No. 36. The Pious Sculptor.
No. 37. The Monk’s Disaster.
No. 38. The Demons Disappointed.
There was another popular story, which also was told under several forms. The old Norman historians tell it of their duke Richard Sans-Peur. There was a monk of the abbey of St. Ouen, who also held the office of sacristan, but, neglecting the duties of his position, entered into an intrigue with a lady who dwelt in the neighbourhood, and was accustomed at night to leave the abbey secretly, and repair to her. His place as sacristan enabled him thus to leave the house unknown to the other brethren. On his way, he had to pass the little river Robec, by means of a plank or wooden bridge, and one night the demons, who had been watching him on his errand of sin, caught him on the bridge, and threw him over into the water, where he was drowned. One devil seized his soul, and would have carried it away, but an angel came to claim him on account of his good actions, and the dispute ran so high, that duke Richard, whose piety was as great as his courage, was called in to decide it. The same manuscript from which our last cut was taken has furnished our cut No. 37, which represents two demons tripping up the monk, and throwing him very unceremoniously into the river. The body of one of the demons here assumes the form of an animal, instead of taking, like the other, that of a man, and he is, moreover, furnished with a dragon’s wings. There was one version of this story, in which it found its place among the legends of the Virgin Mary, instead of those of duke Richard. The monk, in spite of his failings, had been a constant worshipper of the Virgin, and, as he was falling from the bridge into the river, she stepped forward to protect him from his persecutors, and taking hold of him with her hand, saved him from death. One of the compartments of the rather early wall-paintings in Winchester Cathedral represents the scene according to this version of the story, and is copied in our cut No. 38. The fiends here take more fantastic shapes than we have previously seen given to them. They remind us already of the infinitely varied grotesque forms which the painters of the age of the Renaissance crowded together in such subjects as “The Temptation of St. Anthony.” In fact these strange notions of the forms of the demons were not only preserved through the whole period of the middle ages, but are still hardly extinct. They appear in almost exaggerated forms in the illustrations to books of a popular religious character which appeared in the first ages of printing. I may quote, as an example, one of the cuts of an early and very rare block-book, entitled the Ars Moriendi, or “Art of Dying,” or, in a second title, De Tentationibus Morientium, on the temptations to which dying men are exposed. The scene, of which a part is given in the annexed cut (No. 39), is in the room of the dying man, whose bed is surrounded by three demons, who are come to tempt him, while his relatives of both sexes are looking on quite unconscious of their presence. The figures of these demons are particularly grotesque, and their ugly features betray a degree of vulgar cunning which adds not a little to this effect. The one leaning over the dying man suggests to him the words expressed in the label issuing from his mouth, Provideas amicis, “provide for your friends;” while the one whose head appears to the left whispers to him, Yntende thesauro, “think of your treasure.” The dying man seems grievously perplexed with the various thoughts thus suggested to him.
No. 39. A Mediæval Death-bed.
No. 40. Condemned Souls carried to their Place of Punishment.
Why did the mediæval Christians think it necessary to make the devils black and ugly? The first reply to this question which presents itself is, that the characteristics intended to be represented were the blackness and ugliness of sin. This, however, is only partially the explanation of the fact; for there can be no doubt that the notion was a popular one, and that it had previously existed in the popular mythology; and, as has been already remarked, the ugliness exhibited by them is a vulgar, mirthful ugliness, which makes you laugh instead of shudder. Another scene, from the interesting drawings at the foot of the pages in “Queen Mary’s Psalter,” is given in our cut No. 40. It represents that most popular of mediæval pictures, and, at the same time, most remarkable of literal interpretations, hell mouth. The entrance to the infernal regions was always represented pictorially as the mouth of a monstrous animal, where the demons appeared leaving and returning. Here they are seen bringing the sinful souls to their last destination, and it cannot be denied that they are doing the work right merrily and jovially. In our cut No. 41, from the manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, which furnished a former subject, three demons, who appear to be the guardians of the entrance to the regions below—for it is upon the brow above the monstrous mouth that they are standing—present varieties of the diabolical form. The one in the middle is the most remarkable, for he has wings not only on his shoulders, but also on his knees and heels. All three have horns; in fact, the three special characteristics of mediæval demons were horns, hoofs—or, at least, the feet of beasts—and tails, which sufficiently indicate the source from which the popular notions of these beings were derived. In the cathedral of Treves, there is a mural painting by William of Cologne, a painter of the fifteenth century, which represents the entrance to the shades, the monstrous mouth, with its keepers, in still more grotesque forms. Our cut No. 42 gives but a small portion of this picture, in which the porter of the regions of punishment is sitting astride the snout of the monstrous mouth, and is sounding with a trumpet what may be supposed to be the call for those who are condemned. Another minstrel of the same stamp, spurred, though not booted, sits astride the tube of the trumpet, playing on the bagpipes; and the sound which issues from the former instrument is represented by a host of smaller imps who are scattering themselves about.
No. 41. The Guardians of Hell Mouth.
No. 42. The Trumpeter of Evil.
It must not be supposed that, in subjects like these, the drollery of the scene was accidental; but, on the contrary, the mediæval artists and popular writers gave them this character purposely. The demons and the executioners—the latter of whom were called in Latin tortores, and in popular old English phraseology the “tormentours”—were the comic characters of the time, and the scenes in the old mysteries or religious plays in which they were introduced were the comic scenes, or farce, of the piece. The love of burlesque and caricature was, indeed, so deeply planted in the popular mind, that it was found necessary to introduce them even in pious works, in which such scenes as the slaughter of the innocents, where the “knights” and the women abused each other in vulgar language, the treatment of Christ at the time of His trial, some parts of the scene of the crucifixion, and the day of judgment, were essentially comic. The last of these subjects, especially, was a scene of mirth, because it often consisted throughout of a coarse satire on the vices of the age, especially on those which were most obnoxious to the populace, such as the pride and vanity of the higher ranks, and the extortions and frauds of usurers, bakers, taverners, and others. In the play of “Juditium,” or the day of doom, in the “Towneley Mysteries,” one of the earliest collections of mysteries in the English language, the whole conversation among