introducing a rather dashing female feeding her swine with roses, or rather offering them roses for food, for the swine display no eagerness to feed upon them.

No. 59. The Industrious Sow.

No. 60. Adulteration.

We meet with such subjects as these scattered over all mediæval works of art, and at a somewhat later period they were transferred to other objects, such as the signs of houses. The custom of placing signs over the doors of shops and taverns, was well known to the ancients, as is abundantly manifested by their frequent occurrence in the ruins of Pompeii; but in the middle ages, the use of signs and badges was universal, and as—contrary to the apparent practice in Pompeii, where certain badges were appropriated to certain trades and professions—every individual was free to choose his own sign, the variety was unlimited. Many still had reference, no doubt, to the particular calling of those to whom they belonged, while others were of a religious character, and indicated the saint under whose protection the householder had placed himself. Some people took animals for their signs, others monstrous or burlesque figures; and, in fact, there were hardly any of the subjects ofcaricature or burlesque familiar to the mediæval sculptor and illuminator which did not from time to time appear on these popular signs. A few of the old signs still preserved, especially in the quaint old towns of France, Germany, and the Netherlands, show us how frequently they were made the instruments of popular satire. A sign not uncommon in France wasLa Truie qui file(the sow spinning). Our cut No. 59 represents this subject as treated on an old sign, a carving in bas-relief of the sixteenth century, on a house in the Rue du Marché-aux-Poirées, in Rouen. The sow appears here in the character of the industrious housewife, employing herself in spinning at the same time that she is attending to the wants of her children. There is a singularly satirical sign at Beauvais, on a house which was formerly occupied by anépicier-moutardier, or grocer who made mustard, in the Rue du Châtel. In front of this sign, which is represented in our cut No. 60, appears a large mustard-mill, on one side of which stands Folly with a staff in her hand, with which she is stirring the mustard, while an ape with a sort of sardonic grin, throws in a seasoning, which may be conjectured by his posture.[31]The trade-mark of the individual who adopted this strange device, is carved below.

THE MONKEY IN BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE.—TOURNAMENTS AND SINGLE COMBATS.—MONSTROUS COMBINATIONS OF ANIMAL FORMS.—CARICATURES ON COSTUME.—THE HAT.—THE HELMET.—LADIES’ HEAD-DRESSES.—THE GOWN, AND ITS LONG SLEEVES.

The fox, the wolf, and their companions, were introduced as instruments of satire, on account of their peculiar characters; but there were other animals which were also favourites with the satirist, because they displayed an innate inclination to imitate; they formed, as it were, natural parodies upon mankind. I need hardly say that of these the principal and most remarkable was the monkey. This animal must have been known to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers from a remote period, for they had a word for it in their own language—apa, ourape. Monkey is a more modern name, and seems to be equivalent with maniken, or a little man. The earliestBestiaries, or popular treatises on natural history, give anecdotes illustrative of the aptness of this animal for imitating the actions of men, and ascribe to it a degree of understanding which would almost raise it above the level of the brute creation. Philip de Thaun, an Anglo-Norman poet of the reign of Henry I., in hisBestiary, tells us that “the monkey, by imitation, as books say, counterfeits what it sees, and mocks people:”—

Li singe par figure, si cum dit escripture,Ceo que il vait contrefait, de gent escar hait.[32]

Li singe par figure, si cum dit escripture,

Ceo que il vait contrefait, de gent escar hait.[32]

/He goes on to inform us, as a proof of the extraordinary instinct of this animal, that it has more affection for some of its cubs than for others, and that, when running away, it carried those which it liked before it, and those it disliked behind its back. The sketch from the illuminated manuscript of the Romance of the Comte d’Artois, of the fifteenth century, which forms our cut No. 61, represents the monkey, carrying, of course, its favourite child before it in its flight, and what is more, it is taking that flight mounted on a donkey. A monkey on horseback appears not to have been a novelty, as we shall see in the sequel.

No. 61. A Monkey Mounted.

Alexander Neckam, a very celebrated English scholar of the latter part of the twelfth century, and one of the most interesting of the early mediæval writers on natural history, gives us many anecdotes, which show us how much attached our mediæval forefathers were to domesticated animals, and how common a practice it was to keep them in their houses. The baronial castle appears often to have presented the appearance of a menagerie of animals, among which some were of that strong and ferocious character that rendered it necessary to keep them in close confinement, while others, such as monkeys, roamed about the buildings at will. One of Neckam’s stories is very curious in regard to our subject, for it shows that the people in those days exercised their tamed animals in practically caricaturing contemporary weaknesses and fashions. This writer remarks that “the nature of the ape is so ready at acting, by ridiculous gesticulations, the representations of things it has seen, and thus gratifying the vain curiosity of worldly men in public exhibitions, that it will even dare to imitate a military conflict. A jougleur (histrio) was in the habit of constantly taking two monkeys to the military exercises which are commonly called tournaments, that the labour of teaching might be diminished by frequent inspection. He afterwards taught two dogs to carry these apes, who sat on their backs, furnished with proper arms. Nor did they want spurs, with which theystrenuously urged on the dogs. Having broken their lances, they drew out their swords, with which they spent many blows on each other’s shields. Who at this sight could refrain from laughter?”[33]

No. 62. A Tournament.

Such contemporary caricatures of the mediæval tournament, which was in its greatest fashion during the period from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, appear to have been extremely popular, and are not unfrequently represented in the borders of illuminated manuscripts. The manuscript now so well known as “Queen Mary’s Psalter” (MS. Reg. 2 B vii.), and written and illuminated very early in the fourteenth century, contains not a few illustrations of this description. One of these, which forms our cut No. 62, represents a tournament not much unlike that described by Alexander Neckam, except that the monkeys are here riding upon other monkeys, and not upon dogs. In fact, all the individuals here engaged are monkeys, and the parody is completed by the introduction of the trumpeter on one side, and of minstrelsy, represented by a monkey playing on the tabor, on the other; or, perhaps, the two monkeys are simply playing on the pipe and tabor, which were looked upon as the lowest description of minstrelsy, and are therefore the more aptly introduced into the scene.

The same manuscript has furnished us with the cut No. 63. Herethe combat takes place between a monkey and a stag, the latter having the claws of a griffin. They are mounted, too, on rather nondescript animals—one having the head and body of a lion, with the forefeet of an eagle; the other having a head somewhat like that of a lion, on a lion’s body, with the hind parts of a bear. This subject may, perhaps, be intended as a burlesque on the mediæval romances, filled with combats between the Christians and the Saracens; for the ape—who, in the moralisations which accompany theBestiaries, is said to represent the devil—is here armed with what are evidently intended for the sabre and shield of a Saracen, while the flag carries the shield and lance of a Christian knight.

No. 63. A Feat of Arms.

The love of the mediæval artists for monstrous figures of animals, and for mixtures of animals and men, has been alluded to in a former chapter. The combatants in the accompanying cut (No. 64), taken from the same manuscript, present a sort of combination of the rider and the animal, and they again seem to be intended for a Saracen and a Christian. The figure to the right, which is composed of the body of a satyr, with the feet of a goose and the wings of a dragon, is armed with a similar Saracenic sabre; while that to the left, which is on the whole less monstrous, wields a Norman sword. Both have human faces below the navel as well as above, which was a favourite idea in the grotesque of themiddle ages. Our mediæval forefathers appear to have had a decided taste for monstrosities of every description, and especially for mixtures of different kinds of animals, and of animals and men. There is no doubt, to judge by the anecdotes recorded by such writers as Giraldus Cambrensis, that a belief in the existence of such unnatural creatures was widely entertained. In his account of Ireland, this writer tells us of animals which were half ox and half man, half stag and half cow, and half dog and half monkey.[34]It is certain that there was a general belief in such animals, and nobody could be more credulous than Giraldus himself.

No. 64. A Terrible Combat.

No. 65. Fashionable Dress.

The design to caricature, which is tolerably evident in the subjects just given, is still more apparent in other grotesques that adorn the borders of the mediæval manuscripts, as well as in some of the mediæval carvings and sculpture. Thus, in our cut No. 65, taken from one of the borders in the Romance of the Comted’Artois, a manuscript of the fifteenth century, we cannot fail to recognise an attempt at turning to ridicule the contemporary fashions in dress. The hat is only an exaggerated form of one which appears to have been commonly used in France in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and which appears frequently in illuminated manuscripts executed in Burgundy; and the boot also belongs to the same period. The latter reappeared at different times, until at length it became developed into the modern top-boots. In cut No. 66, from the same manuscript, where it forms the letter T, we have the same form of hat, still more exaggerated, and combined at the same time with grotesque faces.

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