THE WINKING NUN, SWINE, YORKSHIRE.
Another carving in the same chancel may be in derision of some official of the papal court, which, in the thirteenth century, on an occasion of the contumacy of the nuns in refusing to pay certain tithes, caused the church, with that adjoining, of the lay brethren, to be closed. The nuns defied all authority, broke open the chapels, and in general during the long contest acted in a curiously ungovernable, irresponsible manner.
A PAPAL MONSTER, SWINE, YORKSHIRE.
IMPUDENCE, BISHOP’S STORTFORD,HERTFORDSHIRE.
At Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, are some misericordes, which, says Miss Phipson, are stated to have originally belonged to Old St. Paul’s. Among them is the annexed subject. The wicked expression of the face, and the general incorrectness of the composition, are a historical evidence of indecorum akin to the gestures of the Beverley carvers.
From the fine choir carvings of Westminster Abbey yet another example is given. It is one in which the spirit of the oldComptes a Plaisanceis well illustrated. A well-clad man,suggesting Falstaff in his prime, is seated with a lady among luxurious foliage. His arm is right round his companion’s waist, while his left hand dips into his capacious and apparently well-lined pouch, or gipciere. He has been styled a merchant. He is manifestly making a bargain. The lady is evidently a daughter of the hireling (hirudo!), and is crying, “Give, give.” In spite of this being the work of an Italian artist, the artistic feeling about it would seem to recall slightly the lines of Holbein.
A QUESTION OF PRICE, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
The small carving to the right of the above is a highly-elate pig, playing the pipe. This is shewn in a short chapter hereafter given on Animal Musicians. The initial at the head of this chapter is illustrated with the “slumbering priest,” the carving of whom is at the right of that of the ‘UnseenWitness,’ drawn onpage 85. This doubtless implies that some portion of the sin of the people was to be attributed to the indifference of the clergy. Balancing this, there is in the original carving an aged person kneeling, and, supported by a crutch, counting her beads.
In a subsequent chapter (on Compound Forms in Gothic) the harpy is mentioned, and shewn to be a not uncommon subject of church art, either as from the malignant classic form which symbolized fierce bad weather, or as the more beneficient though not unsimilar figure which was the symbol of Athor, the Egyptian Venus. A Winchester example which might seem in place among the remarks on the Compounds, is included here, as it is evidently intended to embody a sin. It serves to show that a modern use of the word harpy was well understood in mediæval times. The design is simple, the vulture wings being made to take the position of the hair of the woman head. She lies in wait spider-wise, her great claws in readiness for the prey; and is evidently a character-sketch of a coarse, insatiable daughter of the horse-leech.
THE HARPY IN WAIT, WINCHESTER.
MADAM AND EVE,BEVERLEY MINSTER.ystery Plays, we have seen, drew upon the Apocryphal New Testament for subjects, but it has simply happened that the examples of vice carvings illustrate those writings, for Mystery Plays were in general founded upon the canonical scriptures. There are many carvings which have Biblical incidents for their subject, but it is often impossible to say whether the text were the sole material of the designer, or whether his ideas were formed by representations he had seen on the Mystery stage. It may be presumed that the effect would not be greatly different in one case from the other.
The story of Jonah furnishes a subject for two misericordes in Ripon Cathedral. One is in the frontispiece of this volume. In the first the prophet is being pushed by three men unceremoniously over the side of the vessel which has the usual mediæval characteristics, and, in which, plainly, there is no room for a fourth person. The ship is riding easily on by no means tumultuous waves, out of which protrudes the head of the great fish. The fish and Jonah appear to regard the situation with equal complacency.
THE STORY OF JONAH. THE CASTING OUT.
In the sequel carving Jonah is shewn being cast out by the fish, of which, as in the other, the head only is visible. The monster of the deep has altered its appearance slightly during the period of Jonah’s incarceration, its square upper teeth having become pointed. The prophet is represented kneeling among the teeth, apparently offering up thanks for his deliverance. The sea is bounded by a rocky shore on which stand trees of the well-known grotesque type in which they are excellent fir-cones.
These two carvings are of somewhat special interest, as their precise origin is known. They are both exceedingly close copies of engravings in the Biblia Pauperum, or Poor Man’s Bible, otherwise called “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis,” or the Mirror of Human Salvation. Other Biblical subjects in the Ripon Series of Misericordes are from the same source. Did the Sculptor or Sculptors of the series fall short of subjects, or were their eyes caught by the definite outlines of the prints in the “Picture Bible” as it lay chained in the Minster?
The Adoration, in a carving in the choir of Worcester, comes under the head of unintentional grotesques. It is a proof that though the manipulative skill of the artist may be great, that may only accentuate his failure to grasp the true spirit of a subject; and render what might have been only a piece of simplicity, into an elaborate grotesque. The common-place, ugly features—where not broken away—the repeated attitudes and the symmetric arrangement join to defeat the artist’s aim. Add to those the anachronisms, the ancient Eastern rulers in Edward III. crowns and gowns,seated beneath late Gothic Decorated Arches offering gifts, and the absurdity is nearly complete. It is difficult to quite understand the presence of the lady with gnarled features, on the left, bearing the swathed infant (headless) which seems to demonstrate that this was carved by a foreigner, or was from a foreign source; for though swathing was practised to some extent in England, I can only find that in Holland, Germany, etc., and more especially in Italy, the children were swathed to this extent, in the complete mummy fashion styled “bambino.”
Perhaps the reason of the two figures right and left was that the artist went with the artistic tide in representing the recently-born infant as a strapping boy of four or five; yet his common-sense telling him that was a violation of fact he put the other figure in with the strapped infant to show what—in his own private opinion—the child would really be like at the time.
We might have supposed it to be St. John, but he was older and not younger than the Divine Child. In the Scandinavian mythology, Vali, the New Year, is represented as a child in swaddling clothes.
ADORATION OF THE MAGI, WORCHESTER.
The Scriptural subjects in carved work may be compared with the wall paintings which in a few instances have survived the reforming zeal of bygone white-washing churchwardens. The comparison is infinitely to the advantage of the carvings. These paintings are in distemper and were the humble inartistic precursors of noble frescoes in the continental fanes, but which had in England no development. To what extent there was merit in the mural decoration of the English cathedrals cannot well be stated. Such examples, as in a few churches are left to us, are simply curiosities. Though changing with the styles they are more crude than the sculptures, and the modern eye in search of the grotesque, finds here compositions infinitely more excruciatingly imbecile than in any other department of art-work of pretension.
BAPTISMAL SCENE, GUILDFORD.
At the same time when they are considered in conjunction with the most perfect of the paintings of their period they are by no means so low in the scale of merit as at the first thought might be supposed.
Outside the present purpose of looking at them as unintentional grotesques they are very valuable specimens of the English art of painting of dates which have, except in illuminations, no other examples.
Those of St. Mary’s, Guildford, are very quaint. The first selected from the series is a representation of Christ attending the ministration of St. John the Baptist. St. John has apparently taken down to the river bank a classic font, in which is seated a convert. The Baptist himself, wearing a Phrygian cap (probably Saxon), is turning away from the figures of Christ and the man in the font, and is apparently addressing a company which does not appear in the picture. Just as the font was put in to make the idea of baptism easily understood, so, we may suppose, the curious buttons on thongs, or whatever they are, were shewn attached to St. John’s wrist, to indicate that he is speaking of the “shoe-latchets.” The waters and bank of the Jordan are indicated in a few lines.
CASTING OUT OF DEVILS, GUILDFORD.
The other selection is still more bizarre. It evidently portrays Christ casting out devils. The chief point of interest in this painting is the original conception of the devils. Anything more vicious, degraded, and abhorrent, it would be difficult to produce in so few lines. Roughly speaking, they are a compound of the hawk, the hog, and the monkey; this curious illustration is an excellent pendant to the marks made upon early Satanic depictions on a previous page. The faces are Saxon, except in the case of the man with the sword, who is a distinct attempt at a Roman. The artist had evidently in his mind one who was set in authority.
The churches of the Midlands are rich in wall-paintings.
A fine example is in North Stoke Church, Oxfordshire, which has two Scriptural subjects, a series of angelic figures, and several other figures, etc., only fragmentally visible. They were all found accidentally under thick coats of whitewash. It may be doubted whether they were ever finished. The two Biblical subjects are “Christ betrayed in the Garden,” and “Christ before Pilate.” Christ is a small apparently blind-folded figure, of which only the head and one shoulder remains. Pilot is the Saxon lord, posing as the seated figure of legal authority, poising a hiltless sword in his right hand. The figure addressing Pilate is apparently a Roman (Saxon) official; his hand is very large, but there is a simple force about his drawing. The fourth figure in a mitre is doubtless meant for a Jewish priest, and he has a nasty, clamorous look. Pilate, unfortunately, has no pupilsto his eyes, but his general appearance is as though he was expostulating with the priest.
There is a carol, printed in 1820, which has a woodcut of the subject not less rude and not less of an anachronism than this: but what is curious, as illustrating the main theory of the present volume—the tenacity with which form is adhered to in unconscious art—is that the disposition of the figures is exactly the same in both pictures. Where the Saxon lord is seated, imagine a bearded magistrate, at a sort of Georgian quarter-sessions bench, with panelled front. For the simple Saxon, with vandyked shirt, suppose a Roman half-soldier, half-village-policeman. Then comes the figure of Christ, with the head much lower than those of the others because he is nearer. Lastly, there is an incomplete figure behind.
In this case the perfect correspondence may be mere coincidence; it is difficult to explain otherwise. The design, however, is the same, only the Anglo-Norman filled in his detail from his observation of a manorial court, the Moorfield engraver from his knowledge of Bow Street police-court.
To conclude, although these paintings are ludicrous in the extreme, the artists, who had no easy task, were absolutely serious, and their works, divested of the comic aspect conferred by haste and manipulative incompetence, are marked by bold impressiveness.
The initial to this chapter is from one of a series of similar ornaments on the parapet of the south side of the nave of Beverley Minster; it illustrates the toilsome nature of the later portion of Adam’s life.
TFOLIATE MASK,THE CHOIR,BEVERLEY MINSTER.he merriest, oddest, most ill-assorted company in the world meet together in the masks and faces of Gothic ornament. Space could always be found for a head, and skill to execute it. Yet though the variety is immense, the faces of Gothic art will be found to classify themselves very definitely.
Perhaps the most prevalent type is the classic mask with leaves issuing from the mouth. This may be an idea of themask which every player in the ancient drama wore, displayed as an ornament with laurel, bay, oak, ivy, or what not, inserted in the mouth, because it was pierced for speaking through, and the only aperture in which the decorative branches could be inserted. Or seeds might germinate in sculptured masks and so have suggested the idea. Masks were hung in vineyards, etc.
FOLIATE MASK, DORCHESTER, OXON.
FOLIATE MASK, ST. MARY’S MINSTER, ISLE OF THANET.
A mask above the internal tower-doorway in the Lady Chapel of Dorchester Abbey has a close resemblance to the classic mask in the protruding lips, which, for the conveying of the voice for the great distance necessary in the arrangement of the ancient theatres, were often shaped like a shallow speaking-trumpet. The leaves appear to be the vine, and so the head, perhaps, that of Bacchus. Between the eyebrows will be noticed an angular projection. Thisis probably explained by a mask in a misericorde in St. Mary’s Minster, in which some object, perhaps the nasal of a helmet, comes down the middle of the forehead. The leaves in this case appear to be oak, which is, indeed, the prevailing tree used for the purpose.
FOLIATE MASK, BEVERLEY MINSTER.
INDIAN MASK, ST. MARY’S, BEVERLEY.
Occasionally a mask with leaves has the tongue protruding.
LATE ITALIAN FOLIATE MASK, WESTMINSTER.
Perhaps one of the most remarkable masks in Gothic is on another misericorde in the same town, but in St. Mary’s Church; in which the features, the head-dress, the treatment of the ears, are all Indian, while the leaves are those of thepalm. This is, perhaps, unique as an instance of Gothic work so nearly purely Indian in its form.
RIPON,late Fifteenth Century.
Sometimes the leaves are much elaborated as in one of the late misericordes of Westminster Abbey; in a few cases the original simplicity is quite lost, and we have, as at Ripon, the mask idea run mad, inverted, and the leaves become a graceful composition of foliage, flower, and fruit.
A rosette from the tomb of Bishop de La Wich, Chichester, has four animal faces in an excellent design.
ROSETTE ON TOMB OFBISHOP DE LA WICH,CHICHESTER.
Often masks are of the simple description known as the Notch-head; these are of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They are generally found in exposed situations at some elevation, as among the series of corbels (corbulaa small basket) or brackets calledthe corbel-table, supporting a stone course or cornice. The likeness to the human face caused by the shadows of the T varies in different examples. That below, by curving back at the base, suggests the idea of a mouth. Occasionally, as at Finedon, Northamptonshire, the notch-head has its likeness to a face increased by the addition of ears.
MASK, BUCKLE,OR NOTCH HEAD,CULHAM,YORKSHIRE.
Norman masks are interesting, as they explain some odd appearances in later work. In many churches are faces scored with lines across the cheeks, regardless of the ordinary lines of expression, in a manner closely resembling the tattoo incisions of the New Zealand warrior. This appearance, however, is simply the too faithful copying of crude Norman masks, in which the lines are meant to be the semi-circles round eyes and mouth. Moreover, the Norman heads are most often the heads of animals grinning to shew the teeth, although their general effect is that of grotesque human heads. Iffley west doorway furnishes the best example. Here we have the well-known “beak head” ornament. The semicircle and upper portion of the jambs have single heads, not two of which are exactly alike, though all closely resemble each other. They are heads of the eagle or gryphon order, with a forehead ornament very Assyrian in character. The heads of the jambs are compound, being the head of a grinning beast, probably a lion, from the mouth of which emerges a gryphon head of small size. These are sometimes called“Cat-heads,” and the gryphon head is sometimes considered (and perhaps occasionally shewn as such) a tongue. A fine doorway of beak-heads is at St. Peter’s-in-the-East, Oxford, which church was probably executed by the workmen who were responsible for Iffley.
BEAK HEADS, IFFLEY.
NORMAN MASK,ROCHESTER.FOLIATE MASK, EWELME.GORILLA,ROSLYN CHAPEL.
It is probable that the symbolism of this is the swallowing up of night by day orvice versâ. The outer arch of the Iffley doorway consists of zodiacal signs, and at the south doorway are other designs elsewhere mentioned in this volume, far removed from Christian intent.
GORGONIC MASK,EWELME.FOLIATE MASK,LINCOLN.
The grotesqueness of Norman work is almost entirely unconscious. The workers were full of Byzantine ideas, and the severe and awful was their object rather than the comic. They frequently attempted pretty detail in their symbolic designs, but in all the forms which have come from their chisels it is easy to see how incomplete an embodiment they gave to their conceptions, or rather to the conceptions of their traditional school. Norman work, beyond the Gothic, irrespective of the architectural peculiarities, has traces of its eastern origin in the classic connection of its designs. Adel Church, near Leeds, is peculiar in having co-mingled with its eastern designs more than ordinarily tangible references to ancient Keltic worship, but nearly all Norman ideographic detail concerns itself with old-world myths.
An excellent conception, well carried out, is in a mask which is one of a series of late carvings alternating with the gargoyles of Ewelme. In this, instead of leaves issuing from the mouth of the mask, there are two dragons. If those with leaves are deities, this surely must be one of the Furies. It is on the north side of the nave; on the exterior of the aisle,at the same side, other sculptures form a kind of irregular corbel-table, and special attention may be drawn to them as affording an indication of the derivation of such ornaments from the “antefixes” or decorated tiles occupying a nearly corresponding position in classic architecture.
One of those on the aisle offers a further explanation of the mark before mentioned as being on the foreheads of some masks. In this case the prominences of the eyebrows branch off into foliage. This appears also to be the intention in a capital carving in Lincoln Chapter House.
Roslyn Chapel has some very realistic heads, notably of apes or gorillas near the south doorway, of which one is drawn (opposite).
Norman work has frequently some very grotesque heads in corbel tables and tower corners, to the odd appearance of which the decay by weather has no doubt much contributed. Two examples from SuttonCourtney, Oxfordshire, illustrate this weather-worn whimsicality.
Then comes a crowd of faces which have no particular significance, being simply the outcome of the unrestrainable fun of the carver. Some are merely oddities, while others are full of life-like character.
The knight with the twisted beard, from Swine, maybe a portrait, and the Gargantuan-faced dominus from St. Mary’s Minster certainly is. An old barbarian head from a croche or elbow-rest at Bakewell is rude and worn, but yet bold and fine.
Some of these are better than the joculators and mimes’ faces in which the artist seriously set himself a humorous task, as in the three heads (page 130) from Beverley Minster, though the latter are in some respects more grotesque.
A PORTRAIT, ST. MARY’S MINSTER.ISLE OF THANET.A ROUGH CHARACTER, BAKEWELL.
Another curious instance of a grimace and posture maker, assisting his countenance’s contortions by the use of his fingers, is at Dorchester Abbey. In this the artist has not been master of the facial anatomy, and shows a double pair of lips, one pair in repose, the other pulled back at the corners.
GRIMACE MAKER, DORCHESTER, OXON.
Often a grotesque face will be found added to a beautiful design of foliage, either as the conventional mask, as in the design in Lincoln Chapter House, or a realistic head, as the following grim, dour visage between graceful curves on a misericord at King’s College, Cambridge.
GRACE AND THE GRACELESS, KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
DTHE WEAKER VESSEL,SHERBORNE.omestic and popular incidents are plentiful among the carvings, of which they form, indeed, a distinct class; and they afford a considerable amount of material with which might be built up, in a truly Hogarthian and exaggerated spirit, an elaborate account of mediæval manners in general. In the majority of cases the incidents have a familiar, if not an endearing suggestiveness.
The records of mankind are not wanting in stormy incidents in which the gentle female spirit has chafed under some presumed foolishness or wickedness of the head of the house, and at length breaking bounds, inflicted on him personal reminders that patience endureth but for a season. An example of this is given above, which shews the possibility of such a thing as far back as 1520, the date of the Beverley Minster misericordes. While the lady is devoting her attention to the flagellation of her unfortunate and perhaps entirely blameless spouse, a dog avails himself of the opportunity to rifle the caldron.
DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.
The picture in the initial, taken from a carving in the choir of Sherborne Minster, shews another domestic incident in which the lady administers castigation. Though in itself no more than a vulgar satire, it is probable that this carving was copied from some representation of St. Lucy, who issometimes shewn with a staff in her hand, and behind her the devil prostrate.
AN UNKIND FARE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.
It is not easy to say what is the meaning of another carving in Beverley Minster, or whether it has any connection with that just noted. The probability is that it has not. This may be a shrewish wife being wheeled in the tumbril to the waterside, there to undergo for the better ruling of her tongue, a punishment the authority for which was custom older than law. But I am inclined to think that another reading will be nearer the truth. The vehicle is not the tumbril but a wheelbarrow, and the man propelling it is younger than the lady, who is pulling his hair. I imagine the man is apprentice or husband, and is not very cheerfully trundling his companion home. A similar, but more definite misericorde is in Ripon Cathedral.
In this barrow, the old woman, wearing a cap with hat on the top, as yet occasionally seen in country places, is seated in a mistress-like way. She is not committing any violence, but apparently is offering the man (call him the bridegroom) his choice of either a bag of money with dutiful obedience, or a huge cudgel, which she wields with muscular power, with dereliction. The gem of the carving is the man’s face. He smiles a quiet, amused, satirical smile, as of one who would say, “’Tis no harm to humour these foolish old bodies, and must be done, I trow.”
THE CHARIOT, RIPON.
But the object called a bag of money is as likely to be a bottle, and the whole subject may be something quite different. She may be going to the doctor, or offering the man a drink; or it may be Noah wheeling his wife into the Ark, which, it was one of the jokes in a Mystery play to suppose she was very unwilling to enter.
PILGRIMAGE IN COMFORT, CANTERBURY.
MARTINMAS. CHRISTMAS. HOLY TRINITY, HULL.
HUNTSMAN AND DEER, YORK.
The block from the capital of a column in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, tells us little of its history. It is givenas an example of a cheerful grace and ease not common in early work.
The hunting of the boar is a frequent subject of the Gothic carver, being generally considered the sport of September, though Sir Edward Coke says the season for the boar was from Christmas to Candlemas. It is uncommon to find the boar’s head shewn treated as in the accompanying block, struck off, and with the lemon in his mouth, ready for the table. These quatrefoils are the only two with a special design upon them, out of twelve on the font of Holy Trinity Church, Hull, the others having rosettes. There is no rule in this, but there are other examples in which small portions of fonts are picked out for significant decoration, and possibly on the side originally intended to be turned towards the door of the church, or the altar.
Hunting scenes frequently occur. A boss in York Minster shews a huntsman “breaking” a deer as it hangs from a tree.
The wild sweetness of one stringed and one wind instrument—not uncommonly met as harp and piccolo nearLondon “saloon bars”—was a usual duet of the middle ages. In Stoeffler’sCalendarum Romanorum Magnum(of 1518) in a series of woodcuts illustrating the months, and which are otherwise reasonable, he gives one of these duets performed in a field as a proper occupation of the month of April with the following highly appropriate distich—
“Aprilis patule nucis sub umbrapost convivia dormio libenter.”
A CURIOUS DUET, CHICHESTER.
In this carving, however, the musicians appear to be within doors and to be giving a set duet. To the interest of the ear they add a curious spectacle for the eye, for they are seated in chairs which have no fore-legs, and their balance is kept by the flageoletist taking hold of the harp as the players sit facing, so that while leaning back they form a counter-poise to each other. The chairs are a curious study in mediæval furniture.
It is not unlikely that the sculptor in the case of theannexed block had in his mind something similar to the saying—
“When a man’s single he lives at his ease.”
BACHELOR QUARTERS, WORCESTER.
A man come in from, we may presume, frost and snow, has taken off his boots, and warms his feet as, seated on his fald-stool by the fire, he stirs the pot with lively anticipation of the meal preparing inside. He is probably a shepherd or swine-herd; on one side is seated his dog, at the other are hung two fat gammons of bacon.
Shepherds and shepherding furnish frequent subjects to the carver.
In a Coventry Corpus Christi play of 1534 one of thethree shepherds presents his gloves to the infant Saviour in these words—
“Have here my myttens, to pytt en thi hondis,Other treysure have I none to present thee with.”
This carving has been called the Good Shepherd. If the artist really meant Christ by this shepherd with a hood over his head and hat over that, with great gloves and shoes, with a round beardless face, with his arms round the necks of two sheep, holding their feet in his hands, it is the finest piece of religious burlesque extant. But it is not to be supposed that the idea even occurred to the sculptor.
The Feast of Fools was a kind of religious farce, a “mystery” run riot. Cedranus, a Byzantine historian, who wrote in the eleventh century, records that it was introduced into the Greek ChurchA.D.990, by Theophylact, patriarch of Constantinople. We can partly understand that the popular craving for the wild liberties of the Saturnalia might be met, and perhaps modified, by a brief removal of the solemn constraint of the Christian priest-rule. But licentiousness in church worship was no new thing, and, long before the time of Theophylact, the Church of the West, and probably the Greek Church also, had been rendered scandalous by the laxity with which the church services were conducted. At the Council of Orleans, inA.D.533, it was found necessary to rule that no person in a church shall sing, drink, or do anything unbecoming; at another in Châlons, inA.D.650, women were forbidden to sing indecent songs in church.There is in fact every evidence, including the sculptures of our subject, that religion was not, popularly, a thing solemn in itself. Cedranus mentions the “diabolic dances” among the enormities practised at the Feast of Fools, which was generally held about Christmas, though not confined to that festival.
In the twelfth century, the abuse increased; songs of the most indecent and offensive character were sung in the midst of the mock services; puddings were eaten, and dice rattled on the altar, and old shoes burnt as incense.
DANCING FOOLS, BEVERLEY MINSTER.
AN ABJECT OBJECT. WINCHESTER COLLEGE CHAPEL.
This observance, so evidently an expedient parody of the old-time festivals, is traceable in England, and said to have been abolished about the end of the fourteenth century. The carvings in Beverley Minster, here presented, are supposed to refer to the Feast, and at any rate give us a good idea of the mediæval fool. There were innumerable classic dances. The Greeks send down the names of two hundred kinds. A dance with arms was the Pyrrhic dance, which was similar in some of its varieties to the military dance known as the Morris. The Morris was introduced into Spain by the Moors, and brought into England by John of Gaunt in 1332. It was, however, little used until the reign of Henry VII. There were other vivacious dances, called Bayle, of Moorish origin, which, as well as various kinds of the stately Court dance, were used by the Spaniards. It is difficult, from general sources, to ascertain the dances in vogue in old England. A drawing in the Cotton MSS. shews a Saxon dancing a reel. The general inference is, however, that the Morris (of the Moors or Moriscoes) was the chief dance of the English, and perhaps it is that in which the saltatory fools of the carving are engaged.
Probably the extraordinary monstrosity shewn in the annexed block had an actual existence. There are fairly numerous accounts of such malformities in mediæval times, and it was a function of mediæval humour to make capital out of unfortunate deformity. This poor man has distorted hands instead of feet, and he moves about on pattens or wooden clogs strapped to his hands and legs. There is little meaning in the side carvings. The fool-ape, making an uncouth gesture, is perhaps to shew the character of those who mock misfortune. The man with the scimitar may represent the alarm of one who might suddenly come upon the sight of the abortion, and fearing some mystery or trap, draw his blade. In a sense this is a humourous carving—yet there is a qualityfor which it is much more remarkable, and that is its element of forcible and realistic pathos.
A MYTHOLOGICALEPISODE, YORK.
Two reliefs from York Minster are presumably scenes from classic mythology, from, in regard to the costumes, a Saxon point of view. One may be supposed to be the rape of Ganymede. Oak leaves are an attribute of Jupiter, as is also the eagle which bore Ganymede to Olympus.