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ANIMAL SYMBOLISM 
 IN ECCLESIASTICAL 
 ARC HITECTURE 
 
ANIMAL SYMBOLISM 
 IN ECCLESIASTICAL 
 ARCHITECTURE 
 
 By E. p. EVANS 
 
 IVirH A BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SErENrr-EIGHT 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT & COMPANY 
 
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CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION p. I 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ALLEGORICAL AND ANAGOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF 
 NATURE 
 
 Impulse given to the study of natural history by Alexander 
 the Great — Scientific spirit fostered by Aristotle — Lack 
 of this spirit among the Romans — Alexandria as a centre 
 of learning under the Ptolemies— The Christian theory of 
 the relation of the Book of Revelation to the Book of 
 Nature — The patristic conception of the visible creation 
 as an image of the invisible world and a mirror of spiritual 
 truth — Animals as religious emblems in Oriental, and 
 especially in Buddhistic, literature — Mineralogical sym- 
 bolism — Magical and medical properties and religious 
 significance of precious stones — Legends of Solomon's 
 wisdom, and his method of building the Temple — Cere- 
 mony of blessing jewels — Speculations of Justinus Kerner 
 and Schubert concerning the occult affinities of the mineral 
 kingdom to man — The typology of precious stones accord- 
 ing to the Physiologus — Spiritual meaning of the diamond, 
 the pearl, and the Indian stone — Terrobuli in Christian 
 symbolism and architecture p.2\ 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ' PHYSIOLOGUS ' 
 
 Plastic and pictorial representations of animals in Christian 
 art — Literary sources of these representations — Clavis of 
 
 .•^9538 
 
vi Contents 
 
 St. Melito — Epistle of Barnabas — The Physiologus com- 
 piled by an Alexandrian Greek — The Hexahemera of the 
 Fathers — Adam as the author of a natural history — 
 Popular character of the Physiologus — Origen as an 
 exegetist — Roger Bacon's views of the place of animals 
 in Scripture — Expositions and amplifications of the Phy- 
 siologus by Epiphanius, St. Isidore, Petrus Damiani, and 
 others — Anastasius Sinaita's Anagogical Contemplations 
 — Latin poem on beasts and their mystical meaning by 
 Theobald of Plaisance, and the English paraphrase — 
 The Physiologus translated into Latin, Ethiopic, Arabic, 
 Armenian, Syriac, Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, and all the 
 principal modern languages of Europe — Brief descrip- 
 tions of these versions — Prudentius' poems Hamartigenia 
 and Psychomachia — The phcenix a symbol of solar 
 worship used to illustrate the Christian doctrine of the 
 Resurrection — French bestiaries : Philippe de Thaun's 
 Le Livre des Creatures, Peter of Picardy's prose version 
 of the Physiologus, and Le Bestiaire Diviit of William, a 
 priest of Normandy — Encyclopaedias of natural history 
 based on the Physiologus : Thomas de Cantimprd's 
 Liber de Naturis Rerum, the Speculum Naturale of 
 Vincent de Beauvais, Liber de Propj-ietatibus Renim of 
 Bartholomseus Anglicus, Hortus Deliciarum of Herrade 
 de Landsberg, and other compilations — The church 
 - edifice an emblem of the human soul — Symbolism of the 
 raven and the dove — Albertus Magnus' criticism of the 
 Physiologus p. 52 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE 'physiologus' IN ART AND LITERATURE 
 
 The three characteristics of the lion— Representations of the 
 
 lion as a symbol of the Resurrection in architecture — 
 
 Beasts often have a twofold signification — The lion and 
 
 bear as types of Satan— Diabolification of the dog — 
 
Contents vii 
 
 Strange misconception of the canine character — Lions as 
 pedestals — Metaphorical use of the lion in poetry — Th? 
 lizard in architecture — Artistic delineations of the unicorn 
 as a type of Christ's Incarnation — Auricular conception of 
 Christ as the Logos — Supposed anti-toxical virtue of the 
 unicorn's horn and that of the African viper — The unicorn 
 in legend and poetry — Characteristics of the elephant — 
 Symbol of the fall of man — Julius Caesar's queer account 
 of the elk — Elephants embroidered on chasubles — Four 
 characteristics of the serpent — Artistic and poetic uses 
 of its fabled attributes — The eagle as a symbol of 
 spiritual aspiration and baptismal regeneration — Allu- 
 sions to it by Dante and other poets — The fish in sacred 
 iconology — Significance of the whale in ecclesiastical 
 architecture — Symbolism of the remora and serra — Im- 
 portance of the phoenix and the pelican as emblems of 
 Christian doctrine — Their prominent place in Church 
 architecture — Import of the fabulous exploits of the otter 
 and the ichneumon — Panther and dragon typical of 
 Christ and Belial — Healing power of the " heavenly 
 panther" — Lesson of self-renunciation taught by the 
 beaver — Characteristic of the hyena — Symbolism of the 
 salamander — The partridge a type of the devil — Ex- 
 amples of the charadrius in art — Mystical meaning of the 
 crow, turtle-dove, ousel, merl, fulica, and hoopoe — Curious 
 statement of Luther concerning swallows — Why God 
 feeds the young ravens — Peculiarities of the wolf — The 
 Physiologtis condemned as heretical — Freely used by 
 Gregory the Great in his scriptural exposition — Virtues 
 and vices portrayed as women mounted on various 
 animals — Disputatious scholastics satirized — Tetramorph 
 — Gospel mills — The ark of the covenant as the triumphal 
 chariot of the Cross — Cock and clergy — Origin of the 
 basilisk and its significance — Its prominence in religious 
 symbology and sacred architecture — Cautious scepticism 
 of Albertus Magnus — The Physiologus from a psycho- 
 logical point of view, as illustrating the credulity of the 
 
viii Contents 
 
 Fathers of the Church — Why "the hart panteth after the 
 water-brooks " — Story of the antelope — Barnacle geese — 
 " Credo quia absurdum " — Modern counterparts of early 
 Christian apologists and exegetists ^.80 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SYMBOLISM SUPERSEDED BY SATIRE 
 
 Excess of animal symbolism in sacred edifices of the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries — Earnest but fruitless 
 protest of St. Bernard — Image-worship authorized and en- 
 joined by the Council held at Nice in 787 — Images not to 
 be inventions of artists, but to be fashioned according to 
 ecclesiastical traditions and ecclesiological prescriptions — 
 Views of St. Nilus — Paintings and sculptures for the 
 instruction of the ignorant — Gautier de Coinsi renews the 
 protest against "wild cats and lions" in the house of 
 God — Angelus Rumpler makes the same complaint — 
 Warnings by the Councils of Milan and Bordeaux — In- 
 troductions of episodes from the beast-epos with satirical 
 tendencies — Secular guilds supplant religious orders as 
 architects — Caricature of sacred rites — Fox preaching 
 to geese in St. Martin's Church in Leicester — Sculptures 
 in Strasburg Minster — Reliefs of the wolfs novitiate in 
 Freiburg Minster — Poem by Marie de France — Sam- 
 son and the lion — Provost's cushion in St. Michael's 
 at Pforzheim — Burlesque of Calvin in St. Sernin at 
 Toulouse — Luther satirized in St. Victor's Church at 
 Xanten — Foolscap paper — Origin and character of the 
 Papstesel — Monstrosities as portents — Bishop-fish — The 
 Papal Ass in religious polemics — The Monk-calf of 
 Freiburg and its interpretation — Miniatures illustrating 
 the " Woes of France " — The fox of the Physiologus and 
 of the beast-epos — Reliefs of the wiles of the fox and the 
 woes of drunkenness in St. Fiacre — Execution of the cat 
 in the cathedral at Tarragona — Significance of the crane 
 extracting a bone from the fox's throat in Autun Cathe- 
 
Contents ix 
 
 dral — Burrowing foxes types of devils in Worcester 
 Cathedral — Scenes from the Reynardine and other poems 
 in the church of the Templars, St. Denis, Amiens Cathe- 
 dral, Sherborne Minster, and other sacred edifices, but 
 most fully represented in Bristol Cathedral and Beverly 
 Minster — Heraldic rebuses and canting devices — Satire 
 on the election of a pope in Lincoln Cathedral — Mendi- 
 cant friars caricatured as foxes in Ely, Gloucester, 
 Winchester, and other cathedrals — Odo of Sherington's 
 opinion of these orders — Similar delineations in the 
 churches and cloisters of continental Europe : Kempen, 
 Emmerick, Calcar, and Cleves— The Lay of Aristotle 
 and Vergil's affair of gallantry— The Vision of Piers 
 Plowman — Animals as musicians — Grotesques, bur- 
 lesques, and riddles — Funeral banquet at the burial of the 
 fox at Marienhafen— The frog as a symbol of regenera- 
 tion — Carvings of individual fancies and conceits and 
 illustrations of proverbs — Episodes from the Roman de 
 Renart—MaLXiy oi these sculptures, especially in Northern 
 France and the Netherlands, destroyed by iconoclasts 
 and revolutionists P- 178 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WHIMSEYS OF ECCLESIOLOGY^ AND SYMBOLOGY 
 
 Universality of the symbolism of the cross — Cruciform 
 phenomena in nature— The sign of the cross in the Old 
 Testament, and its prefigurative significance— Wonder- 
 working power of the cross in Jewish history— Its 
 presence in the Garden of Eden and in the Hebrew 
 alphabet — The cosmos has the form of a cross — Influence 
 of the doctrine of the Trinity upon art — Trinitarian 
 suggestions in the material creation — Mystic meanings 
 in sacred architecture — Symbolism of bells and signifi- 
 cance of orientation — Superstitious regard for the points 
 of the compass — Transition from christolatry to hagiolatry 
 
X Contents 
 
 — Subtilities of ecclesiology — Meagreness of Hebrew 
 mythology — Exercise of the mythopoeic faculty by the 
 Rabbis — Early Christian opposition to the theatre — 
 Theatrical rites and indecent amusements in churches 
 and cloisters — Feast of Fools, etc. — Analogy between the 
 anatomy of the ass and the architecture of a cathedral 
 — Jewish and Christian reverence for the ass — Feast of 
 the Ass — Symbolism swallowed up in buffoonery — Traffic 
 in holy relics — Satirized in Heywood's play of The Four 
 P.P. — Anatomical peculiarities of saints — Queer freaks 
 in sacred osteology — Specimens of relics in Catholic 
 churches — Miraculous power of self-multiplication — 
 — Choice collection of Frederic the Wise — Anti-Semitic 
 sculptures in Christian churches — Coarse relief ridiculing 
 the Jews at Wittenberg, and its interpretation by Luther 
 — Similar carvings in other cities — Decrees of John the 
 Good and Frederic the Hohenstaufe concerning usury 
 — Classical myths in Christian art — Orpheus a prototype 
 of Christ — Bacchus and the Lord's vineyard — Greek 
 comic poets adored as Christian saints — I sis as the 
 Virgin Mary — Crude symbolism of early Christian art — 
 Influence of Pagan antiquity— The peacock as a Christian 
 emblem — Moralization of the myth of Argus and lo — 
 Sirens and centaurs in architecture— The Sigurd Saga 
 — Weighing of souls — Recording angels and devils — 
 Woman as an emissary of Satan — The devil in Christian 
 art— Dance of death — Oldest representation of it — Its 
 democratic character and popularity — Manuscripts with 
 miniatures — Holbein's drawings — Sensational sermons 
 of Honor^ de Sainte Marie — Modern delineations of the 
 theme by Rethel, Seitz, Liihrig, and others ... p. 246 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY A 343 
 
 INDEX P- 351 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Central Section of a Window in the Cathedral of 
 
 Bourges ... ... ... ... ... Frontispiece 
 
 Terrobuli. {Bestiary) 50 
 
 Sculpture on Arch of Doorway of old Norman Church 
 
 at Alne, Yorkshire 50, 5^ 
 
 Lion howling over Whelps. {Relief in Munich) ... 82 
 
 Lion howling over Whelps. {Relief in Strasburg) ... 84 
 
 Capture of the Unicom. {Bestiary) 95 
 
 Hunting the Unicom. {Old German Engraving) ... 97 
 
 Annunciation. {Parish Church of Eltenberg) ... loo 
 
 Eagle renewing its Youth. {Bestiary) 117 
 
 Eaglets gazing at the Sun. {Cathedral of Lyons) ... 118 
 
 Whale and Mariners. {Psalter of Isabella of France) 124 
 
 Pelican. {Bestiary) ... 128 
 
 Phoenix. {Bestiary) 129 
 
 Otter (Water-snake) and Crocodile (Sea-monster). 
 
 {Psalter of Isabella of France) 133 
 
 Panther and Dragon. {Bestiary) 135 
 
 Beaver. {Bestiary) 138 
 
 Hyena. {Bestiary) 142 
 
 Partridge and her FosterHngs. {Bestiary) 144 
 
 Charadrius. {Bestiary) ... ... ... ... ... 146 
 
 Turtle-doves. {Psalter of Isabella of France) 148 
 
 Raven. {Bestiary) 150 
 
 Wolf. {Bestiary) 151 
 
 The Gospel and the Law, {Hortus Deliciarum) ... 155 
 
 Beasts of the Apocalypse. {Saint-Nizier of Troyes)... 157 
 
 Gospel-Mill. {Abbey of Vezelai in Burgundy) ... 159 
 
 Cock calling Hens. {Psalter of Isabella of France) ... 162 
 
 Liberality and Avarice. {Manuscript in Musee de Chmy) 163 
 
 Fighting the Basilisk. {Abbey oj Vezelai in Burgundy) 165 
 Sphinx subduing the Basilisk. {Abbey of Vezelai in 
 
 Burgundy) ... ... ... ... ... ... 168 
 
xii List of Illustrations 
 
 Hart and Dragon. {Bestiary) 172 
 
 Antelope. {Bestiary) 173 
 
 Antelope on the Euphrates. {Psalter of Isabella of 
 
 France) 174 
 
 Barnacle Geese. {Bestiary) 175 
 
 Burial of the Fox. {Strasburg Mitister) 189 
 
 Novitiate of the Wolf. {Freiburg Minster) 190 
 
 Sea-Bishop. {Gessner's Fischbuch) 198 
 
 Papal Ass. {Cathedral of Co mo) 201 
 
 Wiles of the Fox. {Bestiary) 205 
 
 Execution of the Cat. {Cathedral of Tarragona in 
 
 Spain) 207 
 
 Artifices of the Fox in ensnaring Fowls. {St. Fiacre^ 
 
 near Le Faouet) ... ... 208 
 
 Flaying the Fox. {St. Fiacre^ near Le Faouet) ... 209 
 
 Cock and Hen drawing Fox to Execution. {St. 
 
 Ursin, near Bruges) 213 
 
 The " Lay of Aristotle." {Church of Saint-Jean in 
 Lyons) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 228 
 
 Carvings on Stalls in the Parish Church of Kempen 
 (Rhineland) : Threshing Eggs — Looking through an 
 Egg — Feeling of a Hen — Hatching Eggs — Weeping 
 over a fallen Basket of Eggs — Eel-pot — Crane and 
 Fox dining — Fox preaching to Fowls — Dogs fighting 
 for a Bone — Fox swimming after Ducks — Ass with 
 Rosary — Casting Daisies before Swine — Ass playing 
 the Lyre — Pig playing the Bagpipe — Reynard as 
 Confessor eating the Kite his Confessant — Bear 
 eating Honey — Belling the Cat — Shearing Swine 239-242 
 Jolly Friar and Tinker. {Minorite Cloister in Cleves) 244 
 Satire on the Jews. {Parish Church of Wittenberg) ... 290 
 Satire on the Jews. {Tower of Bridge in Frankfort) 295 
 Pyramus and Thisbe. {Cathedral of Bale) ... 304,305 
 
 Peacocks. {Psalter of Isabella of France) 311 
 
 Myth of Argus. {Bestiary) 314 
 
 Sirens. {Psalter of Isabella of France) 314 
 
 Siren presenting a Fish to a Man. {Church at Cunault- 
 
 sur-Loire) 316 
 
 Siegfried (Sigurd) Saga. (CV thedral of Freising, near 
 
 Munich). Four views of the pillar in the crypt 322-325 
 Sigurd Saga. {Church of Hyllestad in Norway) 326, 327 
 Weighing Souls. {Cathedral of Bourges) 329 
 
ANIMAL SYMBOLISM IN 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 One of the most charming passages in the idyls 
 of Theocritus is that in which Eros complains to 
 Aphrodite of the bees that stung his hand as he 
 was stealing honey from their hive, and expresses 
 his astonishment that such very small creatures could 
 cause so severe pain. Thereupon the Cyprian god- 
 dess laughingly replies : " Thou too art like the bee, 
 for although a tiny child, yet how terrible are the 
 wounds thou dost inflict." This witty retort and 
 pat allusion to the pangs produced by the arrows 
 from Cupid's quiver greatly pleased the fancy of 
 the elder Lucas Cranach, who depicted the scene 
 in no less than five different paintings, the most 
 celebrated of which is now in the Royal Museum 
 of Berlin. The same conceit was embodied, at a 
 still earlier period, in one of the poems of Anacreon, 
 who, however, represents Eros as having been stung 
 while plucking a rose in which a bee was sleeping. 
 A Spanish poet of the seventeenth century, Estevan 
 
 B 
 
Animal Symbolism 
 
 Manuel de Villegas, famous in Old Castile as the 
 translator and imitator of Anacreon, gives in Las 
 Eroticas a vivid description of a duel between Amor 
 and a bee, the two ravishers of hearts and flowers. 
 The combat ended with the painful wounding of 
 the god and the death of the insect, and thus 
 ravaged hearts and pillaged flowers were both 
 avenged. In a madrigal of the Roman " Arcadian," 
 Felice Zappi, Cupids swarm like bees round the 
 head of the loved one, clinging to her hair, nestling 
 in her bosom, gathering honey from her lips, and 
 waving their torches out of her eyes. In his charm- 
 ing lyric Die Bieiie, Lessing gives a didactic turn 
 to Anacreon's poem already referred to, and makes 
 Amor learn a lesson of strategy from his misfor- 
 tune : henceforth he was wont to lurk in roses and 
 violets, and, when a maiden came to pluck them, 
 " flew forth as a bee and stung." A kiss is also 
 personified as a bee, which extracts honey from the 
 lips, and, at the same time, pierces the heart with 
 its sting. 
 
 Curiously enough this simple, sensuous, and 
 suggestive imagery, which plays such a prominent 
 part in Greek, and especially in Oriental, erotics, is 
 wholly foreign to those of the Germanic and 
 Slavonic races ; it is not native to the poetry of 
 these nations, and blooms in their literature only 
 as an exotic. For the delineation of the tender 
 passion they preferred a symbolism drawn from 
 the vegetable kingdom, and the real or fictitious 
 qualities of fruits and flowers ; the apple, the 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 3 
 
 peach, the fig, the rose, the lily, the narcissus, 
 the anemone, the violet, and the pink are used to 
 illustrate the attractions of female beauty and the 
 attributes of connubial love. Into Germany, whose 
 pagan tribes seem to have been acquainted with 
 bees, chiefly if not exclusiv^ely in their wild state, 
 the art of rearing these insects was introduced with 
 Christianity, and carried on for the most part by 
 the various monastic orders. There was hardly a 
 cloister without its hive, which not only supplied 
 honey and wax for culinary and cultic purposes, 
 but also served as an example to the friars of an 
 ideal life of communistic industry and cenobitic 
 chastity. The superiors of the convents were fond 
 of emphasizing this analogy in their exhortations to 
 the recluses under their charge, and of enforcing it 
 in their religious poetry. Peter of Capua calls the 
 risen and ascended Saviour "apis aetherea"; the 
 saints famous for good works are compared to bees ; 
 eloquent Fathers of the Church and expounders of 
 the faith — Chrysostom, Ambrose, Isidore of Spain, 
 and Bernard of Clairvaux — are said to have lips 
 flowing with honey {inelliflwis) ; and the virgin 
 queen of the hive is, in the hymns of mediaeval 
 mariolaters, a favourite type of the Virgin Queen 
 of Heaven. But notwithstanding the frequency of 
 these allusions in Christian literature, and the 
 consecration of honey and wax to ritual purposes, 
 the bee figures rarely in Christian art. It is found 
 occasionally carved on tombs in the catacombs as 
 a symbol of immortality ; in this case, however, it 
 
Animal Symbolism 
 
 does not express a specifically Christian conception, 
 but is a survival of paganism. In ancient times 
 honey was supposed to be an effective antiseptic, 
 and it was customary to smear with it the bodies 
 of the dead in order to preserve them from putre- 
 faction. Alexander the Great is said to have been 
 thus embalmed, and the same usage formed an 
 integral part of the Mithras-cult, and can be traced 
 still farther back to the solar worship of the 
 Assyrians and Babylonians. Under the Roman 
 empire the mysteries of the Mithras-cult became 
 widely diffused throughout Western Europe ; 
 Christian churches were erected over altars dedi- 
 cated to the old Persian sun-god, as in S. Clemente 
 at Rome, and the gilded bull's head and three 
 hundred golden bees, discovered at Tournay in 
 1653, in the tomb of the Merovingian king, 
 Childeric III., had their origin in the same system 
 of worship. These bees, which decorated the royal 
 mantle of the living monarch, and embellished his 
 shroud after death, were invested with a traditional 
 sacredness in France as emblems of sovereignty, and 
 therefore adopted by the first Napoleon, in order to 
 give a seeming shimmer of ancient lustre to an 
 upstart dynasty. 
 
 Christ, as we have seen, was called the " aethereal 
 bee," and it is an interesting coincidence that 
 Vishnu, incarnate in the form of Krishna, should 
 be represented with a blue bee hovering over his 
 head as a symbol of the aether. It is not probable 
 that this similarity is to be explained on the theory 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 5 
 
 of an historical transmission of ideas, or that there 
 is any genetic connection between these conceptions, 
 except so far as they might grow naturally and 
 independently out of the solar character of both 
 religions. There is no doubt, however, that the 
 Orient is the chief source of our symbolisms, which 
 in migrating westward have undergone such a 
 variety of transformations and adaptations as in 
 many cases greatly to obscure their original signifi- 
 cance. In the BriJiat'Kathd-Sarit-Sdgara (" Great 
 Ocean of the Rivers of Stories ") of Somadeva, there 
 is the tale of a traveller, who fell asleep on a forest 
 tree, and when he awoke saw a tiger lying in wait 
 for him below, and an enormous serpent coiled 
 above his head and ready to spring upon him. 
 At the same time he discovered on a branch by his 
 side some drops of honey from a swarm of bees in 
 the hollow trunk, and in the enjoyment of its 
 sweetness forgot all about the perils by which he 
 was surrounded. Long before the age of Soma- 
 deva this allegory of human life was current in 
 India, whence it passed into the legendary litera- 
 ture of Europe, subject to the modifications of an 
 Occidental environment (for example in Jacobus 
 de Voragine's Lcgenda Ajirea, and the Barlaam 
 tind Josaphat of Rudolf von Ems), and is the theme 
 of an elaborate bas-relief on the south door of the 
 baptistery of Parma, where we see a man sitting 
 on the limb of a tree eagerly eating the honey that 
 trickles from the leaves ; at the foot of the tree is 
 a dragon, and gnawing at its roots are two mice, 
 
Animal SyiTibolism 
 
 white and black, symbols of day and night, the 
 chief divisions of all-devouring time, which ulti- 
 mately cause every tree of life to fall. M. Henri 
 Gaidoz has shown by strongly presumptive, if not 
 wholly conclusive, evidence, that the Virgin of the 
 Seven Swords is a Christian appropriation and 
 adaptation of the Babylonian-Assyrian war-goddess 
 Istar, who is represented on ancient monuments 
 with seven darts in her shoulders, so arranged as to 
 form with their shafts a halo encircling her head. 
 Pictures of this goddess, brought by mediaeval 
 Italian merchants from the East, were supposed to 
 refer to the Virgin Mary, and to the fulfilment of 
 the prophecy of Simeon that a sword should pierce 
 through her soul ; and it was not until the fifteenth 
 century that it was slightly modified to suit the 
 Gospel record, and received a permanent place in 
 Christian iconography. The existence of a revered 
 image of the Holy Virgin in remote regions of the 
 East was easily accounted for by the clergy, like 
 many other startling resemblances in religious rites 
 and symbols, as the marvellous and quite miraculous 
 results of the mythical mission of the apostle 
 Thomas. 
 
 Indeed, nothing was more common in the middle 
 ages than this Christianization of pagan deities. 
 Thus the eagle as an emblem of Jupiter caused the 
 son of Kronos and sovereign of Olympus to be 
 mistaken for John the Evangelist ; Poseidon and 
 Pallas were regarded as Adam and Eve ; Hercules 
 with his club passed for Samson with the jawbone 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 7 
 
 of an ass ; and representations of Venus were 
 ingeniously construed into those of the Virgin 
 Mary. Under the influence of the Renaissance 
 the newly-awakened aesthetic sense proved strong 
 enough to overrule the scruples of religious senti- 
 ment, and the monuments of classical antiquity 
 became models for imitation in the productions of 
 Christian art. We have a striking example of this 
 tendency in a marble relief of the Assumption of 
 the Virgin, which belonged originally to Saint- 
 Jacques-la-Boucherie, and is now in the abbatial 
 church of Saint- Denis, Her graceful figure is 
 almost wholly nude, and resembles Venus rising 
 from the sea rather than the Virgin Mary ascend- 
 ing into heaven ; she folds her hands in the 
 attitude of prayer, and stands with one foot on a 
 cloud and the other on the head of a cherub, while 
 four pagan genii as angels accompany her, playing 
 on musical instruments. 
 
 It was in the Orient, too, that mythical and 
 symbolical zoology, as the natural outgrowth of 
 the doctrine of metempsychosis, attained its most 
 exuberant development. The monstrosities of 
 Indian, Assyrian, Egyptian, and archaic Greek 
 art, sphinxes, centaurs, minotaurs, human-headed 
 bulls, lion-headed kings, horse-headed goddesses, 
 and sparrow-headed gods, are all the plastic em- 
 bodiments of this metaphysical tenet. The same 
 notion finds expression in heraldry, where real 
 and fabulous animals are blazoned in whimsical 
 devices on coats-of-arms and ensigns as emblems 
 
8 Animal Symbolism 
 
 of qualities supposed to be peculiar to individuals- 
 or hereditary in families. The man adorned his 
 escutcheon with the bird or the beast which he 
 was proud of resembling or wished to rival, whose 
 rapidity of flight he coveted, or whose ferocity he 
 feared. By this naive symbolism the primitive 
 chieftain thought to strike terror in his foes, or 
 to strengthen the courage and confidence of his 
 friends and confederates. Out of the same circum- 
 stances arose also an uncanny feeling of awe as 
 regards the lower animals, and a superstitious 
 dread of provoking their enmity. Grimm, in his 
 exhaustive discussion of this topic, has called 
 attention to that early stage of society, when the 
 ravenous wolf and the shaggy bear, prowling 
 through the dark glens and sunny glades of the 
 interminable forest, were looked upon, not merely 
 as rapacious brutes, whose physical strength and 
 voracity were to be feared, but rather as incar- 
 nations of mysterious and malignant forces capable 
 of inflicting injuries by occult and magical influ- 
 ences, and therefore not to be enraged or irritated 
 in any manner. For this reason they were not 
 called by their real names, but were propitiated 
 by flattering epithets, such as black-foot, blue- 
 foot, gold-foot, sweet-foot, grey-beard, broad-brow, 
 flash-eye, forest-brother, and a variety of similar 
 appellations. The demon-soul revealed itself in 
 the fierce glare of the eye and the long, weird 
 howl, which broke like the voice of an imprisoned 
 fiend on the midnight air, as the beasts were 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 
 
 supposed to be holding conference concerning the 
 affairs and destinies of men, into which the im- 
 mense age many of them were thought to attain 
 would in itself give them more than Rosicrucian 
 insight. This sacred and supernatural character 
 invested all their movements with extraordinary 
 interest and portentous significance. They directed 
 the emigrations of tribes, and determined the places 
 in which colonies were to be planted, watched 
 over the infancy of heroes and suckled the founders 
 of nations, indicated the sites of future cities, 
 showed where temples were to be erected or 
 saints buried, and were selected with the most 
 scrupulous care and circumspection for purposes 
 of sacrifice and vaticination. The presence or 
 sudden approach of certain quadrupeds was an 
 omen of good or evil, and auguries were drawn 
 from the movements or cries of birds. A hare 
 crossing the line of march of an army has sufficed 
 to fill the troops with terror, and cause them to 
 flee in a panic. Among the reliefs in the south 
 porch of the cathedral of Chartres is that of 
 a warrior dropping his sword and running away 
 from this timid quadruped. Finally, animals were 
 transferred to the sky and identified with the con- 
 stellations, in which form they continued to look 
 down upon the earth with auspicious or malign 
 aspect, and to forecast the fate of mankind. 
 
 A natural consequence of this enigmatical and 
 mystical relation of the world of men to the world 
 of beasts was that the latter became at a very 
 
lo Animal Symbolism 
 
 early period objects of worship and mythopoetic 
 speculation. Zoolatry has existed among all 
 nations, but this cult reached its highest develop- 
 ment among the Egyptians, who adored a vast 
 Pantheon of deified bulls, rams, cats, mice, ibises, 
 sparrows, hawks, crocodiles, and a multitude of 
 mongrel creations of the imagination. Even insects, 
 flies, bees, beetles, were exalted to divinities. 
 Monstrosities were held in peculiar veneration. 
 The union of human bodies with the heads of 
 beasts or birds is especially characteristic of the 
 Egyptian religion ; similar incongruities are met 
 with among the most ancient deities of Greece, 
 and were doubtless of Asiatic origin. Thus the 
 Arcadian Demeter was represented with a horse's 
 head, and the Cretan Minotaur with the head of 
 a bull, not to mention the hosts of gorgons, 
 harpies, centaurs, tritons, nereids, sirens, and satyrs 
 formed by uniting a human head with the body 
 of a beast or bird or fish. The Greek alone, with 
 his superior aesthetic sense, chaste imagination, 
 and unsurpassable plastic skill, knew how to give 
 organic unity to these heterogeneous combinations, 
 pruning them of excrescences, purging them of 
 superfluities, and rendering the boldest violations 
 of the laws of nature beautiful and harmonious as 
 works of art. These hybrid creatures of the fancy, 
 like the sphinxes which guarded the portals of the 
 temples of Thebes, and the colossal winged lions 
 of Nineveh and Persepolis, originated in the priestly 
 proclivity to symbolize and to express mystical 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 1 1 
 
 ideas in material forms ; but their primitive crude- 
 ness, refined and transmuted in the crucible of the 
 Hellenic intellect, emerged as the pure gold of 
 artistic perfection. As the result of this process 
 of transformation or evolution, if we may regard 
 symbols as species and apply to them the catch- 
 word of modern science, the Greek embodiments 
 of these conceptions have survived as the fittest 
 in the struggle for existence, and secured a per- 
 manent place in the art and literature of the 
 civilized world. The fact that they are universally 
 accepted as "classical " is conclusive proof of their 
 absolute ascendency. 
 
 Alexandria was for several centuries, under the 
 Ptolemies and the Roman prefects, the principal 
 channel of commercial intercourse between the 
 East and the West, and consequently the point 
 at which Oriental and Occidental ideas came into 
 constant contact and often into sharp conflict, but 
 by mutual concession and compromise gradually 
 developed a certain eclecticism and syncretism of 
 philosophical speculations and religious systems. 
 Thus arose the so-called Alexandrian School, in 
 which the achievements of Egyptian, Hellenic, and 
 Hebrew culture were commingled and mutually 
 supplemented. Christianity, however, was too 
 aggressive in its spirit and too exclusive in its 
 claims to accept any compromise, or to enter into 
 any amicable modus vivendi with other cults. Its 
 mission was to put all things under its feet, and to 
 assert its universal supremacy, and for this reason 
 
12 Animal Symbolism 
 
 it recognized the validity of older forms of worship 
 and admitted their raiso7i d'etre only so far as they 
 could be shown to have a specifically propsedeutic 
 relation to itself as the only true religion. Partly 
 in application of this principle, and partly as a 
 matter of policy in order to facilitate its propaga- 
 tion, it appropriated so far as possible the rites 
 and symbols and ancient traditions of antecedent 
 religions, interpreting them as anticipations, alle- 
 gories, prophecies, and prefigurations which had 
 now been fully accomplished and thereby abro- 
 gated. Christian proselytes of different races were 
 eager and adept in making all available currents of 
 their ancestral mythology tributary to the stream, 
 whose waters were for the healing of the nations. 
 Egyptian converts, known as Copts (Copt, Gyptios, 
 Kyptaios, like Gypsy, is a corruption of Aiy'^irrios), 
 found in the sacred records of their progenitors, 
 as preserved in picture-writing and plastic art, no 
 lack of ideographic and other symbolical material 
 which could be easily converted to Christian uses. 
 Thus the hieroglyphic sign -^, pronounced onk, 
 and signifying "life," would be readily accepted 
 as an ansated cross t^, and naturally give rise to 
 the simpler form t^ so often represented on Coptic 
 monuments ; by a slight change it might be 
 metamorphosed into the monogrammatic name of 
 Christ )^. In like manner an ancient Coptic relief 
 of the Virgin and Child, described by M. Ga}et 
 {Les Mo7t7iments Copies dti Miisce de Boulaq, 
 Paris, 1889), and by Georg Ebers {Sinnbildlkhes, 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 1 3 
 
 Leipzig, 1892), is a servile imitation of the tradi- 
 tional Egyptian representations of Isis suckling 
 Horus. The necklace of the Madonna is the 
 same as that worn by goddesses on the monu- 
 ments, and by ladies of royal rank in the age of 
 the Pharaohs. The chair, on which she is seated, 
 with its back shaped like the hieroglyphic p (s), 
 is an exact copy of that on which Egyptian 
 deities were wont to be enthroned and Egyptian 
 sovereigns used to sit in state. The stiff and 
 angular infant is the very image of Horus ; near 
 by stands Joseph, rather rigidly draped, and hold- 
 ing in his right hand a tree and an instrument 
 resembling a chisel, which may be intended to 
 indicate the occupation of a carpenter. Above 
 their heads extends the ideogram f=i (pt), signi- 
 fying the sky or heavens, and suggesting either 
 the place of their abode or their divine character. 
 Over all hovers a female gyrfalcon with outspread 
 wings, the Nechebt-Ilithyia (ElXeiOvta), which pre- 
 sides over births and renders parturition easy, as 
 is stated in the Physiologus, by means of the Indian 
 stone eutokios (evroKtos). 
 
 Another striking example of this tendency is the 
 transformation of Horus slaying Seth-Typhon into 
 St. George and the Dragon. An Egyptian bas- 
 relief of bronze in the Louvre, and a similar one in 
 clay in the British Museum, represent the sparrow- 
 headed god equipped as a mounted warrior, and 
 thrusting his spear into the neck of a crocodile, the 
 emblem and incarnation of his demonic foe. In 
 
14 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Egyptian mythology Horus symbolized the vital 
 energy and reproductive power of nature ; he derived 
 his name from the Semitic Hiir, signifying light, and 
 was therefore properly regarded by Herodotus as 
 identical with Apollo; hence the double name of the 
 Greco-Egyptian priest Horapollo, whose Hierogly- 
 phica (edited by C. Leemans, Amsterdam, 1835) is 
 an early and important contribution to symbolical 
 zoology. Horus personified not only the vivifying 
 and fertilizing forces of the physical world, and the 
 triumph of life over death, but also the victory of 
 good over evil ; his feast was therefore a v^ernal 
 festival celebrated on the twenty-third of April. 
 Typhon, on the other hand, was the demon of the 
 desert, the producer of drought and sterility and 
 famine. As the counterpart to this delineation we 
 have a rude Coptic relief of St. George and the 
 Dragon, which was discovered at Luxor, and is so 
 thoroughly Egyptian in character that it might be 
 easily mistaken for Horus and Seth-Typhon. Over 
 the haloed head of the Christian hero is an equilateral 
 triangle, a symbol of the Trinity of frequent occur- 
 rence on Egyptian monuments ; indeed, according 
 to Plutarch, the fact that the ibis was wont to stand 
 with straddled legs so as to form such a figure 
 greatly added to its sacredness. In the background 
 is the bull Apis, with what seems to be a decrescent 
 moon (Ebers calls it a disc of the sun, Sonnenscheibe) 
 over its back. The Egyptians worshipped two bulls, 
 both sacred to Osiris, namely Mneuis at Heliopolis, 
 and Apis at Memphis ; the sign of the former was 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 
 
 the sun, and that of the latter the moon. Above 
 the gateway, through which St. George is riding 
 with the dragon squirming beneath his horse, are 
 two birds having tails resembling the chrysalis of 
 an insect, and it may be, as Ebers suggests, that 
 they are the larva out of which the rejuvenated 
 phoenix was supposed to emerge. It is possible, 
 however, that these queer tails are merely the result 
 of an awkward attempt to draw feathers. The 
 anniversary of St. George, like that of Horus, is on 
 the twenty-third of April, and there is not the 
 slightest doubt that this canonized knight, who 
 figures in hagiology as a Cappadocian prince and 
 blessed martyr, owes his existence to the Christian- 
 ization of an old Egyptian myth, which, after under- 
 going this metamorphosis, migrated to Syria, where 
 the saint is reputed to have been born in the city of 
 Lydda, and thence gradually spread over all Asia 
 Minor. Here the crusaders became familiar with 
 the legend, adopted St. George as their patron and 
 pattern in waging the holy war against the Mussul- 
 manic dragon, and brought him to Europe em- 
 blazoned on their banners. 
 
 It is highly probable, and indeed quite certain, 
 that many ornamentations of Christian architecture, 
 which are now merely traditional and conventional 
 forms and perform a purely decorative function, 
 might be traced to Egyptian and other Oriental 
 sources, where they had distinct significance as 
 signs and symbols. But it is not the purpose of the 
 writer to undertake such a study in comparative 
 
1 6 Animal Symbolism 
 
 symbology, nor are the materials necessary to its 
 successful prosecution as yet available, notwith- 
 standing the rapidly accumulating and extremely 
 valuable results of recent researches in archaeology, 
 ethnography, philology, and the critical comparison 
 of religions. The aim of the present volume is a 
 much simpler one, being an attempt to explain the 
 meaning of the real or fabulous animals, which have 
 been put to decorative uses in ecclesiastical archi- 
 tecture, and thus to account for their admittance to 
 sacred edifices. The book is intended to be suggest- 
 ive rather than exhaustive, showing the origin and 
 signification of the most prominent of these types 
 and symbols, and indicating the direction in which 
 further investigations are to be pursued. The 
 founder or at least the most eminent representative 
 of the Alexandrian School of allegorists was the 
 Jewish philosopher Philo, who, as a mediator 
 between Hebrew and Hellenic culture, endeavoured 
 to discover the teachings of Pythagoras, Plato, and 
 Aristotle esoterically concealed in the Mosaic 
 records, by giving to the latter a far-fetched, figura- 
 tive interpretation. This hermeneutical principle 
 was adopted by Christian exegetists and apologists, 
 especially by Clemens Alexandrinus in his Stro- 
 inateus (patchwork or miscellany of Greek and 
 Christian literature), and by Origen, who recognized 
 in the Scriptures a threefold sense : literal or his- 
 torical, moral or psychical, and mystical or pneu- 
 matic. Cassian, in the fifth century, wrote a work 
 entitled Collationes Patrum Sceticoriim, in which he 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 17 
 
 states that there are four kinds of knowledge to be 
 derived from Biblical study : historical, tropological, 
 allegorical, and anagogical. The first of these, 
 being for the most part perfectly plain, was of no 
 importance ; only the last three deserve the name of 
 spiritual knowledge {intelligentiam spirit uale7>i) ; or, 
 as Hrabanus Maurus expressed it four centuries 
 later, the historical sense is milk for babes ; the 
 tropological sense is nutriment suited to those more 
 advanced in wisdom ; the allegorical sense is the 
 strong meat adapted to the robust souls whose 
 faith is revealed in good works ; while the saintly 
 persons, who despise all earthly joys and have fixed 
 their affections wholly on heavenly things, are alone 
 fit to receive the "wine of anagogical interpreta- 
 tion " and to be edified thereby. This last and 
 highest degree of spiritual discernment is beyond 
 the reach of " the higher criticism," and, as Cassian 
 observes, is not attainable by severe study and deep 
 erudition, but comes from divine illumination pro- 
 duced by fasting, prayer, and holy meditation. It 
 is an enlightenment of the understanding proceeding 
 from the purification of the heart, and not from 
 poring over commentaries ; a lifting of the veil of 
 the passions that obscure the mental vision. 
 
 Not only was the Hebrew cosmogony allegorized 
 and spiritualized, but the same method of exposi- 
 tion was applied to the whole system of nature. 
 Origen, in describing the process of creation, explains 
 the creatures that fill the waters, the fowls of the air, 
 and the creeping things as signifying good or evil 
 
 c 
 
1 8 Animal Symbolism 
 
 thoughts and feelings, and calls special attention to 
 the great ' whales as symbolizing violent passions 
 and criminal impulses. In the hermeneutical Hexa- 
 hemera of Basil the Great and his brother Gregory 
 of Nyssa this zoological typology is still more fully 
 developed, and the various characteristics, popularly 
 attributed to animals, served to enforce moral teach- 
 ings or to illustrate theological tenets. More im- 
 portant in this respect are the so-called Claves 
 Scriptures Sacrce, which were to be used as keys 
 not only for unlocking the spiritual treasures of 
 Holy Writ, but also for disclosing the mystical 
 meaning of all natural things, the Greek Physiologus, 
 and the numerous medieval compilations and 
 poetical productions based upon it, of which an 
 account is given in the second and third chapters 
 of this volume. These works contain an epitome 
 of the mythical and symbolical zoology, botany, 
 ornithology, and mineralogy gathered from many 
 nations, and transmitted from the remotest times. 
 Very early in the Christian era this traditional 
 material infused itself into patristic literature, and 
 thus gradually passed from rhetorical decoration in 
 Christian homilies to artistic decoration in Christian 
 architecture, where it found expression in fantastic 
 and often monstrous forms, which can be under- 
 stood only by tracing them to their sources in the 
 superstitious notions of ancient and especially 
 Oriental peoples. With the growth of religious 
 scepticism and schism this symbolism gradually 
 and almost imperceptibly merged into satire, so 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 19 
 
 that it is often difficult to draw a line of demarca- 
 tion between them. Mediaeval humour was coarse 
 rather than keen, and better skilled in wielding 
 bludgeons than in brandishing rapiers. Even the 
 genius of Rabelais hardly suffices to relieve it of a 
 certain boorish grossness and brutality, and render 
 it thoroughly enjoyable to the refined and fastidious 
 modern reader. The satire of the period of the 
 Reformation was of the same bitter and abusive 
 style. Luther's wit was notoriously nasty, and 
 even the gentle Melanchthon was capable of in- 
 dulging in a strain of sarcasm which any cultivated 
 man of to-day would reprobate as extremely 
 vulgar. It must be remembered, however, that this 
 coarseness was a characteristic of the age, and is 
 not to be regarded as a mark of intrinsic vile- 
 ness or individual depravity. It was something 
 wholly external, a mode of expression by no 
 means inconsistent with a robust virtue, as far 
 removed from prudishness as from pruriency. In 
 our time the fiercest theological polemic would 
 hardly venture to lampoon and caricature his 
 opponents as the reformers of the sixteenth century 
 did the see of Rome, nor would the most rabid 
 apostle of Anti-Semitism seek to propagate his 
 views by adorning Christian churches and other 
 public edifices with filthy sculptures derisive of 
 the Jews. 
 
 In the volume now offered to the public the author 
 has endeavoured to show the rise and evolution of 
 this symbolism, and its transition to satire as seen in 
 
20 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Christian art, although, as already stated, he is very 
 far from claiming to have exhausted the subject. 
 The illustrations are derived partly from the bes- 
 tiaries printed by Cahier in the second volume of 
 his Melanges d'Archeologie, partly from a parch- 
 ment manuscript psalter of Isabella of France in the 
 Royal Library of Munich, and partly from eccle- 
 siastical edifices. The appended bibliography, 
 taken in connection with the references given in 
 the body of the work, will be found to contain 
 the principal sources of information. 
 
 In conclusion, I wish to express my hearty thanks 
 to Hrn. Dr. Laubmann, Director of the K. Hof- und 
 Staatsbibliothek in Munich, Bavaria, as well as to 
 the other custodians of that library, for the uniform 
 kindness and cordiality shown in admitting me to 
 the privileges and in facilitating the use of that 
 magnificent collection of printed books and manu- 
 scripts. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 ALLEGORICAL AND ANAGOGICAL INTERPRETA- 
 TIONS OF NATURE 
 
 Impulse given to the study of natural history by Alexander 
 the Great — Scientific spirit fostered by Aristotle — Lack 
 of this spirit among the Romans — Alexandria as a centre 
 of learning under the Ptolemies — The Christian theory of 
 the relation of the Book of Revelation to the Book of 
 Nature — The patristic conception of the visible creation 
 as an image of the invisible world and a mirror of spiritual 
 truth — Animals as religious emblems in Oriental, and 
 especially in Buddhistic, literature — Mineralogical sym- 
 bolism — Magical and medical properties and religious 
 significance of precious stones — Legends of Solomon's 
 wisdom, and his method of building the Temple — Cere- 
 mony of blessing jewels — Speculations of Justinus Kerner 
 and Schubert concerning the occult affinities of the mineral 
 kingdom to man — The typology of precious stones accord- 
 ing to the Physiologus — Spiritual meaning of the diamond, 
 the pearl, and the Indian stone— Terrobuli in Christian 
 symbolism and architecture. 
 
 Alexander the Great, in addition to his mili- 
 tary exploits and political achievements, also gave 
 a new impulse and direction to the development of 
 natural history in Greece by supplying his tutor, 
 Aristotle, with specimens and more or less accurate 
 descriptions of animals native to the lands he had 
 conquered. By means of the material thus obtained 
 
22 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the peripatetic philosopher was enabled to extend his 
 researches beyond the confines of his own country, 
 and to correct many false and fantastic notions 
 that had hitherto prevailed concerning exotic, and 
 especially Oriental, fauna, and thus became — at 
 least in a relative and restricted sense — the founder 
 of systematic zoology in the modern signification 
 of the term. His predecessors, as well as his 
 contemporaries, had been wont to speculate about 
 animals chiefly from moral, religious, poetic, artistic, 
 didactic, humoristic, satirical, sentimental, and 
 superstitious points of view, and to prize the lessons 
 of prudence and piety and wisdom which they 
 were supposed to inculcate ; but the Stagirite was 
 the first to study them from a strictly scientific 
 point of view. 
 
 Still, the scientific field, which Aristotle culti- 
 vated with such assiduous care and with so fruitful 
 results, formed only a small evergreen spot, stand- 
 ing oasis-like in the midst of a wide waste of wild 
 conjectures and sterile speculations. Tyrtamus 
 of Lesbos, surnamed Theophrastus, his favourite 
 pupil and chosen successor as head of the peripa- 
 tetic school, followed in the footsteps of the great 
 master in this field of investigation, and aimed at 
 the acquisition of positive knowledge by means of 
 exact methods in the study of nature. Unfortu- 
 nately, however, the fabulous stories related by 
 Ktesias and Megasthenes in their voluminous de- 
 scriptions of India and Persia appealed more 
 powerfully to the imagination, and gratified in a 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 23 
 
 higher degree the popular love of the marvellous, 
 than the sober records of accurate observation, and 
 therefore acquired far greater currency. 
 
 The Romans brought beasts from the remotest 
 provinces of the empire, not because they felt any 
 rational or scientific interest in them, but solely 
 in order to increase the pomp and splendour of 
 military triumphs, or to minister to the barbarous 
 and bloody sports of the amphitheatre. According 
 to Petronius, the Marmaric deserts and the Moorish 
 forests were scoured for the purpose of procuring 
 ferocious animals to fight in the arena with each 
 other, or with trained gladiators in horrible combat. 
 " The ships from foreign shores," he says, " are 
 crowded with fierce tigers confined in gilded cages, 
 and destined to drink human blood to the frantic 
 plaudits of the populace." 
 
 When Cicero was proconsul in Cilicia, he received 
 an urgent letter from the aedile Ccelius, imploring 
 him to send as speedily as possible a cargo of 
 panthers, which were to be used as a "campaign 
 fund " for electioneering purposes. As a means of 
 winning the suffrages of the rabble this sort of ex- 
 penditure was probably more efficient, and certainly 
 more open and exciting than the modern system of 
 distributing " bunched " ballots, or of purchasing 
 venal voters " in blocks of five." To this entreaty 
 Cicero replied that he would do his best to comply 
 with the request of his friend, and thus contribute 
 to the success of his candidacy, but that owing to 
 the energy and skill of many lovers of the chase, 
 
24 Animal Symbolism 
 
 and especially of a certain Patiscus, these beasts 
 of venery were very scarce, having fled for safety 
 from his consular province into Caria. If we may 
 believe their own statements, the Romans accom- 
 plished wonders in training beasts and birds for 
 private amusement or for spectacular entertain- 
 ments. Their passion for pet animals was a matter 
 of fashion, a mere "fad"; and Cato bitterly censured 
 the degeneracy of the times, when ladies frequented 
 the market-place fondling lap-dogs, and dandies 
 strutted about with parrots perched on their wrists. 
 These birds were kept in cages of gold and silver 
 and tortoise-shell, and taught to shout the name of 
 the reigning emperor. The lion learned to play 
 with hares, catching them in frolic and letting them 
 go, and rabbits ran and took refuge in its jaws as 
 in their burrow. Martial, who describes these per- 
 formances, adds, in obsequious flattery of Domitian, 
 that this gentleness and docilit)' of savage beasts 
 are due less to the art of the tamer {domatoj-) than 
 to awe of the emperor {imperatot-), " for the lions 
 know whom they serve." The same poet informs 
 us that eagles were made to act on the stage, 
 taking a boy up into the air without doing him 
 any harm, in realistic representation of the rape of 
 Ganymede on Mount Ida — 
 
 " ^thereas aquila puemm portante per auras, 
 Illcesum timidis unquibus haisit onus." 
 
 Ep. Lib. i. 7. 
 
 In view of this almost exclusively amphitheatrical 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 25 
 
 and utterly brutalizing relation of the Romans to 
 the animal world, it is not surprising to find in the 
 Natural History of Pliny an encyclopaedic compi- 
 lation of current traditions and popular supersti- 
 tions, instead of a record of actual observations and 
 scientific conclusions. In short, the Romans do 
 not appear to have made any contributions what- 
 ever to natural science, although the vast extent of 
 their dominions afforded them an excellent oppor- 
 tunity for such investigations. Not even in the 
 great didactic poem of the keen-witted Lucretius, 
 De Rerum Natura, do we discover any distinct 
 traces of the Aristotelian method of inquiry. The 
 achievements of Roman thought were in politics, 
 and the cognate department of jurisprudence. 
 
 During the reign of the Ptolemies, as well as 
 under the rule of Roman prefects, Alexandria was 
 celebrated, not only as the chief commercial centre 
 of the world, but also as a cosmopolitan seat of 
 learning, and the principal avenue of intellectual 
 communication between the East and the West. 
 Indeed, Egyptian monarchs — at least from the ac- 
 cession of the Nineteenth Dynasty, sixteen cen- 
 turies before the Christian era — seem to have had a 
 peculiar passion for establishing museums of curi- 
 osities, menageries of exotic beasts and birds, and 
 other collections of rare and abnormal productions 
 of nature. The ninth Ptolemy, Euergetes II., sur- 
 named Physkon (Gorbelly), wrote a book full of 
 curious information about such things. His great 
 aim, however, was not to discover and record facts, 
 
26 Animal Symbolism 
 
 but to recount wonders, and he is therefore well 
 characterized by Pitra in his Spicilegium Soles- 
 vtense as a " rerum mirabilium curiosissimus inves- 
 tigator." It was the mirabilia^ or marvels of nature, 
 that attracted his attention and stimulated his re- 
 searches. This sovereign was so zealous in pro- 
 curing works for the Alexandrian libraries (the 
 Bruchium Museum and the Serapeum) that he not 
 only sent special emissaries into foreign countries 
 to purchase them at high prices, but was also ac- 
 customed to take away from travellers any valuable 
 manuscripts in their possession and add them to 
 the public collections, giving in return a copy of 
 the book thus arbitrarily appropriated. 
 
 Alexandrian learning embraced unquestionably 
 a wide range of topics, among which medicine, 
 anatomy, mathematics, astronomy, and geography 
 held a prominent place, but the study of botany, 
 mineralogy, and zoology were carried on in an 
 extremely superficial and desultory manner, and 
 chiefly for the purpose of discovering in plants, 
 stones, and animals the occult and magical proper- 
 ties and " strange and vigorous faculties " with 
 which they were supposed to be endowed. Of the 
 cautious and critical study and scrutiny of nature, 
 and the essentially scientific spirit which character- 
 ized the Aristotelian method of research, these 
 scholars appear to have had little or no conception. 
 
 It was also in the Greco-Judaic schools of 
 Alexandria that Christian theology was developed 
 as the resultant of the contact and conflict of the 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 27 
 
 Hebrew with the Hellenic intellect. From the 
 Christian point of view, the Bible was recognized 
 as the only true source of knowledge. The sacred 
 volume was assumed to contain unerring informa- 
 tion on all subjects whatsoever, provided one could 
 ascertain its real meaning, which was often wrapped 
 up and hidden in allegories and obscure similitudes 
 and symbolisms, like precious treasures kept in 
 caskets under intricate locks, and concealed in 
 dark places. Hence the supreme importance of 
 hermeneutics as the science of sciences, the master- 
 key, which opens all the secrets of the universe, 
 and reveals all the mysteries of nature. 
 
 It is said of Solomon that " he spake of trees 
 from the cedar that is in Lebanon, even unto the 
 hyssop that springeth out of the wall ; he spake also 
 of beasts and of fowl, and of creeping things and of 
 fishes." We are not justified, however, in assuming 
 that he discoursed of natural history in the modern 
 sense of the term, or that he was familiar with 
 botany, zoology, ornithology, entomology, and 
 ichthyology, as we understand these sciences. His 
 knowledge of plants and of animals did not differ 
 in kind from that of his contemporaries and of the 
 age in which he lived ; he was superior to others 
 only in possessing a sturdier common-sense and 
 shrewder skill, in applying this current lore to 
 human life and conduct, in apothegmatic illustration 
 of the folly or wisdom of mankind. What we call 
 the book of nature was to him a vast and many- 
 volumed treatise on all phases and features of 
 
Animal Symbolism 
 
 human nature, in which the world of lower 
 creatures was held up to man as a moral mirror, 
 in order that he might see therein the reflections 
 of his own vices and virtues. 
 
 In the development and enforcement of this idea 
 patristic theologians surpassed the prophets and 
 sages of the Old Testament, and even the subtle 
 scribes and quibbling rabbis, resolving the external 
 universe into a mere body of divinity or system of 
 Christian doctrine, written in cipher, which it was 
 the function of the exegetist to interpret so as to 
 bring it into harmony with divine revelation, and 
 make it illustrative and confirmatory of Holy Writ. 
 According to Origen " the visible world teaches us 
 concerning the invisible ; the earth contains images 
 of heavenly things, in order that by means of 
 these lower objects we may mount up to that 
 which is above. . . . As God made man in His 
 own image and after His own likeness, so He created 
 the lower animals after the likeness of heavenly 
 prototypes." 
 
 This conception of the physical world as a 
 symbol of spiritual truth is only one form in which 
 the ascetic contempt of the body, as a clog and 
 cumbrance to the soul and a hindrance of holy as- 
 pirations, took expression. The cosmos or material 
 body of the universe, like the carnal body of the 
 individual, must be sanctified by its spiritualization 
 and virtual expression. Paul's statement that " the 
 invisible things of Him (God) from the creation of 
 the world are clearly seen, being understood by the 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 29 
 
 things that are made," was thought to be a 
 distinct assertion and ample justification of this 
 theory, which rendered even the heathen, to whom 
 the gospel had not been revealed, "without 
 excuse." 
 
 The Talmud declares that " he who interprets the 
 scripture literally is a liar and a blasphemer." This 
 exegetical principle is, however, not exclusively 
 Talmudic, but underlies and pervades more or less 
 completely all hermeneutical literature. This atti- 
 tude of mind arises from the fact that sacred 
 books, which are accepted and transmitted from 
 generation to generation as infallible and therefore 
 unchangeable records and repositories of truth, can 
 keep pace with the progress of human thought, 
 and adapt themselves to the growth of knowledge, 
 so as to maintain their hold upon the morally and 
 intellectually advancing races of mankind, only by 
 voluntarily laying aside all claims to strict and 
 literal accuracy, and taking refuge in allegorical 
 and symbolical interpretations. 
 
 According to the biblical story the fall of man 
 involved the alteration and corruption of the whole 
 creation, including all forms of animal and vege- 
 table life, and extending even to the soil itself, 
 which thenceforth showed a perverse prolificacy 
 in bringing forth thorns and brambles and every 
 species of noxious weed. These lower organisms 
 were also embraced in the Christian scheme of 
 redemption, and are represented as looking forward 
 with painful longing to its completion, and their 
 
30 Animal Symbolism 
 
 consequent release from the degrading penalties of 
 human transgression. 
 
 Indeed, one of the most conspicuous signs of 
 the successful issue and perfect consummation of 
 the Atonement is to be the disappearance of all 
 antipathies between savage beasts and their natural 
 prey : the lion will lay aside his fierce animosities 
 and carnivorous appetites, lying down with the 
 lamb, and eating straw like the bullock in token 
 of his regeneration, and universal peace will be 
 restored. Satan will be dethroned as the prince 
 of this world, and the earth resume its pristine 
 state of Edenic innocence and paradisean purity. 
 
 Thus the present condition and ultimate destiny 
 of mankind were supposed to be reflected frag- 
 mentarily in the lower animals as in a shattered 
 mirror ; and it was from this source that the early 
 Christian evangelists and patristic theologians were 
 especially fond of drawing illustrations of spiritual 
 truths and elucidations of scriptural texts. The 
 words of Job : " Ask the beast and it will teach 
 thee, and the birds of heaven and they will tell 
 thee," were assumed to furnish sufficient ground 
 for regarding the entire animal kingdom as a mere 
 collection of types and symbols of religious dogmas 
 and Christian virtues. The apocalyptic monsters 
 of St. John the Divine were also cited as a pre- 
 cedent warranting the wildest vagaries of zoological 
 exegesis. 
 
 In Oriental literature, and especially in the sacred 
 books of the East, nothing is more common than 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 31 
 
 to put animals to rhetorical, metaphorical, and 
 emblematical uses, and to hold them up to the 
 religious man as models for imitation. Compari- 
 sons and correspondencies of this kind were natur- 
 ally suggested by the doctrine of metempsychosis, 
 in which they have a psychological basis, and from 
 which they derive a peculiar force and cogency, 
 wholly foreign to Occidental habits of thought and 
 feeling. 
 
 Thus the Buddhist ascetic is told to pattern in 
 austerity and humility after the ass, which is con- 
 tent to sleep by the roadside in the outskirts of 
 the village, on a dust-heap, a bed of chaff, or a 
 layer of leaves. He is also enjoined to take heed 
 to the squirrel, which, when assailed, uses its tail 
 as a cudgel against its enemies, and to ward off 
 carnal affections and spiritual foes with the staff 
 of steady and earnest meditation. When he goes 
 forth with his begging bowl, he should wrap 
 himself in the vesture of meekness and moral 
 restraint, that he may be free from fear and from 
 worldly contamination, as the white ant covers itself 
 with a leaf when it goes in quest of food. The 
 scorpion has a sting in its tail, which it bears erect ; 
 in like manner the religious man should wield the 
 sword of knowledge, and thereby render himself 
 invincible. In the burning heat of summer the 
 pig betakes itself to a pond ; so the devotee, when 
 his soul is scorched and inflamed by evil passions, 
 should have recourse to the cool, refreshing, and 
 ambrosial exercise of universal kindliness. Again, 
 
32 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the hog, having gone to a marsh or swamp, digs a 
 trough in the earth and lies therein ; so the yogi 
 should bury his body in the trough of his mind 
 by means of profound and passionless meditation. 
 The owl is the mortal enemy of crows, and is 
 wont to repair to their nests at night and kill their 
 young ; in like manner the religious mendicant is 
 the foe of ignorance, and plucks it out of his mind 
 and destroys it before it has become inveterate. 
 Like the owl, too, he loves seclusion and the quiet 
 favourable to calm reflection. The leech sucks 
 itself fast to whatever it touches, and gorges itself 
 with blood ; so the yogi holds firmly to whatever 
 he fixes his thoughts upon, and drinks in the 
 never-cloying fulness of Nirvana. The spider 
 spins its web to catch flies ; the yogi spreads the 
 net of unbroken contemplation before the six 
 avenues of the senses, and takes captive and 
 destroys every lust that seeks to enter into the 
 mind. Those who have become the slaves of the 
 passions live wholly in them, moving about in a 
 world of illusions, the creation of their own desires, 
 as the spider runs to and fro on the filaments of 
 the web, which it has spun out of its own bowels. 
 The process of regeneration and emancipation from 
 the allurements of the senses and the trammels of 
 the flesh is compared to the action of the snake in 
 casting its skin. He who is content with sensual 
 pleasures is like a hog wallowing in the mire and 
 glutted with wash. The elephant is the type of 
 patient endurance, self-restraint. Buddha himself 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture i^^ 
 
 is likened to a well-tamed {suddntd) elephant, and 
 is often spoken of as the great elephant {inahdndgd). 
 Another symbol of the pious recluse, who has re- 
 nounced the world, is the rhinoceros, because it 
 loves to dwell alone and remote from its kind. 
 
 Even inanimate things are moralized and m.ade 
 to represent spiritual states. Thus the jug (Jmni- 
 b/io), which emits no sound when it is full, em- 
 blematizes the man who is full of knov.^ledge, and 
 walks humbly and soberly in the " path " {dhaniia- 
 patka), avoiding vain boastings and garrulousness 
 and noisy ostentation. This idea is expressed in 
 the following lines from the Suttanipata : 
 
 " Loudly brawls the shallow run, 
 But the stream that's deep is dumb. 
 Noise betrays the empty tun ; 
 From the full no sound doth come. 
 Empty pitchers like are fools ; 
 Wise men are the full, clear pools." 
 
 The same figure of speech occurs in The Lover 
 of Sir Walter Raleigh : 
 
 " Passions are likened best to floods and streams. 
 The shallow murmurs, while the deeps are dumb." 
 
 In these comparisons and injunctions the common 
 qualities and most conspicuous characteristics of 
 the animals, which the holy man is admonished to 
 imitate, are lost sight of, and only certain fanciful 
 attributes considered. In common parlance it 
 would not be flattering to speak of a saint meta- 
 phorically as an ass, a hog, a leech, or a scorpion. 
 
 D 
 
34 Animal Symbolism 
 
 This comical disregard of the prominent points of 
 resemblance, which would be most naturally sug- 
 gested by the simile, is not confined to Buddhistic 
 writings, but, as we shall see hereafter, constantly 
 occurs in Christian hermeneutical and homiletical 
 literature, and often renders it very funny reading. 
 
 It was also in the Orient that a sort of mineral- 
 ogical symbolism, based upon certain magical and 
 magnetic qualities supposed to be peculiar to 
 precious stones, was first and most fully developed. 
 Jewels were worn originally, and are still worn in 
 Eastern countries, as prophylactics and talismans 
 rather than as mere ornaments. Their purpose 
 was not so much to adorn as to protect the person, 
 preventing disease and warding off malign in- 
 fluences, and they were therefore prized more for 
 their occult virtue than for their brilliancy and 
 beauty. In Europe, too, they constituted an im- 
 portant part of mediaeval pharmacopoeias, and were 
 to be found side by side with mummy dust, " eye 
 of newt and toe of frog," and many nasty and 
 nauseous compounds in every well-regulated apothe- 
 cary's shop. Popular superstition has not yet 
 ceased to endow bufonite or toadstone with 
 wonderful medical and necromantic properties. 
 
 The urim and thummim (light and perfection) 
 in the breastplate of the Jewish high-priest were 
 precious stones remarkable for their luminousness 
 and purity, and, like the sacred scarabaeus worn by 
 the Egyptian hierophant, had a mystical meaning 
 and were consulted as oracles. In what manner 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 35 
 
 the divine will was communicated through them is 
 not known ; it is probable that the priest by stead- 
 fastly gazing on them was thrown into an ecstatic 
 or hypnotic state, in which he saw visions, and 
 uttered words that were interpreted as divine 
 inspirations and supernatural illuminations. 
 
 It is curious to note to what extent the once 
 universal belief in the amuletic efficacy of gems 
 still survives in modern life and literature. Thus 
 the amethyst, as its name implies, neutralized the 
 intoxicating properties of alcohol, and was therefore 
 wrought into cups, from which one could quaff the 
 strongest liquors in the largest draughts without 
 getting drunk. It was also supposed, perhaps in 
 consequence of this anti-inebriant quality, to render 
 a man energetic and diligent in business and to 
 insure peace of mind. The agate disenvenomed 
 the sting of serpents and scorpions, and when worn 
 on the left hand made its possessor winsome and 
 wise; if placed under the pillow it produced 
 pleasant dreams. 
 
 Boccaccio says in the Decameron, that "the 
 heliotrope is a stone of such strange virtue that it 
 causes the bearer of it to be completely concealed 
 from the sight of all present." This power was 
 also ascribed to the plant of the same name. 
 Dante describes the spirits of the damned in the 
 seventh circle of hell as running to and fro naked 
 and affrighted without hope of hole or heliotrope : 
 
 " Senza sperar pertugio o elitropia." 
 
36 Animal Symbolism 
 
 In other words, they found no cleft in which to 
 hide, and had no hehotrope to render them in- 
 visible. The reference here is not to the plant, but 
 to the mineral. The ruby absorbed morbid humours, 
 and was an antidote for catarrh and unrequited 
 love ; no wonder then that it also made a man 
 socially attractive and companionable. The car- 
 buncle protected the wearer against the fatal look 
 of the basilisk and the fascinations of the evil eye, 
 counteracted the virulence of poisons, purified the 
 air from pestilential vapours, and, when worn as a 
 necklace, was preventive of epilepsy. Chalcedony 
 imparted moral strength and courage to resist all 
 evil enticements ; the variety of it known as car- 
 nelian was believed to be effective in cheering the 
 heart by its soothing action on the bile and the 
 blood. The topaz kept the soul pure and chaste, 
 and is etymologically related to the Sanskrit tapas, 
 a general term for the purifying process by which 
 the Indian ascetic purges his spirit and frees him- 
 self from sensual desires and worldly affections. 
 It was thought to exert a calming influence upon 
 lunatics, and, if thrown into a boiling pot, to stop 
 ebullition. With a topaz in his armpit, a person 
 was deemed capable of passing unsinged through 
 the hottest flames, and undergoing with safety the 
 severest ordeal of fire ; for this reason witches were 
 carefully examined before being burned, lest they 
 might have recourse to this means of impunity. 
 This stone was often given as a mark of friendship, 
 and especially as a pledge of troth, since it was 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 37 
 
 supposed to promote fidelity. The lapis lazuli was 
 used as a necklace for children, because it made 
 them fearless and truthful ; corals were employed 
 in the same manner, because they warded off 
 sorcerous arts and withstood the powers of witch- 
 craft. Jasper produced clearness and keenness of 
 vision, stanched blood, healed dropsy and dyspepsia, 
 and was an effective febrifuge. Chrysoprase cured 
 heart-affections both physical and mental. Beryl 
 acted as a cholagogue, and as a natural result of 
 its cathartic and tonic qualities developed a cheer- 
 ful and courageous spirit. Rock-crystal or " ice- 
 stone," as it was popularly called, quenched thirst, 
 prevented vertigo, and enabled women to suckle 
 their children. The necklace of clear rock-crystal, 
 still commonly worn by wet-nurses, is a survival of 
 the belief in the lactific virtue of this variety of 
 limpid quartz. 
 
 The association of precious stones with the 
 months of the year as amulets and promoters of 
 good fortune seems to have originated at an early 
 date in Arabia. In accordance with this notion 
 the hyacinth or red zircon was worn in January, 
 the amethyst in February, the heliotrope or blood- 
 stone in March, the sapphire and diamond in April, 
 the emerald in May, the agate in June, the carnelian 
 in July, the onyx in August, the chrysolite in Sep- 
 tember, the aqua marine and opal in October, the 
 topaz in November, and the chrysoprase and 
 turquoise in December. Thus the magic power of 
 the stones serve to protect their wearers, and to 
 
38 Animal Symbolism 
 
 communicate to them the hidden properties with 
 which these gems were supposed to be endowed. 
 In modern Hterature this theme has been treated 
 most fully and suggestively, perhaps, by Theodor 
 Korner in his poem Die Monatssteine, written in 
 1 8 10. 
 
 Far more important for our present purpose than 
 the magical and medical properties of precious 
 stones is their significance as symbols of theological 
 doctrines and Christian graces. In a mediaeval 
 German poem "Concerning the Heavenly Jeru- 
 salem" (Diemer: Deutsche Gedickte, pp. 361-372), 
 based on the treatise De Lapidibus of Marbodius, 
 and on the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, we 
 have a theological mineralogy corresponding to the 
 theological zoology of the Physiologiis. The two 
 verses (Rev. xxi. 19, 20) that make mention of the 
 twelve stones with which the foundations of the 
 wall of the mystical city were garnished, are 
 expanded into more than two hundred lines of the 
 poem, consisting chiefly of extremely far-fetched 
 allegory. Thus jasper is the foundation of the 
 Church, and acts as a preservative against hurtful 
 phantasms and devilish wiles ; it is of a green 
 colour, and signifies those who foster the faith, 
 never letting it wither away and grow dry and 
 dead, but always keeping it alive. Sapphire has 
 a heavenly hue, and symbolizes those who, although 
 on the earth, have their thoughts fixed on heavenly 
 things. Chalcedony shows its lustre only in the 
 open air, and typifies those who fast and pray in 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 39 
 
 secret, but whose righteousness shines forth among 
 men. Emerald is native to a cold and arid region, 
 inhabited only by griffins and one-eyed men 
 {nionoculi), who are constantly fighting for the 
 possession of this stone. It surpasses all gems and 
 herbs in greenness, and symbolizes the freshness 
 and vigour of Christian piety as opposed to the 
 coldness and barrenness of infidelity. The griffins 
 are the demons that, in the form of winged lions, 
 flew aloft on the pinions of pride and fell from 
 heaven into the abyss of hell for their misdeeds. 
 Their monoculous antagonists are those who do 
 not walk in two ways, are not double-dealing, do 
 not serve two masters, are not given to duplicity, 
 but who have an eye single to the glory of God, 
 are single-minded, seeking with oneness of purpose 
 to hold fast the jewel of faith, which the demons 
 would wrest from them. Sardonyx has three 
 colours, black below, white in the middle, and red 
 above ; it is a type of those who suffer for Christ's 
 sake, and, although pure and spotless, are vile and 
 sinful in their own eyes. Sardius is deep red, and 
 signifies the blood of the martyrs. Chrysolite 
 glistens like gold and emits scintillations, and is an 
 emblem of those who let their light shine in word 
 and deed. Beryl glitters like the sea in the sun- 
 light, and illustrates the illuminating power of the 
 divine spirit. After interpreting in this manner 
 the symbolism of the other stones, topaz, chryso- 
 prasus, jacinth, and amethyst, on which the New 
 Jerusalem is built, the poet turns homilist, and 
 
40 Animal Symbolism 
 
 warns his readers that they can enter the heavenly 
 city only by practising the virtues which the stones 
 shadow forth : 
 
 " Nu habent ir alle wol uernomen, 
 Wi ir in di burch sculet chomen." 
 
 No doubt this symbolism is utterly fantastic and 
 absurd, and would be hardly worthy of notice were 
 it not for the fact that it holds a prominent place 
 in sacred art, and determines, to a considerable 
 degree, the kinds of stones used in ecclesiastical 
 architecture, as well as in ornamenting sacerdotal 
 vestments, crucifixes, rosaries, chalices, and other 
 sacramental utensils. 
 
 Speculations of this sort began to pervade Chris- 
 tian hermeneutic theology at a very early period, 
 and are traceable in the oldest apocryphal litera- 
 ture of the New Testament. In the latter half of 
 the fourth century Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus, 
 wrote a book " On the Twelve Stones in Aaron's 
 Robes," and another " On the Twelve Stones set 
 in the Priest's Breastplate." The same allegorical 
 spirit of interpretation is shown by Anselm, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, and by Ambrosius, in their 
 commentaries on the Apocalypse. 
 
 A similar tendency manifests itself in the sym- 
 bolical and analogical use of numbers, which sought 
 to trace a recondite relation between the seven seals 
 of the Apocalypse, the seven petitions of the Pater 
 Noster, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven 
 beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, the seven 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 41 
 
 sacraments, the seven prototypes in the Old Testa- 
 ment, the seven heavens, the seven days of creation, 
 tlie seven ages of man, the seven hberal arts, the 
 seven signs marking the birth of Christ, and m.any 
 other sevenfold things. This subject is fully treated 
 in an old poem entitled Dciis Septiformis, or the 
 Septiform God. 
 
 A curious specimen of biblical exegesis in a 
 poem of the eleventh century, called Praise of 
 Solomon (Diemer, pp. 107-114), explains how it 
 was possible to construct the Temple so that " there 
 was neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron 
 heard in the house while it was building." A 
 dragon, which had caused a severe drought by 
 drinking all the water in the springs and wells of 
 Jerusalem, evaded every effort to capture it until 
 Solomon ordered the empty wells and cisterns to 
 be filled with a mixture of wine and mead. As 
 the result of this stratagem the beast became so 
 intoxicated that it was easily taken and fettered. 
 On recovering from its drunkenness it promised 
 the king that if he would set it free, it would tell 
 him how he could complete the Temple without 
 the unpleasant din and clatter of masons and car- 
 penters. The wise sovereign accepted this pro- 
 posal, and learned that there was an animal on 
 Mount Lebanon, with the entrails of which one 
 could cut the hardest stones. Hunters were sent 
 out, who succeeded in killing this wonderful crea- 
 ture, and by means of its intestines the workmen 
 were able to construct the edifice as by enchant- 
 
42 Animal Symbolism 
 
 ment. The poet then describes the splendours of 
 Solomon's court, to which an allegorical interpret- 
 ation is given : Solomon is God, who created the 
 world noiselessly, and in a breath, the Queen of 
 Sheba is the Church, and the courtiers and nobles 
 are priests and bishops. The author gives as his 
 authority for this exegesis a gentleman called Hier- 
 onymus {ein herro Jiiz heronimns), evidently referring 
 to the famous ascetic and saint of the fourth century. 
 Indeed, the term " herro " is admirably suited to 
 the character of this remarkable man, who com- 
 bined the austerity of the monk with the elegance 
 of the man of the world, and thereby rendered 
 himself so attractive to the fine ladies of Roman 
 society that many of them exchanged their rich 
 apparel and luxurious homes for a hair-shirt and 
 an anchoretic life in the desert. 
 
 Pineda, in his Salomojt Praroins, published in 
 eight books at Mayence in 1813, describes a worm 
 called samir, whose blood had the property of soften- 
 ing stones and glass, so that they could be cut and 
 carved like wax. This discovery, we are told, was 
 made accidentally by Solomon, who kept a young 
 ostrich in a glass cage ; but the parent bird brought 
 the samir from the desert, and by means of its blood 
 cut the glass and set the captive free. This circum- 
 stance was reported to Solomon, who made further 
 experiments with this substance, and invented a new 
 process of working in marble and engraving gems. 
 According to another account, Solomon had a 
 plant which had been brought to him by a foreign 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 43 
 
 embassy, the juice of which possessed the same 
 lithotomic quaHties. These legends arose evidently 
 as inferences from the passages already quoted 
 concerning the wise king's vast knowledge of 
 natural history and his method of building the 
 Temple. The Hebrew monarch got the credit of 
 all the marvellous stories of this kind which were 
 current in the middle ages, for the same reason 
 that mediaeval chronicles made Charlemagne the 
 hero of all feats of valour and deeds of chivalry ; 
 and American newspapers ascribe all good jokes 
 afloat to Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The ceremony of blessing jewels used to be per- 
 formed by the kings of England in Westminster 
 Abbey on Good Friday, and was supposed to im- 
 part to these precious stones a still greater healing 
 power peculiarly efficacious in curing cramps and 
 epilepsy. But long before this custom came to 
 be observed, jewels, as we have already seen, played 
 an important part in ancient and mediaeval materia 
 medica as antidotes and amulets, and especially 
 as antitoxicons. In a didactic poem entitled De 
 Gemmis, and written by Marbodius, Bishop of 
 Rennes, in the latter half of the eleventh century, 
 more than sixty precious stones are mentioned, and 
 their properties described ; the work is, however, 
 chiefly a compilation and Christianization of the 
 opinions of Aristotle, Pliny, Galen, Isidore, Diosco- 
 rides, Avicenna, and other authorities on this sub- 
 ject, since his sole aim is religious instruction and 
 edification. 
 
44 Animal Symbolism 
 
 A German poet of the thirteenth century, Der 
 Strieker, ridicules the popular belief in the magical 
 and medicinal virtues of precious stones as a foolish 
 superstition, and thus shows himself to have been 
 far in advance not only of the ignorant masses, 
 but also of the cultured classes and scholars of 
 his day. 
 
 Among modern writers Justinus Kerner has 
 devoted himself most earnestly to this province 
 of investigation and speculation. He maintains 
 that in primitive times, when man lived under 
 simpler conditions and nearer to nature than at 
 present, he was far more susceptible to her subtle 
 influences, so that " even the spirit of the stone, now 
 grown dull and sluggish, was capable of affecting 
 him." Modern culture, he adds, has materialized 
 man, and " swathed his soul in a threefold girdle 
 of grossness, so that only mechanical and chemical 
 forces can act upon it ; for this reason he is now 
 driven to the use of poisons, the strongest elements 
 in the three realms of nature, as medicaments and 
 healing remedies, they alone being able to pene- 
 trate the insulating earthy mass which prevents 
 spirit from operating directly upon spirit." If 
 stones, he continues, do not manifest the same 
 virtues now as formerly, the fault is in ourselves. 
 In our present vitiated state they exert their real 
 and inherent powers only when we are under the 
 influence of magnetism, which corresponds, in a 
 certain degree, to the original and normal condition 
 of mankind, since it renders the soul more free from 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 45 
 
 the bondage of the body. Stones nowadays pro- 
 duce upon magnetized persons the same effects that 
 were ascribed to them in ancient times, for ex- 
 ample in the Orphic LitJiiaka, where it is said 
 that nature has endued them with greater virtues 
 than roots or herbs. The same view is expressed 
 by Schubert in his Natural History, where the 
 mineral kingdom is represented as a realm full of 
 occult affinities and spiritual suggestions, and mys- 
 tical relations to the microcosm, man. Schubert 
 also declares that the secret and subtle properties 
 of stones affect the human organism most power- 
 fully when it is in a magnetic or somnambulic 
 state. 
 
 In the Physiologus (the character and contents 
 of which will be fully considered in a subsequent 
 chapter), as well as in mediaeval bestiaries, we find 
 the queerest exegetical applications of these super- 
 stitious notions intermingled with utterly irrelevant 
 citations of Holy Writ, such as one would now 
 hear only from the lips of a Hard-Shell Baptist 
 preacher or an old plantation negro exhorter. 
 Thus the diamond, or adamant as it is called, is 
 taken as the type of Christ, because it shines in 
 the dark, as it is written in Isaiah : " The people 
 that walked in darkness have seen a great light; 
 they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, 
 upon them hath the light shined." Again, we are 
 told that the diamond is so hard that neither iron 
 nor stone can penetrate it, but it penetrates all sub- 
 stances, "for all things were made by Him, and 
 
46 Animal Symbolism 
 
 without Him was not anything made that was 
 made." Likewise the apostles have said of it : "I 
 saw a man upon a wall of adamant, and in his 
 hand a stone of adamant." (Here the apostles 
 are confounded with the prophets, as the quota- 
 tion is from the Septuagint version of Amos vii. 7.) 
 We are furthermore informed that "the diamond 
 can be cut and polished only after it has been 
 soaked in the warm blood of a he-goat." In this 
 case the he-goat is typical of the crucified Christ, 
 and the diamond represents the hardness of a world 
 stubborn in sin, which nothing but the warm blood 
 of the Saviour can render tractable and reformable. 
 As early as the third century St. Cyprian, Bishop 
 of Carthage, in his Liber de Duplici Marty rio, 
 accepts this notion on the authority of the natural- 
 ists of his day, and uses it to illustrate the efficacy 
 of the Atonement. " Those who are versed in the 
 knowledge of natural things tell us that adamant 
 does not yield to the hardness of steel, and can be 
 malleated only after being macerated in the blood 
 of a he-goat. But no adamant is harder than the 
 stony heart of the sinner ; nevertheless the blood of 
 Christ softens this stony heart, this iron heart, this 
 heart harder than adamant," In this way the 
 marvels of the material creation were made to 
 elucidate the mysteries of the spiritual world, and 
 to confirm the truths of divine revelation. The 
 Physiologns also asserts that no demon can enter 
 a house or habitation of man in which there is 
 a diamond, and adds : " So it is with the heart 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 47 
 
 wherein Christ dwells, whose presence protects 
 it against all approaches and assaults of the 
 devil." 
 
 It is said of the pearl-fishers, that they attach an 
 agate to a cord and let it down into the sea, where 
 it is drawn towards the pearls by a mysterious 
 attraction, so that by following the cord the fishers 
 discover them and remove them from their shells. 
 Here the agate typifies John the Baptist, who 
 pointed the way to the pearl of great price, saying : 
 " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the 
 sin of the world." The author then tells how the 
 pearl is produced. The sea-creature, which con- 
 tains this precious substance, is described as having 
 two appendages like wings, and has therefore been 
 mistaken for a bird ; it is evident, however, that 
 a bivalve is meant. Just before the dawn this 
 oyster comes cut of the deep water to the shore, 
 and, opening its shell, receives a drop of dew 
 from heaven, which the rays of the rising sun 
 change into a pearl. The reader would naturally 
 expect this story to be a symbolism of the Incarna- 
 tion or the Immaculate Conception; but the writer 
 indulges in an elaborate theological, or rather eccle- 
 siastical, interpretation, in which the sea is the 
 world, the fishers are the saints and doctors of the 
 Church, and the bivalve stands for the Old and 
 New Testaments joined together into one Bible or 
 Book of Revelation, and containing the pure pearls 
 of divine truth. As we shall have occasion to 
 observe, the similitudes of the Physiologiis are not 
 
48 Animal Symbolism 
 
 only hopelessly and often ludicrously mixed, but 
 readily shift at every turn of thought like the 
 figures of a kaleidoscope. 
 
 Dante in one of his sonnets (xxxv.) uses a 
 metaphor based on this theory of the genesis of 
 the pearl in a modified form, and implying that 
 it is an emanation of the stars : cojne de stella 
 margherita. A mediaeval Spanish poet also speaks 
 of the pearl as having its origin in a dew-drop, 
 and refers to St. Isidore of Seville as his authority, 
 who, he says, was well informed in such matters : 
 
 " Ca assi lo diz Sant Esidro que sopo la materia." 
 
 Another type of Christ is the Indian stone 
 {kihos IvhiKos), which was supposed to cure dropsy 
 by absorbing morbid humours and serous fluids 
 in the body; "so, too, Christ heals us who are 
 spiritually dropsical, having the waters of the devil 
 collected in our hearts." There is also an Indian 
 stone called eutokios or birth-easing, which is 
 round like a nut and rings like a bell. When the 
 female vulture is with young, she sits on this stone, 
 as soon as she begins to feel the pangs of parturi- 
 tion, and its virtue is such as to enable her to 
 bring forth without the pains of travail. In like 
 manner Christ was bom of the Virgin unbegotten 
 and without suffering. And as the eutokios is 
 hollow and has within it another stone, which gives 
 out a pleasant sound, so the Godhead of our 
 Lord was hidden in His body and yet made itself 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 49 
 
 manifest. In this connection the expositor quotes 
 several passages of the Scriptures, such as Mat- 
 thew xxi. 42, and Isaiah xxvi. 18, which do not 
 bear the slightest relevancy to the doctrine he 
 wishes to enforce. 
 
 What the Physiologus relates of the vulture is 
 reported by Pliny of the eagle, and the stone is 
 called aetites or eagle-stone, and is said to have 
 been found frequently in the aerie of the king of 
 birds. We may add that in the mediaeval Walden- 
 sian bestiary a more edifying interpretation of the 
 fable is given, which is explained as symbolizing 
 the help of the Holy Spirit in bringing forth good 
 works. 
 
 It is a noteworthy mark of ignorance that both 
 Pliny and the Physiologus speak of these accipi- 
 trine birds as though they were viviparous instead 
 of oviparous animals, and were to be classed with 
 mammals rather than with fowls. 
 
 Among fabulous stones the so-called terrobuli, 
 more properly pyroboli (Tivpo/iokot A1801) or fire- 
 stones, play a very prominent part in Christian 
 symbolism and art. They are said to be found 
 on a certain mountain of the Orient, and to be 
 male and female. So long as they are far apart 
 there is no perceptible heat in them, but if they 
 are brought near to each other, fierce flames burst 
 forth and the whole mountain is set on fire. Then 
 comes the moralization designed to inculcate the 
 virtue of monasticism. "Therefore, ye men of God, 
 who would lead a pure life, separate yourselves 
 
 E 
 
5° 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 far from women, in order that the fires of lust may 
 not be kindled in your hearts ; for these carnal 
 passions are emissaries of Satan, sent to assail not 
 only holy men, but also chaste women." Adam, 
 Joseph, Samson, Solomon, Eve, and Susanna are 
 then adduced as examples of the wiles and witchery 
 of women. 
 
 The terrobuli are usually represented in art as the 
 naked or scantily- drapecj. 
 figures of a man and a 
 woman, often in the rude 
 form of a hermes, stand- 
 ing near each other and 
 They occur in miniature 
 
 Terrobuli. [Bestiary.) 
 
 enveloped in fiam.es. 
 illustrations of mediaeval bestiaries, as for example 
 in a manuscript of the tenth century in the 
 Arsenal Library, and one of the thirteenth century 
 in the National Library of Paris, and a third of 
 the fourteenth century in the Royal Library of 
 
 Sculpture on arch of doorway of old Norman church at Alne. 
 
 Brussels. Representations of them in ecclesiastical 
 architecture are comparatively rare ; there is, how- 
 ever, a fine specimen of the terrobuli sculptured on 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 51 
 
 one of the voussoirs or arch-stones over the south 
 
 Sculpture on arch of doorway of old Norman church at AIne. 
 
 entrance to an old Norman church at Alne in 
 Yorkshire. 
 
 Sculpture on arch of door\vay of old Norman church at AIne. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE 'PHYSIOLOGUS ' 
 
 Plastic and pictorial representations of animals in Christian 
 art — Literary sources of these representations — Clavis of 
 St. Melito — Epistle of Barnabas — The Physiologus com- 
 piled by an Alexandrian Greek — The Hexahemera of the 
 Fathers — Adam as the author of a natural history — 
 Popular character of the Physiologus — Origen as an 
 exegetist — Roger Bacon's views of the place of animals 
 in Scripture — Expositions and amplifications of the Phy- 
 siologus by Epiphanius, St. Isidore, Petrus Damiani, and 
 others — Anastasius Sinaita's Anagogical Contemplations 
 — Latin poem on beasts and their mystical meaning by 
 Theobald of Plaisance, and the English paraphrase — ■ 
 The Physiologus translated into Latin, Ethiopic, Arabic, 
 Armenian, Syriac, Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, and all the 
 principal modern languages of Europe — Brief descrip- 
 tions of these versions — Prudentius' poems Hamartigenia 
 and Psychomachia — The phcEnix, a symbol of solar 
 worship used to illustrate the Christian doctrine of the 
 Resurrection — French bestiaries : Philippe de Thaun's 
 Le Livre des Creatures^ Peter of Picardy's prose version 
 of the Physiologus^ and Le Bestiaire Divin of William, a 
 priest of Normandy — Encyclopaedias of natural history 
 based on the Physiologus : Thomas de Cantimpre's 
 Liber de Naturis Reruin, the Speculum Naturale of 
 Vincent de Beauvais, Liber de Proprietatibus Rerum of 
 Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Hortus Deliciarum of Herrade 
 de Landsberg, and other compilations — The church 
 edifice an emblem of the human soul — Symbolism of the 
 raven and the dove — Albertus Magnus' criticism of the 
 Physiologus. 
 
 52 
 
Animal Symbolism 53 
 
 Still more important than the emblematic sig- 
 nificance of precious stones is the place assigned to 
 animals in physico-theology. Christian art, from 
 the fourth century, furnishes numerous examples 
 of this sort of symbolism, as may be seen in the 
 oldest churches of Rome and Ravenna, and in the 
 remains of early sacred monuments now preserved 
 in the Museum of the Lateran and in similar 
 archaeological collections. 
 
 The literary sources, however, from which the 
 conceptions embodied in these plastic and pictorial 
 representations were derived, are of much earlier 
 date. A celebrated work of this kind was the 
 Clavis of St. Melito, Bishop of Sardis in Asia 
 Minor, who lived in the latter half of the second 
 century, under the reign of Marcus Aurelius. It 
 was written in Greek, but now exists only in a 
 Latin translation, or rather a Latin revision and 
 re-digest of the original, since the text published 
 by Pitra in his Spicilegmm Solesmense is unques- 
 tionably a mere re-hash of the bishop's book, dating 
 probably from the eleventh century. 
 
 Still earlier is the epistle ascribed to Barnabas, 
 which, although not composed by him, belongs 
 probably to the latter half of the first century. 
 The ninth chapter of this curious allegorization 
 of the Jewish ceremonial contains a list of the 
 unclean beasts enumerated in the Levitical law 
 (Deut. xiv.), with an explanation of their spiritual 
 significance. The chief purpose of the apocryphal 
 epistle was to counteract the Judaizing tendency 
 
54 Animal Symbolism 
 
 in primitive Christianity, and to this end the 
 author endeavoured to resolve the legal and ritual 
 prescriptions of the Old Testament into mere pre- 
 figurations and prophecies of Christian doctrines 
 and institutions, and thus virtually abolished them 
 by spiritualizing them. Judaism is thereby reduced 
 to a foreshadowing symbolism of the new religion, 
 by which it is destined to be superseded and 
 ultimately set aside. 
 
 The most complete and systematic, as well as 
 the most popular and probably the oldest, of this 
 class of exegetical expositions is the Physiologus 
 or " Naturalist," as we would call it, which was com- 
 piled by an Alexandrian Greek from a great variety 
 of sources, and doubtless embodied much of the 
 priestly wisdom and esoteric science of ancient 
 Egypt. The early Christian apologists and herme- 
 neutists seem to have been extraordinarily fond of 
 this kind of literature, which served their purpose 
 as an application of the supposed facts of natural 
 history to the illustration and enforcement of moral 
 precepts and theological dogmas. In their frequent 
 references to this work they evidently assume a 
 general knowledge of it on the part of their readers, 
 and it is probable that the Physiologus in its present 
 form is made up of fragments of several books of a 
 similar character, which were not only used as text- 
 books in schools, but were intended for the edifica^ 
 tion of old and young, and were therefore more 
 simple and attractive in style than the heavy 
 Hexahemera or expositions of the six days' work 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 55 
 
 of creation, in which Papias, Justin the Martyr, St. 
 Theophilus, St. Basil of Cesarea, Eustathius, and 
 other patristic theologians delighted to display 
 their ponderous and perverse erudition. In these 
 elaborate commentaries the fable often serves as 
 the text for a sermon, or suggests the theme of a 
 dissertation. Thus in the Hexahemei'on of Ambro- 
 sius the story of the copulation of the viper with 
 the lamprey furnishes the subject of a treatise on 
 conjugal love. In like manner the crow is chosen 
 as the type and pattern of hospitality, the stork is 
 an example of filial piety, the swallow of maternal 
 care and domestic content even in poverty, while 
 the fish, which devour each other, are emblems of 
 greediness.^ 
 
 The Jews claim to have had a natural history by 
 
 ^ According to Luther the wisdom of the Magi was of this 
 kind. In his sermon on Matthew ii. 1-12, he says : " Denn 
 die hohen Schulen riihmen sich auch wie sie die natiirHche 
 Kunst lehren, die sie nennen Philosophia, und lehren doch 
 nicht AtYenspiel, sondern vergiftig Irrthum und eitel Traum. 
 Denn natiirHche Kunst, die vorzeiten Magia hiess, und jetzt 
 Physiologia, ist die, so man lernet der Natur Krafte und 
 Werk erkennen ; als dass ein Hirsch die Schlangen mit 
 seinem Athem durch die Nasen aus der Steinritzen reisst 
 und todet und frisset, und darnach vor grosser Hitze der 
 Gift nach einem frischen Born diirstet, wie solches der 42 Ps. 
 V. 2 anzeigt. Item, wie ein Wiesel die Schlange heraus-locket, 
 wenn es vor der Schlangen Loch wiebelt mit seinem 
 Schwiinzlein, und dann die Schlange erziirnet heraus kreucht 
 so lauret das Wieslein oben iiber dem Loche, und die 
 Schlange iiber sich siehet nach ihrem Feind, so schlagt das 
 Wieslein seine Zahne der Schlangen in den Hals neben die 
 Vergift und erwiirget also seinen Feind in seinem eigenen 
 Loche. In solchen Kiinsten haben die Magier studiret." 
 
56 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Adam, who as the man first created and especially 
 commissioned by God to give to the animals names 
 corresponding to their qualities, was supposed to 
 have been intimately acquainted with them, and 
 might therefore be regarded as an original and 
 infallible authority on the subject. 
 
 The fact that the Physiologus is usually cited in 
 the singular number (6 ^uatoAoyos) has been thought 
 to imply that the work was the production of a 
 single author; but this inference is wholly un- 
 warranted, since the word may be used generically 
 to denote naturalists as a class. Indeed, some of 
 the Fathers use the plural form, as, for example, 
 Epiphanius in his commentary on the injunction : 
 " Be ye, therefore, wise as serpents," cited in his 
 Panarion or " Bread Basket," a description and 
 refutation of the heresies of his time, in which he 
 quotes what the Physiologists say (ais ^atriv ol 
 ^vfTioXoyoC) concerning the habits of this sagacious 
 reptile. 
 
 The Physiologus may therefore be regarded as a 
 convenient compendium of current opinions and 
 ancient traditions touching the characteristics of 
 animals and plants, which served as a manual of 
 instruction in zoology and botany with moral 
 reflections, so as to include also the province of 
 ethics. In the hands of Christian teachers it was 
 made wholly subordinate to hermeneutical and 
 homiletical purposes, and became a mere treatise 
 on theology, interspersed with pious exhortation. 
 Whether the statements it contained were authentic 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 57 
 
 or not was something which the expositor did not 
 bother himself about. It was not for him to ques- 
 tion the assertion of the naturaHst, but to accept it 
 as one accepts an apologue for the sake of the lesson 
 it teaches, without any thought of the actuality or 
 probability of the occurrence. Indeed, St. Basil 
 expressly declares it to be a matter of less moment 
 to ascertain whether such creatures as griffins and 
 unicorns really exist, than to discover what religious 
 tenets they inculcate and confirm ; and St. Augus- 
 tine affirms that it is not for us to find out whether 
 these marvellous stories are true or false, but rather 
 to give heed to their spiritual significance. Thus 
 he says, as regards the statement that the eagle 
 breaks off its beak against a stone when it gets too 
 long : " Sive ilia vera sunt quae dicuntur de aquila, 
 sive sit fama potius hominum quam verit, Veritas 
 est tamen in scripturis, et non sine causa hoc 
 dixerunt scripturae. Nos quidquid illud significat 
 faciamus et quam sit verum non laboremus." — In 
 Psal CI I. 
 
 Origen was inclined to treat in a similar manner 
 all the events recorded in the Old Testament, 
 regarding them, not as historical facts, but as 
 religious types and symbols. Thus he characterizes 
 the idyl of Rebecca as "not a relation of actual 
 occurrences, but a concoction of mysteries." This 
 " adamantine " expositor and " Father of biblical 
 exegesis," as he has been called, appears in his 
 youthful ardour and enthusiasm to have interpreted 
 the words of Holy Writ with strict and uncom- 
 
58 Animal Symbolism 
 
 promising literalness, and to have practised its 
 teachings in this spirit with a blind fanaticism that 
 is said to have led to self-mutilation for the sake 
 of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. xix. 12). The 
 cooling of his ascetic zeal and the consequent 
 repentance of his rash act naturally produced in his 
 mind a powerful reaction against the bondage of 
 the letter of the Scriptures in favour of a spiritual 
 and symbolical system of exegesis, of which he 
 became the most ingenious and daring exponent. 
 
 The same views were expressed by the most 
 eminent and sober-minded physicist of the middle 
 ages, the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon, who, in his 
 Opus Majlis (ed. Jebb, p. 39), remarks : " All 
 ancient saints and sages gather in their expositions 
 the literal sense from the nature and properties of 
 things, in order that they may educe therefrom the 
 spiritual sense by suitable adaptations and simili- 
 tudes. Thus Augustine in quoting the admonition : 
 ' Be wise as serpents,' says that our Lord meant 
 by these words that as the serpent exposes its 
 whole body for the protection of its head, so the 
 apostles were to suffer persecution for the sake of 
 Christ, who is their head. Every creature, indi- 
 vidually and generically, from the heights of heaven 
 to the end of the same, has its place in Scripture 
 (' ponitur in scriptura '). The former are facts in, 
 nature designed to illustrate the truths contained in 
 the latter ; and the words of revelation bring out 
 these truths more clearly and correctly than any 
 philosophic toil can do." 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 59 
 
 According to this theory, which still represents 
 the official attitude of the Catholic Church and of 
 many orthodox divines among Protestants, there is 
 a sort of pre-established harmony between science 
 and theology, which can be disturbed only by the 
 aberrations of " science falsely so called." True 
 science, on the contrary, does not aspire to any 
 higher position than that of a handmaid to theology, 
 and should never forget her essentially servile and 
 ancillary functions, or think of questioning the 
 supreme and infallible authority of her mistress, 
 however arrogantly it may be exercised. 
 
 Towards the end of the fourth century, the 
 
 bigoted polemic and bitter persecutor of Origen's 
 
 disciples, Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia in 
 
 Cyprus, is said to have written an exposition of the 
 
 Physiologus in twenty-six chapters, and a work of 
 
 this kind attributed to him was printed about the 
 
 middle of the sixteenth century by the learned 
 
 Augustine friar and famous poet Ponce de Leon. 
 
 The same subject was treated early in the seventh 
 
 century by St. Isidore, Bishop of Seville, in his great 
 
 work on etymology {Ongimwi sen etymologianuni 
 
 lib. XX.), which became the popular encyclopaedia 
 
 of the middle ages, and the chief source from which 
 
 the authors of the numerous mediaeval bestiaries 
 
 derived their information. The twelfth book treats 
 
 of beasts, quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and insects ; 
 
 the sixteenth of precious stones, and the seventh of 
 
 plants. In this survey of the animal, vegetable, 
 
 and mineral kingdoms the author generally confines 
 
6o Animal Symbolism 
 
 himself to statements of what was regarded in his 
 day as the facts of natural history ; the mystical 
 and moral application of these things was made by 
 his younger contemporary, St. Hildefonse, Bishop 
 of Toledo, who discusses at considerable length 
 their spiritual significance, 
 
 Petrus Damiani, Abbot of Fonte Avellana and 
 Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, wrote in the eleventh 
 century a treatise on the excellence of the monastic 
 state as exemplified by divers living creatures {De 
 bono religiosi status et variarum animantium), 
 mentioning about forty marine and terrestrial ani- 
 mals, from the oyster to the elephant, and adducing 
 their real or fabulous qualities in illustration of the 
 desirableness of a cenobitic life. About the year 
 1 2 1 5 an Englishman, Alexander Neckam, composed 
 a volume " On the Nature of Things " {De Naturis 
 Rermn), in which he discoursed of animals from 
 ethical and doctrinal points of view. In 1498 there 
 was published at Cologne a duodecimo entitled 
 " Dialogue of Creatures excellently moralized and 
 applicable to every Moral Matter in a pleasing and 
 edifying manner, to the Praise of God and the 
 Edification of Men " {Dyalogus creaturarum optime 
 moralisatus omni materie moralo iocundo et edifica- 
 tivo modo applicabilis^ ad laudem Dei et hominum 
 edificationein). It contains a hundred and twenty- 
 two dialogues, some in the style of ^sop's fables, 
 and others modelled after the Physiologus, with 
 coarse woodcuts in elucidation of the text, and is 
 altogether a pretentious but rather inferior produc- 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 6i 
 
 tion. Anastasius Sinaita, a monk of the famous 
 cloister on Mount Sinai, wrote during the latter half 
 of the seventh century his elaborate *' Anagogical 
 Contemplations on the Six Days' Divine Work " in 
 eleven books {Anagogicarum contemplationum in 
 divini opificii Hexaemeron), in which this sort of 
 hermeneutic theology is pushed to the absurdest 
 conclusions. The author's endeavour, as he states 
 it, is "to thresh the ears of Scripture in order to 
 get out the pure kernel, which is Christ," In other 
 words, his work is a contribution to that " science of 
 mystic Christology " which the early Church so 
 assiduously cultivated, and of which Bishop Alex- 
 ander in his Bampton Lectures deplores the decline. 
 As regards the story of Eden, Anastasius remarks : 
 " Woe be to us if we take it literally, for then we 
 rush constantly from Scylla to Charybdis." This 
 is quite true, and with the advancement of science 
 and the comparative study of religions it is becom- 
 ing increasingly difficult to sail with safety on this 
 line between the whirlpool and the rock. 
 
 In Beaugendre's edition of the works of Hildebert 
 of Lavardin, Archbishop of Tours, who lived during 
 the latter half of the eleventh century, is included a 
 Latin poem on beasts and their mystical meaning, 
 composed, as the title states, by Theobald of 
 Plaisance, whoever he may have been. It has 
 been suggested with some degree of probability 
 that he was the Theobald who held the office of 
 abbot of Monte Cassino from 1022 to 1035 ; there 
 is, however, no confirmation of this conjecture in 
 
62 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the manuscripts, where the author is called Theo- 
 baldus Senensis Theobaldus Placentinus episcopus, 
 or simply Theobaldus Italicus. 
 
 This version of the PJiysiologus was exceedingly 
 popular in the middle ages, as is evident from the 
 many manuscripts in which it has been transmitted 
 to us, and from the number of annotated editions of 
 it which were printed during the fifteenth century. 
 It was published in 1872 by Dr. Richard Morris 
 from a Harleian manuscript (Early English Text 
 Society, vol. xlix.. Appendix I., pp. 201-209). The 
 English bestiary printed in the same volume (pp. 
 1-25) from a manuscript of the thirteenth century, 
 belonging to the library of the British Museum, 
 is a free translation of Theobald's work. It was 
 first edited by Wright (Haupt and Hoffmann's 
 Altdeictsche Blatter, ii., and Wright and Halliwell's 
 ReliqucB Antiques, i.), and is also found in Matz- 
 ner's Altenglische SpracJiproben, i. Thierfelder men- 
 tions in Naumann's Serapeum (1862, Nos. 15 and 
 16) two metrical versions of the Physiologiis in 
 Latin as extant in manuscript ; one dated 1493 
 and written in elegiac verse by a certain Florinus, 
 and preserved in the University Library of Leipsic, 
 and the other in Leonine verse by an unknown 
 author, and now in the University Library of 
 Breslau. 
 
 Perhaps no book, except the Bible, has ever been 
 so widely diffused among so many peoples and for 
 so many centuries as the Physiologiis. It has been 
 translated into Latin, Ethiopic, Arabic, Armenian, 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 63 
 
 Syriac, Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, Spanish, Italian, 
 Provencal, and all the principal dialects of the 
 Germanic and Romanic languages. 
 
 One of the oldest and most interesting of these 
 versions is the Ethiopic, which belongs to the first 
 half of the fifth century, and forms, with the trans- 
 lation of the Septuagint, the basis of Ethiopic or 
 Ge'ez literature. It adheres very closely to the 
 original, but contains numerous errors, owing to 
 the translator's imperfect knowledge of Greek. It 
 has been carefully edited from London, Paris, and 
 Vienna manuscripts, with ample annotations, a 
 German translation, and an admirable introduction 
 by Dr. Fritz Hommel, Professor of Arabic in the 
 University of Munich (Leipsic, 1877). As the work 
 is written in classical Ge'ez, it can be recommended 
 as an excellent text-book for beginners in Ethiopic. 
 
 Of a somewhat later date is the Armenian trans- 
 lation, v/hich follows the Greek original in the 
 descriptions of the animals and their habits, but 
 deviates fi'om it considerably in the moralizations 
 and religious applications of their characteristics. 
 It has been published by Pitra in his Spicilegium 
 Soles7Jiense, iii., and translated into French by Cahier 
 {Nouveaiix Melanges d'Ai'cheo/ogie, 1874). 
 
 The oldest Syriac version, published by Tychsen 
 {Physiologus SyriLS, Rostock, 1795), is, in the opinion 
 of Dr. Lauchert, " at least as old as the Ethiopic and 
 more important than the Armenian."^ It gives 
 
 1 Gcschichte des Physwlogits, von Dr. Friedrich Lauchert. 
 Strasburg, TrUbner, 1889. This is the most complete and 
 
64 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the natural history of thirty-two animals, each 
 section being introduced by passages of Scripture 
 in which the animal under discussion is mentioned, 
 but without any moral or religious reflections, or 
 any attempt at exegetical exposition. It thus 
 constitutes a sort of biblical beast-book free from 
 hermeneutical tendencies. There are also several 
 later Syriac translations, some of which have been 
 printed, with Latin metaphrases, by Land in his 
 Anecdota Syriaca, iv. The Arabic version, edited 
 by Land in his Otia Syriaca, iv., observes pretty 
 much the same order as the Greek original, the 
 authorship of which is ascribed by the Arabic 
 translator to Gregory surnamed the Theologian, 
 better known as Gregory of Nazianz. This state- 
 ment, however, seems to be a personal conjecture 
 or vague tradition of no real value. 
 
 The Latin version of the Physiologus is first men- 
 tioned in the so-called Decretiun Gelasianimi or 
 Index Prohibitorum attributed to Pope Gelasius I., 
 and supposed to have been issued by him A.D. 496. 
 In this catalogue of forbidden books it is charac- 
 terized as Liber Physiologus, qui ab hcsreticis 
 conscriptiis est, et beati Ambrosii nomine signatus, 
 apocryphus. As Ambrosius died A.D. 397, and it is 
 hardly probable that a work which he did not 
 write would be ascribed to him until at least a 
 few years after his death, we are justified in assum- 
 
 critical history of the Physiologus hitherto published, and is 
 especially rich in bibliographical information. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 65 
 
 ing that the Latin Physiologtis was not composed 
 before the beginning of the fifth century. Professor 
 Friedrich of Munich has shown, in a paper read 
 before the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, 
 Jan. 7, 1888, that the above-mentioned Gelasian 
 Decree was not issued by Pope Gelasius L, but was 
 a private document with no official character what- 
 ever, and that it did not exist before A.D. 533. An 
 additional circumstance, which enables us to fix 
 the probable date of the work within still narrower 
 limits, is the fact that in connection with the expo- 
 sition of the third quality of the ant a list of 
 heretics is given whose teachings are to be avoided, 
 but among them Nestorius, whose doctrine was 
 condemned by the third CEcumenical Council at 
 Ephesus, A.D. 431, is not mentioned. As so promi- 
 nent a heretic would not have been passed over, we 
 may fitly infer that this Latin version was made 
 before his condemnation, namely during the first 
 three decades of the fifth century. The existing 
 manuscripts of the Latin Physiologus belong to the 
 eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries; they do not 
 present a uniform text with variants, and are there- 
 fore not copies of the same translation, but rather 
 independent versions, to which each translator has 
 added interpretations of his own ; at least they 
 contain expositions not found in any Greek 
 manuscripts now extant. The Latin Physiologus 
 has been published by Cahier in his Melanges 
 d'Archeologie, ii.-iv. Another shorter Latin version, 
 known as Dicta Johannis Chtysostoini de Naturis 
 
 F 
 
66 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Bestianim, has been printed by H eider in Archiv 
 fiir die Kunde oesterreichischer Geschichtsqjcellen, ii. 
 (1850), from a manuscript of the eleventh century 
 belonging to the cloister of Gottweih. It is simply an 
 abbreviation and re-arrangement of the text edited 
 by Cahier. 
 
 Cassiodorus in his commentary on Psalm cii. 6 
 says, that the holy man loves solitude like the 
 pelican, and withdraws from human society like 
 the nycticorax or night-raven, and tells the old 
 story of the renewal of the eagle's youth in illustration 
 of Psalm ciii. 5. Gregory I., surnamed the Great, 
 was especially fond of symbolisms of this sort, and 
 made very free use of them in his expositions of 
 Job. So, too, in the beginning of the eighth century, 
 Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, draws illustrations 
 of his parables from the same source, as does also 
 the Venerable Beda, a generation later, in his in- 
 terpretation of Job xxix. 18, which he renders : " I 
 shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days 
 like the phoenix ; " the Hebrew word c/iul meaning 
 phoenix as well as sand. It also signifies palm-tree ; 
 St. Jerome took it in this sense : " sicut palma mul- 
 tiplicabo dies," and the same interpretation is given 
 in the Septuagint : uicrmp oreAeyos (poCyiKo tioXvv 
 Xpoi'ov ^LOio-o} : " like the stem of the palm-tree I shall 
 live a long time." 
 
 One of the early Christian poets, Aurelius 
 Clemens Prudentius (a.d. 348 — 410), in his Hamar- 
 tigenia or Genesis of Sin (v. 518 sqq.\ gives a 
 detailed description of the birth of the viper in 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 67 
 
 illustration of his theme. Prudentius is also the 
 author of PsycJioniachia^ or the *' Battle of the Soul," 
 which is one of the first examples of a purely 
 allegorical poem in Occidental literature, and the 
 model of all similar productions in the middle ages. 
 In the proem we have a characteristic specimen 
 of typological hermeneutics, in which Abraham 
 represents Faith, his three hundred and eighteen 
 servants signify Christ (the Greek numerical letters 
 T (300) I (10) H (8) were for this reason a mono- 
 grammatic expression for Christ), the heathen kings 
 of Sodom and Gomorrah are types of carnal vices, 
 and Lot, a sojourner in Sodom, is the soul of the 
 pious man beset by the seductions of the flesh. 
 This interpretation was not original with the Spanish 
 Latin poet, but borrowed from the supposititious 
 Epistle of Barnabas, where in the ninth chapter the 
 following passage occurs : " The scripture saith, 
 ' Abraham circumcised three hundred and eighteen 
 men of his household.' ^ Hear the meaning first 
 of the eighteen, then of the three hundred. The 
 ten and eight are represented, the ten by I, and 
 the eight by H. There thou hast the beginning 
 of the name IHSOTS. But because the Cross, in 
 the form of the letter T, was to carry the grace 
 of salvation, therefore he adds three hundred, which 
 is represented by T in Greek. So he shows 
 forth Jesus in the first two letters, and the Cross in 
 the third." Evidently the Jewish patriarch did not 
 
 1 This statement is not strictly correct, but is derived 
 from a combination of Gen. xiv. 14 and xvii. 26, 27. 
 
68 Animal Symbolism 
 
 dream of the profound significance which Christian 
 expositors would attach to the simple act of cir- 
 cumcising the members of his tribal family. 
 
 A still more elaborate allegorical production of 
 this class is the hexameter poem De Phoenice, 
 ascribed to Lactantius, but probably of a somewhat 
 later date. It bears the stamp of paganism rather 
 than of Christianity, the phoenix being glorified as 
 a satellite of the sun and a symbol of solar worship. 
 It begins with a florid description of the home of 
 the phoenix in the remotest region of the East, in a 
 grove consecrated to the sun and situated far above 
 the reach of Phaeton's fire or Deucalion's deluge, 
 where there is neither disease nor death, and where 
 old age, crime, passion, care, and poverty never 
 come, and storm, rain, and frost are all unknown. 
 In this retreat, which is rendered perpetually fresh 
 and green by a living spring, the phoenix dwells 
 and greets the dawn with a sacred song.i The 
 peroration is a rapturous apostrophe to the phoenix : 
 " Oh, bird of happy fortune and fate, to whom the 
 god himself has granted the gift of self-regenera- 
 tion. Whether male or female, or neither, or both, 
 happy is she who enters into no compact with 
 Venus. Death is Venus to her ; her only pleasure 
 is in death ; she desires to die that she may be 
 born again. She is her own offspring, her own 
 father and heir, her own mother and nurse, a foster- 
 child of herself. She is herself indeed, but not the 
 
 1 For a full analysis of the poem see Adolf Ebert's 
 Geschichte der Ch^-istlich-Lateinischen Lzteratuj; i. 95. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 69 
 
 same, since she is herself and not herself, having 
 gained eternal life by the boon and blessing of 
 death." 1 
 
 It is easy to see what a prolific source of doc- 
 trinal interpretation and illustration the supposed 
 characteristics of this mystic bird would supply to 
 Christian exegetists and homilists. It is well 
 known, too, that the chief features of sun-worship 
 colour the ideas and crop out in the ecclesiastical 
 institutions of Christendom. Christmas, Epiphany, 
 Easter, Whitsuntide, the midsummer feast of St. 
 John, and all the principal holy-days and festivals 
 of the Church are survivals of a solar or stellar cult, 
 and were determined, not by historical facts or 
 traditions, but by astronomical considerations cor- 
 responding to the waxing or waning power of the 
 sun, or coinciding with the position of the constel- 
 lations in the heavens and the influence they were 
 supposed to exert upon the course of the seasons 
 and other sublunary affairs. Constantine remained 
 a sun-worshipper till the day of his death, and the 
 coins of early Christian emperors were often stamped 
 with the image of the phoenix as an emblem of this 
 ancient and once universal cult. 
 
 An Anglo-Saxon paraphrase of this poem, sup- 
 posed to have been made by Cynewulf, has been 
 published by Thorpe {Codex Exoniensis, pp. 197-242), 
 together with the Latin text, and also by Grein 
 (yBibliothek der ayigelsdchsischen Poesie, i. 215-233). 
 The first part is a description of the phoenix, and 
 ^ Cf. Lactantius, Opera^ ii. 214-219. 
 
JO Animal Symbolism 
 
 the second part an application of its fabulous quali- 
 ties to the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection. 
 
 It was from the Latin Physiologiis that all the 
 translations of the work existing in the vulgar 
 tongues of Europe were made. Thus it became 
 the common property of the people ; its similitudes 
 were no longer confined to hermeneutic theology, 
 but passed into general literature, and into ecclesi- 
 astical architecture. The oldest of these versions 
 is the Anglo-Saxon, which dates from the end of 
 the eighth century. It has been edited by Thorpe 
 with an English translation {Codex Exoniensis, pp. 
 355-367), and by Grein {Bibi. der angels. Poesie, i. 
 233-238); and although only a fragment of it has 
 been preserved, enough remains to show that it 
 must have been superior to all other versions in 
 poetic beauty and compact vigour of expression. 
 
 There are two German versions of the Physio- 
 logits, belonging respectively to the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries. The older one is a fragment, 
 and has been printed several times from a Vienna 
 manuscript, best perhaps by Miillenhoff and Scherer 
 {Denkiualer, No. 81) ; the other is complete, and has 
 been printed last by Lauchert in the Appendix to 
 his Geschichte des P/iysiologus, pp. 280-299. Both 
 versions correspond to the Dkta of Chrysostom 
 with only slight variations. 
 
 The Icelandic version, which has been trans- 
 mitted to us in a very fragmentary condition, dates 
 from the beginning of the thirteenth century, and 
 follows the Latin text with occasional additions 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 71 
 
 and deviations. It was edited in 1877 by Moebius 
 {Aiialecta Norroena, pp. 246-251), who also gave a 
 German translation of it in Hommel's Ethiopic 
 Physiologiis, pp. 99-104 ; but the most complete text 
 of these fragments has been printed, together with 
 the crude and quaint drawings illustrating the 
 original manuscripts, by Verner Dahlerup, in his 
 exhaustive critical bibliography of the Physiologus, 
 which appeared in Aarboger foj- Nordisk Oldkyn- 
 dighed og Historic udgivene af Det kogelige Nor- 
 diskc Oldskrift-Selskab in 1889 (ii. 4, 3, 199-290). 
 
 The French bestiaries are also based upon the 
 Pkjsiologiis, but have been greatly amplified, not 
 so much by the introduction of other animals, as 
 by fuller descriptions and more extended exposi- 
 tions. The oldest of these productions is the 
 Anglo-Norman Le Livre des Creatures, by Philippe 
 de Thaun, written about the year 1121 and dedi- 
 cated to Queen Adelheid of Louvraine, and doubt- 
 less intended to celebrate her nuptials with Henry 
 I. of England, which took place at this time. 
 It has been published from a manuscript in the 
 British Museum, with an English translation by 
 Wright in his Popular Treatises on Science during 
 the Middle Ages. Another French translation in 
 prose was made by a priest, Peter of Picardy, who 
 states that he undertook the task at the request of 
 Philippe de Dreux, Bishop of Beauvais (1175 — 
 1 2 17), an item of information which enables us to 
 assign the work approximately to the end of the 
 twelfth century. The translator adds that the 
 
72 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Bishop, having little confidence in the fideUty of 
 poetic versions, wished him to avoid metre in order 
 to adhere as closely as possible to "the Latin 
 which Physiologus, one of the good clerks of Athens, 
 has used." It has been published by Cahier in his 
 Melanges d'Archeologie, ii.-iv. About the same 
 time, or perhaps a little later, William, a priest of 
 Normandy, wrote Le Bestiaire Divin in rhyme. 
 Inasmuch as the author refers twice to the interdict 
 which Pope Innocent III. laid upon England, "at 
 the time when Philippe reigned in France," as still 
 in force, the poem must have been written between 
 1208 and 12 12. It has been published by Cahier 
 {ibid.), by Hippeau {Le Bestiaire Divin de Guillaume, 
 clercde Normandie, Caen, 1852), and lastly and most 
 satisfactorily by Reisch (Leipsic, 1890). 
 
 There is also a Greek metrical version of the 
 Physiologus in two manuscripts of the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries, both of which are in Paris. 
 It is probably a production of the twelfth century, 
 and has been printed by Legrange {Le Physiologus 
 en grec vidgaive et en vers politiques, Paris, 1873). 
 The fragment of a Spanish Physiologus of the four- 
 teenth century has been published under the title 
 Libro de los Gates, from a manuscript of the 
 National Library of Madrid by Pascual de Gayan- 
 gos, in his collection of prose writers anterior to the 
 fifteenth century {Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, 
 Hi., Madrid, 1859). We have also the somewhat 
 scanty remains of a Rumanian version, supposed 
 to belong to the sixteenth century, although the 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 73 
 
 only manuscript of it extant bears the date 17 17. 
 It has been printed with an Italian translation by 
 Gaster (A rcJiivio Glottologico Italiano, x. ). Lauchert 
 mentions a Waldensian PJiysiologiis existing in a 
 single Dublin manuscript, and entitled Dc las 
 Propriotas de las Aniinancas. The author calls 
 himself Jaco, and states in the introduction that 
 the book is designed for use as a manual of in- 
 struction, and in accordance with this purpose, the 
 exposition is ethical rather than theological, and 
 aims to inculcate, not so much soundness of doctrine 
 as correct moral conduct in the common relations 
 of life. 
 
 Barth has edited from a Paris manuscript in his 
 ChrestoniatJiie Proveugale some excerpts of a Pro- 
 vencal PJiysiologiis under the title Also son las 
 Naturas d'alcus Auzels e d'alcunas Bestias^ treating 
 of the nature of birds and beasts, but with no 
 attempt at exposition of any kind. There is also 
 a bestiary in the Tusco- Venetian dialect, recently 
 published and annotated by Max Goldstaub and 
 Richard Wendriner (Halle, 1892) from a manu- 
 script in the Biblioteca Communale of Padua. It 
 discusses some forty beasts, several of which (as 
 the horse) are not mentioned in the P/iysiologus, 
 and explains their qualities in a moral rather than 
 in a dogmatic sense. Thus the unicorn is a symbol 
 of violent and cruel persons, who can be subdued 
 and rendered gentle only by the grace of God. 
 Saul is adduced as an example of this sort of 
 person. The Biblioteca Ricciardiana and the 
 
74 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Biblioteca Laurenziana of Florence, as well as 
 other Italian libraries, contain numerous codices 
 of bestiaries which have never been printed. 
 
 Besides being so frequently translated, the Physi- 
 ologus is constantly cited by mediaeval writers, and 
 forms the basis of many bulky tomes, such as 
 Thomas de Cantimpre's Liber de NaUiris Renwi, 
 written between 1233 and 1248. This work was 
 one of the earliest and most celebrated encyclo- 
 paedias of natural histor)', and was freely translated 
 into Dutch about 1280 by Jacob van Maerlant, 
 under the title Der Natnren Bloeme, and in 1350 
 into German by Konrad von Megenberg as Das 
 BucJi der Natur. Like in character, and hardl}' 
 less important, are the Speculum Naturale of Vin- 
 cent de Beauvais, completed about 1250, the Liber 
 de Proprietatibtis Reruiii of Bartholomsus An- 
 glicus, dating from the latter half of the thirteenth 
 century, Brunetto Latino's Li Tresors, the French 
 translation of a Latin original belonging to the 
 same period, the Acerba, a didactic poem by Cecco 
 d'Ascoli, who was burned at the stake in 1327, 
 and other volumes, which treated in a popular style 
 of the occult properties and symbolical significance 
 of birds, beasts, plants, and stones. 
 
 An elaborate compilation of this kind was the 
 Hortus Deliciaruvi of Herrade de Landsberg, 
 Abbess of St. Odile, who turned the facts and fables 
 of natural science into the channel of moral instruc- 
 tion and religious edification. It was written during 
 the latter half of the twelfth century, and preserved 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture y^ 
 
 in a unique vellum manuscript of 648 folio pages, 
 with numerous illuminations and miniatures, in the 
 Strasburg Library, where it perished, with so many 
 other literary and artistic treasures, during the 
 bombardment of that city by the Germans in 1870. 
 There was also a treatise on beasts and other 
 things (^InstiUitiones Monasticcc de Bestiis et aliis 
 Rebus), commonly, though in all probability falsely, 
 ascribed to Hugo de Saint- Victor, in which these 
 symbolisms were wonderfull}- wrought out, and 
 every feature, member, hue, and habit of the crea- 
 tures thus allegorized was made to yield a secret 
 and subtle significance. "What Holy Writ incul- 
 cates on the learned," says the author of this work 
 in reference to the pictorial representations of such 
 ideas, " pictures impress upon the ignorant ; for as 
 the scholar delights in the subtlety of Scripture, so 
 the soul of the simple is pleased with the simpli- 
 city of pictures." But this simplicity was often 
 lost in a puzzling maze and winding labyrinth of 
 allegorical and mystical interpretation, which it 
 would be impossible for the wayfaring man, even 
 though he were not a fool, to thread without the 
 PJiysiologus or some later elaboration of it as a clue. 
 Indeed, without such guidance it would be equally 
 difficult for us at the present day to understand 
 what the builder of a medireval church or an 
 embroiderer of sacerdotal vestments meant by 
 adorning them with seemingly incongruous repre- 
 sentations of lions, eagles, phoenixes, pelicans, ravens, 
 doves, partridges, panthers, harts, foxes, hedge- 
 
76 Animal Symbolism 
 
 hogs, ferrets, ichneumons, Hzards, serpents, tortoises, 
 whales, elephants, ibises, crocodiles, unicorns, sala- 
 manders, and other real and mythical animals, or 
 to conjecture what conceivable relation they could 
 bear to Christian theology or Christian worship. 
 
 The sacred edifice as a whole was regarded as 
 an emblem of the human soul, of which the crea- 
 tures carved on the pillars and portals were the 
 desirable or undesirable attributes and affections. 
 Thus an ox typified patience and gentleness, a lion 
 sternness and majesty, a turtle-dove constancy and 
 chastity, a ram spiritual leadership, a lily purity, 
 and a rose martyrdom. We have a modern sur- 
 vival of this symbolism in Gabriel Max's celebrated 
 painting. The Last Greeting, in which a rose falls 
 to the feet of a young woman as she stands 
 exposed to wild beasts in the amphitheatre. 
 
 So, too, the raven and the dove are not mere 
 reminiscences of the Deluge, but emblems — the 
 former of the carnal-minded Jews, who live on 
 the carrion of the Law, the latter of the new prin- 
 ciple of Christianity, that finds no abiding-place 
 outside of the ark of safety, but returns to it 
 bringing the olive branch of peace and reconcilia- 
 tion. There is also a distinction between the dove 
 of Noah, the dove of David, and the dove of Christ ; 
 the first signifies rest, the second peace, and the 
 third salvation. As the dove separates with its 
 beak the choicest kernels of wheat from the chaff, 
 so it is the office of the preacher to separate the 
 pure grain of Christian doctrine from the husks of 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture jj 
 
 Judaism. Its two wings are love of man and love 
 of God, compassion and contemplation, the active 
 and the meditative life; the ring round its neck 
 is the encircling sweetness of the Divine Word ; 
 the gold and silver of its plumage are the precious 
 treasures of purity and innocence; its whiteness 
 intermingled with changeable tints is the spirit of 
 chastity in conflict with fickle and rebellious pas- 
 sions ; its red feet are the feet of the Church stained 
 with the blood of the martyrs ; its two eyes survey 
 the past and discern the future, looking in upon 
 the soul and up to God ; their yellowish lustre 
 indicates maturity of thought and reflection, for 
 yellow is the colour of ripe fruit. 
 
 In the middle ages these symbolisms, which 
 seem to us so far-fetched and obscure, were con- 
 stantly referred to in sermons and in sacred and 
 profane literature, as well as in common discourse, 
 and appear, therefore, to have been generally under- 
 stood, so that a passing allusion to them in a book 
 or address was assumed to be intelligible without 
 further comment. Thus we find in a Latin poem 
 published by Du Meril in his Poesies populaires 
 latuies antcrieitres au XII' Steele, p. 191, a line in 
 which Christ is said to have been put to death by 
 owls — 
 
 " Christus a noctuis datur supplicio." 
 
 This is, however, a figurative expression for the 
 Jews, who, in the Physiologus, are compared to the 
 nycticorax, night-raven or owl, which cannot en- 
 dure the presence of the sun, as the Jews could 
 
78 Animal Symbolism 
 
 not endure the coming of "the dayspring from on 
 high," and the brightness of the sun of righteous- 
 ness, loving darkness rather than light because their 
 deeds were evil. Thus we read in the Bestiaire 
 Divin of Guillaume — 
 
 " En cest oisel sunt figure 
 Li fols Gieu maleure, 
 Qui ne voldrent Deu entendre 
 Quant il vint (^a per nus raendre, 
 De Deu, qui est verrai soleil, 
 Ne voleient creire le conseil." 
 
 About the middle of the thirteenth century 
 Albertus Magnus wrote a book on animals i^De 
 Auwialibus), in which he attempted some criticism 
 of the Physiologies, but the narrations he accepts as 
 true are for the most part quite as incredible and 
 absurd as those he rejects, so that it is difficult to 
 determine by what criterion he tests their authen- 
 ticity. Thus, for example, he is sceptical as regards 
 the self-mutilation of the beaver when pursued by 
 hunters, but puts implicit faith in the fable of the 
 unicorn and the virgin. 
 
 With the translation of the Physiologus into the 
 vulgar tongues of Europe it ceased to be the exclu- 
 sive possession of theologians and exegetists, and 
 was no longer confined to the purposes of homi- 
 letical and hermeneutical illustration, but became 
 the common property of the people, and passed 
 into the general literature of Christendom as an in- 
 exhaustible source of quaint and often forced meta- 
 phor, and sometimes apt, though more frequently 
 lame and lopsided, simile. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 79 
 
 Allusions to it occur henceforth not only in 
 sermons and sacred songs, in devotional works and 
 doctrinal treatises, and in the encyclopaidic compi- 
 lations of natural science, which professed to give 
 information "concerning all things and some things 
 besides " ide omnibus rebus et quibiisdani aliis), but 
 also in the secular, and especially the erotic poetry 
 of the period. Indeed, without a knowledge of the 
 Physiologus, these allusions would be wholly unin- 
 telligible. The citations contained in Lauchert's 
 exhaustive chapter on this subject (pp. 185-207) 
 suffice to show how widely extended and well- 
 nigh universal was the popularity which the work 
 enjoyed. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ' PHYSIOLOGUS ' IN ART AND LITERATURE 
 
 The three characteristics of the lion — Representations of the 
 lion as a symbol of the Resurrection in architecture — 
 Beasts often have a twofold signification — The lion and 
 bear as types of Satan — Diabolification of the dog — 
 Strange misconception of the canine character — Lions as 
 pedestals — Metaphorical use of the lion in poetry — The 
 lizard in architecture — Artistic delineations of the unicorn 
 as a type of Christ's Incarnation — Auricular conception of 
 Christ as the Logos — Supposed anti-toxical virtue of the 
 unicorn's horn and that of the African viper — The unicorn 
 in legend and poetry — Characteristics of the elephant — 
 Symbol of the fall of man — Julius Caesar's queer account 
 of the elk — Elephants embroidered on chasubles — Four 
 characteristics of the serpent — Artistic and poetic uses 
 of its fabled attributes — The eagle as a symbol of 
 spiritual aspiration and baptismal regeneration — Allu- 
 sions to it by Dante and other poets — The fish in sacred 
 iconology — Significance of the whale in ecclesiastical 
 architecture — Symbolism of the remora and serra — Im- 
 portance of the phoenix and the pelican as emblems of 
 Christian doctrine — Their prominent place in Church 
 architecture — Import of the fabulous exploits of the otter 
 and the ichneumon — Panther and dragon typical of 
 Christ and Belial — Healing power of the "heavenly 
 panther" — Lesson of self-renunciation taught by the 
 laeaver — Characteristic of the hyena — Symbolism of the 
 salamander — The partridge a type of the devil — Ex- 
 amples of the charadrius in art — Mystical meaning of the 
 crow, turtle-dove, ousel, merl, fulica, and hoopoe— Curious 
 statement of Luther concerning swallows — Why God 
 80 
 
Animal Symbolism 8 1 
 
 feeds the young ravens — Peculiarities of the wolf — The 
 Physiologtts condemned as heretical — Freely used by 
 Gregory the Great in his scriptural exposition — Virtues 
 and vices portrayed as women mounted on various 
 animals — Disputatious scholastics satirized — Tetramorph 
 — Gospel mills — The ark of the covenant as the triumphal 
 chariot of the Cross — Cock and clergy — Origin of the 
 basilisk and its significance — Its prominence in religious 
 symbology and sacred architecture — Cautious scepticism 
 of Albertus Magnus — The Physiologus from a psycho- 
 logical point of view, as illustrating the credulity of the 
 Fathers of the Church — Why "the hart panteth after 
 the water-brooks" — Story of the antelope— Barnacle geese 
 — " Credo quia absurdum " — Modern counterparts of early 
 Christian apologists and exegetists. 
 
 The Physiologus begins with the Hon, and adduces 
 three characteristics of the king of beasts. " First, 
 when he perceives that the hunters are pursuing 
 him, he erases his foot-prints with his tail, so that 
 he cannot be traced to his lair. In like manner 
 our Saviour, the lion of the tribe of Judah, con- 
 cealed all traces of His Godhead, when He descended 
 to the earth and entered into the womb of the 
 Virgin Mary, Secondly, the lion always sleeps 
 with his eyes open ; so our Lord slept with His 
 body on the Cross, but awoke at the right hand 
 of the Father, Thirdly, the lioness brings forth 
 her whelps dead and watches over them until, 
 after three days, the lion comes and howls over 
 them and vivifies them by his breath; so the 
 Almighty Father recalled to life His only-begotten 
 Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who on the third 
 day was thus raised from the dead, and will 
 likewise raise us all up to eternal life." 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 This comparison of the risen Christ to a lion's 
 whelp is also used by Abelard in the 
 
 following 
 
 Hnes- 
 
 " Ut leonis catulus 
 Resurrexit Dominus, 
 Quern rugitus patrius 
 
 Die tertia 
 Suscitat vivificus 
 
 Teste physica." 
 
 The appeal of the illustrious schoolman to physics 
 in proof of his statement is clearly a reference to 
 the Physiologus, 
 
 This last supposed characteristic of the lion 
 appears to have been a favourite symbol of the 
 resurrection of Christ, as well as of the general 
 resurrection, and holds a prominent place in 
 
 Relief of a Lion. (Munich.) 
 
 mediaeval architecture. Representations of it are 
 frequently found in various parts of ecclesiastical 
 edifices, as, for example, on the principal portal 
 of St. Laurence in Nuremberg, in the choir of 
 Augsburg Cathedral, at the foot of a colossal 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 83 
 
 crucifix in St. Nicholas of Stralsund, in the Wiirt- 
 emberg cloisters Maulbronn and Bebenhausen, 
 and in a large relief, which dates from the latter 
 half of the thirteenth century, and doubtless be- 
 longed originally to some church or cloister, pro- 
 bably to the old chapel and hospital of the Holy 
 Ghost (built 1251-66 and burned 1327), but which 
 now adorns the facade of a house Im Thai near 
 the Marienplatz in Munich, and the origin and 
 signification of which have excited no little dis- 
 cussion among Bavarian antiquarians and ecclesi- 
 ologists. So, too, a stained window of the minster 
 of Freiburg in the Breisgau contains a painting 
 of the Crucifixion, at the top of which is a pelican 
 feeding its young with its own blood; above the 
 pelican stands a lion breathing upon three whelps, 
 which are just beginning to show signs of life. 
 Underneath the lion is the inscription : Hilc] Leo 
 Forma S\alvatoris\ showing it to be a type of 
 the quickening power of the voice of Christ. A 
 stained window of the thirteenth century in the 
 cathedral of St. Etienne at Bourges represents the 
 pelican below on the left and the lion and whelps on 
 the right of the Crucified ; above, on the correspond- 
 ing sides, are Jonah delivered from the whale and 
 Elijah restoring to life the son of the widow of 
 Zerephath (see Frontispiece). In the central lancet 
 window of the chapels dedicated to the Virgin in 
 the cathedrals of Le Mans and Tours are similar 
 symbols of the death and resurrection of Christ, 
 in which the phcenix rising from its ashes takes 
 
84 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the place of the pelican. Also the central lancet 
 window in the apsis of the cathedral of Lyons has 
 a border of medallion paintings referring to the 
 same subject, among which are a lion and his 
 whelp running at full speed, the latter having 
 evidently been just resuscitated. It was often 
 carved on sacramental vessels, as, for example, on 
 a ciborium belonging to the monastery Kloster- 
 neuburg, near Vienna, a fine specimen of gold- 
 smith's work dating from the beginning of the 
 fourteenth century, 
 
 A Hon howling over three whelps is one of the 
 series of reliefs representing 
 biblical and mythical sub- 
 jects that ornament a frieze 
 on the exterior of Stras- 
 burg Minster. Besides 
 Lion howling over his whelps, scencs from the Jewish 
 {stra^burg Minster.) Scripturcs, such as Abra- 
 ham preparing to sacrifice Isaac, but arrested by 
 an angel, who points to a ram entangled in a bush, 
 Jonah cast up by the whale near one of the towers of 
 Nineveh, the brazen serpent, etc., we may mention 
 in this connection several reliefs which are based 
 upon the legends of the Physiologus, and the meaning 
 of which will be explained hereafter : a phoenix 
 in the flames, a pelican piercing her breast and 
 feeding her young with her blood, an eagle taking 
 eaglets from the nest to make them look at the 
 sun, and a unicorn with its head in the lap of a 
 virgin, while a man is thrusting a spear into its 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 85 
 
 side. This last sculpture resembles very closely 
 the illustration from the bestiary which we have 
 given in discussing the symbolism of the unicorn. 
 
 In connection with scenes from the life of Christ 
 on the bronze doors of the cathedral of Pisa are 
 reliefs of a lion howling over two whelps, an 
 eagle mounting up towards the sun, a unicorn, a 
 hart by a stream of water, a serpent, and an old 
 rhinoceros with two young ones playing in the 
 background, evidently intended to represent the 
 leviathan of the Bible. 
 
 At a somewhat later period the lion, as a sym- 
 bol of the Resurrection, was sculptured on public 
 buildings of a secular character and on private 
 dwellings ; it was also engraved on pieces of armour 
 and especially on helmets, often with the legend, 
 Do7uine vivifica me secundiiin verbum tmuu, or some 
 other appropriate device, expressive of the hope 
 of the warrior that, if slain in battle, he might be 
 raised up on the last day, 
 
 Durand, in his Rationale Divinoruui Officioriim^ 
 lib. vii., has a chapter on the rubric of the Evan- 
 gelists {Rubrica de Evangelistis), in which he 
 says that Mark's type is a roaring lion, " because 
 his aim is chiefly to give a description of the 
 resurrection of Christ, and that for this reason his 
 gospel is read at Easter. For it is stated that 
 the lion by its tremendous roar calls to life its 
 whelps on the third day, and thus God the Father 
 by His immense power called to life His Son on 
 the third day." Origcn has a similar explanation 
 
86 Animal Symbolism 
 
 of this symbolism in his discourse on Genesis.^ 
 Indeed, the alkisions to this zoological myth in 
 homiletical and hermeneutical literature are so 
 numerous and unequivocal, and the symbolical 
 interpretation of it so obvious and uniform, that 
 one marvels that Bavarian arcliJEologists should 
 have expended so much rare and recondite erudi- 
 tion and ingenuity of conjecture, and have gone 
 so far afield historically in search of the origin and 
 meaning of the Munich bas-relief already mentioned. 
 
 A sleeping lion is often brought into typological 
 relation to the infant Jesus, as, for example, on the 
 western portal of Notre-Dame de Paris, and in a 
 fresco in the church of the convent Philotheos on 
 Mount Athos, where the connection is made clear 
 by the words of Jacob concerning Judah : " He 
 stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old 
 lion; who shall rouse him up?" — Gen. xlix. 9 
 (Didron, Histoire de Dieii, p. 348). 
 
 The belief that the lion never closes its eyes in 
 
 sleep caused this animal to be placed at the doors 
 
 of churches as a guardian of the sanctuary. This 
 
 custom, which was observed for the same reason 
 
 by the ancient Egyptians, is thus referred to by a 
 
 mediaeval poet — 
 
 " Est leo, sed custos, oculis quia dormit apertis 
 Templorum idcirco, ponitus ante foras." 
 
 ^ " Nam Physiologus de catulo Leonis scribit, quod quum 
 fuerit natus, tribus diebus et tribus noctibus dormiat, quod 
 valde convenientur aptatur in Christo, qui tribus diebus et 
 tribus noctibus in corde terric sepultus, somnium mortis 
 implevit." — In Genestm, Hom. xvii. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 87 
 
 This type of spiritual vigilance is found most 
 frequently in Romanic and early Gothic archi- 
 tecture, from the beginning of the ninth to the end 
 of the thirteenth century. Usually the lions repose 
 on either side of the principal entrance, or stand 
 on pillars in the portico of the edifice, or serve, 
 especially in Italian churches, as pedestals to sup- 
 port the columns of the doorway. Examples of 
 this kind may be seen in the cathedral of Mayencc, 
 the oldest churches of Cologne, the so-called Schot- 
 tenkirche (former church of Scotch Benedictines) 
 in Ratisbon, St. Stephen's in Vienna, and in various 
 structures of an ecclesiastical character at Ancona, 
 Monza, Padua, Parma, Ravenna, Rome, Siponto, 
 and other Italian cities. 
 
 In some instances the same beast may sym- 
 bolize utterly opposing principles, since it embodies 
 antagonistic qualities.^ The lion, for example, is 
 not only typical of Christ triumphing over death 
 and hell and loosing the seven seals from the book 
 of life (Rev. v. 5), but also signifies the great 
 adversary, the devil, which, "as a roaring lion, 
 walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" 
 (i Peter v. 8). This is the lion from whose mouth 
 the Psalmist prays to be saved (Ps. xxii. 21), and 
 to which St. Augustine refers when he exclaims in 
 his Sernio de Tempore (clxxiv.), "who would not 
 
 1 "Secundum regnum ergo Christo adsimilata sunt. Et 
 alia multa sunt in creaturis habentia duplicem intellectum ; 
 alia quaidam laudabilia, alia vero vituperabilia ; et differen- 
 tiam habent inter se atque discretionem, sive moribus sive 
 naturis." 
 
88 Animal Symbolism 
 
 rush into the jaws of this lion, if the lion of the 
 tribe of Judah should not prevail ! It is lion 
 against lion, and lamb against wolf." The lion of 
 the tribe of Judah is opposed to the devouring lion, 
 and the lamb as the type of the meek and lowly 
 Saviour is opposed to the fierce and insatiable 
 wolf as the type of Satan. Christ, he adds, "is 
 a lion in fortitude, a lamb in innocence; a lion be- 
 cause He is invincible, a lamb because He is meek 
 and gentle." In another discourse (Hom. xxxiv.) 
 St. Augustine says the devil is impetuous as the 
 lion and insidious as the dragon, raging openly 
 like the former and lying in wait secretly like the 
 latter. In former times the Church fought against 
 the lion as it now fights against the dragon. In 
 Sermo clxxix. the lion and the bear typify the 
 devil, " who is figured in these two beasts, because 
 the bear's strength is in its paw and the lion's in 
 its mouth." In Sermo cxcvii. he says that as 
 David throttled the lion and the bear, which took 
 a lamb out of the flock, so Jesus Christ, whom 
 David prefigured, throttled the lion and the bear, 
 when He descended into hell and delivered the 
 captive spirits out of their jaws. Thus both these 
 animals are different embodiments of the Protean 
 prince of darkness. On the bronze doors of the 
 cathedral in Hildesheim are reliefs which date 
 from 1015, and represent the history of sin and 
 redemption ; in one of them a bear stands behind 
 Pilate, whispering into his ear and filling his mind 
 with diabolical suggestions. The bear as the type 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 89 
 
 of Satan is found less frequently in architecture 
 than in illuminated manuscripts and missals, and 
 in carvings on caskets, crosiers, shrines, and other 
 minor objects of art. 
 
 Christ trampling on a lion, an adder, or a dragon 
 (Ps. xci. 13) is often used to indicate His triumph 
 over the powers of hell. The same idea was 
 intended to be expressed by sculpturing figures of 
 deceased persons reclining on tombs with their feet 
 resting on a lion, a dragon, or a dog, which was 
 likewise regarded as an incarnation of the evil 
 principle, in conformity with the apostle's asser- 
 tion, "For without are dogs." At a later period 
 the lion at the feet of a man symbolized manly 
 strength and courage, and the dog at the feet of 
 a woman signified undying love and fidelity. It 
 was the substitution of the Aryan for the Semitic 
 point of view that reversed the meaning of the 
 symbolism. 
 
 The diabolification of the dog was due to the 
 Hebrew misconception of its character ; and it is 
 a curious fact that the Jews, who endowed a 
 rapacious and offensive creature like the vulture 
 with fictitious virtues, should have had no proper 
 appreciation of one of the noblest and most useful 
 of their domestic animals. The affection and 
 fidelity of the dog seem to have made hardly any 
 impression upon them. This oldest and most trusty 
 companion of man is rarely referred to by them 
 except in terms of contempt, and it is from this 
 source that many derogatory expressions concerning 
 
90 Animal Symbolism 
 
 dogs have passed into the common speech of to- 
 day. When Elisha foretells the cruel conduct of 
 Hazael, the latter exclaims : " Is thy servant a 
 dog that he should do this great thing?" Job 
 expresses the same scornful feeling when he says : 
 " Now they that are younger than I have me in 
 derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to 
 have set with the dogs of my flock." Only in the 
 apocryphal Tobit (v. i6; x. 14) is the dog treated 
 in some degree as the friend and associate of man. 
 Thus when Tobias and his companion set out on 
 their journey to Media to collect a debt, it is said : 
 "So they went forth both, and the young man's 
 dog with them" — a simple touch that adds im- 
 mensely to the beauty and realism of the picture. 
 In the New Testament dogs are pariah beasts 
 completely out of the pale of human interest and 
 sympathy. There is an old legend that Jesus once 
 saw a crowd of persons gathered round the carcass 
 of a dog, and giving utterance to their disgust at 
 the sight of such a loathsome beast. But as Jesus 
 looked upon it He said : " How white its teeth 
 are ! " The story is intended to illustrate, not His 
 higher and truer estimation of the worth of the 
 animal, but His own nobility of character, and the 
 generous optimism which avoided evil-speaking, 
 and could discover admirable qualities even in so 
 hideous a creature as a dead dog. Indeed there is 
 nothing in Hebrew or early Christian literature to 
 be compared with Homer's sympathetic description 
 of Ulysses' dog Argus, or Arrian's characterization 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 91 
 
 of the greyhound Horme (op/x?/, "impetuous"), "the 
 swiftest, sagest, and divinest " of beasts. With 
 what fine appreciation he dwells upon her cunning 
 and cleverness, and other excellent traits ! ^Elian 
 relates {De Nat. Aitiinal.,v\\. 38) that a Magnesian 
 war-hound, which distinguished itself at Marathon, 
 was honoured with an Q^gy on the same tablet 
 that recorded the valour of its master. The Avesta 
 and other sacred books of the Parsis enjoin the 
 greatest kindness and reverence towards the dog, 
 whose sagacity, vigilance, and fidelity are regarded 
 as the pillars of pastoral society ; and in the Indian 
 epic, the Mahabhdrata, the hero Yudhishthira re- 
 fuses to enter Indra's heaven unless "his faithful 
 dog shall bear him company." 
 
 In the porch of Freiburg Minster are delinea- 
 tions of the deeds of Samson in carrying off the 
 gates of Gaza, tearing open the lion's jaws, and 
 performing other exploits supposed to foreshadow 
 the redeeming power of Christ. In this work the 
 artist embodies the ideas of patristic exegetists, 
 who show a vast amount of misapplied ingenuity 
 in tracing analogies between the career of the 
 Hebrew solar hero and that of the Sun of 
 righteousness. (Cf. St. Augustine's De Samsone, 
 Sermo I.) 
 
 The column-sustaining lions, so often placed at 
 the entrance of the churches, or used to support 
 pulpits, as in Pisa, Sienna, Lucca, Chiusi, and 
 elsewhere in Italy, and especially in Tuscany, 
 represent Satan subdued and subjected to the 
 
92 Animal Symbolism 
 
 service of Christianity. The same is true of the 
 lion's head on the doors of the baptistery at 
 Florence, and the cathedrals of Mayence and 
 Hildesheim. In the vestibule of the cathedral of 
 Piacenza, dating from the first half of the twelfth 
 century, as well as in many ecclesiastical edifices 
 in Ferrara, Modena, and Rome, the columns rest 
 upon the shoulders of men with lions underneath 
 them, which have seized other men as their prey. 
 They symbolize heretics, whom the devil has got 
 possession of, but who are overcome by the power 
 of truth, and made to uphold the orthodox faith. 
 Among other sculptures on the doors of a church 
 in Novgorod, is the head of a lion with open jaws, 
 in which are seen the faces of the damned writhing 
 with agony, and above it the inscription : " Hell 
 consuming sinners." St. Augustine, in his Scrmo 
 de Tempore (Ixv.), compares Daniel in the lions' 
 den with the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness ; 
 but it is more commonly interpreted as typical of 
 Christ's descent into hell, as, for example, at the 
 entrance of the church of St. Porchaire in France. 
 
 The characteristics attributed to the Hon in the 
 PJiysiologiis were familiar to medifeval poets, and 
 furnished them with an ample fund of metaphorical 
 material. Thus Wolfram von Eschenbach, in his 
 most celebrated poem, compares the hero Parzival 
 and his half-brother Feirefiz to two lion's whelps 
 roused to life and energy by the roar of battle. 
 Again, in his epic Willehalm, he declares that in 
 the fierce combat between Christians and paynims 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 93 
 
 at Alischanz the noise produced by the blare of 
 trumpets, the roll of drums, and the shouts of 
 contending hosts was loud enough to call to life a 
 lion's whelps. 
 
 Thomasin von Zirclare, in the Welscher Gast, 
 which describes court-life in Italy, and lays down 
 general rules of conduct for princes, says that when 
 sovereigns have done wrong, they should blot out 
 all traces of it by humble repentance and increased 
 beneficence, as the lion escapes pursuit by obliter- 
 ating its foot-prints with its tail. Elsewhere he 
 advises monarchs never to act on the impulse of 
 the moment, but to give heed to three things before 
 putting any project into practice : listen to coun- 
 sellors, compare their views, and adopt the best 
 advice, as the lion's whelps lie three days dormant 
 after they are born. The simile, in this case, is 
 ridiculously inapt, but the PJiysiologtis gives the 
 key to it, and renders it at least intelligible. The 
 same zoological myth was evidently in the mind 
 of the old Spanish poet, Juan de Mena, when he 
 described the mother of Lorenzo d'Avalos as 
 lamenting like a lioness (" como al que pare haze la 
 leona ") over her dead son. Amorozzo da Firenze 
 expresses the intensity of his susceptibility to the 
 tender passion by asserting that the voice of his 
 lady-love would suffice to revive him from death, 
 as the voice of the lion reanimates its young. A 
 Provencal erotic poet, Richard de Berbezilh, uses 
 the same imagery to illustrate the same sentiment. 
 Another old French poet, Guirant de Calanson, 
 
94 Animal Symbolism 
 
 says : " As the lion sleeps with open eyes {Jmelks 
 ubertz\ so my spirit, even in slumber, beholds 
 thee, O lady." 
 
 Meister Stolle, in the Wartbiirgkrieg, would 
 endow princes with the voice of the lion and the 
 eyes of the ostrich, which hatches its eggs by 
 gazing at them, so that they might rouse and 
 animate their followers by word and look, inciting 
 them to noble and knightly achievements. Rein- 
 mar von Zweter praises the " ostrich eyes " of the 
 Emperor Friedrich II., as inspiriting and life- 
 giving ; and Pierre Espagnol informs us that the 
 eyes of his lady-love are incubatory like those of 
 the ostrich, causing sighs to germinate and spring 
 up in his heart whenever she turns upon him an 
 ardent glance. 
 
 The next animal mentioned in the Physiologus 
 is the lizard, which, when it gets blind in its old 
 age, creeps into the crevice of a wall looking 
 towards the east, and stretches out its head to 
 the rising sun, whose rays restore its sight. " In 
 like manner, O man, thou who hast on the old 
 garment, and the eyes of whose heart are obscured, 
 seek the wall of help, and watch there until the sun 
 of righteousness, which the prophet calls the day- 
 spring, rises with healing power and removes thy 
 spiritual blindness." 
 
 Representations of a lizard running along a wall 
 or peeping out of some chink in it, either sculptured 
 in stone or carved in wood, are not uncommon in 
 mediaeval churches, especially among the decora- 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 95 
 
 tions of the chancel. It was not the mere caprice 
 of the architect that put the reptile there, but its 
 presence is due to its significance as a symbol of 
 the regenerating and illuminating influence of the 
 gospel. 
 
 The unicorn is another favourite type, and is 
 thus described by the Physiologus : "It is a small 
 animal, but exceeding strong and fleet, with a 
 single horn in the centre of its forehead. The only 
 means of capturing it is by stratagem, namely, 
 by decking a chaste virgin with beautiful ornaments 
 and seating her in a solitary place in the forest 
 frequented by the unicorn, which no sooner perceives 
 her than it runs to her and, 
 laying its head gently in her 
 lap, falls asleep. Then the 
 hunters come and take it cap- 
 tive to the king's palace and 
 receive for it much treasure." 
 
 Herein the unicorn resem- 
 
 . 111 Capture of the Unicorn. 
 
 bles our Saviour, who "hath (Sestiarj'.) 
 
 raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house 
 of His servant David"; and the work of redemp- 
 tion, which neither thrones, nor dominations, nor 
 heavenly powers could accomplish. He brought 
 to pass. The mighty ones of this world were 
 unable to approach Him or to lay hold of Him, 
 until He abode in the womb of the Virgin Mary. 
 As it is written : "And the Word was made flesh, 
 and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the 
 glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of 
 
96 Animal Symbolism 
 
 grace and truth ; " or as this passage is paraphrased 
 in Le Bestiaire Divin — 
 
 " Sul por la volonte de Dieu, 
 Passa Deu por la Virgne mere ; 
 Et la Parole fut char faite, 
 Que virginetd n'i ot fraite." 
 
 In the border of the central lancet window in 
 the apsis of the cathedral at Lyons is a representa- 
 tion of this fable of the unicorn and the Virgin 
 as a symbol of Christ's incarnation. It is rather 
 awkwardly drawn, and the Virgin seems to sit 
 astride of the unicorn's neck, but it was evidently 
 the intention of the artist to have the animal's 
 head lying in her lap. There is a carving of the 
 same kind in St. Botolph's Church at Boston, 
 Lincolnshire, and a series of reliefs of a similar 
 character may be seen in the cathedral at Toledo, 
 in Spain. A curious German engraving of the 
 fifteenth century, entitled " Von der menschwerdong 
 gottes nach geistlicher auszlegong der hystori von 
 dem einhoren," pictures the Annunciation and In- 
 carnation as the chase of the unicorn. The arch- 
 angel Gabriel, the leader of the hunt, winds his 
 horn, from which is supposed to proceed the 
 melodious greeting : " Hail, highly-favoured one, 
 the Lord is with thee, thou blessed among women ! " 
 The unicorn, pursued by hounds, is running rapidly 
 towards the Virgin, who sits with upturned eyes 
 and hands folded across her breast in a state of 
 ecstasy, while the horn of the animal is in perilous 
 proximity to her lap. On her right are an altar 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 97 
 
 with burning candles and a flowing fountain, a 
 symbol of the waters of eternal life. In the back- 
 ground God the Father holds a globe surmounted 
 with a cross in one hand, and gives His benediction 
 with the other. The three dogs are Mercy, Truth, 
 and Justice, and denote the attributes of the 
 
 Hunting the Unicorn. {Old German Engraving.) 
 
 Saviour and the feelings which impelled Him to 
 become incarnate, and to redeem the world from 
 the dominion of Satan. ^ This symbolism is more 
 fully and clearly expressed in a German painting 
 of the fifteenth or perhaps the beginning of the 
 
 1 Cf. Dr. Ulrich Pinder : Der heschlosseji gart des rosen- 
 krants Marie, Niirnberg, 1505, Band II., Blatt ix. Also 
 Cahier : Caracteristiqucs des Saints dans PArt popiilairc, 
 Paris, 1844. 
 
 H 
 
pS Animal Symbolism 
 
 sixteenth century, now belonging to the Grand 
 Ducal Library of Weimar. In this extremely 
 elaborate and highly-finished work of art there are 
 four dogs held in leash and barking at the unicorn, 
 which is already in the lap of the Virgin ; their 
 collars are labelled respectively Veritas, Justitia, 
 Misericordia, and Pax ; the first two are dark- 
 brown, the third light-brown, and the fourth white. 
 The Virgin wears a greenish-brown dress studded 
 with golden flowers, and a green mantle. Gabriel 
 is arrayed in scarlet, and has wings of many 
 brilliant hues. Gideon kneels behind her on his 
 fleece of wool (Judges vi. 36-40). In the back- 
 ground is a city representing Zion. To the right 
 of the Virgin in the sky appears God the Father, 
 with a large wreath of oak-leaves encircling His 
 neck and resting on His shoulders. His hands 
 upraised in the act of blessing, and the Christ-child 
 descending on a beam of light and bearing a cross. 
 At the lower end of the beam of light is a dove 
 hovering over the Virgin's head and its beak 
 directed towards her ear. This attitude of the 
 dove, which is quite common, and indeed almost 
 universal, in mediaeval and early modern pictures 
 of the Annunciation, is intended to indicate the 
 naive notion entertained by patristic writers and 
 later theologians, that the conception of Christ was 
 effected supernaturally through the Virgin's ear, so 
 that she remained perfectly pure and immaculate, 
 and her maidenhood intact. This queer theory 
 had its origin probably in Gnostic speculations and 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 99 
 
 the Greco-Judaic religious philosophy current in 
 Alexandria, and was the result of a too literal 
 interpretation of the doctrine of the Logos. As 
 God spoke the world into existence, so the voice 
 of the Most High uttering salutation through the 
 mouth of the angel caused the Virgin to conceive, 
 " and the Word was made flesh." But as spoken 
 words are addressed to the ear, and through this 
 organ find lodgment in the mind and thus bear 
 fruit, it was assumed that the incarnation of the 
 Logos was accomplished in the same manner : 
 " Deus per angelum loquebatur et Virgo per aurem 
 impregnabatur," says St. Augustine {Sermo de 
 Tempore, xxii.) ; and this view, which was generally 
 accepted by the Apostolic Fathers, is expressed eight 
 centuries later in a verse attributed to Thomas a 
 
 Becket — 
 
 " Gaude Virgo, mater Christi, 
 Quse per aurem concepisti." 
 
 The same description of the miraculous event is 
 given by the German mediaeval poet, Walther von 
 der Vogelweide : " dur ir ore enphinc si den vil 
 suezen." In the parish church (formerly belonging 
 to the abbey) of Eltenberg on the Rhine, is an An- 
 nunciation moulded in clay, baked and painted, in 
 which the infant Jesus, attended by the Holy Spirit, 
 descends from heaven on the breath of God the 
 Father, and enters the ear of the Virgin. Similar 
 representations are to be seen (so far as they have 
 not been destroyed) at Oppenheim, on the portal of 
 the cathedral at Wiirzburg, and elsewhere. The 
 
lOO 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 blast of Gabriel's bugle in the Weimar painting is 
 no uncertain sound, but becomes articulate as : 
 " Ave gratia plena, Dominus tecum," to which the 
 
 The Annunciation. {Parish Church of Eltenberg.) 
 
 Virgin responds : " Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi 
 secundum Verbum tuum," Indeed the air is full 
 of floating legends taken chiefly from the Song 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture loi 
 
 of Solomon, such as " Sicut lilium inter spinas, sic 
 arnica mea inter filias " (As the lily among thorns, 
 so my love among the daughters) ; " Fons hortorum, 
 puteus aquarum viventium quae fluunt impetu de 
 Libano " (A fountain of gardens, a well of living 
 waters, and streams from Lebanon) ; " Veni Auster, 
 perfla hortum et fluant aromata" (Come, thou 
 south, blow upon my garden that the spices may 
 flow out) ; " Turris eburnea " (Tower of ivory), etc. 
 The Virgin sits behind a wicker fence or palisade 
 in illustration of the passage: "A garden enclosed 
 is my sister." Engravings of this painting have 
 been frequently published ; as, for example, in the 
 sixth volume of CiLriositdten der physch- literarisch- 
 artistisch- historischen Vor- iind Mitwelt (Weimar, 
 1817, p. 133); Revue Archeologiqiie {^zx\s, 1844-45, 
 p. 462) ; Das Evangelische Jahrbuch, issued at 
 Berlin ; and in a recent Christmas number of 
 Harper s Magazine. There is another picture of a 
 similar character at Weimar ; a third was formerly 
 in the Hospital Church at Grimmenthal on the 
 Werra ; and a fourth is in the cathedral at Bruns- 
 wick, painted on one of the folding compartments 
 of a triptych or altar-piece. The Virgin with the 
 unicorn in her lap is on the outside, and the angel 
 as huntsman with horn, spear, and dogs on the 
 inside. Out of the mouth of the animal proceed 
 the words : " Quia quem Cceli capere non possunt, 
 in tuo gremio contulisti," — a punning form of ex- 
 pression, which may refer either to the incarnation 
 of Christ, or to the hunting of the unicorn : " Whom 
 
I02 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the heavens (highest powers) could not contain 
 (capture), thou didst hold (take) in thy womb (lap)." 
 The Virgin has a blue robe, the lower part of which 
 is reddish ; a basket of manna is at her feet, and 
 near her the legend : " Fons signatus " (a fountain 
 sealed). The angel is dressed in white with a red 
 mantle floating in the wind, and has four dogs 
 in the leash,^ In the Grimmenthal picture the 
 symbolism is still more striking. On the left of 
 the tall and majestic angel is a lion howling over 
 two motionless whelps, with the legend " Maria Leo," 
 and just before him the eternal city or perennity of 
 God {Perennitas Dei) ; above the gate of heaven 
 {Porta Cceli) God the Father appears in the clouds 
 between the sun and the moon ; across the disc of 
 the former are the words " clara ut sol " (clear as 
 the sun), and issuing from the mouth of the human 
 face defined in the crescent of the latter the words, 
 " Pulchra ut luna " (fair as the moon). On the left 
 of the painting is a star {stella maris), and on the 
 right a pelican feeding its young with its blood, 
 and Moses talking with Jehovah in the burning 
 bush. In the centre is Gideon kneeling on his 
 fleece ; behind him is the flowing fountain of the 
 waters of eternal life ; above it a mirror with the 
 Inscription, " speculum sine macula " (a mirror 
 without spot). An engraving of this picture, but 
 without any interpretation of its symbolism, was 
 
 * Cf. Ribbentrop : Beschreibun^ der Stadt Braunschweig, 
 where this work of art is ascribed, but without sufficient 
 reason, to Lucas Cranach. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 103 
 
 published in Friedrich Rudolphi's Gotha Diplo- 
 matica oder Aiisfuhrliche Historische Beschreibiing 
 des FurstentJiiims Saclisen-GotJia (Frankfurt am 
 Main und Leipzig, 1717, p. 310). It was an altar- 
 piece, and was probably the work of Paul Lauten- 
 sack, better known as Meister Paul of Bamberg, 
 who was born in that city in 1478, and died in 1558 
 at Nuremberg, as an ardent and rather fanatical 
 Protestant. In the latter half of the fifteenth and 
 the early part of the sixteenth century, Grim- 
 menthal was a noted place of pilgrimage, where 
 many miraculous cures were said to have been 
 effected through the agency of the Holy Virgin. 
 The ruling prince, Wilhelm, of the House of 
 Henneberg, a zealous Catholic, employed Meister 
 Paul to decorate the interior of the church, and the 
 artist devoted himself for ten years to the task, 
 and received twelve thousand florins for his services, 
 a sum regarded at that time as an exceedingly 
 munificent remuneration. People flocked to this 
 wonder-working shrine from all the countries of 
 Europe, and no less than forty-four thousand 
 persons are reported to have visited it in a single 
 year. The maimed, the halt, and the blind were 
 healed of their infirmities, but the medical virtue 
 of the Madonna manifested itself most strikingly 
 as a specific for syphilis, .or the Venusseuche, as 
 it was commonly termed. According to an old 
 Latin chronicler, there was in 1 503 " a grand pere- 
 grination to the Blessed Virgin at Grimmenthal, 
 where an immense concourse gathered, chiefly on 
 
I ©4 Animal Symbolism 
 
 account of the French malady, otherwise called 
 acute and burning leprosy (' principaliter propter 
 malum Franzosiae, alias acutam lepram ac arden- 
 tem dictam '), that raged for a period of more 
 than ten years, during which time some three 
 hundred Moorish knights or Ethiops ('quasi 300 
 Mauri equites sive Aethyopes') passed through 
 Silesia journeying thither." ^ The Reformation 
 naturally tended to check these pilgrimages, arid 
 finally put a stop to them altogether. Luther 
 himself felt a strong antipathy to this holy shrine, 
 which he denounced as " ein rechtes Grimmenthal, 
 Vallem furoris." In 1525 the revenues derived 
 from pious offerings were so small that they hardly 
 sufficed to defray current expenses, and in 1547 
 the buildings, which formerly served to lodge 
 pilgrims, were converted into a hospital, and the 
 church was henceforth used merely for the cure of 
 souls. But, although the method of healing had 
 been officially secularized, the sacred place pre- 
 served to a certain degree its traditional reputation 
 in the minds of the people, until in 1767 the 
 church, with all of Meister Paul's paintings, was 
 destroyed by fire. The Virgin with a unicorn 
 resting its head in her lap is quite common in 
 ecclesiastical architecture, especially in stained 
 windows, as for example in St. Redegonde, at 
 Caen. Again, in an Italian engraving of the six 
 triumphs of Petrarch, dating from the fifteenth 
 
 ^ Licurii Append, ad Fasciciil. Tempor. ap. Pistorii Script. 
 Rerum Gertnamcarufii Vet., Francof., 1707, torn, ii., p. 600. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 105 
 
 century, and belonging to the Albertine collection 
 in Vienna, the triumph of chastity is symbolized 
 by a virgin seated and a unicorn with its head in 
 her lap. In the background is a hunter blow- 
 ing a horn, and rapidly approaching with a pack 
 of dogs. In another engraving illustrating the 
 same triumph the car of chastity is drawn by 
 unicorns. 
 
 Superstitious notions about the peculiar virtue 
 inherent in the unicorn's horn were quite current in 
 the middle ages. Thus John of Herse, who made 
 a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1389, records his 
 observations on this point. " Near the field Helyon 
 in the Holy Land," he says, " is the river Mara, 
 whose bitter waters Moses struck with his staff 
 and made sweet, so that the children of Israel 
 could drink thereof Even now, evil and unclean 
 beasts poison it after the going down of the sun ; 
 but in the morning, after the powers of darkness 
 have disappeared, the unicorn comes from the sea 
 and dips its horn into the stream, and thereby 
 expels and neutralizes the poison, so that the other 
 animals can drink of it during the day. The fact, 
 which I describe, I have seen with my own eyes." 
 This story furnishes an excellent illustration of the 
 value of human testimony, and the conclusiveness 
 of ocular evidence, showing the little confidence 
 to which the report of an extraordinary event is 
 entitled, even when it rests, not upon hearsay, but 
 upon the positive statement of an honest eye- 
 witness. That John of Herse meant to tell the 
 
io6 Animal Symbolism 
 
 truth, and thought he observed what he records, 
 there is not the sHghtest reason to doubt. 
 
 On account of this supposed anti-toxical pro- 
 perty, the unicorn's horn was used for making 
 spoons (so-called test-spoons), salt-cellars, and 
 especially drinking-cups. Articles manufactured 
 of this material held a prominent or rather an 
 important place in the table-service of mediaeval 
 nobles and princes, and were prized as a sure 
 protection against all sorts of poison, as well as a 
 specific for epilepsy and other forms of convulsion. 
 A closer examination of these objects, which are 
 now preserved as curiosities in museums, proves 
 them to have been fabricated from the tusks of the 
 narwal. 
 
 Equally spurious are the so-called griffin's claws 
 now preserved as relics in churches or as curiosities 
 in museums, as for example in the churches of 
 Hildesheim, Weimar, Cologne, and Gran on the 
 Danube, and in the museums of Dresden, Vienna, 
 and other European cities. They are simply horns 
 of the Caffrarian buffalo. An interesting specimen 
 of this kind is in the old abbey on the Inde, 
 founded by Lewis the Debonair in the ninth cen- 
 tury, and now known as Cornelimiinster, because it 
 contains the relics of the canonized Pope Cornelius, 
 among which the saint's horn or drinking-cup, 
 styled the griffin's claw, holds the most conspicuous 
 place. Hagiologists even tell us that a griffin gave 
 it to the holy man out of gratitude for having 
 been miraculously healed of epilepsy. This legend 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 107 
 
 is related as an historical fact as late as 1755 in 
 the Heiligthunishiichlein, issued for the guidance 
 and edification of pilgrims to the sacred shrine. 
 On such occasions wonderful cures are believed to 
 be wrought by pouring holy water from this horn 
 on the sick and infirm. It has been customary 
 for the last five centuries to exhibit these relics 
 once in seven years for healing purposes. 
 
 Samuel Bochart, in his Hierozoico7i^ written 
 about the middle of the seventeenth century, 
 cites a number of Arabian authors, who enlarge 
 upon the marvellous peculiarities of the unicorn's 
 horn. Among other curious statements, it is said 
 that if the horn be cut lengthwise, it will be 
 found to contain the figure of a man, a beast, a 
 bird, or a flower, beautifully designed in white, 
 and filling the whole shape from the tip to the 
 base. 
 
 In the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, 
 among various remedies employed to heal the 
 wound of Anfortas, king of the Gral, the heart of 
 a unicorn and the carbuncle growing under its 
 horn are mentioned. In the same poem Queen 
 Orgeluse's lover, Cidegast, whom Gramoflanz has 
 slain in combat, is extolled as " a unicorn in 
 fidelity." In Heinrich Frauenlob's Kreuzleich (Lay 
 of the Cross), Konrad von Wiirzburg's Goldene 
 Schniiede (Golden Smithy), and other poems of the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in praise of the 
 Virgin, God the Father is represented as a hunts- 
 man, pursuing the unicorn until it takes refuge in 
 
io8 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the womb of the immaculate Mary. Reinmar von 
 Zweter lauds the power of chastity; which was 
 stronger than the Almighty ; and Hugo von Lan- 
 genstein celebrates in florid and somewhat motley 
 allegory the majesty of the maid whose loveliness 
 and purity captivated and conciliated heaven's uni- 
 corn, and thus averted the Divine wrath from our 
 sinful world. In a German hymn of the fifteenth 
 century addressed to the Virgin, she is said to have 
 "tamed the unicorn and the hind "; and in a hunt- 
 ing-song, quoted by Lauchert from Uhland's collec- 
 tion (No. 339), the whole scheme of redemption is 
 set forth as the outcome of the fascinations of " ein 
 seuberlichs junkfrewelin." 
 
 Metaphors drawn from the fabled habits of the 
 unicorn, or allusions to them, are frequently met 
 with in the effusions of mediaeval erotic poets, who, 
 like the unicorn, would fain lay their heads in the 
 laps of their ladies and be enslaved by their 
 charms. The Suabian knight and minnesinger, 
 Burkhart von Hohenfels, likens himself to the 
 unicorn, because a fair woman has allured him to 
 his destruction ; and Guido Cavalcanti, the contem- 
 porary and friend of Dante, makes use of the same 
 imagery in a sonnet addressed to Guido Orlandi, 
 who was languishing in fatal thraldom to the all- 
 subduing passion. Thibault, Count of Champagne 
 and King of Navarre, describes in one of his lyrics 
 the treachery of the hunters, who catch and kill the 
 unicorn while lying faint and languishing in the 
 virgin's lap, and adds — 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 109 
 
 " Thus Love and my Lady have done to me, 
 And my heart can never again be free." ^ 
 
 ' The Unicorn, like the lion, has a twofold signifi- 
 cation, and in the Waldensian PJiysiologiis stands 
 for Satan, who can be overcome only by purity 
 and innocence. The enmity of the unicorn to the 
 elephant, described by Isidore, and enlarged upon 
 by the author of Le Bestiaire Divin, tends also to 
 confuse the spiritual meaning, since both of these 
 animals are types of Christ. The elephant is, how- 
 ever, in this case, as we shall see hereafter, a sym- 
 bol of fallen humanity. The Latin texts and the 
 later popular versions of the Pliysiologus carry 
 out the religious symbolism of the unicorn into 
 the minutest doctrinal detail. Thus the single 
 horn signifies the oneness of the Father and the 
 Son, while the smallness of the animal and its 
 similarity to the he-goat express the exceeding 
 humility and condescension of Christ in consenting 
 to become incarnate in the likeness of sinful man. 
 
 According to Albertus Magnus, the horn of the 
 African viper was said to rival that of the unicorn 
 in its sensitiveness to poisons, and to show their 
 presence by emitting perspiration ; for this reason, 
 he adds, it was used for the handles of table-knives. 
 This statement, however, he gives with reserve, as 
 not sufficiently proven : " sed hoc non satis proba- 
 tum est" {De Animal, lib. XXV. vi. 66^). Of the 
 
 ' " Et moi ont fait de tel semblant 
 Amors et ma Dame, por voir ; 
 Mon cuer n'en puis point ravoir," 
 
1 10 Animal Symbolism 
 
 antidotal and prophylactic virtue of the unicorn's 
 horn in such cases the erudite Dominican and 
 " doctor universalis " does not seem to have enter- 
 tained the slightest doubt. 
 
 In the Alexanderlied of Pfaffen Lamprecht we 
 are told that Queen Candace — whose kingdom was 
 " on the edge of the earth's abyss, where the sky 
 revolves round it like a wheel on its axis " — pre- 
 sented the Macedonian conqueror with a live uni- 
 corn, which had been captured by means of a decoy 
 virgin. The animal is described by the poet as a 
 highly heterogeneous and utterly impossible crea- 
 ture, having the body of a horse, the tail of a pig, 
 the head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, and a 
 long horn projecting from its forehead. The car- 
 buncle concealed at the root of this horn is also 
 mentioned, and its medicinal properties, so often 
 described in mediaeval pharmacopoeias, are extolled. 
 
 The elephant, says the PJiysiologus, is a very 
 intelligent animal, but has an exceedingly cold 
 and passionless temperament. Therefore, when the 
 time for copulation comes, the male and female 
 betake themselves to a region in the neighbour- 
 hood of Paradise, where the mandrake grows, and 
 eat of this aphrodisiac plant, and thereupon beget 
 young.^ Now when the period of parturition arrives, 
 
 * The mandrakes which Reuben found in the field were 
 used by his mother Leah for venereal purposes (Gen. xxx. 
 14-16), and this precious pecuharity is enlarged upon in 
 rabbinical literature. The Greeks spoke of them as anthro- 
 pomorphic ; and according to popular superstition they 
 spring from human sperm spilled on the ground, and are so 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 1 1 1 
 
 the female elephant goes into a pond until the 
 water touches her breast, and there brings forth her 
 young, as the Psalmist says : " Save me, O God, 
 for the waters are come into my soul." But the 
 male keeps watch in order to ward off the dragon, 
 which dwells in the pond, and seeks to devour the 
 new-born elephant. 
 
 The two elephants signify Adam and Eve, who ate 
 of the forbidden fruit of the tree of life, and yielding 
 to the power of sensual passion excited by it, begat 
 children, and brought death and woe into the world. 
 
 Another characteristic of the elephant is that 
 when it falls down it cannot get up again, since 
 it is unable to bend its knees. For this reason 
 it always sleeps standing, and leans for support 
 against a tree. The hunters take advantage of this 
 bodily defect and, having discovered its sleeping- 
 place, saw the tree almost asunder, so that when 
 the huge beast leans against it the tree gives way, 
 and the elephant falls to the ground, and there lies 
 roaring helplessly. Then the other elephants hasten 
 to its assistance, but all their efforts to raise it up 
 are in vain ; at length a small young elephant comes, 
 and, thrusting its trunk under the fallen animal, 
 lifts it to its feet again. Now the first elephant 
 symbolizes Adam, who fell " through a tree," as an 
 old English bestiary puts it, towards the fruit of 
 which he had stretched out his hand. And all the 
 
 full of animal life and consciousness that they shriek when 
 torn out of the earth, so " that living mortals, hearing them, 
 run mad." 
 
1 1 2 Animal Symbolism 
 
 great prophets and the lesser prophets essayed in 
 vain to restore him to his iirst estate ; but " the 
 new elephant, our Saviour," though accounted the 
 least of all the prophets, was able to accomplish it, 
 becoming a servant and abasing Himself that we 
 might be exalted. 
 
 Julius Caesar, in his commentary on the Gallic 
 War (vi. 27), in speaking of the fauna of the 
 country, describes an animal something like the 
 unicorn as follows : " There is an ox having the 
 form of a deer, from the middle of whose forehead, 
 between the ears, there rises a single horn, longer 
 and straighter than the horns of any other animal 
 known to us, and spreading widely at the top in 
 palm-like branches. The appearance of the male 
 and the female is the same, and the shape and size 
 of the horns are similar." He then adds : "There 
 are also animals called alces [elks], like a deer in 
 form and colour, but larger in size. They shed 
 their horns, and their legs are without joints or 
 articulations. They do not lie down to rest, and 
 if they happen to fall to the ground they are 
 unable to rise. The trees serve them for beds, 
 against which they lean, and thus, slightly reclining, 
 take their repose. When the hunters discover these 
 places of resort, they either undermine the trees at 
 the roots or cut them so far that the trunk has 
 only the appearance of standing firmly, so that 
 when the animals lean against them, according to 
 their habit, the weakened trees give way and they 
 fall together to the earth." The stiff and stilty 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 1 1 3 
 
 manner in which the elk holds its legs in running 
 and leaping, seems to have led Caesar to infer that 
 they were without joints, and from this queer mis- 
 take for such a sober and accurate observer to 
 make the fabulous account of its method of sleep- 
 ing could have easily arisen, especially as this was 
 supposed to be the case with the elephant, the 
 method of capturing which is also described in the 
 Spanish Poema de Alexandra by Juan Lorenzo de 
 Segura. 
 
 Mediaeval poets use the statement that the ele- 
 phant gives birth in the water as a symbol of 
 baptismal regeneration, but the animal seldom 
 figures metaphorically in madrigals or lays of love. 
 The inditer of an amorous sonnet or soft ditty 
 would hardly venture to compare himself or his 
 sweetheart to the hugest and most unwieldy of 
 pachyderms. It is rarely represented in sacred 
 architecture, but is often found embroidered on 
 sacerdotal vestments, and especially on chasubles, as 
 a symbol of priestly chastity. Haufler {Archiv filr 
 Kunde osterreicJiischer Geschic/itsqiiellen., 1850, ii. 
 593) mentions a chasuble of the eleventh century 
 at Gos near Loeben adorned with various animals, 
 and among them elephants with towers on their 
 backs, which he thinks typify prudence and virtue 
 equipped to resist the powers of evil. It may be, 
 however, that, after the original symbolism was 
 forgotten, the elephant continued to be used merely 
 as a traditional decoration, in which case the 
 howdah and other trappings would naturally be 
 
 I 
 
1 1 4 Animal Symbolism 
 
 added without attaching to them any special signifi- 
 cation. 
 
 The serpent has four characteristics: (i) When 
 it has grown old and its eyes are dim, it fasts forty 
 days and forty nights until its skin shrivels and 
 loosens. Thereupon it squeezes itself through a 
 narrow crevice in the rocks, and thus casts its skin 
 and renews its youth. And thou, O son of man, if 
 thou desirest to put off the old Adam and be re- 
 generated, must pass through the strait gate and 
 walk in the narrow way, which leadeth unto life. 
 
 (2) When the serpent goes to a spring to drink 
 water, it leaves its venom in its hole ; so he, who 
 would refresh his soul with the waters of eternal life, 
 must leave behind him every sin of his carnal heart. 
 
 (3) The serpent fears a naked man and flees from 
 him, but assails him when he is clothed. Those 
 who are acquainted with this characteristic of the 
 serpent throw off their garments, when pursued by 
 it, and thus save their lives. So, too, when Adam 
 was naked in the garden and had no desire for 
 raiment, the serpent could do him no harm. In 
 like manner, if we do not trouble ourselves about 
 the vanities of this world, we need not fear the as- 
 saults of the wily serpent, the devil. According to 
 this doctrine nudity is a sign of innocence and the 
 sanctified should dispense with clothing, which 
 originated in the fall of man and is a covering of 
 sin, that may find a lurking-place even under the 
 scanty vesture of a fig-leaf The Adamites of the 
 second, and the Picards of the fifteenth century 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 1 1 5 
 
 held that those whom Christ had redeemed were 
 restored to the original purity of our first parents 
 in Eden, and should return to the primitive habits 
 of the race, including nudity and sexual promiscuity. 
 (4) When one seeks to kill the serpent, it exposes 
 its whole body, in order to shield its head from the 
 blows of its assailant. The application of this 
 characteristic to Christians, who should endure 
 every trial and affliction for the sake of Christ, 
 their head, has already been noticed. The serpent 
 shows its wisdom also in this, that it stops its ears 
 to the charmer and refuses to listen to his spell, 
 thus teaching us to shut our ears to Satanic sug- 
 gestions. The notion that poisonous reptiles could 
 be charmed so as to prevent them from stinging or 
 to render their bite harmless, was based on such 
 passages as Jer. viii. 17 and Ps. Iviii. 5, and seemed 
 to be confirmed by the wonderful feats of Oriental 
 fakirs and magicians. 
 
 These imaginary attributes of the serpent are 
 occasionally represented as religious symbols in 
 churches among the wood-carvings of the chancel 
 and the reliefs adorning the doorways or the 
 capitals of columns, but more frequently in the 
 illuminations of mediaeval manuscripts. Still more 
 common is the metaphorical use of them by the 
 poets of the middle ages in illustration of both 
 sacred and secular subjects. Thus in one of the 
 mystic spiritual songs of the Minorite Jacopone da 
 Todi, the reputed and probable author of the 
 Stabat Mater, the first characteristic of the serpent 
 
ii6 Animal Symbolism 
 
 figures the love of Jesus, which purifies and renews 
 the soul. The third characteristic is applied in a 
 queer way by a troubadour, Bertolome Zorgi 
 (quoted by Lauchert, p. i86, from Diez : Leben und 
 Werke dcr Troubado7irs), who says of his lady-love 
 that, like the serpent, she flees from him when he 
 is naked, and is fearless in his presence only when 
 he is clothed, surely no unusual display of timidity 
 in a modest dame. It is also related in the Poema 
 de Alexandra already cited, that as the army of 
 the Macedonian monarch was passing through a 
 desert and suffering intensely from thirst, the 
 soldiers found a spring, which, however, was so sur- 
 rounded by serpents that all who approached it 
 were in danger of being bitten. But Alexander, 
 who was not less distinguished for wisdom than for 
 valour, ordered the men to strip, so that they went 
 to the water unharmed by the serpents, which fled 
 from them as from moving pillars of fire. The 
 author tells many other marvellous stories of ani- 
 mals, and assures the reader that they are all true : 
 "esto es cosa vera." The serpent was likewise 
 revered by the Egyptians as a symbol of regeneration 
 and the renewal of life. 
 
 The Physiologus states that when the eagle has 
 grown old and its eyes have become dim and 
 darkened, it flies upward towards the sun until it 
 has scorched its wings and purged away the film 
 from its eyes ; then it descends to the earth and 
 plunges three times into a spring of pure water. 
 Thus it recovers its sight and renews its youth. In 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 117 
 
 like manner, when we have grown old in the 
 sinful love of this world, and the eyes of the 
 heart are obscured thereby, 
 then should we seek the day- 
 star of the divine word, and 
 fly aloft on the wings of the 
 spirit to the sun of righteous- 
 ness, Christ, our Saviour, who 
 will draw out of us the old 
 man with all his works. And 
 
 when we dip ourselves thrice Eagle renewing its youth. 
 
 in the new well-spring of sal- (BesHary.) 
 
 vation in the name of the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost, then will the old garment of the devil 
 be taken away, and we shall be clothed in the new 
 and shining raiment which God hath made ready 
 for us. 
 
 The eagle can gaze at the bright sun without 
 blinking, and is accustomed to carry its unfledged 
 young on its wings upward and compel them to 
 look upon the shining orb ; those which can do so 
 with open and steadfast eyes it rears, but discards 
 the others and lets them fall to the ground. Here 
 the sun represents God the Father, upon whose face 
 Christ can gaze undazzled by His glory, and to 
 whom He presents the children of men who claim to 
 have been born of Him ; those who are able to 
 stand before God and to look upon the light of His 
 countenance are accepted, while the others are 
 rejected. 
 
 Again, we are told that the eagle looks from the 
 
1 1 8 Animal Symbolism 
 
 uppermost region of the air into the depths of the 
 sea, and when it perceives a fish swimming about, 
 plunges into the water and seizing the fish bears it 
 away to its aerie. Here the eagle typifies Christ, 
 the sea the world, and the fish the elect whom He 
 saves and takes to Himself. 
 
 The eagle renewing its youth by plunging into a 
 fountain is the symbol of regeneration by baptism, 
 and is therefore sometimes sculptured on fonts and 
 baptisteries. In ecclesiastical architecture the eagle 
 is often found perching alone, as, for example, in 
 the church at Alne ; in the miniatures of the manu- 
 script bestiaries belonging to the Arsenal Library 
 and to the Royal Library of Brussels it is seen fly- 
 ing with its newly-fledged young up towards the 
 sun ; in a stained window in the cathedral at Lyons 
 three eaglets are looking un- 
 flinchingly at the blazing sun, 
 while a fourth is falling to the 
 earth ; a mosaic in the baptistery 
 of Santa Maria di Capua repre- 
 sents an eagle taking a fish out 
 of the water, and the same scene 
 is carved on a Celtic cross at 
 St. Vigean's in Forfarshire, and 
 Eaglets gazii^at the sun. "^^ ^hc jamb of a Norman door- 
 [Lyons Ca'jiedrai.) way at Ribbcsford in Worcester- 
 shire ; it is also found on a metal plate in the British 
 Museum, and among the illuminations of a Celtic 
 manuscript of the Book of Armagh at Trinity 
 College, Dublin. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 119 
 
 The fable of the rejuvenation of the eagle grew 
 naturally enough out of the fact of the renewal of 
 its plumage after moulting; but the Apostolic 
 Fathers were not satisfied with this simple explana- 
 tion of the words of the Psalmist (ciii. S), and trans- 
 formed an ordinary phenomenon into a supernatural 
 and miraculous event, which would be more effec- 
 tive for exegetical purposes. 
 
 Aristotle {Hist. Animal., ex. 32) relates that the 
 upper beak of very old eagles grows so long as to 
 prevent them from eating and to cause them to die of 
 hunger. In the Greek version of the Physiologus of 
 the twelfth century the author adds that in order to 
 remedy this evil and to avert this danger the eagle 
 breaks off the superfluity of its beak against a stone, 
 a statement which is adduced by homilists and 
 exegetists to prove that the rock of salvation is the 
 only cure for the growth of carnal-mindedness, and 
 the sole means of preventing spiritual starvation. 
 
 In Dante's Divina Coimnedia (Pt. I. 47-48) 
 Beatrice is said to fix her eyes on the sun as stead- 
 fastly as never eagle did — 
 
 " Aquila si non gli s'affisse unquanco." 
 
 It was a test of Dante's fitness to visit the celestial 
 spheres that he could do the same — 
 
 " E fissi gli occhi al sole oltre a nostr'uso." 
 
 Allusions to this notion occur in other parts of 
 the poem. Ariosto uses the same imagery in one 
 of his sonnets : " Although the young of the eagle 
 
120 Animal Symbolism 
 
 may resemble the parent in its claws, head, breast, 
 and plumage, but are not like it in keenness and 
 strength of vision to endure the light, the eagle will 
 not recognize them as its offspring. So the 
 thoughts and desires of lovers should be in perfect 
 conformity ... Be not then different from me in 
 any respect," he concludes, addressing his lady-love, 
 " for you must accord with me wholly or not be mine 
 at all "— 
 
 " Non siete dunque in un da me difforme, 
 Perch^ mi si confaccia il piu di voi; 
 Che o nulla, o vi convien tutta esser mia." 
 
 A German poet, Wachsmut von Muhlhausen, 
 declares that he will renew himself like the eagle 
 and mount up joyously into the aether, " if thou, O 
 lady, wilt console me in my sadness and my long- 
 ing." Warriors, too, are praised or censured for 
 possessing or not possessing the firm and unflinch- 
 ing eye of the eagle, when in the heat of battle. 
 Thomasin von Zirclare says, in the IVelscher Gast, 
 that sovereigns should not be blinded by bribes, 
 but should keep their sight unclouded, so as to be 
 able to look clearly and fixedly at the truth in the 
 light of justice, as eagles look at the sun, and that 
 they should renew their strength for righteousness 
 and ruling in equity by seeking communion with 
 the Most High. They are likewise to imitate the 
 eagle, which breaks off portions of its beak, when 
 it has grown so long and crooked as to be an im- 
 pediment, an admonition which might be taken 
 as a warnine against the circumlocutions of court 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 1 2 1 
 
 etiquette and the trammels of red tape. In the 
 literature of a later day one of the most splendidly 
 rhetorical passages in the peroration of Milton's 
 Areopagitica is borrowed from this superstition of 
 the eaglet renewing its youth and purging its sight 
 at the source of all life and illumination. 
 
 Strangely enough the fish is not especially men- 
 tioned by the Physiologiis, although in sacred 
 iconology it occurs most frequently as a symbol 
 of Christ, the Greek word IX0T2 being the initial 
 letters of the Greek phrase signifying Jesus Christ 
 God's Son Saviour, \r\(Tov's Xpiarbs Qeov Tios Scor^jp. 
 But the fish, although proverbial among the Greeks 
 for its stupidity, was carved on ancient tombs, 
 because it was supposed to bear the soul of the 
 deceased across the sea to the islands of the blest. 
 This was especially the case with the dolphin, the 
 strongest and swiftest of fishes, or, as Gregory of 
 Nyssa calls it, the most royal of swimmers : 6 8eA<^ts 
 ecrrt tu)V vqnT&v 6 jSaa-iXiKioTaTOi. It is possible that 
 the dolphin was at first, for the same reason, sculp- 
 tured on Christian tombs, and that the fish was 
 afterwards substituted for it on account of the 
 monogrammatic meaning of the word. 
 
 The early Christians were accustomed to eat a 
 roasted fish in commemoration of Christ's Passion, 
 and a survival of this ceremony is the use of fish as 
 an article of food on Friday. The fish was also sacred 
 to Venus on account of its extraordinary fecundity ; 
 for the same reason April, the opening {aperilis) or 
 germinating month, was consecrated to this goddess, 
 
122 Animal Symbolism 
 
 whose appropriate day {dies Veneris, venerdi, 
 ve?idredi) was Friday, corresponding to Friatac, the 
 day of Fria, the old German goddess of love. 
 Patristic theologians were fond of seeking similitudes 
 and discovering analogies between a baked fish 
 and the suffering Christ : " inter piscem assum et 
 Christum passum." Christian sepulchres are often 
 adorned with frescoes or sculptures, in which the 
 disciples are seated at a table furnished with a loaf 
 of bread (the bread of life) and a baked fish. This 
 is a sacramental or eucharistic meal. 
 
 Of sea-creatures only the whale and the fabulous 
 remora and serra or winged saw-fish are discussed 
 in the Physiologus and in the bestiaries. The 
 whale has two characteristics. First, when he is 
 hungry and lusts after food, he opens his wide 
 mouth seaward and a pleasant odour issues from his 
 maw, so that other fishes are deceived and swim 
 eagerly towards the place whence the sweet odour 
 comes. In heedless shoals they enter into his ex- 
 tended jaws ; then suddenly the grim gums close 
 and crush their prey. Thus the devil allures men 
 to their destruction and closes upon them the 
 barred gates of hell, from which they can no more 
 escape than the fishes sporting in the ocean can 
 return from the mouth of the whale. 
 
 Secondly, the mariners often mistake the whale, 
 as it rests on the surface of the sea, for an island, 
 on which they land and build a fire to cook their 
 dinner, but when the whale begins to feel the heat 
 through its thick hide, it plunges under the waves 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 123 
 
 and engulphs all the brave seafarers with their 
 high-prowed ships. In the old English bestiary 
 this disaster is described in the succinct and graphic 
 style of the old German epics. Here, too, the 
 whale is the devil, the sea is the world, and the 
 ship represents the human race. 
 
 Brunetto Latino states that the whale often 
 remains stationary on the surface of the ocean, 
 until it becomes incrusted with earth. From the 
 seeds dropped by birds in this soil trees and shrubs 
 spring up and grow to large forests, so that sailors 
 are easily deceived and mistake the animal for an 
 island. In the Book of Esdras (vi. 6) it is said that 
 Behemoth and Leviathan, when they were created, 
 covered each a seventh part of the earth. The 
 Talmud adds that it would take a ship three days 
 to sail from the head to the tail of one of these 
 monsters ; and some of the rabbis speak of whales 
 fifteen stadia in length, which is a relatively sober 
 estimate. An Arab writer maintains that the earth 
 rests on the back of a whale, which performs the 
 all-sustaining office of the turtle in Indian cosmog- 
 ony, and that earthquakes and other convulsions of 
 nature are caused by its occasional movements 
 from one side to the other. The devil is constantly 
 at work trying to persuade the whale to dive and 
 thus destroy the world. Once the whale was just 
 on the- point of yielding to these Satanic solicita- 
 tions, but was prevented by the merciful interven- 
 tion of the Almighty, whereby the globe and its 
 inhabitants were saved from such a catastrophe. 
 
124 Animal Symbolism 
 
 In architecture sometimes only the ship is 
 represented, and the whale left to the imagination 
 of the beholder, as for example in the old Norman 
 church at Alne, or the whale is given and the ship 
 omitted, one object being deemed sufficient to 
 suggest the other. In the miniatures of the besti- 
 aries the whole scene is 
 usually depicted in such 
 a manner as to illustrate 
 both characteristics : the 
 ship lies at anchor, the 
 mariners are cooking 
 Whale and ship. their dinner under the 
 
 {Psalter of Isabella of Prance.) , , _ , 
 
 shadow of trees on the 
 back of the whale, into whose extended jaws shoals 
 of little fish are swimming. A parchment codex of 
 the Icelandic version of the Physiologtis, dating from 
 the thirteenth century, and now preserved in the 
 Arna-Magnaean collection of the University Library 
 of Copenhagen, has two crude drawings, in which 
 these characteristics of the whale are portrayed. 
 
 The remora, called essinus (ex^vrjts) in the 
 bestiaries, and confounded with the sea-urchin, is 
 a fish about a foot long and a native of the Indian 
 Ocean, but so strong that it can keep a ship from 
 moving by fastening itself to the keel. In storms 
 it holds the vessel steady, and prevents it from 
 capsizing when tossed by the tempest, and is 
 therefore a type of the Saviour, the sea symbolizing 
 the world, and the ship man buffeted by the waves 
 of temptation, which threaten to engulph him. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 125 
 
 Pliny (ix. 25 ; xxxii. i) extols the immense strength 
 of this Httle fish, which, he says, decided the battle 
 of Actium and the fate of the world by clinging to 
 Anthony's galley and preventing it from going into 
 action. Similar statements are made by ALl'mn 
 (ii. 17) and Suetonius (In Caio, xlix.), from whom 
 the authors of the bestiaries seem to have derived 
 their information. Thus we are told that, when 
 Caligula was returning from Astura to Antium, a 
 remora sucked itself fast to the imperial five-decker, 
 and neutralized the efforts of four hundred oarsmen. 
 Again, as Periander was about to send a galley 
 from Corinth to Corcyra to murder three hundred 
 children, a great number of these fish fastened 
 themselves to the vessel and kept it from sailing, 
 although the wind was favourable. Out of grati- 
 tude for this good deed the echeneis (ship-detainer) 
 was fostered and revered in the temple of Venus 
 at Cnidus. Oppianus, in his didactic poem on 
 fishing ija 'AXteurtxa), describes the astonishment 
 and anger of the fishermen, when their boats are 
 kept stationary by the force of these sea-creatures. 
 The marvels of this sort recounted by ancient 
 writers are repeated and magnified in German 
 mediaeval poems of heroic adventure and achieve- 
 ment, like Graf Rudolf, Herzog Ernst, and the 
 Alexander of Pfafifcn Lamprecht. The remora 
 is sometimes called serra, but the latter is usually 
 described as a sea-dragon, a fire-breathing monster 
 with wings like a griffin, the tail of a goose, 
 and the feet of a swan. When it sees a ship it 
 
126 Animal Symbolism 
 
 flies after it for thirty or forty leagues, but finally 
 grows weary and turns back to disport in the sea. 
 It symbolizes those who follow for a season in the 
 wake of the Church, but through lack of persever- 
 ance never reach the ark of safety. 
 
 According to the Physiologus, the phcenix is a 
 native of India and Arabia. When it is five 
 hundred years old, it flies to Lebanon, and fills its 
 wings with the fragrant gum of a tree growing 
 there, and thence hastens to Heliopolis in Egypt, 
 where it burns itself upon the high altar in the 
 temple of the sun. When the priest comes on the 
 next day to offer sacrifice, he removes the ashes 
 from the altar, and finds therein a small worm of 
 exceedingly sweet odour, which in three days 
 develops into a young bird, and on the fourth day 
 attains its full size and plumage, and greeting the 
 priest with reverence returns to its home. But if 
 the phoenix, adds the exegetist, is able to destroy 
 itself and to come to life again, why should the 
 Jews murmur at the words of our Saviour, when 
 He said : " I have power to lay down My life, and 
 I have power to take it again " .-* 
 
 The perfume which fills the two wings of the 
 phcenix symbolizes the sweetness of divine grace, 
 as diffused through the books of the Old and New 
 Testaments. Other expositors of Pelagian ten- 
 dencies discern in these perfumes the good works 
 which the righteous man accumulates, and by 
 which he earns eternal life ; and as the phoenix 
 kindles the fire which consumes it by the fanning 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 127 
 
 motion of its own wings, so the saint, mounting up 
 on the wings of heavenly meditation, has his soul en- 
 kindled and renewed by the flames of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Cremation as practised by the Romans would 
 naturally serve to make the phoenix still more 
 suitable and striking as a symbol of the Resurrection 
 and of immortality ; in this sense the bird in the 
 act of burning itself was often sculptured on 
 cinerary urns with the inscription D[ts] M\anibus\ 
 and is also mentioned in Jewish writings as an 
 emblem of the renewal of life and vigour. The 
 Greek word for date-palm and phoenix is the same 
 ((fiolvi^'), and the tree was fabled to die and then 
 to spring up anew like the fowl. The passage in 
 Psalm xcii. 12, "The righteous shall flourish like 
 the palm-tree " (ojs ^otytf ), may mean in the Septu- 
 agint like the phoenix, and was so understood by 
 Tertullian and the PJiysiologus. 
 
 The phoenix, like so many other symbols, passed 
 from the old to the new religion, and was transferred 
 from the pagan urn to the Christian sarcophagus. 
 Sometimes a date-palm is used to express the 
 same idea; and very frequently the tree and the 
 bird appear together. Mosaics in many early 
 Christian churches, as for example in SS. Cosma 
 e Damiano, St. Prassede, and St. Cecilia in Traste- 
 vere, represent the phoenix with a nimbus. Among 
 the mosaics adorning the tribune of the Lateran 
 is a large cross, and beneath it the New Jerusalem, 
 out of the midst of which rises a stately palm-tree 
 with a phoenix perched on its top. 
 
128 Animal Symbolism 
 
 A similar type of the atoning Christ is the 
 
 pelican, tearing open its breast and feeding its 
 
 young with its own blood. When they are partly 
 
 grown they smite their parents in 
 
 the face and the old birds kill 
 
 them ; but no sooner do the 
 
 parents perceive what they have 
 
 done than they repent of their 
 
 rashness and have compassion on 
 
 their dead offspring, and, sprink- 
 
 '?7:v ^^"§ them with their own blood, 
 
 "TT ~ '. 7 restore them to life. In like 
 
 Pelican. {Bestiary.) 
 
 manner, Christ was beaten and 
 buffeted by the children of men, and yet shed 
 His blood in order to give them eternal life. St. 
 Augustine refers to this fable in his commentary 
 on Psalm cii. 5 : "I am like a pelican in the 
 wilderness," and says : " The males of these birds 
 are wont to kill their young by blows of their 
 beaks, and then to bewail their death for the space 
 of three days. At length, however, the female 
 inflicts a severe wound on herself, and letting her 
 blood flow over the dead ones, brings them to 
 life again." This supposed fact of natural history 
 is often adduced by patristic theologians in illus- 
 tration and confirmation of the doctrine of the 
 Atonement. In some old books of emblems, as 
 well as in architecture, the same conduct is ascribed 
 to the eagle and the vulture. The Egyptian Hor- 
 apollo says : " The vulture is the type of the merci- 
 ful man, because, if food cannot be obtained for its 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 129 
 
 young, it opens its own thigh and permits them to 
 partake of its blood, so that they may not perish 
 from want." The Hebrew word for vulture, rdchdvi, 
 meaning a compassionate creature, was doubtless 
 a recognition of this supposititious virtue. On a 
 gold coin of the time of Hadrian the phcenix 
 appears with the inscription scec, aur., as indi- 
 cating the restoration of the golden age under 
 his reign ; it occurs later on the coins and medals 
 issued by Constantine and other Christian emperors. 
 
 On the principal door of St. 
 Laurence in Nuremberg a burn- 
 ing phcenix is sculptured under 
 the lintel on the right, and a 
 pelican, in the act of piercing its 
 breast to feed its young, under 
 the lintel on the left. There 
 are similar representations on 
 the doorway, as well as on the ^•^*"'" ^^'''''"'''■' 
 capitals, of some columns in the Ernestine Chapel 
 of Magdeburg Cathedral, and probably date from 
 the thirteenth century. Phoenix and pelican are 
 carved on the stalls of Bale Minster, belonging to 
 the latter half of the fifteenth century. In the 
 northern transept of the cathedral at Lund in 
 Sweden, over the window, is a pelican rending 
 its breast with its beak, and on the western wall 
 a phcenix burning in its nest ; on the eastern 
 wall is a crucifix, and over an arch to the south 
 a lion tearing a man, showing how the devil 
 deals with heretics. There are in the same church 
 
130 Animal Symbolism 
 
 some curious carvings of animals on the stalls of 
 the choir, symbolizing the conflict between Chris- 
 tianity and paganism. The phoenix and pelican 
 are frequently associated with other creatures hav- 
 ing a like spiritual significance. Thus in a picture 
 with a Latin inscription in the church of St. 
 Laurence, and one with a German inscription in 
 St. Sebald's church in Nuremberg, the phoenix 
 and the unicorn are on one side, and the pelican 
 and the lion on the other side, emphasizing and 
 enforcing by an accumulation of types the doc- 
 trines of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of 
 Christ, and the redemption of mankind through 
 His sufferings. A painting of a similar character, 
 belonging to the Cologne school of the fourteenth 
 century, was formerly in the possession of Dr. Bessel, 
 president of the provincial court of Saarbriicken. 
 
 In the Florentine Galleria degli Uffizi, in the 
 cabinet of gems, is a shrine of mountain crystal 
 containing a golden casket adorned with a phoenix 
 in enamel, and bearing the inscription " sic moriendo 
 vita perennis." It is a masterpiece of one of the 
 most celebrated lithoglyphic artists of the sixteenth 
 century, Valerio Belli of Vicenza, better known as 
 Valerio Vicentino, who made it for Pope Clement 
 VII. (1523-34) as a pyx or receptacle for the host. 
 The outer case is of rock crystal, and embellished 
 with scenes from the life and Passion of Christ. 
 
 Both the phoenix and the pelican are used by 
 sacred and secular poets of the middle ages and 
 of modern times to illustrate the power of heavenly 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 1 3 1 
 
 and earthly love. Dante makes an original appli- 
 cation of the fable in the Inferno (xxiv. 97-108), 
 where he describes the damned in the seventh 
 circle of hell as being burned and born again from 
 their ashes to suffer an endless repetition of their 
 torments, as the phoenix dies and renews its life 
 every five hundred years. Elsewhere (Pt. xxv., 
 112) he speaks of Christ as "our pelican." The 
 Sicilian lyrical poet, Inghilfredi, who flourished in 
 the thirteenth century, confesses in one of his 
 canzoni that he is at once consumed and rejuven- 
 ated by the fires of love, like the phcenix ; and 
 the Provencal poet, Aimeric de Pregulhan, is af- 
 fected by the tender passion in the same way, and 
 expresses himself in identical language. Giovanni 
 dair Orto, in La Notte Gioconda, praises the breath 
 of the loved one as sweeter than the spices brought 
 by the phcenix from India and Sheba for its funeral 
 pyre. In another passage he entreats the fair dame, 
 who has slain him in her anger, to take pity on 
 him and, like the pelican, restore him to life by 
 the manifestations of her affection. Reinmar von 
 Zweter expresses the hope that the good may be 
 self-renewed like the phoenix, but that the bad may 
 remain without issue like the same mythical fowl. 
 Similes of this sort, in which diverse characteristics 
 of a single animal serve to illustrate opposite quali- 
 ties, were deemed especially clever. 
 
 The otter is described as a small animal re- 
 sembling a dog, and an enemy of the crocodile. 
 "When the latter sleeps it keeps its mouth open ; 
 
132 Animal Symbolism 
 
 but the otter wallows in the mire until it becomes 
 thickly coated with mud, which dries and hardens 
 and forms a sort of armour, thus enabling it to 
 run securely into the jaws and down the throat of 
 the sleeping crocodile, and to kill it by devouring 
 its bowels. So our Saviour, after having put on 
 flesh, descended into hell and carried away the 
 souls dwelling therein ; and as the otter comes 
 forth unharmed from the belly of the crocodile, so 
 our Lord rose from the grave on the third day, 
 alive and uninjured. The ichneumon is fabled to 
 slay the dragon in the same manner, and both 
 animals are symbols of the triumph of the incarnate 
 God over Satan. 
 
 Strabo states that the ichneumon attacks poison- 
 ous serpents, but never single-handed. It was 
 therefore used in Egyptian hieroglyphics as an 
 ideograph, signifying that union is strength. ^Elian, 
 Plutarch, and Pliny relate its feats of heroic auda- 
 city in entering the maw and eating the entrails 
 of the crocodile ; it was said to hunt up and destroy 
 the eggs of this reptile, and was therefore cherished 
 and revered as a public benefactor ; hence, too, its 
 name, the "tracker." As a matter of fact, how- 
 ever, it not only devours insects and small quad- 
 rupeds, but also destroys doves, domestic fowls and 
 their eggs, and all kinds of fruits, and does immense 
 harm to the husbandman. The fellahin have no 
 greater foe. The Greek word for otter, evvdpis, 
 signifies also water-snake, and this ambiguity has 
 caused it to be confounded with the hydra, whose 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 133 
 
 many heads, growing again as soon as they are 
 lopped off, symbolize the fearfully prolific and 
 ineradicable nature of original sin. For this reason 
 the otter in the Waldensian PJiysiologus becomes 
 the type of the devil, who puts on cunning dis- 
 guises in order to insinuate himself into the heart 
 of man and to compass his destruction. Owing to 
 this confusion of terms the otter most frequently 
 appears in the delineations of the artist as a ser- 
 pent eating its way through the bowels of a 
 nondescript monster supposed to be a crocodile. 
 
 Otter and Water-snake. [Psaltcy of Isabella of France.) 
 
 It is the nature of the panther to live in friend- 
 ship with all animals except the dragon. It has 
 a beautiful skin of many colours, like Joseph's coat, 
 and is an exceedingly beautiful beast, tame and 
 gentle. When it has eaten a little it is satisfied, 
 and goes to sleep in its lair, and after three days 
 it awakes and roars with a loud voice, and out of 
 its mouth proceeds a sweet smell. Then all the 
 beasts of the forest far and near follow after it, 
 attracted by this odour, which, according to an old 
 English bestiary, is 
 
 " A steam more grateful, 
 Sweeter and stronger 
 Than every perfume, 
 Than blooms of plants 
 
134 Animal Symbolism 
 
 And forest-leaves, 
 Nobler than all 
 Earth's ornaments." 
 
 This rare scent is offensive only to the dragon, 
 which hastens to flee as soon as it gets a sniff of 
 it. In Hke manner our Lord Jesus Christ arose 
 out of the sleep of death, and drew all nations unto 
 Him through His "sweet savour." As the Psalmist 
 says : " The king's daughter is all glorious within ; 
 her clothing is of wrought gold;" so the adorn- 
 ment of our Saviour is variegated through chastity, 
 purity, meekness, kindness, peace, temperance, and 
 every excellence. Again, in the words of the wise 
 man : " Because of the savour of thy good oint- 
 ments, thy name is as an ointment poured forth, 
 therefore do the virgins love thee." " Draw me, we 
 will run after thee." "The smell of thine ointments " 
 he declares to be *' better than all spices." Also the 
 passage in Hosea (v. 14), which reads in the Sep- 
 tuagint, " I will be unto Ephraim as a panther and 
 as a lion to the house of Judah," is cited as perti- 
 nent. Finally Christ, like the panther, discomfits 
 " the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil." 
 
 A German poet of the twelfth century attributes 
 the perfume of the panther's breath to its diet, con- 
 sisting of aromatic roots and herbs that impart to 
 it a balmy quality, which is not only grateful to 
 the senses, but also healing to the beasts that 
 inhale it. According to this view, the creature is 
 a sort of peripatetic sanitarium, and is for this 
 reason attended by a large concourse of animals 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 135 
 
 which seek to be cured of their ailments. The 
 attraction is not so much aesthetic and sentimental 
 as medical or veterinary. The hygienic influence 
 of the panther is prophylactic as well as remedial, 
 so that, if one were disposed to carry the quib- 
 bling spirit of patristic theologians into the pro- 
 vince of paranomasia, the beast might be called 
 " an ounce of prevention." The breath of the 
 panther is often likened to the virtue which went 
 out of Christ and healed the woman who touched 
 the hem of His garment. 
 
 In ecclesiastical architecture the panther is some- 
 times represented as facing the dragon, as, for 
 example, on the doorway of the church at Alne, in 
 Yorkshire. More frequently, however, the dragon 
 is fleeing from the pan- 
 ther, which is followed by 
 numerous beasts, usually 
 divided into two groups, 
 those nearest the panther 
 typifying the Jews, and 
 
 those farther off" the Gen- P-"^^- -"d dragon. [Bestiary. 
 
 tiles ; as the Apostle Paul says of Christ, He " came 
 and preached peace to you which were afar off, 
 and to them that were nigh." 
 
 In Hugo von Langenstein's poem, TJie Mar- 
 tyrdom of St. Martina, written in 1293, a very 
 elaborate allegory of the panther is introduced to 
 illustrate the sufferings and virtues of his holy 
 heroine. He characterizes Christ as the " heavenly 
 panther," and the variegated skin of the animal is 
 
136 Animal Symbolism 
 
 minutely interpreted in a mystical sense as sym- 
 bolizing the wisdom, love, humility, mercy, justice, 
 and other attributes of the Redeemer, about twenty 
 of which are specially mentioned. Lauchert gives 
 numerous examples of rhetorical and metaphorical 
 allusions to this fable in profane literature. Thus 
 an anonymous troubadour of the thirteenth century 
 compares the power of Amor to that of the panther, 
 whose sweet breath and beautiful colour attract all 
 beasts with so irresistible force that they would 
 rather die than not to follow in its footsteps. The 
 Sicilian lyric poet Inghilfredi, already mentioned, 
 expresses the fascination he feels by the same 
 simile. Guido delle Colonne and Messer Polo 
 celebrate the modesty of their mistresses, who are 
 as unconscious of their sweetness and beauty as 
 the panther. The same imagery is employed by 
 poet laureates and royal panegyrists. Frauenlob 
 likens the persuasive voice of Count Ludwig of 
 Oettingen to the sweet breath of the panther ; and 
 another Meissen poet uses this comparison with 
 reference to Albrecht II. of Brandenburg, the 
 founder of Berlin. Master Rumeland of Saxony, 
 a wandering minstrel, who sang the praises of 
 many princes, extols Duke Ludwig of Bavaria as 
 an eagle, a leopard, a panther, and indeed a whole 
 menagerie of typical beasts and birds. Konrad 
 von Wlirzburg turns the point of the trope against 
 low - minded sovereigns, and says that a mean 
 prince shuns the society of the pure and noble 
 as the dragon flees from the panther. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 137 
 
 In the Lay of the Nibelimgen, Siegfrid bears a 
 large quiver covered with panther's skin, which 
 emits a pleasant odour, and emblematizes the irre- 
 sistible charm of the youthful hero ; and in Pfaffen 
 Lamprecht's Alexander, a curious work of the 
 goldsmith's art belonging to Queen Candace is 
 described, namely, an automatic panther, which 
 not only howled, but also exhaled sweet perfumes. 
 The account is too realistic to be a mere product 
 of the fancy, and is probably the description of 
 something which the poet had seen, and, if so, 
 proves to what perfection this kind of artistic 
 handicraft was carried in the twelfth century. The 
 characteristics of the panther are likewise set forth 
 in Reinaert de Vos (Martin's ed., pp. 54-55 ^Q1^- 
 
 The later bestiaries derive the word panther from 
 Tiav, signifying all, and implying that it was the 
 whole world which Christ came to redeem. This 
 idea of the universality of the Atonement is ex- 
 pressed by the Norman clerk in Le Bestiaire Divin 
 as follows — 
 
 " Pantiere dit, qui bien entent, 
 Tant comme chose qui tot prent, 
 Et senefie, sanz error, 
 Jhesu Crist nostra Sauveor, 
 Qui par sa grant humilitc 
 Vesti nostre charnalit(^, 
 Et trest toz les siecles a sei." 
 
 In this connection it may be mentioned as a sin- 
 gular coincidence that, according to an ancient 
 tradition, the real father of Jesus was a Roman 
 soldier named Panthera. 
 
138 Animal Symbolism 
 
 The three beasts that obstructed Dante's path as 
 he found himself at the midway of life erring in a 
 dark and savage wood, were a panther, a lion, and 
 a wolf, supposed to be the types of luxury, pride, 
 and greed ; but they have nothing in common with 
 the animal symbolism of the Physiologus. 
 
 The testicles of the beaver, we are told, contain 
 a precious substance, which heals divers diseases, 
 and especially convulsions, once regarded as a sure 
 sign of diabolical possession. When the animal is 
 pursued by the hunters, and 
 is in danger of being caught, 
 it bites off its private parts 
 and thus saves its life; for 
 it is a sagacious creature, 
 and knows why it is hunted. 
 t^-^^_.-- Afterwards, when it is 
 chased, it throws itself on its 
 estiary. back, SO that the hunter ma}' 
 
 see that what he seeks is no longer there, and go his 
 way. But thou, O man, separate from thyself the 
 works of the flesh, which are adulteries, fornications, 
 revellings, and envyings, and throw them to the 
 devil, who hunteth after thy soul, saying : " I will 
 pursue my enemies and overtake them." Then 
 canst thou exclaim with the Psalmist: "Our soul 
 is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler ; 
 the snare is broken, and we are escaped." 
 
 It is well known that the beaver secretes in two 
 inguinal sacs a caseous substance with a pungent 
 perfume called castoreum. The fable related by 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 139 
 
 the Physiologies is of very ancient date, and is 
 recorded by the Egyptian priest Horapollo, as well 
 as by Apuleius, Pliny, /Elian, and Juvenal, and was 
 generally accepted as true by mediaeval writers. 
 Albertus Magnus, as we have seen, rejects it as 
 " false, although frequently reported in parts of our 
 land." In art, the beaver is commonly represented 
 in the act of self-mutilation, which suffices to tell 
 the whole story, the hunters being left to the imagin- 
 ation. Konrad von Wiirzburg chooses an odd and 
 rather far-fetched comparison, when he commends 
 to princes the prudence of the beaver, which saves 
 its life by voluntarily depriving itself of what is 
 dearest to it ; he thereby intends to inculcate the 
 virtue of liberality freely exercised for the public 
 weal, and without stint of self-sacrifice. 
 
 Still more marvellous is the account which the 
 Physiologus gives of the hyena. This filthy beast, 
 he says, haunts cemeteries and feeds on corpses. 
 It has also the power of changing its sex, the same 
 individual being sometimes male and sometimes 
 female. This characteristic is used to illustrate 
 the vice censured by Paul in his epistle to the 
 Romans (i. 2, 27). In the Latin version of the 
 Physiologus the hyena is made a type of the Jews, 
 who at first had a knowledge of the true and living 
 God, but now subsist on dry bones and dead cere- 
 monials. They were the prophets of the Messiah 
 and foretold His advent, but rejected Him when He 
 appeared. As Jeremiah says (xii. 9, Septuagint) : 
 " The lair of the hyena has become my heritage." 
 
140 Animal Symbolism 
 
 In the bestiaries the words of James (i. 8, curiously- 
 enough attributed to Solomon), " A double-minded 
 man is unstable in all his ways," and the saying of 
 Christ, " No man can serve two masters," are cited 
 as texts, the truth of which the habits of the hyena 
 exemplify and establish. 
 
 In the apocryphal epistle of Barnabas (ix. 8) it 
 is said : " Neither shalt thou eat of the hyena ; that 
 is, again, be not an adulterer, nor a corrupter of 
 others ; neither be like to such. And wherefore so .? 
 Because that creature every year changes its kind, 
 and is sometimes male and sometimes female." 
 Philippe de Thaun, in his Book of Creatures, speaks 
 of the hyena as " une beste mauvaise et orde," a 
 foul and ugly beast, stinking and very fierce, digging 
 into graves and devouring carrion. He begins his 
 account of this animal with the following general 
 observations — 
 
 " Moult est a dire et a retraire 
 Es essamples del Bestiaire, 
 Qui sunt de bestes et de oiseaus, 
 Moult profitables, boens et beaus. 
 Et le livre si nos enseigne 
 En quel guise le mal remaigne, 
 Et la veie que deit tenir 
 Cil qui a Deu veut revertir." 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World 
 (London, 161 4), excludes hybrids from Noah's ark, 
 and mentions hyenas as belonging to this class. 
 He asserts that only pure species were saved, and 
 not mongrels. After the Deluge, hyenas, he says, 
 were reproduced by a cross between the dog and 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 141 
 
 the cat. This notion is about as correct as his 
 belief that before the Deluge there were mountains 
 thirty miles high, which were reduced to their 
 present elevation by the abrasive action of the 
 water. 
 
 The eyes of the hyena are fabled to turn into 
 jewels when it dies ; and the Physiologus asserts 
 that it has in its eye a stone which, if it be placed 
 under the tongue, enables a man to foretell future 
 events. In the East the hyena is universally 
 regarded as an incarnation of the sorcerer, and 
 Arabian folk-lore is especially full of fearful stories 
 of the doings of wizards and witches, who assume 
 this form for diabolical purposes. The fact that 
 the hyena is seldom seen by day, but begins to 
 make night hideous with its cries as soon as it 
 grows dark, tends to confirm the popular super- 
 stition that the creature is a man who has trans- 
 formed himself into this filthy beast with the going 
 down of the sun. For this reason a dread of the 
 hyena as uncanny and capable of inflicting injury 
 by malign and magical influences, prevails among 
 all African and Asiatic peoples, where this animal 
 has its habitat. Dogs, it is believed, lose their 
 bark and scent if the shadow of a hyena falls upon 
 them ; he who tastes of its brain goes mad, and 
 the hunter who kills it is sure to be pursued by its 
 vindictive ghost. 
 
 In architecture the hyena is usually represented 
 as preying upon the prostrate form of a man, 
 probably a corpse, which it has dug out of a 
 
142 Animal Symbolism 
 
 grave ; it symbolizes vice battening on corruption. 
 Sometimes, as among the sculp- 
 tures on the church at Alne, we 
 find the figure of the hyena 
 standing alone, an embodiment 
 of the evil principle in its most 
 offensive form. 
 
 The salamander is a large 
 
 Hyena. {Bestiary.) jj^^^^^ ^j^j^j^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ 
 
 fire, but puts it out by passing into it, and typifies 
 the righteous man, who is not consumed by the 
 fires of luxury and lust, but extinguishes them. 
 As the Apostle Paul states : " Through faith they 
 stopped the mouths of lions and quenched the 
 violence of fire"; and the prophet Isaiah says of 
 the just man : " When thou walkest through fire 
 thou shalt not be burned." This was the case 
 with the three Hebrew youths Ananias, Azarias, 
 and Misael (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego), 
 who were cast into the burning fiery furnace, and 
 came forth unharmed, with no smell of fire on their 
 garments. 
 
 The incombustible mineral substance known as 
 amianthus was once supposed to be salamander's 
 skin. In Les Proprietez des Bestes it is related 
 that the Emperor of India had a full suit of 
 clothes made of a thousand skins of salamanders, 
 which he wore as a coat of mail in battle; and 
 Vincent de Beauvais in his Speculum Naturale 
 asserts that Pope Alexander III. had a tunic 
 made of the same stuff, which was palish white 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 143 
 
 in colour, and, when dirty, was cleansed by being 
 thrown into the fire instead of being put into the 
 wash-tub. There is no reason for regarding these 
 stories as mere inventions, except in respect to the 
 nature and origin of the material, since this method 
 of cleaning asbestos garments by heating them 
 red-hot is still practised by some tribes of Western 
 China. 
 
 This fabulous and formidable lizard has been 
 reduced by more careful observation to a small 
 frog-like reptile with rows of tubercles on its sides, 
 which secrete a milky poisonous fluid in sufficient 
 quantities to extinguish a live coal and slightly to 
 retard the action of fire. 
 
 Italian erotic poets are fond of referring to the 
 salamander as typical of the lover, who either rejoices 
 in the amorous fire (" il fuoco amoroso ") as his 
 native element, or regrets that he does not possess 
 the nature of this reptile in order that he may not 
 be utterly consumed by his passion. 
 
 "As the partridge gathereth young which she 
 hath not brought forth, so he that getteth riches 
 and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of 
 his days, and at his end shall be as a fool." This 
 passage from Jeremiah is quoted by the Physio- 
 logus as referring to the thievish propensity of the 
 partridge in stealing the eggs of other birds and 
 hatching them, but when the young are grown, 
 they recognize their real parents and fly to them, 
 leaving their self-constituted foster-mother stand- 
 ing alone like a fool. This bird is the type of the 
 
144 Animal Symbolism 
 
 devil, who seeks to gather to himself the children 
 of men, but when they grow in wisdom and are 
 come to a knowledge of the truth, they forsake 
 the devil and his works, and flee to their natural 
 mother, the Church. 
 
 The habit here ascribed to the partridge does 
 not seem to have been known to any Greek or 
 Roman naturalist; but in the Institutes of Manu 
 it is said that persons who steal raiment are 
 destined to be reborn as grey or speckled par- 
 tridges, according to the colour of the vestments 
 stolen. The penalty thus inflicted by the strictly 
 retributive laws of metempsychosis would imply 
 certain pilfering propensities on the part of the bird, 
 and may be based upon a supposed tendency to steal 
 eggs originating in a desire for numerous offspring. 
 The partridge is monogamous in its domestic 
 habits, and has the feeling of conjugal attachment 
 and parental affection very strongly developed. 
 It possesses a remarkably benevolent disposition, 
 and is distinguished in a high 
 degree for the sentiment corre- 
 sponding to philanthropy or 
 altruism in man, adopting the 
 orphans of other partridges and 
 treating them with the same ten- 
 derness as its own young; but 
 there is no evidence that its philo- 
 
 Partridge and her •, • -r l. 
 
 Fosterlings. progcnitivcness ever maniiests 
 
 {.Bestiary.) \ts€i{ \\\ thicvcrv of any sort. 
 
 That such an exceptionally noble and virtuous fowl 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 145 
 
 should be condemned to figure the devil in Christian 
 typology is only an additional proof of the per- 
 versions of hermeneutical theology. 
 
 Artistic delineations of this supposed charac- 
 teristic in bestiaries, missals, and other books of 
 devotion, as well as in sacred edifices, usually 
 show the partridge sitting alone in her nest, while 
 her fosterlings are hastening to join their real 
 mother in the air above. 
 
 The charadrius (a species of plover) is a white 
 bird without a dark spot on it ; and when a person 
 is sick it is brought to his bedside in order to 
 determine whether he will recover or not. If the 
 sickness is unto death, then the bird turns away 
 from him ; but if he is predestined to live, then 
 the charadrius looks steadfastly into his face and 
 draws the malady out of him, and, flying up 
 towards the sun, causes the disease to be con- 
 sumed by the solar heat, so that the sick man is 
 restored to health. In like manner Jesus Christ, 
 on whom there was neither spot nor wrinkle, came 
 down from heaven and turned his face away from 
 the Jews, but looked with favour upon the Gentiles 
 and healed them of their spiritual infirmities. Only 
 those upon whom the Lord lifts up the light of 
 His countenance are sure of eternal life. 
 
 In architecture, and in the formative arts 
 generally, the charadrius is represented as looking 
 at the sick person or turning away its head, or 
 quite frequently as flying up into the air. The 
 last-mentioned movement of the bird is also a sign 
 
 L 
 
146 Animal Symbolism 
 
 of restoration to health, since it is carrying off the 
 malady or, more scientifically speaking, the bacteria 
 of disease to be burned and destroyed by the 
 intense heat of the sun. This scene is carved in 
 stone on the doorway of the church at Alne ; and 
 in the border of a lancet window in the apsis of 
 the cathedral at Lyons is the picture of a woman 
 half-reclining on a couch, while a bird is stretching 
 out its beak close to her left hand, which lies in 
 her lap, and another bird is flying towards her 
 with its head slightly averted. Such delineations 
 
 Charadrius. [Bcsiiaty. 
 
 are often found in missals, prayer-books, and similar 
 aids to devotion, as, for example, in the profusely 
 and curiously illustrated manuscript psalter of 
 Isabella of France, now in the Royal Library at 
 Munich. 
 
 The marrow of the thigh-bone and the lungs of 
 this bird, which were believed to be a sure cure 
 for blindness, are compared to the chrism, and 
 signify the supernatural power that opens the eyes 
 of the spiritually blind and causes them to perceive 
 the truth, as in the case of Saul. 
 
 A minnesinger likens his lady-love to the chara- 
 drius, and declares that it is a question of life or 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 147 
 
 death whether her face is turned from or towards 
 him. Another poet wishes that he possessed this 
 fatal faculty in order that he might turn his eyes 
 from mean and sordid mortals and thus destroy 
 them, and insure long life to the noble and liberal- 
 minded by looking benignantly upon them. 
 
 Both the crow and the turtle-dove are typical 
 of Christian constancy and devotion. If either of 
 these birds loses its mate, it never takes another, 
 but lives a life of solitude. As our Lord went 
 with only three disciples to the Mount of Olives, 
 where He was transfigured before them and heard 
 an approving voice from heaven, so His followers 
 should withdraw from the world and devote them- 
 selves to religious meditation. 
 
 The turtle-dove is often referred to in poetry as 
 a symbol of fidelity ; thus Gottfried von Strasburg 
 calls the Virgin Mary a turtle-dove in faithfulness. 
 When it loses its mate it renounces all the plea- 
 sures of life, never again perches on a green bough, 
 but sits disconsolate on a dry branch, and never 
 drinks clear water, but first muddies the stream 
 with its feet, and drinks the foul water as evidence 
 of its sorrow. 
 
 A celebrated Spanish lyric poet and doctor of 
 theology of the sixteenth century. Fray Luis Ponce 
 de Leon, in his famous version of Solomon's Song, 
 which caused him to be imprisoned for five years 
 in the dungeons of the Inquisition, translates the 
 eleventh verse of the first chapter thus : " We will 
 make thee turtle-doves of gold with tips of silver." 
 
148 Animal Symbolism 
 
 The Hebrew word tJior (necklace) meant in his 
 opinion an ornament in the form of a turtle-dove, 
 such as lovers were wont to present to their ladies 
 in token of enduring affection, and the bridegroom 
 in the Song of Songs promises his bride to give 
 her one of gold, with its beak, tail, and claws 
 tipped with silver. 
 
 In architectural decoration and works of art, 
 two turtle-doves are re- 
 presented sitting together 
 on a green bough, or a 
 single one perched on a 
 dead branch mourning 
 its mate. The latter is a 
 
 (/'../..../";Sr:/.v.„..) fy^^^ol of the man who 
 is steadfast under tribu- 
 lation, and of whom it is said, " he that endureth 
 to the end shall be saved." 
 
 The fulica or heron is wise and discreet above 
 all other birds. It never touches carrion, nor does 
 it fly from place to place, but abides in one spot, 
 dwelling there where it finds suitable food. So the 
 righteous do not care for the corrupt things of this 
 world and the offal of evil-mindedness, neither do 
 they wander hither and thither after false doctrines, 
 but abide in the simplicity of the faith in the 
 bosom of the Church, where they are nourished 
 with the pure bread of life. The ousel and the 
 merl, on account of the sweetness of their song, 
 are typical of the grace of God, and the hoopoe of 
 filial affection. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 149 
 
 The swallow, says the Physiologus, sleeps all 
 winter, and wakes to new and vigorous life in the 
 spring, as it is written : " Awake, thou that sleepest, 
 and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee 
 light." Luther, in his Latin commentary on the 
 passage in Genesis (i. 20), in which it is said that 
 the waters brought forth the fowl that fly above 
 the earth and in the open firmament of heaven, 
 states, in confirmation of the aqueous origin of 
 birds, that even now swallows lie dormant all 
 winter in the water, and issue from it in the vernal 
 season, rising into the air and thus repeating 
 annually the process of creation, and proving the 
 truth of Holy Writ. 
 
 Ravens, according to the Physiologiis, are hatched 
 featherless, and remain callow for a long time, and 
 are therefore not recognized by their parents, who 
 take no care of them. In their distress they cry 
 to God, who sends them manna in the form of 
 dew for nourishment, as the Psalmist says : " He 
 giveth food to the young ravens which cry." After 
 twelve days, when the feathers begin to grow, the 
 old birds recognize their offspring and feed them. 
 Thus man, although made in the image of God, 
 has lost all resemblance to his Creator ; but when 
 he has grown through grace into the divine like- 
 ness, then God recognizes him as His child, and 
 nurtures him through the sacraments of the Church, 
 and does not let him perish. Another character- 
 istic of the raven is that, when it finds a carcass, it 
 first eats the eye. The great religious truth drawn 
 
150 Animal Symbolism 
 
 from this fact of natural history is that " confession 
 
 and penance are the ravens which 
 
 P^^^ pull out the eyes of covetousness 
 
 ^g^^^ from the soul dead in trespasses 
 
 ^^^^ and sins." In our illustration 
 
 ^^^sy both of these symbolisms of the 
 
 j^^^r-^^L^ raven are set forth. 
 
 ^^^^vj^r^^^N Concerning the wolf, the 
 
 ,„ ^. , bestiaries inform us that the 
 
 Raven, (bcsiiary.) 
 
 word means ravisher, and this is, 
 in fact, the signification of the Sanskrit name of 
 the animal, vrika, seizer. For this reason, they add, 
 the term is applied to lewd women.^ A peculiarity 
 of the wolf is that it cannot turn its head, because 
 there is no joint in its neck, but must turn its 
 whole body when it wishes to look behind, thus 
 symbolizing people stiff-necked and stubborn in 
 sin. The female whelps in the month of May, 
 when it thunders, and at no other time. She seeks 
 food by night, approaching the sheepfold noise- 
 lessly and against the wind, in order that the dogs 
 may not scent her ; and if she steps on a dry twig, 
 so that it breaks and crackles, she bites her foot 
 severely as a punishment for her carelessness. Her 
 nature is such that if she is seen by a man with 
 her mouth shut, then she loses the power of opening 
 
 1 Litpa means she-wolf and prostitute, and lupanar^ wolf's 
 lair and brothel. Ovis^ sheep, signifies ninny or simpleton, 
 and the English word is used as a term of contempt. 
 Plautus in his comedies ridicules the fast young men of his 
 time as sheep that cannot keep away from the wolves and 
 their dens. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 151 
 
 it, but if a man is seen by her with his mouth 
 open, then he loses his voice. When she is hungry, 
 she fills her stomach with clay, but when she has 
 taken prey, she puts her paw into her gullet and 
 vomits the clay, and sates herself with flesh. 
 Albertus Magnus, who gives this account of the 
 wolfs method of stilling the pangs of hunger, 
 states likewise that the wolf is in the habit of 
 lubricating its paws with spittle in order to render 
 its footsteps inaudible.^ Brunetto Latino relates 
 in his Thesaurus, that the wolf often presses its 
 paw to its mouth in order to falsify or magnify 
 its voice, and thus frighten the shepherds by 
 making them think a whole pack is coming. In 
 an engraving published by Cahier (^Mel. d'Arch., 
 ii., pi. xxii., BM) a wolf is approaching a sheep- 
 cote, and holding its paw to its mouth. It may 
 be biting or lubricating its paw, 
 keeping its mouth open, dis- 
 gorging clay with the prospect 
 of filling its maw with tender 
 and succulent mutton, magnify- 
 ing its voice, or practising any 
 of the tricks which symbolize '''°'^- <^«'''^'^') 
 the many ruses of the devil in his dealings with 
 mankind. 
 
 It is superfluous and would be tedious to make 
 further citations from the Physiologiis, since the 
 specimens already given suffice to illustrate the 
 
 1 " Vadens lupus per frondes lambit et lubricas facit pedes, 
 ne incessus audiatur." — De Animal, xxii., Tract. II. 
 
152 Animal Symbolism 
 
 character and purpose of the work. It enjoyed a 
 high reputation among the early Christians, and, as 
 we have seen, has been translated into a score or 
 more of Oriental and Occidental languages. At 
 an early period in the history of the Church it 
 was condemned as heretical, and forbidden to the 
 faithful by the apocryphal decree of Gelasius, but 
 found not long afterwards a powerful patron in 
 Gregory the Great, who made very free use of it 
 in scriptural exposition. From the seventh to the 
 twelfth century it was universally esteemed as a 
 Christian compendium of natural history, and a 
 popular epitome of moral and theological instruc- 
 tion. During this period most of the translations 
 and paraphrases of it were made, now kept as 
 curiosities in old libraries, to which they have been 
 transmitted as the musty heirlooms of mediseval 
 monasteries, secularized and suppressed by the 
 progress of modern civilization. 
 
 The invention of printing naturally gave the 
 work a wider diffusion as a folk-book ; but long 
 before the birth of Gutenberg and the age of 
 movable types, it was cited by preachers and 
 theologians, and used by artists for the illustration 
 of sacred themes, as may be seen in illuminated 
 manuscripts of the Bible, and in mediaeval missals 
 and similar books of devotion. Thus, in a codex 
 of the Vulgate of the seventh century, the initials 
 and capitals are composed of doves, fishes, eagles, 
 and other symbolical creatures ; and an Evangeli- 
 arium, once the property of Charlemagne, and now 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 153 
 
 belonging to the National Library of Paris, contains 
 a miniature representing the gospel fountain in 
 the form of a Byzantine baptistery, to which all 
 beasts and birds are flocking for refreshment. 
 The beautifully-illuminated parchment psalter of 
 Isabella of France, dating from the middle of the 
 fourteenth century, and already mentioned as one 
 of the treasures of the Royal Library of Munich, 
 has the margins adorned with drawings of animals, 
 which have no direct relation to the text, but only 
 a far-fetched symbological significance, inasmuch 
 as they elucidate the teachings of the Pkysiologus, 
 and represent scenes from Jewish history and 
 mythology supposed to have a prefigurative 
 character. 
 
 Virtues and vices are often figured by women 
 contending for victory, and bearing shields on 
 which are inscribed their names or emblems, as, 
 for example, the twelve virtues and twelve vices 
 in the cathedral at Amiens ; sometimes they are 
 riding on animals, as in the miniatures of a manu- 
 script in the Musee de Cluny dating from the 
 fourteenth century. Here Humility is mounted 
 on a panther. Chastity on a unicorn ; Patience or 
 Christian Resignation wears a helmet adorned with 
 a swan, because this fowl sings with its dying 
 breath like the martyrs ; Love bears a pelican on 
 her shield; Devotion rides an ibex, the symbol of 
 aspiration and perseverance, owing to its fondness 
 for high altitudes and its climbing power, and has 
 a phoenix on her shield to signify the renewing 
 
154 Animal Symbolism 
 
 virtue of fervid piety ; Pride has an eagle on her 
 shield, because this bird discards those of her 
 young which cannot endure the fierce light of the 
 sun, as a haughty spirit despises the meek and 
 lowly ; on the shield of Lust is a siren, whose sweet 
 song allures men to their destruction. 
 
 In the cloister connected with the cathedral of 
 Le-Puy-en-Velay are mural paintings personifying 
 Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric (the trivium), and Music. 
 Logic is a female figure in a stately cathedra, and 
 at her feet is Aristotle sitting on a stool and 
 earnestly carrying on a discussion, and noting the 
 points of his argument on his fingers. Underneath 
 is the motto : " Me sine doctores frustra coluere 
 sorores ; " implying that the sister arts cultivate 
 dialectics in vain without the aid of the doctors 
 or men of learning. Logic has a rather amused 
 expression, and holds in her hands a lizard and 
 a scorpion engaged in fierce combat, a parody of 
 scholastic disputations and the proverbial venom of 
 odhiiu tlieologiaun. 
 
 In the Bibles of the tenth century the evangelists 
 are pictured as men with the heads of beasts ; and 
 the four gospels are summed up symbolically in 
 the form of the so-called " Tetramorph," a four- 
 bodied and four-headed monster composed of man, 
 ox, eagle, and lion, with wings covered with eyes 
 like a peacock's tail, a combination of incongruities 
 surpassing in whimsicalness the famous Florentine 
 bronze of the Etruscan chimera, or the marvellous 
 creations of Indian and Egyptian mythology. A 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 155 
 
 mosaic of the thirteenth century in the monastery 
 of Vatopedi on Mt. Athos shows the four heads 
 enveloped by six wings, and the feet of the man 
 resting on two-winged wheels, as described in the 
 visions of Ezekiel and of St. John the Divine. A 
 tetramorph sculptured out of stone, ridden by a 
 
 The Gospel and the Law. {HortHs Deliciarnm.) 
 
 woman with a crown on her head, and dating from 
 the year 1300, adorns the south portal of the 
 cathedral at Worms, and is exhibited in a plaster 
 cast in the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg. It 
 typifies the rapid triumph of the gospel. A mini- 
 ature in the HorUis Delicianun^ formerly in the 
 
156 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Strasburg Library, represents a similar monster, on 
 which is seated a woman wearing a crown, bearing 
 a banner, holding a goblet in her hand, and 
 catching the blood from the side of the crucified 
 Saviour ; another woman mounted on an ass, and 
 partially blindfolded, holds in her right hand a 
 knife, and in her left hand the tables of the law 
 and a ram for sacrifice. They signify respectively 
 the New and the Old Dispensation. Above the cross 
 on the gospel side is a radiant sun, and on the 
 opposite side a waning moon. The standard of 
 Judaism, instead of floating in the breeze, has 
 fallen to the ground ; the attitude of the ass and 
 the noose at its feet are intended to illustrate the 
 passage referring to the cross as "a snare, and a 
 trap, and a stumbling-block " to Israel. 
 
 On the cover of an Evangeliarium in the cathedral 
 library of Trier is a plate of copper enamel en- 
 graved with biblical scenes ; in the centre is the 
 Crucifixion, and standing round the cross are Mary 
 and John and the symbolical figures of the Church 
 and the Synagogue ; above are the sun and moon 
 in eclipse, indicating that " there was darkness over 
 all the earth." 
 
 The church of Saint-Nizier at Troyes has a 
 stained window of the sixteenth century with a 
 representation of the apocalyptic beast which rose 
 out of the sea having seven heads and ten horns, as 
 well as of the other beast, which came up out of 
 the earth and had two horns like a lamb; the 
 artist appears, however, to have been over-liberal in 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 157 
 
 endowing the monster with eleven horns, counting 
 that of the snail. 
 
 Beasts of the ApocaljTJse. {Saint-Nizier of Troyes.) 
 
 In the church of St. Nicholas at Gottingen is a 
 picture dating from 1424, and symbolizing the 
 origin and formation, or rather the fabrication, of 
 Christian theology. God the Father appears in 
 the sky with the four evangelists as man, ox, eagle, 
 and lion, hovering like angels beneath Him and 
 holding Him up. Each has in his hand a vessel 
 from which he pours the contents of his gospel, 
 
158 Animal Symbolism 
 
 indicated by a label containing the first words of it, 
 into two mills turned by the twelve apostles by 
 means of long bars. The several gospels, thus reduced 
 to homogeneous pulp by passing through the mills of 
 the epistles, run out into a large goblet held by a 
 pope, an archbishop, a bishop, and a cardinal. It is 
 designed to show that the evangelists were inspired 
 by God to write the gospels, which were then 
 elaborated by the apostles into doctrinal consistency 
 as the expressed juice of Scripture or essence of 
 theology, and that this product is in the keeping of 
 the Church and to be dispensed by the sacerdotal 
 order. On two labels issuing from the lower part 
 of the mill are inscribed the words et dens erat vbni 
 ("and the Word was God" ) and et vbvi caro ftni. c. 
 ("and the Word was made flesh"). Here we have 
 the crude symbolism of the divine Incarnation, as 
 it is ground out of Holy Writ by apostolic theolo- 
 gians and presented in potable form to believers 
 by ecclesiastical dignitaries. We may add, as an 
 interesting coincidence, that this conception of our 
 sacred writings corresponds to that entertained by 
 the Brahmans, who speak of the magical and 
 supernatural virtue inherent in the Vedic hymns or 
 mantras as the juice {rasa) of the metres, which is 
 expressed and utilized by the ritual machinery of 
 song and sacrifice. This essence is the wonder- 
 working bvahma^ the monopoly of which by the 
 priests is the chief source of their power. 
 
 On the capital of a column in the abbey of 
 Vezelai in Burgundy is a relief representing two 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 159 
 
 men working at a mill, one pouring corn into the 
 hopper, and the other turning the crank and hold- 
 ing a sack to receive the flour. St. Jerome, in his 
 exposition of Matthew xxiv. 41, says the two 
 women, there said to be grinding at the mill, signify 
 
 Gospel-mill. (Abbey of Vezelai in Burgundy.) 
 
 the Synagogue and the Church ; the former brings 
 the wheat of the law, and the latter separates from 
 it the fine flour of the gospel, leaving only the bran 
 of empty ceremonialism as the portion of Judaism. 
 This forced interpretation was not original with the 
 learned and ingenious anchorite, but seems to have 
 been traditional in the primitive Church, and is 
 frequently met with in patristic theology. 
 
i6o Animal Symbolism 
 
 The two men in the relief just mentioned are a 
 Hebrew prophet and the Apostle Paul. The latter, 
 who was educated as a disciple of Gamaliel and 
 became the first systematic theologist of the Church 
 and the real founder of dogmatic and historical 
 Christianity, dwells in his epistles with peculiar 
 emphasis on the relations of Judaic rites and 
 ceremonies to the New Dispensation, and might 
 therefore be fitly portrayed as an assiduous toiler 
 at the typological mill, by which, in the words of a 
 Father, the precious grain of the Old Testament 
 Scriptures is ground and bolted and converted into 
 the flour of gospel truth. In a mediaeval Latin 
 verse descriptive of this process the apostle of the 
 Gentiles is expressly mentioned — 
 
 ' Tollis, agendo molam, de furfure Paule farinam ; 
 Mosaicas legis intima nota facis. 
 Fit de tot granis verus sine furfure panis 
 Perpetuusque cibus noster et angelicus." 
 
 '• Turning the mill, O Paul, thou takest the flour from the 
 bran ; 
 The hidden things of the Mosaic law thou makest known. 
 Of so many grains is made true bread without bran, 
 Eternal food for us and food for the angels." 
 
 The symbolism of the mill is often delineated 
 on painted windows, as, for example, in the cathe- 
 dral of St. Etienne in Bourges and in Canterbury 
 Cathedral. According to a description of the 
 Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Denis written by the 
 celebrated Abbot Suger in the twelfth century 
 {de rebus adminisiratione sua gesiis), one of the 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture i6i 
 
 stained windows contained a representation of the 
 prophets pouring grain into the hopper of a mill, 
 while Paul turns the crank and bags the grist. The 
 same idea of the propedeutic and prefigurative 
 relation of Judaism to Christianity is expressed on 
 another gorgeously-stained window in the cathedral 
 of Bourges by the ark of the covenant surmounted 
 by a crucifix and drawn by a man, an ox, an eagle, 
 and a lion, the four beasts of the evangelists, thus 
 transforming the sacred repository of the tables of 
 the law into the triumphal chariot of the cross, as 
 intimated in the accompanying inscription — 
 
 " FcEderis ex area cruce Christi sistitur ara, 
 Fcedere majori vult ibi Vita mori . . ." 
 
 In a window of the church at Bron in France, 
 belonging to the sixteenth century, there is a paint- 
 ing of Christ seated on a globe in a four-wheeled 
 chariot drawn by an angel, an ox, a lion, and an 
 eagle, and attended by a pope and a cardinal at the 
 fore wheels and two bishops at the hind wheels, 
 pushing it along. An ivory carving of the eleventh 
 century in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, shows the 
 Virgin with a cross on her shoulder, a book in her 
 hand, and her feet on a lion, a dragon, a crocodile, 
 and wolf, and in a manuscript of the same period 
 in the National Library at Paris the Virgin holds a 
 palm branch and tramples on a skeleton and a 
 dragon, signifying the victory of the gospel over 
 death and the powers of darkness. 
 
 It is rather strange that the cock, which is so 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Animal Symbolism 
 
 frequently mentioned in the Scriptures, and which 
 plays so important and honourable a part as the 
 monitor and reprover of the cowardly and recreant 
 Peter, should be entirely passed over by the PJiy- 
 siologus and the bestiaries. On ancient pagan and 
 early Christian sarcophagi two fighting-cocks are 
 often sculptured, one of which has already suc- 
 cumbed to the onsets of its adversary, and were 
 probably intended to represent the battle of life. 
 The cock typifies both vigilance and liberality, 
 because it is always on the 
 watch, and when it finds 
 anything, it does not eat 
 it, but calls the hens to- 
 gether and divides it among 
 '^i^rj'Jr^ them. In like manner the 
 
 IP /. ^°'/-V^ wf ^'f; . preacher should distribute 
 
 KP Salter of Isabella of h ranee. ) ^ 
 
 among his flock the kernels 
 of divine truth which he discovers in Holy Writ, 
 picking them into pieces in order that they may be 
 more readily taken in and digested, as a mediaeval 
 poet declares — 
 
 " Gallus granum reperit, convocat uxores 
 Et illud distribuit inter cariores. 
 Tales discant clerici pietatis mores, 
 Dando suis subditis scriptuarum flores ; 
 Sic sua distribuere cunctis derelictis, 
 Atque curam gerere nudis stafflictis." 
 
 It might be added that the preacher should not 
 be a weather-cock, blown about by every wind of 
 doctrine. In the Musee de Cluny is a manuscript 
 of roundelays addressed to Louise of Savoy, 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 163 
 
 Countess of Angouleme and mother of Francis I. 
 of France, with illustra- 
 tions of the seven Virtues 
 subduing their opposite 
 Vices ; among them is 
 Liberality mounted on a 
 cock pouring gold coins 
 out of a vessel with one 
 hand and holding a large 
 platter or salver in the 
 other ; at her feet is Avar- 
 ice bestriding an ape. 
 
 The cockatrice or basi- 
 lisk, on the other hand, 
 holds a prominent place 
 in mediaeval symbology 
 and ecclesiastical archi- 
 tecture. This little king 
 (^ao-tXto-Kos) of reptiles, so 
 called because the wart 
 on its head resembles a crown, had the reputation 
 of being a terror to all its subjects, the most vene- 
 mous serpents fleeing affrighted when they hear its 
 hiss. It is hatched from the egg laid by a cock in the 
 seventh year of its age, and it happens in this wise. 
 When the egg has grown large, it produces an 
 intense griping in the bowels of the cock, which 
 seeks a warm place in a stable or on a dung-heap, 
 and there lays the egg. A serpent or toad then 
 comes and sits on it, and hatches a creature with 
 the head of a cock and the body of a reptile. No 
 
 Liberality and Avarice. 
 (^Mamcscript in Mitsee dc Chtny.) 
 
1 64 Animal Symbolism 
 
 sooner is it bom than it hides itself in a crevice or 
 cistern, or in the rafters of a house, so as not to be 
 seen by any one ; for such is its nature that if a man 
 sees it before it sees him, it will die, but if it sees 
 him first, he will fall down dead. It has also the 
 power of darting poison from its eyes, so deadly 
 that it kills birds flying over the spot where it lies 
 hidden ; even herbs and shrubs, which it touches 
 in passing, wither away. This baneful reptile is 
 beautiful in form and colour, having a skin of 
 variegated hues spotted with white ; but, adds the 
 author in a moralizing strain, beauty is often asso- 
 ciated with badness. Whoever wishes to slay the 
 basilisk, holds before his face a vessel of crystal 
 through which he looks at the beast; and the 
 crystal not only arrests the venom issuing from its 
 eyes, but even causes it to be reflected and hurled 
 back upon the animal, which is killed by the fatal 
 recoil. 
 
 The basilisk signifies the devil, who entered into 
 Paradise and enticed our first parents to eat of the 
 forbidden fruit. For this transgression they were 
 driven forth from Eden, and when they had passed 
 away from the earth, which they had corrupted, 
 they were cast into the burning pit with the basilisk. 
 Then the merciful Son of the King of Heaven took 
 pity on the many people poisoned by this old ser- 
 pent, which no one had been able to destroy ; and 
 He chose a vessel clearer than crystal, the blessed 
 body of our Lady, the purest of virgins, in which to 
 encounter the direful foe. And when the basilisk 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 165 
 
 darted the venom from its eyes, the vessel caught it 
 and threw it back upon the reptile, which languished 
 during the thirty years of Christ's incarnation, until 
 the victory was fully won by the crucifixion. And 
 after He had been placed in the tomb, He rose 
 again on the third day and descended into the pit, 
 where the basilisk had concealed itself, and rescued 
 all those who had been infected with its poison 
 from the time of Adam, and restored them to 
 everlastincf life. 
 
 Fighting the Basilisk. {Abbey of I'izelai.') 
 
 Jacopo da Lentino in his erotics makes the fable 
 illustrate the perils of love ; and a Provengal poet, 
 Aimeric de Pregulhan, compares himself to a 
 basilisk and his mistress to a mirror, which he 
 cannot look upon without being smitten to death. 
 
 The basilisk figures frequently in illustrations of 
 devotional works and in sacred architecture, as, for 
 
1 66 Animal Symbolism 
 
 example, on the capital of a column in the church 
 of the Abbey of Vezelai, where a man approaches 
 the hissing reptile, holding a conical vessel as a 
 shield before his face; near him is an enormous 
 locust with a human head. This sculpture symbol- 
 izes the redemption of the Gentile world from the 
 thralls of Satan by the atonement of Christ. Beda, 
 in his commentary on the thirtieth chapter of Pro- 
 verbs, says : " Locusts refer to the nations formerly 
 without Christ for their king, without prophets, 
 without teachers; but now gathered together in 
 the unity of the faith, they hasten to the spiritual 
 combat against the devil." This is a spiritualiza- 
 tion of the passage : " The locusts have no king, 
 yet they go forth all of them in bands " (xxx. 27), 
 or, as it reads in the Vulgate : " Regem locusta non 
 habet, et egreditur universa per suas turmas," a 
 rendering which facilitates the symbolical inter- 
 pretation given by the venerable Anglo-Saxon 
 presbyter. 
 
 Gregory the Great, in his exposition of Job 
 {Moralia, sive Expositiones in Jobuni), states, in 
 explanation of the verse " Canst thou make him 
 afraid as a grasshopper ? " that grasshopper or locust 
 signifies converted paganism ("conversagentilitas"). 
 This, he adds, is what Solomon means when he 
 says, " The almond tree shall flourish, the locust 
 shall grow fat, and the caper bush shall waste 
 away."^ " Now the almond flowers before all other 
 
 ^ This is the Vulgate version of Eccl. xii. 5 : " Florebit 
 amygdalus, impinguabitur locusta, dissipabitur capparis." 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 167 
 
 trees; and what is meant by the flowering almond, 
 unless it be the beginning of the holy Church, which 
 put forth in its preachers the first blossoms of virtue 
 and bore the earliest fruits of holiness? 'The locust 
 shall grow fat ' signifies that the unction and rich- 
 ness of heavenly grace shall be infused into the 
 leanness and barrenness of heathenism. 'The caper 
 bush shall waste away,' because, when the Gentiles 
 are called and attain the gift of faith, the Jews shall 
 be left desolate, and shall remain sterile," In this 
 connection Gregory quotes the passage from Pro- 
 verbs (xxx. 27), already mentioned, and interprets 
 it as referring to the Gentiles, who, when they were 
 left to themselves, were alien to the Divine law, 
 but, when they were gathered and arrayed together, 
 went forward to fight the fight of faith against 
 spiritual adversaries. 
 
 The locust with a human head signifies the Gen- 
 tile nations united under Christ as their head to 
 war against Satan. "The basilisk is the king of 
 serpents," says Gregory, " but who is the head of 
 the reprobates, unless it be Antichrist ? " Essen- 
 tially the same exegesis is given by St. Hilarius in 
 his commentary on Matthew iii. 4, where locusts 
 are mentioned as the principal articles of food of 
 John the Baptist, the forerunner of Him who was 
 to gather in the Gentiles, and also by St. Am- 
 brosius in his remarks on the third chapter of 
 Luke, so that Gregory cannot claim to be the 
 originator of this brilliant feat of hermeneutics. 
 Odo, the second Abbot of Cluny, in the fourth 
 
1 68 Animal Symbolism 
 
 decade of the tenth century, abridged the Moralia 
 of Gregory, and it was probably to this work that 
 the sculpture in the church at Vezelai owes its 
 origin, since Vezelai stood for a long time in inti- 
 mate relations to Cluny, and, indeed, seems at this 
 time to have been to some extent under the juris- 
 diction of the rich and powerful Benedictine abbey 
 on the Grone. 
 
 Another capital in the abbey of Vezelai repre- 
 sents in relief a man in a Phrygian cap mounted 
 on a basilisk and holdino; a round missile in his 
 
 'ss?.- 
 
 Sphinx and Basilisk. {^Albey of Vezelai.) 
 
 right hand. His arm is drawn back as if in the 
 act of hurling this weapon at a sphinx-like crea- 
 ture, that has the head of a woman and the feet of 
 an ox, and wards off the attack by means of a 
 crystal vessel, as already described. The basilisk 
 begins to show signs of succumbing to the retro- 
 flex action of its own venom. The sphinx, if we 
 may regard the cloven-hoofed monster as such, 
 wears a crown, and is partially clad in armour, and 
 is probably a symbol of spiritual knowledge and 
 strength overcoming evil. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 169 
 
 Albertus Magnus, the most circumspect and 
 critical of mediaeval scholars touching the marvel- 
 lous tales which constituted the natural history of his 
 day, remarks : " What is related about an old cock 
 ('decrepitum gallum') laying an egg^ and putting it 
 in the dung, and about a basilisk being hatched 
 out of it, and looking like a cock in all respects 
 except that it has the long tail of a serpent, I do 
 not think is true ; yet it is reported as a fact by 
 Hermes, and is accepted by many persons" (De 
 Animal.^ xxiii.). 
 
 In the same treatise (xxv.) he adds : " It is said 
 that the weasel kills the basilisk, and that the 
 troglodytes of Nubia send weasels into their caves 
 for this purpose before entering these habitations 
 themselves. And if this be true, it seems indeed 
 wonderful. . . . Hermes also asserts that if silver 
 be rubbed with its ashes, it receives the splendour, 
 weight, and solidity of gold. Some aver, further- 
 more, that there is a sort of basilisk that flies, but I 
 have not read of this kind in the books of sages 
 and philosophers." 
 
 Evidently the basilisk was a riddle to the great 
 Dominican, Aristotelian, and Doctor Universalis, 
 of which he could find no satisfactory solution — a 
 creature which excited his wonder, and made ex- 
 cessive demands on his credulity, but which he 
 could not dismiss as a mere figment of superstitious 
 fancy, owing to the weight of testimony in its 
 favour, and especially on account of the deference 
 due to the almost supernatural and semi-divine 
 
1 70 Animal Symbolism 
 
 authority of Hermes Trismegistus. The mythical 
 cock's egg, however, continued during the middle 
 ages, and even into modern times, to furnish the 
 principal ingredient for the fabrication of witches' 
 ointment, the devil's chrism, with which he an- 
 ointed his elect, and thereby enabled old hags to 
 transform themselves into beasts, ride through the 
 air on broomsticks, and work divers kinds of 
 fiendish mischief How this belief compromised 
 our innocent but ostentatious knight of the barn- 
 yard, and led to his criminal prosecution and 
 punishment as a satellite of Satan and phar- 
 maceutical purveyor to his infernal majesty, has 
 been shown by the author in a work entitled T/ie 
 Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of 
 Animals. 
 
 Modern science, which, in its mission of abolish- 
 ing mysteries, has relegated so many ancient fables 
 and venerable traditions to that 
 
 " limbo large and broad, since called 
 The paradise of fools,'' 
 
 and which tends more and more to circumscribe 
 and gradually eliminate the sphere of the miracu- 
 lous in nature, has now stripped the dread basilisk 
 of its fatal qualities. The sole residuum which 
 sober research has left us is a harmless species 
 of hooded lizard, whose only peculiarity is the 
 power of blowing up its conical crest with wind. 
 The cockatrice, with its "death-darting" eye, has 
 been curtailed of its formidable proportions and 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 171 
 
 degraded to a funny little saurian, which might 
 serve to amuse children, but has lost all the terrors 
 with which mythical zoology once invested it even 
 in the minds of the most intelligent men and 
 greatest thinkers of their day. The transformation, 
 too, which scholarly opinion and popular belief 
 have undergone on this point is typical of the 
 functions and efficiency of science in subverting 
 superstition. 
 
 Besides its value as a key to zoological sym- 
 bolism as expressed in art and literature, and 
 especially in hermeneutical theology and ecclesias- 
 tical architecture, the Physiologus is psychologically 
 interesting as an index to the intellectual condition 
 of an age which could accept its absurd statements 
 as scientific facts, and seriously apply them to 
 biblical exegesis and Christian dogmatics. 
 
 In addition to the Scriptural expositions already 
 cited, the following may serve as specimens of the 
 wretched twaddle which men now revered as the 
 lights of the Church, and quoted as infallible au- 
 thorities in questions of divinity, were capable of 
 uttering. " David said : ' As the hart panteth after 
 the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O 
 God.' The Physiologus tells us that the hart is 
 the foe of the dragon, which, when it sees its 
 enemy, runs away and creeps into a cleft of the 
 rocks. Then the hart goes to a stream and fills 
 his belly with water, and spews it into the cleft, 
 and, having thus drowned out the dragon, tramples 
 it under his feet and kills it ; as the prophet Isaiah 
 
172 Animal Symbolism 
 
 predicts that at the coming of Christ a man shall 
 'go into the clefts of the 
 rocks, and into the tops of 
 the ragged rocks, for fear of 
 the Lord.' Thus our Saviour 
 slew with the water and blood 
 flowing from His side the 
 great dragon that was once a 
 Hart and Dragon. {Bestiary.) partakcr of Divine wisdom 
 in heaven, and redeemed 
 us thereby, and taught us to contend against the 
 hidden designs of the devil. Hearken then to the 
 voice within thee, which bids thee not to commit 
 whoredom, nor to steal, nor to go after another 
 man's wife; but, when thou hast drunken of the 
 water of the New Law, kill all idle words and vain 
 works. The hart loves to dwell in hilly regions; 
 hills are types of the contemplative life of prophets 
 and saints, and the sources of spiritual strength ; as 
 the Psalmist says : ' I will lift up mine eyes unto 
 the hills, from whence cometh my help.' " Accord- 
 ing to the exegetist the hart longs for water not 
 in order to quench thirst, but for the purpose of 
 expelling dragons from their holes. Others assert 
 that the hart, in killing the dragon, inhales its 
 poisonous breath, which produces intense thirst and 
 consequent longing for the water-brooks. Either 
 interpretation shows the tendency of the expositor 
 to seek extravagant and far-fetched explanations 
 of the simplest texts, thus violating one of the 
 most elementary principles of scientific investigation. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 173 
 
 The hart was also fabled to renew its antlers 
 and become rejuvenated by eating serpents and 
 drinking from a pure spring, and this characteristic 
 is used by ^milius Dracontius in his poem De 
 Deo to symbolize the regeneration of the human 
 soul and its purification from evil by the waters of 
 salvation. Representations of the hostility of the 
 hart to the dragon occur occasionally in ecclesias- 
 tical architecture, but very frequently in illustrated 
 bestiaries, breviaries, psalters, and other devotional 
 works. 
 
 Again, we are informed that " the antelope is a 
 wild animal with two power- 
 ful horns, with which it saws 
 trees asunder and fells them. 
 When it is thirsty it goes 
 down to the Euphrates to 
 drink. Growing on the banks 
 of this river are certain 
 shrubs of pleasant savour, 
 which the antelope attempts Ameiope. (Bestiary.) 
 to eat, and thereby gets its horns entangled in 
 the branches, so that it cannot free itself again. 
 Then it cries out with a loud voice, and the hunters 
 hearing it hasten to take it, or it is killed by beasts 
 of prey. The two horns are the Books of the Old 
 and New Testaments, with which the believer can 
 resist the adversary and push him to the ground, 
 and can cut down all growing sins and vices ; but 
 he who allows himself to be drawn aside from the 
 waters of salvation by the pleasures of the world, 
 
174 Animal Symbolism 
 
 and gets entangled in the thickets of lust and pride 
 and evil passions, falls an easy prey to the devil." 
 The author then quotes as a passage from Holy 
 Writ the words " Wine and women separate a 
 man from God," evidently an inference from the 
 admonitions contained in Prov. xxxi. 3-5. 
 
 The fiction of the antelope is alluded to by 
 minnesingers in illustration of the fate of malicious 
 and meddlesome courtiers, who are finally taken 
 and destroyed in the web of their own devices. A 
 Venetian marble relief of the tenth century, now 
 in the Berlin Museum, represents a lion attacking 
 an antelope ; it symbolizes Satan assaulting the 
 soul, and is based upon the fable of the Physiologus. 
 
 Antelope on the Euphrates. (^Psalter of Isabella of France.) 
 
 The mishap of the antelope was a favourite 
 theme of mediaeval artists, who usually gave only the 
 final scene, in which the entangled beast is killed ; 
 in the engraving, taken from the illuminated 
 psalter of Isabella of France, the whole story is 
 told. It is also one of the beasts on the arch of 
 the doorway at Alne. 
 
 In the bestiaries barnacle geese are described as 
 growing on trees by the sea-side, and hanging from 
 the boughs by their beaks until they are covered 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 175 
 
 .^<mm^. 
 
 Barnacle Geese. (Besliaiy.) 
 
 with feathers and fall like ripe fruit. If they reach 
 the water they swim and 
 live, but if they remain 
 on the dry ground they 
 perish. They illustrate 
 the saving efficacy of bap- 
 tism. Gerard of Wales 1 
 cites this legend as a 
 fact designed to prove 
 the doctrine of the Im- 
 maculate Conception, as 
 these birds are born with- 
 out procreation. 
 
 It must be remembered that the men who wrote 
 such hermeneutical stuff as this, and took such 
 childish tales seriously as the testimony of nature 
 to the truth of revelation, were not obscure and 
 ignorant persons, but the most learned divines and 
 eminent representatives of the early Church, the 
 creators of patristic theology, the great exegetists 
 and eloquent apologists, who were deemed worthy 
 of canonization and adoration as saints. But what 
 preacher of to-day, if we except perhaps an 
 American backwoods evangelist, or illiterate Capu- 
 chin discoursing to rude peasants in the remote 
 districts of Southern Italy, would risk his reputa- 
 tion for sanity by expatiating from the pulpit or 
 expounding the Bible in this style .'' And yet it 
 was by this credulous and utterly uncritical class 
 
 1 Gerald. Top. Hibern. v. 47. Cf. Jacobs: T/ie Jews of 
 Angeviy, England, p. 54. 
 
176 Animal Symbolism 
 
 of minds that the foundations of historical and 
 dogmatic Christianity were laid, and the constitu- 
 tion and canonicity of our sacred Scriptures deter- 
 mined. It was they who framed the accepted 
 creed of Christendom, and settled ex cathedra what 
 doctrines were to be received as orthodox, and 
 what opinions were to be rejected as heretical. 
 Persons more incompetent to decide any of the 
 difficult and delicate questions thus submitted to 
 their judgment can hardly be imagined. Their 
 belief in any event was in direct proportion to its 
 marvellousness and incredibility, and the highest 
 law of evidence which they recognized and applied 
 as the test of divine truth was Tertullian's famous 
 criterion : " Credo quia absurdum." The queer 
 and often comical irrelevancy of their citations of 
 biblical texts to the matter under discussion betrays 
 their lack of logical faculty, and their incapacity 
 for close and consecutive thinking. They do not 
 show the slightest ability to sift testimony and to 
 separate the true from the false in any statement ; 
 on the principle of omne niirabile pro probabili they 
 were ready to accept as indubitable whatever was 
 sufficiently wonderful, and to regard as conclusive 
 demonstration a petitio principii which a modern 
 school-boy of ordinary acumen would easily detect. 
 It is evident that minds so implicitly credulous 
 could have had no proper appreciation of the prob- 
 lems which the rise and growth of Christianity 
 during the early period of its dogmatic evolution 
 presented for solution, nor is it hardly possible that 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 177 
 
 they should not have been deceived in any in- 
 vestigations they undertook, or in any conclusions 
 they reached concerning the authenticity of the 
 events recorded in the gospels and other scriptures 
 of the New Testament, and the genuineness of these 
 records. Under such circumstances it is not sur- 
 prising that our sacred canon should begin with 
 an astrological legend related as an historical fact 
 in connection with the birth of Jesus, and end with 
 a wild and weird apocalyptic vision, giving an 
 autoptic description of the Last Judgment and the 
 glories of the heavenly Jerusalem. In the same 
 mental category to-day are the men and women 
 who receive the Book of Mormon as a revelation 
 from on high, who believe in the immaculate con- 
 ception of Anna Lee, and accept George Jacob 
 Schweinfurth as the incarnation of the Son of God, 
 who listen to the sounds produced by the voluntary 
 dislocation of the toe-joints of two tricksy girls 
 as rappings from the spirit-world, and who put 
 their faith in the healing waters of the grotto of 
 Lourdes and the panacea of " Christian science " 
 as expounded by Mrs. Eddy. 
 
 N 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SYMBOLISM SUPERSEDED BY SATIRE 
 
 Excess of animal symbolism in sacred edifices of the 
 eleventh and twelfth centuries — Earnest but fruitless 
 protest of St. Bernard — Image-worship authorized and en- 
 joined by the Council held at Nice in 787 — Images not to 
 be inventions of artists, but to be fashioned according to 
 ecclesiastical traditions and ecclesiological prescriptions — 
 Views of St. Nilus — Paintings and sculptures for the 
 instruction of the ignorant — Gautier de Coinsi renews the 
 protest against " wild cats and lions " in the house of 
 God — Angelus Rumpler makes the same complaint — 
 Warnings by the Councils of Milan and Bordeaux — In- 
 troductions of episodes from the beast-epos with satirical 
 tendencies — Secular guilds supplant religious orders as 
 architects — Caricature of sacred rites — Fox preaching 
 to geese in St. Martin's Church in Leicester — Sculptures 
 in Strasburg Minster — Reliefs of the wolfs novitiate in 
 Freiburg Minster — Poem by Marie de France — Sam- 
 son and the lion — Provost's cushion in St. Michael's 
 at Pforzheim — Burlesque of Calvin in St. Sernin at 
 Toulouse — Luther satirized in St. Victor's Church at 
 Xanten — Foolscap paper — Origin and character of the 
 Papstesel — Monstrosities as portents — Bishop-fish — The 
 Papal Ass in religious polemics — The Monk-calf of 
 Freiburg and its interpretation — Miniatures illustrating 
 the " Woes of France " — The fox of the Physiologies and 
 of the beast-epos — Reliefs of the wiles of the fox and the 
 woes of drunkenness in St. Fiacre — Execution of the cat 
 in the cathedral at Tarragona — Significance of the crane 
 extracting a bone from the fox's throat in Autun Cathe- 
 dral — Burrowing foxes types of devils in Worcester 
 17S 
 
Animal Symbolism 179 
 
 Cathedral — Scenes from the Reynardine and other poems 
 in the church of the Templars, St. Denis, Amiens Cathe- 
 dral, Sherborne Minster, and other sacred edifices, but 
 most fully represented in Bristol Cathedral and Beverly 
 Minster — Heraldic rebuses and canting devices — Satire 
 on the election of a pope in Lincoln Cathedral — Mendi- 
 cant friars caricatured as foxes in Ely, Gloucester, 
 Winchester, and other cathedrals — Odo of Sherington's 
 opinion of these orders — Similar delineations in the 
 churches and cloisters of continental Europe : Kempen, 
 Emmerick, Calcar, and Cleves — The Lay of Aristotle 
 and Vergil's affair of gallantry — The Vision of Piers 
 Plowman — Animals as musicians — Grotesques, bur- 
 lesques, and riddles^ — Funeral banquet at the burial of the 
 fox at Marienhafen — The frog as a symbol of regenera- 
 tion — Carvings of individual fancies and conceits and 
 illustrations of proverbs — Episodes from the Roman de 
 Renart — Many of these sculptures, especially in Northern 
 France and the Netherlands, destroyed by iconoclasts 
 and revolutionists. 
 
 It was in the eleventh and especially in the twelfth 
 century that symbolical animals played a most 
 conspicuous and very peculiar part in the ornamen- 
 tation of church furniture and in ecclesiastical 
 architecture. Lamps, censers, pyxes, aspergills, 
 chrismatories, reliquaries, and sacramental vessels 
 were wrought in the form of griffins, ostriches, 
 pelicans, cranes, dolphins, doves, dragons, lions, or 
 some other real or fabulous creature, or had these 
 animals carved on them. It was deemed a hard 
 hit at the devil, and a masterly stroke of pious policy, 
 to press beasts of evil omen and Satanic significance 
 into the service of the Church, and force them to 
 assist at the celebration of holy offices. They were 
 therefore embroidered on sacerdotal vestments and 
 sculptured in the chancel and the chapels and 
 
1 80 Animal Symbolism 
 
 around the altars of the sanctuary, where religious 
 rites were usually performed. Later, towards the 
 close of the twelfth century, they began to take 
 possession of the windows, portals, arches, and 
 pinnacles, and finally extended to the whole exterior 
 of the edifice, no part of which was safe from their 
 encroachments. It was especially in cloisters that 
 these beasts ran riot, but not without provoking the 
 indignation and opposition of many ecclesiastics. 
 
 One of the earliest of these protests was that of 
 St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who about the year 1125 
 wrote a letter on the subject to William, Abbot of 
 St. Thierry, sharply censuring what he regarded as 
 a profanation of sacred places. " What business," 
 he exclaims, " have those ridiculous monstrosities, 
 those creatures of wonderfully deformed beauty 
 and beautiful deformity, before the eyes of studious 
 friars in the courts of cloisters ? What mean those 
 filthy apes, those fierce lions, those monstrous 
 centaurs, those half-men, those spotted tigers, those 
 fighting soldiers and horn-blowing hunters ? Thou 
 seest many bodies under one head, and again many 
 heads on one body. Here is a serpent's tail at- 
 tached to a quadruped, there a quadruped's head 
 on a fish. There a beast presents the fore-parts of 
 a horse and drags after it the rear of a goat ; here 
 a horned animal has the hind parts of a horse. In 
 short, there is seen everywhere such a marvellous 
 diversity of forms, that one reads with more 
 pleasure what is carved in stones than what is 
 written in books, and would rather gaze all day 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 1 8 1 
 
 upon these singular creations than to meditate on 
 the divine word. O God ! if one is not ashamed of 
 these puerilities, why does one not at least spare 
 the expense ? " 
 
 That the famous " doctor mellifluus " should have 
 been ignorant of the meaning of the artistic repre- 
 sentations he condemns is scarcely credible ; natur- 
 ally enough, however, the coarse symbolism which 
 they sought to express could hardly fail of being 
 offensive to the refined and subtile mysticism of the 
 saintly Cistercian, who rejected the dogma of the 
 Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary as a too 
 gross and sensual suggestion and emblematic ex- 
 pression of her spiritual purity. He was indignant 
 that the Christian mysteries should be degraded 
 and vulgarized by being clothed in what he deemed 
 the foul and tattered vesture of pagan allegory. 
 This attitude was perfectly consistent with his 
 character as a reformer of the Church, and especially 
 of the cloisters, and a zealous promoter of stricter 
 monastic discipline. As ecclesiastical architecture 
 was at that time still in the hands of the religious 
 orders and the secular clergy, he held them re- 
 sponsible for these exhibitions, which he regarded 
 as an evidence of their frivolity and dissoluteness. 
 
 Suger, the celebrated abbot of St. Denis and 
 minister of state of Louis VII., was less fastidious 
 and austere than St. Bernard, and in rebuilding 
 the famous Benedictine abbey in 1144 did not 
 hesitate to have the stained windows adorned 
 with symbolical animals, which he appears to 
 
1 82 Animal Symbolism 
 
 have prized both as decorations and sources of 
 edification. 
 
 The seventh CEcumenical Council, which was 
 held at Nice in 787, and which authorized icon- 
 olatry and enjoined this cult as a religious duty 
 upon believers, decided that the images were not 
 to be the invention of the artist, but were to be 
 fashioned according to the traditions and prescrip- 
 tions of the Catholic Church. The artist was not 
 permitted to follow his own fancies or to work 
 out his own devices, but his sole function was to 
 execute the intentions and embody the ideas and 
 suggestions of the official ecclesiologists as derived 
 from the writings of the Fathers : " Non est imagi- 
 num structura pictorum inventio, sed ecclesise catho- 
 licae probata legislatio atque traditio." In the fifth 
 century St. Nilus wrote to Olympiodorus : " You 
 ask me whether it is proper to burden the walls 
 of the sanctuary with representations of divers 
 animals, hares, goats, and other beasts seeking 
 safety in flight from the snares which cover the 
 ground, and from the hunters, who with their 
 dogs are eagerly pursuing them. Elsewhere, on 
 the shore, we see all sorts of fish gathered by 
 fishermen. I reply that it is puerile to amuse the 
 eyes of the faithful in this manner." ^ 
 
 Evidently the censorious saint did not take the 
 symbolical significance of such pictures into con- 
 sideration, but looked upon them as purely orna- 
 
 ^ Maxima Bibliotheca Palrum, xxvii. 325. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 183 
 
 mental and designed to please the eye. As a 
 matter of fact, there was a large class of persons 
 in the early and mediaeval Church who relied upon 
 such paintings and sculptures for their religious 
 instruction and edification, like the old woman into 
 whose mouth Francois Villon puts these words — 
 
 " Femme je suis, pauverette et ancienne, 
 Qui riens ne s^ay, onques lettres ne leuz, 
 Au moustier voy, dont je suis paroissienne, 
 Paradis painct ou sont harpes et luz 
 Et un enfer ou dampnes sont boulluz, 
 Lung me fait pour, I'autre joye et liesse." 
 
 Symbolical representations of beasts and other 
 delineations of this kind, however grotesque, are 
 the records of human thoughts and beliefs in 
 certain stages of civilization, and deserve to be 
 deciphered with as much care as Runic signs or 
 hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscriptions. 
 
 A hundred years after St. Bernard, Gautier de 
 Coinsi, Prior of Vie sur Aisne, found it necessary 
 again to censure the clergy for permitting "wild 
 cats and lions " to rank with saints in the house 
 of God, and for preferring to adorn their chambers 
 with the lewd exploits of Isegrim and his spouse 
 rather than to decorate the minsters with the 
 miracles of the Virgin — 
 
 " En leur moustiers ne font pas faire 
 Sitost I'image Nostre Dame, 
 Com font Isangrin et sa fame 
 En leurs chambres ou ils reponnent." 
 
 Again, in the beginning of the sixteenth century 
 the pious abbot of Formbach, Angelus Rumpler, 
 
1 84 Animal Symbolism 
 
 renewed St. Bernard's query as to the purpose and 
 fitness of putting lions, dragons, and the like in 
 the churches, which ought, he says, to be simpl}- 
 and suitably adorned, and not so conspicuously as 
 to furnish occasion for gazing instead of praying. 
 " Not that I censure proper ornament," he adds, 
 " but only what is fantastical and superfluous. For 
 pictures are the books of the laity or unlearned ; 
 but by pictures I mean such as portray the 
 Passion of Christ and the sufferings of the saints." 
 He wishes to have representations that will incite 
 to devotion, and not merely gratify curiosity or 
 engender evil propensities. What he expressl}" 
 reprehends are scenes which a young girl cannot 
 look at without having her mind corrupted and 
 lascivious desires excited in her heart; and the 
 manner in which he refers to them proves that 
 they must have existed in places of worship. 
 What we should expend for the relief of the poor, 
 he concludes, we squander on sumptuous and 
 needless edifices ; but enough of this : sed dc Jiac 
 re hactemis. 
 
 The first Council of Milan in 1565 warned the 
 bishops not to permit in the churches any paint- 
 ings or sculptures opposed to the truth of Scripture, 
 or of tradition or ecclesiastical history : " Caveant 
 episcopi, ne quid pingatur aut sculpatur, quod 
 veritati scriptuarum, traditionum aut ecclesiasti- 
 carum historiarum adversetur." Twenty years later 
 (1585) the Council of Bordeaux forbade preachers 
 to introduce fables into their sermons, and thus 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 185 
 
 move their hearers to laughter, instead of drawing 
 tears of contrition from their eyes, as they ought 
 to do : " Concionatoris enim est, non risum movere, 
 sed lacrymas auditoribus excutere." 
 
 The symbolical meaning which Clemens Alexan- 
 drinus, Augustine, Origen, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, 
 Jerome, Bonaventura, Ambrosius, Isidorus, and 
 other great interpreters of Holy Writ had dis- 
 covered in these real or fabulous creatures was 
 now forgotten or discarded. The gross and beastly 
 types had been superseded by the finer mysticism 
 of expositors like the abbot of Clairvaux, whose 
 aesthetic sense as well as religious feeling was deeply 
 offended by these crude and whimsical illustrations 
 of spiritual truths. 
 
 Meanwhile other fables, derived partly from 
 hagiological sources and partly from old Germanic 
 sagas and the marvels related of foreign lands by 
 mediaeval travellers, had become gradually mixed 
 up with the Physiologiis^ and under its shelter and 
 sanction as a precedent succeeded in creeping into 
 holy places. Scenes from the beast-epos, espe- 
 cially the adventures of the fox and the wolf, 
 carved on wood, cut in stone, painted in fresco, 
 or more frequently pictured in glass, began to 
 make themselves conspicuous on the stalls of the 
 chancel, and on the pulpits and portals and stained 
 windows of cathedrals. At first they were de- 
 signed to enforce moral precepts and to illustrate 
 ethical principles, but in seeking these ends they 
 found it necessary to satirize the vices of the clergy^ 
 
1 86 Animal Symbolism 
 
 and to censure with deserved severity the greed 
 and gluttony and general dissoluteness of the 
 monastic orders. 
 
 During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 
 the religious fraternities were in a great degree 
 supplanted as builders by associations of secular 
 architects, and, as the influence of the laity became 
 predominant in church ornamentation, and the 
 spirit which resulted in the Reformation grew 
 bolder and more aggressive, this satirical tendency 
 increased, and did not confine itself to the expo- 
 sure of religious hypocrisy and pseudo-sanctity, 
 but soon delighted in ridiculing and caricaturing 
 sacramental rites and sacred observances. Apes 
 in choristers' robes, swine in monks' hoods, asses 
 in cowls chanting and playing the organ, sirens in 
 the costume of nuns with their faces carefully 
 veiled and the rest of their persons exposed, stags 
 in chasubles ministering at the altar, and wolves 
 in the confessional giving absolution to lambs, 
 were some of the means employed to burlesque 
 the principal ceremonies and fundamental institu- 
 tions of the Church, and to turn them into ridicule. 
 On one of the painted windows of St. Martin's 
 Church, in Leicester, was the picture of a fox in 
 surplice preaching to a flock of geese from the 
 text : " Testis est mihi Deus quam cupiam vos 
 omnes visceribus meis " (" God is my witness how 
 I long for you all in my bowels "). One of the 
 wood-carvings in Ely Cathedral represents the fox 
 arrayed in episcopal robes, with almuce and stole 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 187 
 
 and crosier, discoursing to a similar audience from 
 the same passage of Scripture ; in the next scene 
 he has made a practical application of the text by 
 throwing off his holy vestments and hurrying away 
 with a goose, pursued by an old woman with a 
 distaff.^ Here we have not merely an exposure of 
 the begging friars, but a hard hit at the highest 
 dignitaries of the Church. 
 
 The obscenity of many of these delineations 
 resulted naturally and inevitably from the fact 
 that they satirized obscene things. Thus the 
 abbot Grandidier, in describing the grotesque 
 figures sculptured on the pulpit staircase in Stras- 
 burg Minster, says : " On y remarquait entr' autres 
 celle d'un moine couche au dessous et aux pieds 
 d'une beguine, dont il soulevait les juppes." This 
 pulpit was constructed in i486 under the super- 
 vision of the famous preacher, Johannes Geiler 
 von Kaisersberg, in whose sermons the licentious- 
 ness of the monks and particularly the unchastity 
 of the vagabond beguines were severely scourged. 
 Indeed, beguinage came to be synonymous with 
 spurious piety or lust in the disguise of sanctity. 
 But however coarsely such scenes may have been 
 depicted, they originated in a high moral purpose, 
 and had a pure aim, which, as the old plattdeutsch 
 poet Lauremberg, in his ScJiertzgedichte, says of 
 the hidden wisdom in Reincke Vos, shone forth 
 like a glowing coal in the ashes, or a gold penny in 
 a greasy pocket — 
 
 ' Herrig's Archive Iviii. 255. 
 
1 88 Animal Symbolism 
 
 " Glyck als dat Fiiln- schulet in der Asche, 
 Un giildne Penninge in eener schmierigen Tasche." 
 
 With the progress of the Reformation these 
 representations were drawn into the great religious 
 movement and put to polemical uses, and proved 
 to be more effective in influencing the mass of 
 public opinion than any doctrinal discussion. Thus 
 Fischart published woodcuts of the sculptures near 
 the choir of Strasburg Minster with explanatory 
 doggerels, in which he interpreted them as an 
 allegorical derision of the Romish clergy ; and this 
 view seems to have been accepted by the Catholics 
 themselves, although a zealous Protestant, Oscar 
 Schad, in his description of the cathedral, printed 
 in 1 617, vents his indignation against the Fran- 
 ciscan, Friedrich Johann Nass, who, he says, "had 
 the effrontery to thrust his nose into this matter, 
 beslavering with his venom the sound expositions 
 of Fischart, and absurdly affirming these beasts to 
 be types of pious and faithful evangelical preachers 
 and godly servants of the Word." As these sculp- 
 tures date from the end of the thirteenth century, 
 and are therefore much older than Protestantism, 
 which dates from the Diet held by the evangelical 
 estates at Spire, in 1529, the interpretation of them 
 given by Nass is grossly anachronistic. Besides, 
 they caricature, not a Protestant, but a Catholic 
 rite, namely, the burial of the fox, as prescribed by 
 the Romish ceremonial. First comes the bear 
 with an aspergill and a vessel of holy water ; the 
 wolf carries a crucifix, and the hare holds a burning 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 189 
 
 taper; the bier, on which Hes the fox simulating 
 death and plotting revenge, is borne by a sow and 
 a he-goat. An ape is seated on the ground near 
 the bier, apparently as spectator. A stag is chant- 
 ing the office at an altar, while a cat serves as 
 lectern to support the epistles, which are read by 
 an ass. At the feet of the bear is a globe v/ith a 
 
 Burial of the Fox. {Choir of Strashirg Minster.) 
 
 cross on it forming a reichsapfel or tut, and indi- 
 cating, perhaps, that the officiating priests are Car- 
 thusians, since the tut was the badge of their order 
 (Herrig's Archiv, Ixvi. 269-70). It is possible, how- 
 ever, that the cross is intended to indicate a grave 
 in the cemetery, to which the fox is being borne. 
 
 The fact that the chapter of the cathedral caused 
 these sculptures to be chiseled off in 1685 is a con- 
 fession that they were thought to be directed, or 
 might, at least, be easily turned, against the papal 
 hierarchy. Also a Lutheran bookseller, who kept 
 woodcuts of them on sale, was condemned to stand 
 in his shirt and do penance for his offence in front 
 of the minster, and was then banished from the city. 
 
 Again, in Freiburg Minster (Breisgau), in a nar- 
 row passage leading from the south transept to 
 the choir, are reliefs belonging to the first half of 
 
190 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the twelfth century, and representing the wolfs 
 novitiate. The lupine candidate for a cloistral life 
 or for the clerical office is learning his letters from 
 a monk, who is seated on a faldstool with a peda- 
 gogue's baton consisting of a bundle of rods in his 
 hand. The dull pupil, who holds a pointer awk- 
 wardly in his right paw, has already reached the 
 third letter of the alphabet in his pursuit of know- 
 ledge, when the longing for lamb gets the better of 
 his love of learning, and he seizes a sheep of the 
 
 Novitiate of the Wolf. {Freiburg Minster.) 
 
 pastoral flock and endeavours to devour it. The 
 tonsured teacher applies the rod vigorously to the 
 back of the recreant novice, whose natural appetites 
 assert themselves and are not to be extinguished by 
 the capoch. These works of art delineate episodes 
 of the beast-epos, and correspond to the description 
 given by Marie de France of the wolfs attempt to 
 become a monk, being drawn to this pious vocation 
 by merry thoughts of fat living. Her poem might 
 be rendered into English as follows — 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 191 
 
 " There was once a priest who wished to see 
 If he could teach the wolf his ABC. 
 ' A,' said the priest ; the wolf said ' A,' 
 And grinned in a grim and guileful way. 
 ' B,' said the priest, 'and say it with me.' 
 ' B,' said the wolf, ' the letter I see.' 
 ' C,' said the priest, ' keep on just so.' 
 'C,' said the wolf. ' Don't be so slow,' 
 Remarked the priest ; ' come, go on now.' 
 And the wolf replied : ' I don't know ho\\-.' 
 ' Then see how it looks and spell it out.' 
 ' Lamb, lamb, it means without a doubt.' 
 ' Beware,' said the priest, ' or you'll get a blow, 
 For your mouth with your thoughts doth overflow.' 
 And thus it haps ofttimes to each, 
 That his secret thought is by his speech 
 Revealed, and, ere he is aware. 
 Is out of his lips and in the air." * 
 
 Near the wolf seizing the lamb is Samson in the 
 act of tearing open the jaws of a lion. The long 
 
 1 " Fable 80. — Uun prestre et d'ttn Ion. 
 
 " Une prestres volt jadis aprendre 
 I lou a letres fere entendre. 
 A dist li prestres. — A dist li leus 
 Qui mult est fel et engingneux. 
 B dist li prestres, di o moi. 
 B dist li leux, la letre voi. 
 C dist li prestres, di avant. 
 C dist li leus. Ail dont tant, 
 Respont li prestres, or di par toi. 
 Li leu respont : je ne sai coi. 
 Di que te semble, si espel. 
 Respont li leus : Aignel, aignel. 
 Li prestres dist : que verte touche ; 
 Tel on penser, tel en la bouche. 
 De pensons, le voit I'en souvent; 
 Ce dont il pensent durement. 
 Est par la bouche conneu. 
 Aingois que d'autre soit seu. 
 La bouche monstre le penser; 
 Tout doit ele de li parler." 
 
192 Animal Symbolism 
 
 hair of the Hebrew solar hero, which in the myth 
 is said to be the source of his strength, as the force 
 of the sun is in its rays, has caused this figure to 
 be mistaken for a woman, and interpreted as a 
 symbol of spiritual power overcoming brute force. 
 A similar sculpture adorns a console in the Stifts- 
 kirche at Stuttgart, a capital in the church of 
 Remagen in the Rhineland, and the outside of the 
 apsis of the old Romanic church at Schongrabern 
 in Lower Austria. Here Samson wears his hair in 
 a long braid. It may be found also on the portal 
 of the cathedral of St. Stephen's in Vienna, on an 
 altar in the monastery Klosterneuberg, on a stall 
 in the cathedral of Amiens, and on the capital of 
 a column in the church of St. Sauveur-de-Nevres, 
 where it bears the inscription : " Samson adest, 
 heros fortis." Indeed, it is very common in 
 mediaeval church edifices and on consecrated 
 vessels, and is sometimes associated with repre- 
 sentations of Christ's deliverance of the captive 
 spirits from hell, as in a painting in the vestibule 
 of Freiburg Minster. Another sculpture in this 
 minster shows a man contending against a grifiin, 
 which signifies the effort to overcome carnal 
 passion. So, too, the centaur, which will be more 
 fully considered hereafter, is the symbol of what 
 Paul calls the natural man, or homo animal, as it is 
 rendered in the Vulgate. 
 
 Flogel {Gescliichte dcr komischen Literatur, iii. 
 358) mentions a beautifully-embroidered cushion 
 of ;^the provost's chair in the collegiate church of 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 193 
 
 St. Michael at Pforzheim. The embroidery repre- 
 sents a wolf in monastic garb standing in a pulpit 
 and discoursing from an open book to a flock of 
 geese, which are devoutly listening and holding 
 each a rosary in its beak. The sacristan, who per- 
 forms the duties of goose-herd, is dressed in motley. 
 Out of the hood of the preacher projects the head 
 of a goose. A fox is lying in wait under the pulpit, 
 and round the wolf is embroidered the verse — 
 
 " Ich will euch wohl viel Fabeln sagen, 
 Bis ich fiihle alln ^ mein Kragen.'' 
 
 " Of fables to you I'll tell a deal, 
 Till in my maw I all may feel." 
 
 This cushion was purchased in 1 540 by Jacob Heer- 
 brand, Chancellor of the University of Tiibingen, 
 when he was sent with other theologians to promote 
 the cause of the Reformation in the Margravate 
 of Baden-Durlach, and was used by him against 
 the papacy in his polemical treatise, Refutatio 
 defensionis assert iomi in Jesu iticarum. 
 
 In this manner the whole beast-epos was diverted 
 from its original course, as a purely narrative poem, 
 into the turbulent and more or less filthy channel 
 of religious controversy. Thus a zealous champion 
 of Protestantism, John Bale, published at Zurich 
 in 1542, under the pseudonym of John Harryson, 
 a book entitled : " Yet a Course at the Romysche 
 foxe, a dysclosynge or openynge of the Manne of 
 Synne." Catholic defenders of the faith, too, were 
 
 ^ Alln = alle in. The sense is the same whether we read 
 Kragen (craw) or Ma^en (maw). 
 
 O 
 
194 Animal Symbolism 
 
 not slow in filling their quivers with arrows drawn 
 from the same exhaustless source. Not only the 
 printing-press, but also the walls and other parts 
 of sacred edifices were put to polemical purposes, 
 as, for example, in the chancel of St. Sernin at 
 Toulouse, where a fat hog in gown and bands dis- 
 coursing from a pulpit is styled Calvin le pore 
 preschant (" Calvin the pig preaching "). This is the 
 interpretation given to the carving and its legend 
 by M. de Montalembert ; but the clerical animal 
 is not cloven-hoofed, and resembles an ass rather 
 than a pig, and the inscription may read Calvin 
 le pere, since a nail driven into the second letter 
 of the third word has so defaced it as to render it 
 difficult to decipher. This work of art may, there- 
 fore, portray " Father Calvin " in the form of an 
 ass preaching heresies to his deluded disciples, one 
 of whom is kneeling before the sacred desk with 
 eyes devout and the palm of his hand on an open 
 book, as if appealing to Holy Writ in confirmation 
 of the doctrines proclaimed from the sacred desk. 
 In St. Victor's Church at Xanten on the Rhine is 
 an Eece Homo, dating from 1536, representing 
 Christ followed by a great rabble crying, " Crucify 
 Him ! " The leader of this bloodthirsty mob is 
 Martin Luther, who wears a pilgrim's scrip, on 
 which the head of a beast of prey takes the place 
 of the conventional cross and shell. Near him is 
 a man making grimaces by thrusting his finger into 
 his cheek, while another is throwing filth. 
 
 The reformers of the sixteenth century indulged 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 195 
 
 very freely in coarse caricatures of this sort, and 
 often outdid their adversaries in such expressions 
 of scorn. Thus Henry VIII. showed his contempt 
 of the Roman See by using for official purposes a 
 paper with the water-mark of a hog wearing a 
 tiara, just as the Republican parliament substituted 
 a fool's cap and bells for the King's arms on the 
 official paper of the realm ; hence the name which 
 the large folio paper used in law-offices and courts 
 of justice still bears. 
 
 One of the most noted of this class of productions 
 was the so-called Papstesel, or Papal Ass. This 
 monster has the form of a woman with the head 
 of an ass ; the left hand is that of a human being, 
 the right hand is an elephant's trunk, the rump is 
 the mask-like face of a man with long beard and 
 horns, and a serpentine neck ending in a dragon's 
 head ; one of the feet is an eagle's claw, and the 
 other an ox's hoof, and the body is covered with 
 scales like a fish. 
 
 This drawing has been commonly, but erroneously, 
 attributed to the elder Lucas Cranach, who may 
 have copied, but certainly did not create it. It is 
 also a mistake to suppose that it was intended 
 originally to ridicule the papacy. In December 
 1445 the city of Rome was devastated by an in- 
 undation of the Tiber, followed by famine and 
 pestilence. After the waters had subsided, this 
 strange carcass is said to have been found in the 
 deposit of the flood on the banks of the river, 
 and a full description of it is given in Malipiero's 
 
Animal Symbolism 
 
 Venetian annals.^ No contemporary writer seems 
 to have entertained the slightest doubt that the 
 remains of such an abnormal creature were actually- 
 discovered ; the only difference of opinion that 
 could possibly arise would be in regard to its origin 
 and significance, whether it was a work of God or 
 of Satan, and what it might forebode. 
 
 In the middle ages monstrosities and freaks of 
 nature were looked upon as dire portents, and 
 every marvellous phenomenon was deemed a sure 
 sign of the impending wrath of God. Not only 
 comets, eclipses, and other remarkable appearances 
 in the sky, but even any uncommon occurrence on 
 the earth, such as a fall of red snow, sufficed to fill 
 the hearts of men with chilling fear, and to freeze 
 the blood in their veins ; and the birth of a double- 
 headed calf or a deformed pig was a source of 
 terror to whole nations. The intellectual awaken- 
 ing, known as the revival of letters, tended to 
 confirm rather than to undermine the belief in the 
 existence of monstrosities, inasmuch as it cultivated 
 and diffused a literature all alive with centaurs, 
 fauns, satyrs, hippocamps, tritons, sirens, nereids, 
 sphinxes, griffins, dragons, minotaurs, and chimeras, 
 the reality of which no true humanist would think 
 
 1 Archivo Storico, vii. 422. Cf. Der Papstesel, ein Beitrag 
 sur Kultur- unci Kunstgeschichte des Re/ormationszeif alters, 
 von Konrad Lange, Gottingen, 1891. This monograph con- 
 tains the most thorough discussion of the subject hitherto 
 published, including a clear and consistent account of the 
 origin and character of this monstrous figment of the 
 imagination, and the symbolical and satirical purposes 
 which it was made to subserve. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 197 
 
 of calling in question, and the renascence of which 
 soon exerted a marked influence upon the decorative 
 arts. With a like faith begotten of enthusiasm, 
 scholars accepted the reports of Herodotus, the 
 father of history, and of Ktesias, the Munchausen 
 of classical antiquity, concerning goat-hoofed and 
 dog-headed men, one-legged giants, men with one 
 eye {iiionoculi — perhaps a primitive race of dudes), 
 men with eyes in their breasts, and others with 
 their heads beneath their shoulders, or without any 
 heads at all. It is not surprising, therefore, that 
 the sixteenth century, notwithstanding its superior 
 enlightenment and reputation for learning, should 
 have produced numerous and ponderous tomes de- 
 voted to the description and exposition of marvels 
 and monstrosities. Perhaps the most exhaustive 
 repertory of this kind is the Prodigioriim ac 
 ostentomni ChronicoTi of Lycosthenes (Wolfhart), 
 published at Bale in 1557. The author begins 
 with the serpent in Eden, " ante Christum 3959," 
 and gives a brief account, with rough woodcuts, 
 of every wonderful thing he had ever heard or 
 read of down to A.D. 1557, in a volume of six 
 hundred and seventy pages. In the Royal Library 
 of Munich there are two copies of this work, one 
 of which has a manuscript continuation of more 
 than fifty pages, bringing it down to 1677, with 
 many drawings in the style of the illustrations 
 contained in the printed book. To this is added 
 by a third chronicler, in French, the queer descrip- 
 tion of a spectral battle between three armies, said 
 
198 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 to have been fought in the clouds on February 25, 
 1696, and witnessed by more than two hundred 
 persons. In accordance with the current opinion 
 of their time, both Lycosthenes and the author 
 of the continuation interpret these phenomena as 
 tokens of the divine anger, and endeavour to 
 connect them with great physical disasters and 
 noteworthy historical events. 
 
 Shakespeare indicates the fascination which such 
 vulgar superstitions and tales of prodigies had for 
 the most refined and sensitive persons of an earlier 
 day, when he makes Othello beguile the gentle 
 Desdemona of her tears and win her heart by 
 discoursing about them. Not only the outlying 
 and unexplored regions of the 
 earth, but the sea also was pro- 
 lific of wonders, the most re- 
 markable of which was the so- 
 called bishop-fish {Episcopus 
 marinus) or sea-bishop {Meer- 
 bischof), a specimen of which is 
 said to have been caught in the 
 Baltic in 1433. It had a mitre 
 on its head, a crosier in its hand, 
 and wore a dalmatica. The 
 king of Poland wished to con- 
 fine it in a tower, but it stub- 
 bornly resisted this attempt on 
 its freedom, and by mute ges- 
 tures entreated its fellow-prelates, 
 the bishops of the realm, to whom it showed 
 
 Sea-bishop. 
 (Gessner's Fischbicck.) 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 199 
 
 special reverence, to let it return to its native 
 element. This request was finally granted, and, in 
 token of joy and gratitude, it made the sign of the 
 cross, and gave the episcopal benediction with its 
 fin, as it disappeared under the waves. Engravings 
 of this marine marvel were published in Gessner's 
 Fischbiich in 1575, in Schott's Physica Curiosa, and 
 in other works of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries. In 1531, according to Dutch chroniclers, 
 another bishop-fish was taken in the German Ocean, 
 and sent to the king of Poland, but it obstinately 
 refused to eat anything, and died on the third day 
 of its captivity. Gessner describes also the merman 
 {Homus marinus) and the mermonk {Monachus 
 vtafinus), said to have been taken in the Baltic, 
 the British Channel, in the Red Sea, and on the 
 coast of Dalmatia. Evidently we have here to do 
 with some of the numerous species of seals seen 
 through the magnifying and distorting medium of 
 religious superstition. The Jesuit Gaspar Schott, 
 in the above-mentioned work, a volume of nearly 
 fourteen hundred pages, discusses all sorts of 
 monsters and marvels real and imaginary, demons, 
 spooks, deformed men, energumens, birds, abnormi- 
 ties of land and sea, and portents of earth and 
 sky, showing the material, efficient, and final causes 
 of such phenomena. All these strange forms were 
 supposed to be special creations or manifestations 
 having a profound spiritual significance, and bear- 
 ing peculiar relations to the Church, which drew 
 them into its pale, and put them to decorative and 
 
200 Animal Symbolism 
 
 didactic uses in ecclesiastical architecture, as, for 
 example, in the rose-window of the south transept 
 of the cathedral of Lausanne, dating from the 
 thirteenth century. 
 
 Whatever may have been the origin of the 
 Roman monster, whether the story arose from the 
 fortuitous concurrence of parts of men and of 
 beasts that had perished in the flood, or was the 
 trick of some wag, whose love of a joke could not 
 be repressed by the horrors of the situation, or was 
 a mere invention of the imagination excited by 
 fear, there is no doubt that drawings of it were 
 made soon after its supposed discovery. The 
 earliest known representation of it in art is a relief 
 on the north door of the cathedral of Como, 
 sculptured by the brothers Jacob and Thomas 
 Rodari about the year 1497.-^ As a satire on the 
 see of Rome it would certainly not have found a 
 place in a Catholic church at that time ; but as a 
 divine admonition and warning, and especially as 
 a symbol of the woes of inundation, foreign in- 
 vasion, famine, and pestilence, by which the States 
 of the Church and Italy were then sorely afflicted, 
 such a carving, however offensive to the taste of 
 the present day, would have been considered 
 perfectly appropriate and even highly edifying. 
 
 If, as Lange assumes, the strange figure was 
 
 ^ This door is popularly known &s porta della rana, from 
 the carving of a frog snapping at an insect. The frog, 
 according to the Physiologus, is a type of those who snatch 
 at the fleeting pleasures of this world. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 201 
 
 simply an allegory of the city of Rome, it would 
 naturally be portrayed as a female ; the ass's head 
 would signify subjugation and servitude ; the 
 elephant's proboscis would indicate the pest of 
 syphilis, then confounded with elephantiasis, which 
 
 Papal Ass. {Cathedral of Como.) 
 
 the Spaniards had introduced into Naples from 
 the New World, and the French troops had brought 
 with them to Rome ; the eagle's claw would repre- 
 sent the rapacity of Charles VIII.; the ox's hoof 
 would refer to Alexander VI., whose coat-of-arms 
 was an ox, and who kept his footing in the Vatican 
 
202 Animal Symbolism 
 
 only by sharing his power with the French king, 
 while the scaly skin would suggest the devastating 
 overflow of the Tiber. 
 
 About this time, however, the dissoluteness of 
 the Roman pontiff, and the scandalous conduct of 
 his mistresses and his children, began to excite the 
 attention and to provoke the censure of the public 
 to such a degree, that there would be a general 
 tendency to interpret the monster, not perhaps as 
 a symbol of the institution of the papacy, but as a 
 satire on the licentious occupant of the apostolic 
 see, and a warning from God against the evil 
 doings of the Vicar of Christ. 
 
 Somewhat later, probably about the )-ear 1 500, it 
 was engraved on copper by the goldsmith Wenzel 
 of Olmutz, and seems to have been accepted by 
 the Moravians as emblematic of the Romish hier- 
 archy, and used as a means of anti-papal agitation. 
 It next appears as a woodcut in Melanchthon's 
 Figur des Antichristlichen Bapsts vnd seiner 
 Synagog, published in 1523, and again in the same 
 year in his and Luther's joint work entitled, Deutung 
 der czwo grewlicJien Figuren Bapstesels czu Rom, 
 vnd Munchkalbs zii Freyberg ynn Meysszen fiinden. 
 A new and improved edition of Melanchthon's 
 exposition of the Papstesel was printed at Witten- 
 berg in 1535, and endorsed with Luther's "Amen." 
 It also appears as Plate II. in Luther's Abbildiing 
 des Bapstum (Wittenberg, 1545), a series of coarse 
 and positively indecent woodcuts, probably the 
 work of Lucas Cranach, with explanatory doggerel 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 203 
 
 verses. In a letter of June 3, 1545, to Nicholas 
 von Amsdorf, first Protestant bishop of Raumburg, 
 the Reformer writes : " Your nephew George showed 
 me a picture of the pope," adding by way of 
 comment, and evidently with a chuckle of delight, 
 "but Master Lucas is ein grober Maler ;" and in a 
 letter of June 1 5 to the same friend he remarks : 
 " I shall endeavour to have Lucas the painter 
 exchange this foul picture for a more proper one." 
 The reference here is not to the Papstesel, but to 
 Plate I., entitled, Ortus et origo Papce (" Rise and 
 Origin of the Pope "), and representing his Holiness 
 as the excrements of a ghastly, grinning monster. 
 The infant pontiff, thus born in corruption, is reared 
 by the Furies, Alecto rocking his cradle, Megaera 
 acting as his wet-nurse, and Tisiphone holding him 
 in leading strings. It is evident from the descriptive 
 rhymes accompanying these drawings that Luther 
 fully entered into the spirit of the artist's con- 
 ceptions, and heartily enjoyed their coarse humour. 
 His seeming censure of the "gross painter" and 
 the "foul picture," and the expression of his intention 
 of having a more decent delineation substituted 
 for it, must be taken ironically, and may have been 
 called forth by some criticism of his correspondent. 
 The " Munchkalb " (monk-calf), the second of the 
 monsters delineated and discussed in the Interpret- 
 ation of two grewsome Figures already cited, was 
 reported to have been taken from a cow in a public 
 slaughter-house at Freiburg, December 12, 1522, 
 and to have had a round, flabby, and mis-shapen 
 
204 Animal Symbolism 
 
 head with a tonsure, on which were two large warts 
 or wens. The chin was that of a man ; the nose, 
 ears, and upper jaw were those of a calf; the hide 
 hung in folds between the shoulders, like a monk's 
 cowl, and had slits in the hind legs, like the slashes 
 in old costumes. This hideous creature was inter- 
 preted by Luther as a symbol of the stupidity 
 and beastliness of the monastic orders, although 
 Melanchthon afterwards discovered in it a different 
 signification, explaining it as portending the ex- 
 cesses of the reformatory movement that revealed 
 themselves in iconoclastic outrages and the horrors 
 of the Peasants' War, which broke out three years 
 later. It is an interesting fact that one of the 
 earliest explications of it was given by a Bohemian 
 astrologer in Prague, who saw in it a condemnation 
 of the heresy and apostasy of Luther, the renegade 
 monk. A similar view is taken by Cochlaeus, 
 Emser, and other Catholic controversialists, and in 
 a treatise on monsters from the time of Constantine 
 to the year 1 570 by the French theologian Sorbinus,^ 
 the causal connection between the birth of such 
 creatures and some form of schism in the body of 
 Christ, or some sacrilegious assault upon the ortho- 
 dox faith, is shown to the satisfaction of every true 
 believer. 
 
 In the City Library of Lyons is the manuscript 
 of a poem entitled De Tristibiis G allies (" Woes 
 of France "), with miniature paintings of a satirical 
 
 ^ Arnoldi Sorbini Tholosanorufn theologi et regit ecclesi- 
 asicc Tractatus de vionstris^ etc. Paris, 1570. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 20 ij 
 
 character directed against the sectaries and schis- 
 matics, who are represented as abasing and pillaging 
 the land. A lion, the symbol of France, is ridden 
 by an ape, which bears a sack full of spoils, pro- 
 bably taken from churches and cloisters ; another 
 ape has tied a priest's vestment to the lion's hind 
 leg ; a third holds the king of beasts ignominiously 
 by the tail, while a fourth confronts the lion with a 
 halberd. Several apes are listening to a sermon 
 delivered by a field-preacher ; others are evidently 
 applying the teachings of the itinerant evangelist 
 by plundering consecrated places and insulting a 
 crucifix. 
 
 The woes of France, resulting from Panama scan- 
 dals, which in our day are the sensational theme of 
 the journalist's pen, would have been delineated in 
 the middle ages quite as vividly and truthfully, and 
 far more pleasingly, by the artist's pencil. 
 
 As the fox not only holds a prominent place in 
 the Physiologiis, but is also 
 the protagonist of the beast- 
 epos, it is natural that this 
 animal should figure con- 
 spicuously in pictorial and 
 plastic art, and become, from _v: '^-«gs^^ ^j.^ j^'^-j 
 the very nature of its charac- The wiies of the fox. 
 
 teristics, a favourite vehicle iBesuary.) 
 
 of satire. The oldest of these representations are 
 based upon the Physiologus, in which it is stated 
 that " when the fox is hungry, it lies down in a 
 furrow of the field and covers itself partly with 
 
2o6 Animal Symbolism 
 
 earth, as though it had been long dead. Then the 
 ravens and other rapacious birds come to devour 
 it, when it suddenly leaps up and tears them in 
 pieces. Thus the devil deceives those who love 
 the corrupt things of this world and obey the lusts 
 of the flesh, and entices them to their own destruc- 
 tion." " He who tells idle tales and indulges in 
 carnal pleasures," adds an old English bestiary, 
 " pecks at the skin of the fox and tears its flesh, 
 but the devil requites the sinner by seizing him and 
 dragging him down to murky hell. The devil and 
 the reprobate are crafty like the fox, and deserve 
 shame. He who speaks fair words and meditates 
 evil is a fox ; such a one was Herod, for he said 
 that he would believe on Christ, when he really meant 
 to kill Him." 
 
 In the church of St. Fiacre, near Le Faouet, in 
 the department of Morbihan, formerly a portion of 
 Brittany, are wood-carvings on the richly-orna- 
 mented rood-loft portraying these wiles of the fox, 
 which in the first scene is lying on its back with 
 protruding tongue and apparently dead ; instead of 
 carrion-crows, as elsewhere, a cock and several in- 
 quisitive hens are pecking at different parts of its 
 body. In the second scene the fox has sprung up 
 and caught one of them by the neck. 
 
 There are similar reliefs on the abacus of a 
 column in the cathedral of Tarragona in Spain. 
 On the opposite side of the abacus are sculptures of 
 what Meissner (Herrig's Archiv, Ixv. 214) calls 
 the burial of the cat, but which would seem rather 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 207 
 
 to represent the carrying of the cat to execution. 
 Tabby lies on a litter, which might be mistaken for 
 a bier, but is really a stretcher used instead of a 
 hangman's cart, borne by rats and mice, and pre- 
 ceded by a long procession of these rodents with 
 banners, vessels of holy water, aspergills, crosiers, 
 censers. The executioner, a rat bearing an axe, 
 marches with the full consciousness of his official 
 dignity under the litter. This stately pageant is 
 
 Execution of the Cat. {Cailicdral of Tarragona, Spain.') 
 
 followed by a more lively spectacle : the cat springs 
 up and catches a rat, while the rest of the solemn 
 assembly disperse in all directions, leaving the 
 sacred utensils and the pompous paraphernalia of 
 the panic-stricken procession scattered on the 
 ground. The presence of the rat as headsman in- 
 dicates that the execution is about to take place ; 
 if it had already occurred and the " master of high 
 works " {tnaitre des hautes-cezivres, as the French 
 were wont to style this important functionary) had 
 
2o8 Animal Symbolism 
 
 done his duty, it would be hard to imagine the 
 decapitated culprit coming to life again. ^ 
 
 Returning to St. Fiacre, we find in that quaint 
 church a third relief of a fox lurking behind some 
 bushes, from which a cock and three hens are 
 picking snails. Still farther in the background is 
 a second fox wearing a cowl and standing in a 
 sort of framework or enclosure, which Champfleury 
 calls a donjon, but Meissner with greater proba- 
 
 Fox ensnaring Fowls. [Church of St. Fiacre, Le Faouei. 
 
 bility assumes to be a pulpit. Here we have, instead 
 of the fox of the Physiologus, the chicken-stealing 
 and sanctimonious Reynard of the mediaeval epic. 
 
 Another relief in the same church represents a 
 man seated on a bench and steadying with his left 
 hand a wine-cask, which rests on his knee. In his 
 teeth he holds a fox by the tip of the tail, the half- 
 flayed body of which hangs between his legs. 
 Champfleury explains this sculpture as a figurative 
 illustration of the phrase ecorcher le renard (" flay 
 the fox "), i. e. suffer from what the Germans call 
 
 1 Vide article on " Odo de Ceringtonia " in Herrig's Archiv, 
 Ixiv. In a work entitled Gothic Archiiecture in Spain., bv 
 George Edmond Street, is an engraving of this piece of 
 sculpture. Odo of Sherington's Book of Fables was trans- 
 lated into Spanish under t he title of Libro de los Gates, of 
 which a German version by Kunst has been published in 
 Lemcke's Jahrbiich, vi. Cf Voight's Kleinere Denkmdler der 
 Thiersage, 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 209 
 
 Flaying the Fox. 
 (Si. Fiacre, Le Faouet.) 
 
 Katzenjammer, or the after-effects of a drunken 
 debauch. In a word, it teaches a moral lesson 
 by a drastic exhibition of the 
 woes of inebriety. Rabelais de- 
 scribes Gargantua as a person 
 who was wont to " flay the fox," 
 and the common people of France 
 still use the phrase piqiier un 
 renard (" prick a fox ") in the 
 same sense. Pepys records in 
 his Diary on one occasion : " I 
 drank so much wine that I was 
 even almost foxed." Wine or 
 beer that sours in fermenting is 
 said " to fox " or to be " foxy," 
 because it goes to the head, and by deranging the 
 stomach acts as an emetic. 
 
 On the capital of a column in the cathedral at 
 Autun is chiselled the scene in which the crane 
 extracts a bone from the fox's throat. Here the 
 artist clothes the fable with a symbolical signifi- 
 cance derived from the Physiologiis and the bestiaries, 
 in which the fox typifies the devil, and the crane is 
 an emblem of Christian care and vigilance, ever 
 active in saving souls from the jaws of hell. In 
 this case, the crane must be imagined as coming 
 to the rescue, not of the fox, but of the bone. 
 
 " The fox," says the Physiologus, " injures the 
 earth by burrowing in it ; the earth signifies man, 
 who should bring forth the fruits of righteousness ; 
 sin is the hole, which the devil digs and thereby 
 
2IO Animal Symbolism 
 
 causes these fruits to wither away. As the wise 
 king saith : ' Take us the foxes, the little foxes that 
 spoil the vines ; for our vines have tender grapes.' 
 David also spoke of becoming * a portion of foxes ' ; 
 and our Saviour bore the same testimony when He 
 said : ' The foxes have holes.' " 
 
 This teaching is embodied in a carving on a 
 miserere in the celebrated Worcester Cathedral, 
 which shows foxes running in and out of holes ; 
 opposite this populous kennel stands John the 
 Evangelist with his gospel in his hand and an 
 eagle at his feet. Here the foxes are types of the 
 devil, and the beholder is called upon to choose 
 between the wily adversary and the herald of 
 divine truth. Sometimes all four evangelists, or 
 Christ alone, are thus set in opposition to the 
 vulpine devils. Foxes in cowls are the itinerant 
 friars, who were feared and hated by the secular 
 clergy on account of their restless and innovating 
 spirit and propensity to religious agitation, which 
 disturbed the peace of the Church, and the comfort 
 of the holders of high dignities, and the incumbents 
 of fat benefices. The privileges conferred upon 
 the mendicant orders by Innocent HI, and his 
 successors, the reputation which many of their 
 members justly acquired for scholarship, and the 
 eminence they attained as professors at the uni- 
 versities, excited the envy of the great body of 
 ecclesiastics. It was their severely reformatory 
 aim and exposure of established abuses, not less 
 than their arrogance in the garb of poverty, that 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 211 
 
 made them the objects of hatred and the subjects 
 of satire. 
 
 The following may serve as fair specimens of the 
 manner in which the exploits of the fox are 
 delineated in various European churches, and the 
 spiritual or satirical uses to which they are put.^ 
 In the Maison des Templiers, formerly connected 
 with the neighbouring church of the Templars 
 in Metz, and probably used as a refectory, are 
 traces of a painting of the thirteenth century por- 
 traying about thirty animals, to which the fox 
 is preaching from a pulpit. Among Reynard's 
 auditors are the bear, the ape, the he-goat, the 
 griffin, the cock, the hare, the stork, the sow, and 
 the cat, which are either holding prayer-books or 
 psalters, or singing hymns from sheets of music, 
 while the unicorn plays the bagpipe, and the ass 
 performs on the harp. A little apart, with its 
 back turned towards these worshippers, is another 
 fox, in the act of receiving the chalice from a stag, 
 while a third fox, dressed as a pilgrim, greets a 
 leopard in passing. In the background stands a 
 tent, in which a dead animal, probably a calf, is 
 lying. 
 
 In the church of St. Denis at Amboise, two 
 foxes with pilgrim's staff and scrip are witnessing 
 the slaughter of the innocents, doubtless in allusion 
 to Herod, whom Christ called " that fox." The 
 frequency with which the fox appears in the garb 
 
 ' Cf. Meissner's contributions to Herrig's Archiv, Ixv., et 
 alias. 
 
2 1 2 Animal Symbolism 
 
 of a pilgrim is a satire on the craftiness and deceit- 
 fulness of this class of pious vagrants, who were 
 morally about on a level with the modern tramp. 
 This is especially true of the professional pilgrim 
 or palmer, who passed his life in perpetual vaga- 
 bondage, and was to all intents and purposes a 
 mediaeval tramp. It is not merely an accidental 
 coincidence that palmer became a synonym for 
 swindler, and that the most voracious and devas- 
 tating of caterpillars was called palmer-worm, but 
 showed the popular appreciation of the " votarist 
 in palmer's weed." 
 
 On a stall in the cathedral of Amiens is carved 
 a fox preaching to a flock of domestic fowls. The 
 pulpit is in the form of a tray, and the preacher is 
 reaching over the edge, as if zealously expounding 
 the Scriptures, but really for the purpose of seizing 
 a hen, whose devout interest in the sermon has 
 brought her into dangerous proximity to the eager- 
 eyed and rapacious gospeller. Again, on the 
 exterior of Canterbury Cathedral are bas-reliefs 
 representing a fox in monastic habit discoursing to 
 a solemn assembly of geese. 
 
 On the underside of the seat of a faldstool in the 
 choir of Sherborne Minster is a carving of the 
 fox on the gallows, with four geese acting as hang- 
 men, and a monk standing on either side of it with 
 a book in his hand. Also on the church of St. 
 Michael in Bruges is a stone sculpture, formerly 
 the tympanum or facing of a pediment over the 
 portal of the collegiate church of St. Ursin, repre- 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 
 
 213 
 
 senting a cock and hen hauling a fox on a cart to 
 the place of execution, and preceded by a bear 
 with a ball or globe at his feet, evidently the priest 
 who is to minister spiritual comfort to the culprit 
 in his last moments. The fox has anything but a 
 penitent air; on the contrary, he seems to take 
 
 Cock and Hen drawing Fox to execution. (St. Ursin, Bruges.) 
 
 quite a cheerful view of the situation, and his sly- 
 look implies an intention to play his executioners 
 some trick before reaching the scaffold. He tries 
 to assume a long face as he journeys towards his 
 long home, but the real state of his mind is betrayed 
 by the merry twinkle of his eye. It is the incident 
 so humorously described by the poet of Cham- 
 pagne — 
 
 " Renard s'en allait tristement 
 S'emparer de son dernier gite ; 
 Canteclair s'en allait gaiement ■ 
 
 Enterrer son mort au plus vite. 
 Notre ddfunt etait en carrosse portd, 
 
 Bien et dument empaquet^ 
 Et vetu d'une robe, helas ! qu'on nomme biere : 
 
 Robe d'hiver, robe d'^td, 
 Que les morts ne depouillent guere." 
 
 The stalls of Bristol Cathedral are adorned with 
 a series of grotesques, which depict the trial of 
 
214 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the fox as described in the beast-epos. First we 
 have a man riding on a bear towards the fox, who 
 is peeping from behind a tree; this is Bruin, the 
 royal messenger, coming to summon Reynard to 
 appear before the king and answer for his crimes. 
 In the next scene Bruin is caught in the cleft of 
 the log through his greediness for honey, and 
 .severely beaten by boors with cudgels. Thirdly, 
 Reynard is sentenced to be hanged, and the 
 necessary preparations are made for the imposing 
 execution of the death-warrant. King Noble and 
 his royal spouse are seated on their respective 
 thrones ; the bear, the wolf, and the goose are 
 helping the condemned up the fatal ladder with 
 undisguised pleasure, while the squirrel sits on the 
 top of the gallows-tree and pulls a rope attached 
 to the poor sinner's neck. Then follows the 
 mousing adventure of Tybert, the cat in the house 
 of the priest, in portraying which the artist has 
 adhered quite closely to the description of the 
 exciting incident given by the poet, so that his 
 work bears a striking resemblance to Kaulbach's 
 well-known sketch. The cat, in desperate self- 
 defence, scratches the priest in a very sensitive part 
 of his body, to the great horror of his housekeeper, 
 or, maybe, his wife (for at that time sacerdotal 
 celibacy had not become imperative, and was by 
 no means universal in the Catholic Church), who 
 pulls the sacrilegious depredator violently by the 
 tail, while the malicious instigator of all this 
 trouble stands in a corner and laughs. Reynard 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 215 
 
 appears next in a monk's hood, standing in a 
 pulpit and preaching to several geese, that stretch 
 out their long necks and listen with a peculiar 
 expression of mingled solemnity and sentimentality 
 to the seductive orator. Again the irrepressible 
 proclivity of the hypocritical homilist to overreach 
 some tender member of his flock brings him from 
 the sacred desk to the scaffold, where he is seen 
 dangling from the cross-beam of a gallows, a 
 number of his former auditors holding the rope, 
 and one of them tugging at the scoundrel's tail in 
 order to hasten the process of strangulation, while 
 another is perched on the top of the gallows, 
 cackling for joy and flapping her wings in triumph. 
 A woman, doubtless Reynard's wife. Dame Her- 
 melin, riding on a mule and probably returning 
 from her husband's trial, is the subject of the 
 seventh carving ; on one side is a house, evidently 
 Malepartus, with Reynard looking warily out of 
 the door, and a dove-cot with several doves in it. 
 In the eighth scene the bear and the wolf are 
 dancing to the music of a drum beaten by an ape, 
 thus showing their gladness at the condemnation 
 of their common enemy. There were originally 
 other carvings of incidents mentioned in the 
 poem, but they have been partially destroyed, and 
 those still preserved have been renovated and re-ar- 
 ranged without the slightest regard to their logical 
 or chronological sequence. The general resem- 
 blance to Kaulbach's illustrations of Reineke Fuclts 
 is due, as already intimated, to the fact that 
 
2i6 Animal Symbolism 
 
 they both faithfully depict episodes of the same 
 epos. 
 
 In this cathedral are also comical carvings of 
 incidents derived from other poems and popular 
 tales, as, for example, that of an abbot riding back- 
 ward on an ass and holding the tail of his steed in 
 his hand in the manner described in Burger's ballad, 
 where the emperor says to the round, fat, oily 
 abbot of St. Gall— 
 
 " So lass' ich Euch fiihren zu Esel durch's Land, 
 Verkehrt, statt des Zaumes den Schwanz in der Hand." 
 
 " Bestriding an ass you shall ride through the land, 
 With the tail instead of the reins in your hand." 
 
 Another series of wood-carvings are the follow- 
 ing more or less fanciful delineations of the artist, 
 although some represent scenes from the French 
 versions of the beast-epos : — 
 
 I. A chained and muzzled bear with a ring in 
 its nose ; on either side a fox looking out slyly from 
 behind a tree, and two labourers with wheel-barrows. 
 
 II. A naked man armed with a sword, and 
 attacked by two animals resembling a bear and 
 a wolf; on the right side the nude buttocks of a 
 man, recalling the episode in the fourteenth branch 
 of the Roman de Renart : " De I'ours et du lou et 
 du Vilains, qui monstrerent lor cus " — 
 
 " Trestuit trois nos cus mostrerrons, 
 Et cil qui graignor cul aura 
 Le bacon tout emportera." — (xiv. 7087 sqq) 
 
 III. A snail creeping up a mountain and driven 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 217 
 
 by a monk ; at a little distance a knight watching 
 the performance. In the Roman de Renart the 
 snail holds the responsible office of gonfalonier, 
 and bears the royal standard — 
 
 " Le Rois Tardins le limagon 
 Bailla le roial gonfanon, 
 Et li commanda I'avant-garde, 
 Et le lupart I'arriere-g'arde." — (3511-14.) 
 
 But there is no such incident in the Reynardine 
 poems as that portrayed here; Gautier de Coinsi, 
 however, mentions the snail as one of the animals 
 which served to adorn consecrated edifices — 
 
 " Plus delitont sont si fait conte 
 As bones gens par Saint-Omer, 
 Que de Renart ne de Roumer, 
 Ne de Tardin le limagon." 
 
 In Renart le Noiivel it is the snail, as chief en- 
 sign bearer, that scales the walls of Malepartus, 
 after Reynard has escaped by a secret passage, 
 and plants the banner of the king upon the battle- 
 ments — 
 
 " Es-vous Tardins le limacon 
 Ki dist que par tans le sara, 
 As Murs s'ahiert, amont rampa 
 Nului n'i vit, jus descendi, 
 A le porte vint, si I'ouvri ; 
 Mais ains mist le roial baniere 
 Ens en le maistre tour de piere 
 En signe pris est li castiaus. 
 Au Roi Noble est cis signes briaus." — (4214-22.) 
 
 In a Roman Catholic prayer-book {Livre 
 (THeures) of the thirteenth century there is a 
 
2i8 Animal Symbolism 
 
 miniature painting of a man in the act of shooting 
 a snail with an arbaHst or cross-bow. The snail is 
 sitting erect on an arabesque resembling a vine. 
 M. de Bastard thinks the snail is a symbol of Christ 
 and the resurrection; but if this interpretation be 
 correct, it is difficult to understand the signification 
 of the cross-bowman. In another large picture of 
 the fifteenth century we see a crowd of people, 
 among them one woman, attacking a snail with 
 swords and staves, and crying out in the words of 
 the inscription — 
 
 " Vuide ce lieu, tres orde beste, 
 Qui des vignes les bourgeons mange." 
 
 " Quit this place, you filthy beast, 
 That eats the fresh buds of the vine." 
 
 The Church, as we have shown in a volume 
 entitled The Criminal Prosecution and Capital 
 Punishment of Animals, claimed and exercised the 
 power of expelling bugs and slugs and noxious 
 insects from the vineyards and cultivated fields by 
 anathematizing them, after they had been formally 
 tried and condemned ; and it is this function of the 
 papal hierarchy that the two delineations above- 
 mentioned are intended to illustrate. It is not 
 necessary to seek in them a more recondite sym- 
 bolism or theological meaning. 
 
 IV. Two men mounted, one on a goose and the 
 other on a hog, and each armed with a spear ; 
 probably the caricature of a tournament. 
 
 V. A pedlar thrown down and plundered by 
 apes, which are taking the wares out of his pack. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 219 
 
 VI. An ape as doctor examining a bottle of 
 urine. 
 
 VII. An ape playing on a lute, an instrument 
 whose " lascivious pleasing " was associated with 
 amorous delights and gallant intrigues. 
 
 VIII. An ape sitting astride an ass, which a 
 boor is holding by the tail and belabouring with a 
 cudgel. 
 
 These carvings belong probably to the end of the 
 fifteenth century. The stone sculptures in the 
 " Elder Lady Chapel " are much older, and date 
 from the early part of the thirteenth century ; the 
 fox, as was its wont, is running off with a goose ; 
 an ape and a ram are performing on sylvan pipes ; 
 another ape is playing on a syrinx and carrying a 
 hare on its back. 
 
 Although such representations may have been 
 inventions of the artist, It is hardly possible that 
 they should have been placed in the church without 
 the will and consent of the ecclesiastical authorities, 
 whose intention was evidently to censure by 
 burlesquing the vices and foibles of their day. But 
 what must be regarded as most curious and 
 characteristic is, that satirical and often necessarily 
 obscene delineations of this kind, although designed 
 for moral reproof and correction, should have been 
 deemed suitable decorations cf sacred architecture. 
 That they sometimes made " the judicious grieve " 
 we have already seen ; but it is plain that they must 
 have been sanctioned by the majority of the clergy 
 and generally approved by the devout laity. 
 
.220 Animal Symbolism 
 
 In Beverly Minster the misereres of the stalls 
 in the choir are adorned with carvings of animals, 
 in which the adventures of the fox as an itinerant 
 preacher are more fully delineated than in any 
 other ecclesiastical edifice. During the middle 
 ages, Beverly or Inderawood, as it was originally 
 called, was a popular place of pilgrimage, where 
 the bones of St John of Beverly, who was Arch- 
 bishop of York in the eighth century, and canonized 
 by Benedict IX. in 1037, were revered by pious 
 multitudes of all classes, that thronged to this 
 shrine from every part of England. Even after 
 the Reformation Beverly remained a stronghold of 
 Catholicism, and the chief centre of reactionary 
 movements. 
 
 The carvings in question were the work of 
 " Johannes Wake clericus," whose escutcheon was 
 a crowing cock (Wake !) ; this chanticleer may have 
 been, however, a pictorial pun or heraldic rebus, a 
 mere canting device, and not necessarily a family 
 coat-of-arms. They were made in the very year 
 (1530) in which Luther burned the papal bull at 
 Wittenberg, and were directed, not against the 
 secular clergy, to which Wake himself belonged, 
 but against the mendicant orders, and especially 
 against the Black Friars (Dominicans) and Gray 
 Friars (Franciscans), then exceedingly active as 
 predicants in Beverly. These restless and irritating 
 elements in the sleek and comfortable sacerdotal 
 body were perpetual thorns in the flesh to the 
 conservative dignitaries of the Church, who regarded 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 221 
 
 them with quite as deep aversion as they did the 
 heretical Protestants themselves. The following 
 are the subjects of the carvings : — ■ 
 
 I. A fox running away with a goose and pursued 
 by a man. 
 
 II. A fox in a monk's habit preaching to a flock 
 of geese ; behind the exhorter is an ape that seizes 
 every goose within his reach, throwing it over his 
 shoulder and holding it by the neck ; several of 
 them are already hanging in this position. 
 
 III. The fox is being hanged by geese, six of 
 them tugging at the rope as executioners, and two 
 standing by as spectators. To this carving there 
 are two pendants or side-views ; in one the fox is 
 lying apparently dead under the gallows, and an 
 ape is removing the noose from the culprit's neck ; 
 in the other the resuscitated rascal has fallen upon 
 the sleeping geese and carried off two of them. 
 
 IV. The fox steals a goose ; the cries of the 
 other geese attract the attention of an old woman, 
 who rushes out of the house, but comes too late to 
 prevent the robbery. 
 
 V. A man pursues a fox with dogs, but the wily 
 quarry is already safe in its hole and peeping out 
 with a crafty look. A side-scene shows Reynard 
 in bed, suffering doubtless from indigestion caused 
 by over-indulgence in fat poultry. 
 
 VI. A fox-hunt with hounds. 
 
 VII. Three peasants are hauling a cart with a 
 fox lying on it, evidently a representation of 
 Reynard's trick of pretending to be dead, and being 
 
222 Animal Symbolism 
 
 picked up and thrown on the cart, where the fish, 
 with which it is laden, can be eaten at leisure. 
 
 Besides these episodes from the beast-epos, there 
 are many purely grotesque carvings or scenes 
 intended to enforce moral lessons or to illustrate 
 the wisdom of homely proverbs ; a cat playing the 
 fiddle for dancing mice, which she sports with and 
 finally eats ; an elephant with a howdah ; a dance of 
 death with two men in motley ; a man putting his 
 cart before the horse, and another threshing eggs 
 with a flail ; a woman pulling a man by the hair ; 
 an animal eating out of a narrow-necked vessel, in 
 which its head is stuck fast ; a boar-hunt ; a stag- 
 hunt ; an owl surrounded by small birds ; a lion 
 with its paw on a woman's head ; a boar playing 
 the bagpipe and another the harp, young pigs 
 dancing, and an ape on horseback leading three 
 muzzled bears by chains; a pedlar plundered by 
 apes ; an ape as doctor examining a flask of urine ; 
 an ape dandling an infant ; a miser hoarding his 
 money, while the devil seizes him from behind ; a 
 drunkard holding a goblet and clutched by a demon, 
 and finally several canting arms of canons, such as 
 cocks fighting on a tun (Cockton), persons placing 
 weights on scales (Witton, i.e. Weight on), a 
 crowing cock (Wake), and other equally far-fetched 
 rebuses. 
 
 In the church of St. Mary in Beverly are still 
 older carvings of a like character : two capoched 
 foxes at a lectern reading scripture-lessons ; a fox 
 as friar preaching; a fox engaged in a medical 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 223 
 
 diagnosis as above ; foxes with crosiers, and each 
 with a goose in its hood ; and a man riding a goat 
 with a rabbit under his arm. The dress of the 
 foxes shows them to be Cistercians. 
 
 On the stalls of the choir in Lincoln Cathedral 
 are somewhat similar wood-carvings dating from 
 the fourteenth century : two apes bearing a young 
 ape on a bier, and stopping to pray before a chapel 
 or shrine ; a crane dropping stones into a bottle in 
 order to make the water rise within reach ; and the 
 devil blowing a fire with a bellows and boiling a 
 kettle, out of which emerges a man wearing a tiara. 
 This is probably a satire on the election of a pope. 
 
 In Ely Cathedral we find a fox preaching to 
 geese ; the vulpine divine wears an almuce and 
 stole, and holds a bishop's crook in the left hand ; 
 in the right hand is a scroll, with the v/ords already 
 quoted from a similar representation on the window 
 of St. Martin's Church in Leicester : " Testis est 
 mihi Deus quam cupiam vos visceribus mcis.'' 
 Another fox is running off with a goose, and is 
 pursued by an old woman with a distaff. There 
 are also carvings of squirrels, symbols of the con- 
 stant strivings of the Holy Spirit ; apes ; a hunt ; 
 a hart trampling on a serpent, typifying Christ 
 subduing Satan by the waters of salvation ; two 
 men playing dice and drinking, and a woman stand- 
 ing near and weeping over a broken bee-hive fallen 
 to the ground, a moral discourse on drunkenness 
 as subversive of domestic happiness and thrift. 
 
 Carvings of a like character decorate the 
 
2 24 Animal Symbolism 
 
 cathedrals of Gloucester and Winchester, and 
 satirize the same religious fraternities. Indeed 
 they existed formerly in nearly all the principal 
 English churches and priories, adorning usually the 
 stalls of the choir, the lectern, or the organ-loft. 
 At a later period, when the Reformation began to 
 be an earnest movement intensively and extensively, 
 and interpreted these works as deriding the offices 
 of the Church and scoffing at the clergy, the very 
 persons to whom they owed their origin, they were 
 in many cases destroyed, as, for example, in the 
 fine old Gothic cathedral at Chester. 
 
 In the collegiate church of St. Victor, at Xanten 
 on the Rhine, are carvings on the backs of the stalls 
 of the choir, in which the begging friars are figured 
 as a monster with the body and feet of a pig, the 
 tail of a fox, and the head of a cowled monk. It 
 is a piece of symbolism recalling the portentous 
 porco sacerdos mentioned by Lycosthenes (p. 529), 
 and embodying in plastic form the opinion ex- 
 pressed by Innocent III., who, as a man of learn- 
 ing and lover of the nicer elegancies of life, at first 
 refused to confirm the rules of the order of St. 
 Francis, saying that they were more fit for swine 
 than for human beings. 
 
 The Benedictine Odo of Sherington, who lived 
 in the twelfth century, in his fable of the wolf in 
 sheep's clothing denounces the rapacity and hypo- 
 crisy of the Cistercians, stigmatizing them as rene- 
 gades and legacy-hunters, and declaring that he 
 vvould rather associate with a pagan or a ]q.^ than 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 225 
 
 with such a monk. Many of the carvings already- 
 described derive their inspiration directly from 
 Odo's fables, and inculcate his teachings. 
 
 An American bishop and High-Churchman was 
 wont to call out to his servant, whenever a dissent- 
 ing orthodox minister visited him : " John, count 
 the spoons ; there is an evangelical in the house ! " 
 This warning, although not intended by the cor- 
 pulent and otherwise good-humoured prelate to be 
 taken seriously, expresses the real antipathy of 
 mediaeval bishops and other secular clergy towards 
 the mendicant and predicant orders. 
 
 The embodiment of this feeling in works of art 
 was by no means confined to the ecclesiastical 
 edifices of England, although more frequently 
 met with there than on the Continent, especially 
 in the churches and monasteries belonging to the 
 Benedictines. Foxes in the disguise of begging 
 friars are found in the cathedral of St. Etienne at 
 Limoges, in St. Jaurin of Evreux, in the cathedral 
 of Le Mans, and were formerly on the arms of the 
 seats in the chancel of the cathedral Notre Dame 
 at Rouen, but were hewn off by an over-zealous 
 iconoclastic canon. 
 
 On the frieze of a column in St. Peter's Church 
 at Aulnay is the sculpture of an ass standing on 
 its hind legs and invested with a dalmatica. It 
 is evidently " Bernard li arciprestres," as the ass 
 is called in the Romaii de Renart, and may be 
 regarded as a scoffing allusion to the noble and 
 saintly reformer of the Bernardines and Cistercians. 
 
 Q 
 
226 Animal Symbolism 
 
 In the magnificent cathedral of Toledo in Spain 
 are reliefs carved towards the close of the fifteenth 
 century, and representing a bear near a beehive in 
 search of honey; a fox strangling a cock; a woman 
 riding on a mule to market with two geese in a 
 basket, and a fox creeping up behind her in order 
 to steal them ; an ape feeding a duck with a spoon, 
 and a young ape catching hold of the old one and 
 evidently soliciting a share of the food ; a pig with 
 a girdle and a knife (the pig turned butcher); the 
 story of Aristotle as related in the Lai d^Aristote; 
 a man in motley approaching a tent, where he is 
 received by a naked woman, who draws aside the 
 curtain in order to admit him. 
 
 The Lay of Aristotle is a satire on the power 
 of love and the irresistible fascination of female 
 beauty, against which neither philosophic wisdom 
 nor old age is proof The poem, based upon an 
 old tradition, was written by Henri d'Andely, a 
 canon of the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Rouen 
 at the end of the twelfth century, and is contained 
 in Etienne Barbazan's collection of Fabliaux et 
 Contes Frangois des XIl^. — XV\ Siecles (Paris, 
 1756). The fable is briefly as follows. Whilst 
 Alexander was pursuing his career of conquest in 
 the Orient, he became so deeply enamoured of an 
 East Indian girl as, in the opinion of his soldiers, 
 to imperil the success of the campaign by giving 
 to dalliance too much rein. Aristotle was there- 
 upon deputed by the army to remonstrate with 
 the young monarch, who confessed his fault and 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 227 
 
 promised to have no further intercourse with the 
 dangerous beauty. Naturally the young lady was 
 quick to observe the change, and on reproaching 
 her lover with neglect and learning the cause of 
 it, vowed to avenge herself on the officious philo- 
 sopher. Accordingly the next day she went into 
 the orchard wearing only a long chemise of finest 
 muslin, and walked to and fro under Aristotle's 
 windows, singing to herself and culling flowers. 
 Aristotle looked out and at first feigned indiffer- 
 ence, but soon had his wise head turned, and 
 descending to the orchard made an ardent declara- 
 tion of love, and expressed his willingness to do 
 anything to win her favour. As a test of the 
 sincerity of his affection she demanded that he 
 should condescend to be her palfrey. After some 
 hesitation he acceded to this humiliating proposal, 
 permitted himself to be saddled and bridled, and 
 began to creep over the grass on all fours with 
 the exultant girl seated on his back, holding the 
 reins in one hand and a riding-whip in the other, 
 Alexander, who had watched the progress of this 
 gallant adventure from a window of the palace, 
 now drew near and derided the absurd infatuation 
 of his grave preceptor, who candidly confessed his 
 folly, but could not refrain from the pedagogical 
 habit of drawing a moral lesson from it for the 
 benefit of others. " Beware," he said, " for if love 
 can make such a fool of an old man, how much 
 more dangerous must it be to youth !" 
 
 The Lay of Aristotle seems to have been often 
 
228 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 delineated in Christian art, especially in cloisters, 
 where it was designed to glorify asceticism and 
 celibacy. One of the finest representations of it 
 is a bas-relief underneath a console on the fagade 
 of the cathedral church of Saint-Jean in Lyons, 
 dating from the fifteenth century. Behind the 
 
 philosopher, degraded 
 to a lady's palfrey, is 
 a hare, the symbol of 
 libidinousness ; in the 
 two corners above are 
 persons generally sup- 
 posed to be Alexander 
 and his mistress; it is 
 probable, however, that 
 the scene on the right, 
 slightly mutilated, represents Aristotle declaring 
 his love, and the one on the left the young lady 
 imposing the conditions on which her favour may 
 be secured. There is also a sculpture of the story 
 of Aristotle on a capital in the church of Saint- 
 Pierre in Caen, as well as one in the apex of an 
 arch and another on the base of a column in the 
 cloister of Cadouin. They used to be interpreted 
 as portraying the conjugal relations of Samson 
 and Delilah, but really have a broader application 
 in illustration of the concluding lines of Henri 
 d'Andely's poem — 
 
 " Veritez est, et je le di, 
 Qu' amors vainc tout et tout vaincra 
 Tant com cis si^cles durera." 
 
 The "Lay of Aristotle." 
 [Saint-Jean, Lyons.) 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 229 
 
 Mediaeval legend makes Vergil the hero of an 
 equally farcical affair of gallantry with the 
 daughter of the Emperor of Rome, who invited 
 him to a rendezvous at the foot of a tower in 
 which she dwelt. She then ordered her attendants 
 to let down from her window a basket by a rope, 
 for the ostensible purpose of drawing him up ; but 
 instead of being lifted to the goal of his lofty hopes 
 he was left suspended in the midway air, and 
 became an object of scoffing to every passer-by. 
 This episode was also sculptured on a pillar in 
 the cloister of Cadouin, but has been gradually 
 destroyed, so that only few traces of it are now 
 left. It was commonly supposed to represent the 
 manner in which Saul of Tarsus after his con- 
 version escaped the fury of the Jews by being let 
 down in a basket from the wall of Damascus. 
 The monks were extremely fond of selecting the 
 wisest and most illustrious men of pagan antiquity, 
 and thus satirizing their frailty in their relations 
 to women in order to exalt their own cloistered 
 virtue and saintly chastity. 
 
 These cynical, satirical, moral, and sometimes 
 perhaps purely fanciful delineations, with the 
 description of which it would be easy to fill a large 
 volume, were derived almost exclusively from the 
 cycle of Reynard's adventures, as recorded in dif- 
 ferent versions of the beast-epos, and have rarely 
 any relation to the Physiologus. But it is not 
 probable that they would have ever found admis- 
 
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 anrrinraics m 
 
 SUL 
 
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In Ecclesiastical Architecture 231 
 
 which they drew many keen-pointed darts to hurl 
 against the hated hierarchy. As is well known, 
 the writings of Chaucer and Petrarch were used 
 very effectively in the same way. The author of 
 Piers Plowman is extremely severe in his stric- 
 tures on the " foure ordres " of begging friars, 
 namely, Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and 
 Augustines ; especially the first two seem to have 
 been the peculiar objects of his aversion. The 
 Benedictines hated these orders, and not only 
 warned the people against them in sermons, but 
 also burlesqued them in the carvings, paintings, 
 and sculptures of their cloisters and churches, 
 portraying them as wily foxes, ravenous wolves, 
 asses, hogs, and stinking and salacious goats ; and 
 there is no doubt that the obnoxious freres^ how- 
 ever worthy may have been the original objects 
 of the brotherhoods, soon degenerated into persons 
 who made a profession of poverty, but practised 
 all sorts of fraud to enrich their convents, which 
 became in a short time the grandest and wealthiest 
 in England. They succeeded in acquiring immense 
 influence over the masses, and thereby excited the 
 envy and jealousy of the secular clergy, and made 
 themselves odious to the better classes by reason 
 of their intrigues and arrogance, and their success 
 in extorting rich bequests from the dying. They 
 were the sensational preachers of their day, and 
 sought to attract crowds by novel doctrines, eccen- 
 tric manners, coarse wit, funny stories, rhetorical 
 pyrotechnics, and other astounding feats of pulpit 
 
232 Animal Symbolism 
 
 prestidigitation, so that Langland was wholly 
 justified in denouncing them as 
 
 " but jugulers and iapers, of kynde, 
 Lorels and lechures and lemmans holden," 
 
 who 
 
 " ryht as Robertes men raken aboute 
 At feires and at ful ales and fyllen the cuppe, 
 And precheth all of pardon to plesen the puple." 
 
 In the frequent representations of animals per- 
 forming on musical instruments and like whimsical 
 conceits the artist did not take his subjects either 
 from the Physiologus or the beast-epos, but was 
 permitted to give line and scope to the sarcastic 
 suggestions of his own fancy in censure of public 
 folly and iniquity. On the stalls of the choir in 
 Boston Minster, St. Botolph's in Lincolnshire, and 
 on a churchwarden's pew now in the Hotel de 
 Cluny, are carvings of pigs playing on the organ 
 or on the harp. The hog and also the dog as 
 harpist occur in St. Peter's Cathedral, Poitiers, 
 and date from the first half of the thirteenth 
 century. In the cathedral of Burgos, a splendid 
 monument of pure Gothic style erected by German 
 architects in the thirteenth century, are carvings 
 of a bishop carried off by a bull-headed devil ; two 
 knights and their ladies dancing to the dulcet 
 tones of a lute ; pigs seated on stools and eating 
 pap out of pots ; wine-skins as knights on horse- 
 back, with lances in the rest and ready to tilt, 
 evidently a caricature of tournaments and persi- 
 flage of theological polemics ; a sow spinning 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 233 
 
 while giving suck to her farrow, and a boar caus- 
 ing the organ to peal for the entertainment and 
 edification of his family; a sow playing on the 
 bagpipe, and her pigs dancing round an over- 
 turned trough ; a man assailed and knocked down 
 by apes, whose young he had captured ; a fox 
 as hunter riding on a dog, and carrying on his 
 shoulders another dog tied by its hind legs to a 
 stick, showing how the tables may be turned. As 
 it was the assumed and generally acknowledged 
 function of the Church to correct and reprove all 
 forms of vice and folly, and to do what Hamlet 
 asserted to be "the purpose of playing," namely, 
 "to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own 
 image, and the very age and body of the time 
 his form and pressure," perhaps we have in these 
 beastly musicians a satire on the numerous wander- 
 ing minstrels, mediaeval Bohemians, and vagabond 
 Beghards, whose morals were not of the best. 
 Some such motive would explain their admission 
 into the Church more satisfactorily than to regard 
 them as mere caprices of the artist, which the 
 ecclesiastical authorities tolerated simply because 
 they amused the public. Besides, the repetition 
 of them in so many churches in different coun- 
 tries would imply a general scheme of reform 
 and systematic crusade against the prevailing 
 iniquities. 
 
 The collegiate church at Manchester, in which 
 many grotesque designs of this sort are found, 
 contains also hunting-scenes with tuns, evidently 
 
2 34 Animal Symbolism 
 
 allusions in rebus to Huntington, the first warden. 
 In numerous instances it is impossible to solve 
 these artistic puzzles, as neither history nor local 
 tradition has preserved the key to them. An eagle 
 flying away with a child to its aerie is the memorial 
 of an incident said to have occurred in the house 
 of Stanley, one of whose members, James Stanley, 
 was the warden of Manchester College from 1506 
 to 1515.^ The same family tradition is carved on 
 a stool in the chancel of Salisbury Cathedral, and 
 might easily be mistaken for an eagle mounting up 
 with an eaglet to the sun. 
 
 Rats hanging a cat in the presence of owls, that 
 are looking on with judicial gravity and an air of 
 profound legal wisdom, are depicted in Great Mal- 
 vern Abbey, and may illustrate the doctrine of final 
 retribution. 
 
 Beside excellent specimens of the commoner 
 symbols founded on the Physiologus, such as the 
 unicorn asleep in the lap of a virgin, the pelican 
 feeding her young with blood from her breast, and 
 others of a similar character, there is, on one of 
 the stalls in the chancel of Boston Minster, the 
 carving of an armed knight on a steed in harness. 
 While the horse is in full gallop one of its shoes 
 is flung off, but the rider, without stopping, turns 
 round in his saddle and catches the shoe in his 
 hand as it flies through the air. Meissner suggests 
 that this may be mythological, and celebrate the 
 
 1 Cf. Herrig's Archiv^ Ixv. 217-222. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 235 
 
 exploit of some Scandinavian god or hero. More 
 probably, however, it immortalizes the marvellous 
 feat of some Lincolnshire chevalier, and has only 
 a local importance. 
 
 On the old church of Marienhafen, in East Fries- 
 land, were numerous animals cut in stone, which 
 adorned the portal and extended on the frieze 
 entirely round the building. The edifice was de- 
 molished in 1829, but the city architect of Emden, 
 Marten, made drawings of the sculptures as they 
 lay scattered about in the churchyard, and they 
 were subsequently published by the " Gesellschaft 
 fiir bildende Kunst und vaterlandische Alterthiimer 
 zu Emden." 1 One series of these works of art tells 
 the story of the wolf at school, and does not differ 
 essentially from the reliefs at Freiburg already 
 described. Another series portrays the burial of 
 the fox, and follows quite closely the text of the 
 last branch of the Roman de Renart. An animal 
 in a cowl is reading the Gospel, another is cele- 
 brating mass at an altar, while an ape, as acolyte, 
 rings the sacring-bell ; a fourth animal is standing 
 on its hind legs and reading the lections. 
 
 The next scene is a funeral banquet : one of the 
 animals is sweeping the dining-hall, another draw- 
 ing wine, a third carrying a bowl or pitcher, and 
 others bringing food into the hall, where numerous 
 animals are feasting. At the table three apes are 
 carving a joint, a fourth is eating a piece of bread, 
 
 1 Cf. Das Ostfriesische Monaisblatt, June, 1878. 
 
236 Animal Symbolism 
 
 and a fifth is holding an empty glass to be filled. 
 Then comes the funeral procession : one animal 
 with a censer, another with a cross, a hog with 
 an aspergill and a basin of holy water, an ass in 
 priestly robes, a horse as sexton with a spade, 
 a camel with a tabor, a goat with a bell, a wolf 
 bearing a crucifix, a pig with a shovel, and a fox 
 lying on a bier. In another scene at the grave two 
 horned animals seize the deceased by the head and 
 feet and lay him in the pit. These are the under- 
 takers, Brichemer the stag and Belin the ram, as 
 described in the French poem — 
 
 " Li Cors ont iluec descendu 
 Qui covert iert d'un paile vert, 
 Et quant il I'orent descovert 
 Brichemer par le chief le prist, 
 Ainsi con Bernart li aprist. 
 Qui maint mis en terre en avoit ; 
 A Belin que devant lui voit 
 A fet Renart par les piez prendre. 
 En la fosse sanz plus attendre 
 L'ont mis et couchie doucement, 
 Et I'Arciprestre innelement 
 Geta sus I'eue beneoite." 
 
 In the sculptures a priest, standing behind the stag, 
 gives the benediction, an animal resembling a pig 
 sprinkles holy water with an aspergill, and an ape 
 gazes sorrowfully into the grave, by which two 
 shovels are lying. The animals are much defaced, 
 so that it is impossible sometimes to determine 
 what kind of creatures they are intended to repre- 
 sent. Another group tells the story of the goat in 
 the well. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 237 
 
 The western portal of the cathedral of Branden- 
 burg on the Havel is adorned with reliefs similar 
 to those already described. In the first scene a 
 fox as friar is reading scripture-lessons to some 
 geese ; in the second he is preaching to them from 
 a pulpit, but before the sermon is ended rushes into 
 the devout flock and seizes a plump auditress by 
 the neck. Then follows the trial, with geese as 
 witnesses, the judge sitting on a chair and an exe- 
 cutioner at his side with a drawn sword ; finally 
 the culprit makes confession and saves his life. 
 Among the sculptures, all of which are seriously 
 injured, is one of a man fighting a basilisk with 
 a venom-repelling cone of crystal as described in 
 the Physiologiis. 
 
 The cornice of the cathedral of Paderborn is 
 decorated with delineations of scenes from the 
 fables. In the first, the fox and the crane are dining 
 together, the latter eating with relish out of a tall 
 and narrow-necked vase in which the food is con- 
 tained, while the former must be content with what 
 can be got by licking the outside of the vessel ; in 
 the second, a crane is extracting a bone from the 
 throat of a fox, doubtless in this connection simply 
 a representation of the incident described in the 
 fable, without any reference to the symbolism of 
 saving souls from the jaws of hell, as is elsewhere 
 the case. Thirdly, an old woman sitting on a 
 bench and spinning strikes with her distaff an ape, 
 which is trying to steal a dish of food. Finally, 
 there are sculptures of a frog and a swan, whose 
 
238 Animal Symbolism 
 
 aquatic habits may have some relation to the re- 
 viving and transforming virtue of the baptismal 
 rite and the waters of salvation. Perhaps the 
 change of the batrachian from tadpole to frog may 
 furnish the basis of this symbolism of regeneration. 
 In the Egyptian Museum at Turin is a lamp of 
 terra-cotta in the shape of a frog, with the inscrip- 
 tion Eri2 EIMI ANATACIC: "I am the resurrec- 
 tion." The Vedic poet Vasishtha {Rigveda, vii. 103) 
 invokes the frogs as deities, and compares their 
 croaking to the chanting of Brahmans, who are 
 performing sacrificial rites, and praying to the 
 cloud-compelling Parjanya for rain in time of 
 drought. The frog that lows like a cow, and bleats 
 like a goat, the speckled and the green frog are 
 entreated jointly and severally to refresh and en- 
 rich and renew the earth. In the Liber de Hceri- 
 sibiis (xi.) of Philaster, Bishop of Brescia, the frog- 
 worshippers {ranarum ciiltores) are mentioned as 
 an heretical Christian sect ; and a law of the year 
 428 forbade Arians, Macedonians, and Batrachi- 
 tians to reside within the limits of the Roman 
 Empire. It may have been due to this tendency 
 to worship frogs that their entrails were used as 
 charms in ancient times (Juvenal, iii. 44), and pre- 
 scribed as a potent medicament by mediaeval 
 quacksalvers. Although the swan is not men- 
 tioned in the Physiologus, the melancholy musical 
 tones which it is supposed to utter when dying, 
 and especially after having been mortally wounded, 
 are often compared by early Christian poets to 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 239 
 
 the last utterances of the crucified Saviour and the 
 sweet resignation of the blessed martyrs. This 
 figurative application of the fabled characteristic 
 of the bird would account for its presence in eccle- 
 siastical architecture. 
 
 In the window-frame of an outside corridor of 
 the same church are three hares hewn in stone, and 
 having altogether only three ears, but so arranged 
 that each hare seems to have two ears. This 
 sculpture may have symbolized originally the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, but in the present instance 
 has no religious significance, since it was placed 
 there probably as a votive offering by the travelling 
 handicraftsmen of Paderborn as the badge or en- 
 sign of their guild. In the cloister of the Fran- 
 ciscan nuns at Muotta, in Switzerland, is a wood- 
 carving of three hares similarly arranged ; in this 
 case it was doubtless intended to be an emblem of 
 Trinitarianism. 
 
 In the parish church of Kempen on the Rhine 
 the misericords are adorned with nearly thirty 
 
 Carvings on Stalls in Parish Church of Kempen. 
 
 carvings illustrating fables and proverbs. Here 
 we have not only the crane eating out of a tall and 
 
240 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 slender vessel, as at Paderborn, but also the counter- 
 plot of the fox who turns the tables on the crane 
 by inviting the latter to dinner and serving the 
 food as thin soup in a shallow dish, from which he 
 easily and eagerly laps it up, while his long-billed 
 guest gets scarcely a drop, A man threshing eggs 
 with a flail would be interpreted in general as an 
 example of energy misapplied ; but in this case it 
 has a special censorious significance not commonly 
 understood. It was one of the privileges of the 
 
 Carvings on Stalls in Parish Church of Kempen. 
 
 clergy to collect eggs from parishioners during 
 Lent, and the exercise of this right was popularly 
 known as Eierdreschen (egg-threshing), owing to 
 the diligence and zeal with which these ovarious 
 contributions were levied. The man beating eggs 
 with a flail satirizes this odious exaction, and is 
 carved on the stalls of many churches in the Rhine- 
 lands, as, for example, at Calcar, Cleves, and Em- 
 merich.^ Other carvings at Kempen refer to the 
 
 ^ In connection with this form of tribute it may be mentioned 
 as a parody on trial by ordeal, that if any person's contri- 
 bution amounted to half an ^%<g and he refused to give a 
 whole one, it was customary to lay the ^■g^ on the threshold of 
 the house and strike it in two with a knife ; if the yolk flowed 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 241 
 
 same custom, and are evidently intended to deride 
 the egg-hunting parson ; such as a man holding an 
 egg up to the light to see if it is fresh, a man feel- 
 ing of a hen in order to ascertain the prospect of 
 eggs, so as not to be deceived by any excusatory 
 
 Carvings on Stalls in Parish Church of Kempen. 
 
 plea of the peasant that the hens don't lay, a man 
 sitting on eggs to hatch them, and a man weeping 
 over a basket full of eggs fallen to the ground. 
 Of the other representations, more or less sarcastic 
 
 Carvings on Stalls in Parish Church of Kempen. 
 
 in their purpose, are a fisherman drawing an eel-pot 
 out of the water ; another hauling in a net ; a fox 
 preaching to fowls, while a cowled confederate lies 
 
 towards the house, the tributary was declared to be free, but 
 if it flowed outwards, he was condemned to pay a fine. 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 in wait for them behind the pulpit ; two dogs fight- 
 ing over a bone ; a fox swimming after ducks in a 
 pond ; an ass kneeling with a pack on its back and 
 a rosary in its mouth ; a man casting daisies before 
 swine {^nargaritas ante porcos), a confusion of the 
 
 Carvings on Stalls in Parish Church of Kempen. 
 
 pearl (margarite) with the flower (marguerite) ; an 
 ass playing the lyre {asinus ad lyrain) ; a pig play- 
 ing the bagpipe ; a fox confessing a bird, as it is 
 usually explained, but more probably a delineation 
 
 Carvings on Stalls in Parish Church of Kempen. 
 
 of the incident related in the Roman de Renart^ in 
 which Hubert the kite officiates as confessor to 
 Reynard and is suddenly seized and eaten by the 
 crafty confessant ; a bear getting honey out of a 
 hive ; a cat sitting near a bell, to which a strap is 
 attached, and surrounded by four mice, who are 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 243 
 
 evidently trying to devise the best means of putting 
 it round her neck. Ernst aus'm Weerth thinks the 
 cat rings the bell to entice the mice, perhaps to a 
 supper, " not where they eat, but where they are 
 eaten," as Hamlet would say ; this interpretation is 
 far-fetched and absurd ; the intention of the artist 
 was simply to illustrate the phrase " to bell the cat." 
 The ass with a rosary is also carved on a stall in 
 the Minorite cloister of Cleves, and dates from the 
 year 1474; it was designed to throw ridicule on 
 the Dominicans, whose founder, in the second 
 decade of the thirteenth century, introduced the 
 rosary as a means of keeping a proper tale of 
 prayers, and who were held in derision on this 
 account, especially by their rivals the Franciscans. 
 The idea of performing devotions by counting beads 
 was not original with Domingo de Guzman, but was 
 borrowed from the Mohammedans. The pack is 
 the heavy burden of sin, which the new and im- 
 proved system of supplication by machinery is 
 expected to lighten. At Kempen there are also 
 carvings of a man shearing swine, great cry and 
 little wool, a general illustration of the proverb, and 
 perhaps a special satire on preaching friars ; a mer- 
 maid with comb and mirror, probably the German 
 siren of the Lorelei ; a pig putting on trousers ; an 
 ape carrying a young donkey in a dosser, or maybe 
 one of her own young, although the creature in the 
 pannier has a decidedly asinine look ; an owl view- 
 ing its face in a mirror, a rebus of the typical medi- 
 aeval wag Tyll Eulenspiegel ; a pelican feeding her 
 
244 Animal Symbolism 
 
 brood with her blood, and other more common or 
 less striking delineations, all of which are remark- 
 able for their fidelity to nature, and show in the 
 main, a wonderful degree of technical skill in their 
 execution. This realistic and individualizing tend- 
 ency reveals itself in the care and exactness with 
 which the minutest characteristics are observed and 
 reproduced. They are the works of the Flemish 
 school of wood-carving, which flourished during the 
 fifteenth century at many places in the Rhinelands, 
 and especially at Calcar. 
 
 As has been already stated, the same subjects 
 with some additions and 
 slight variations are treat- 
 ed in St. Martin's Church 
 at Emmerich, in the church 
 of St. Nicholas at Calcar, 
 and in the Minorite clois- 
 
 Jolly Friar and Tinker. tCr of CICVCS, although the 
 
 (^Minorite Cloister in Cleves.) . . - . . 
 
 carvmgs are mferior m 
 artistic execution to those of Kempen. At 
 Cleves are also representations of a man riding 
 backwards on a pig ; a man stroking a cat ; two 
 mendicant monks, one holding a fire-pot and the 
 other a bellows ; the same monks fighting ; a friar 
 and a tinker having a jollification together ; and a 
 cloven-hoofed animal reading a breviary and sup- 
 posed to be the devil ; unfortunately for this inter- 
 pretation the German devil is not cloven-footed, 
 but solipedous, having a hoof like that of a horse. 
 The creature is evidently meant to be a stag, which 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 245 
 
 in the beast-epos discharges the grave functions of 
 an ecclesiastic. At Calcar the hare plays the bag- 
 pipe, and on the back of one of the stalls reclines 
 a queer man-monster with the breasts of a woman, 
 the feet of a goat, fins on his legs, faces on his 
 shoulders and knees, and eyes in his hips, read- 
 ing a book. At Emmerich a goat nibbling a grape 
 vine exemplifies the fable of the goat as gardener, 
 and a man sitting between two stools illustrates 
 the vice of indecision and the danger of playing 
 fast and loose with principles. 
 
 It may be added, in concluding this portion of 
 the subject, that the church edifices of the Nether- 
 lands were formerly richly adorned with paintings 
 and sculptures of a symbolical, satirical, and didactic 
 character, but that they have been nearly all 
 destroyed. The work of demolition, begun by 
 Catholic iconoclasts, was continued by Calvinistic 
 reformers, and completed by French radicals and 
 revolutionists. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 WHIMSEYS OF ECCLESIOLOGY AND SYMBOLOGY 
 
 Universality of the symbolism of the cross — Cruciform 
 phenomena in nature — The sign of the cross in the Old 
 Testament, and its prefigurative significance — Wonder- 
 working power of the cross in Jewish history — Its 
 presence in the Garden of Eden and in the Hebrew 
 alphabet — The cosmos has the form of a cross — Influence 
 of the doctrine of the Trinity upon art — Trinitarian 
 suggestions in the material creation — Mystic meanings 
 in sacred architecture — Symbolism of bells and signifi- 
 cance of orientation — Superstitious regard for the points 
 of the compass — Transition from christolatry to hagiolatry 
 — Subtilities of ecclesiology — Meagreness of Hebrew 
 mythology — Exercise of the mythopceic faculty by the 
 Rabbis — Early Christian opposition to the theatre — 
 Theatrical rites and indecent amusements in churches 
 and cloisters — Feast of Fools, etc. — Analogy between the 
 anatomy of the ass and the architecture of a cathedral 
 — Jewish and Christian reverence for the ass — Feast of 
 the Ass — Symbolism swallowed up in buffoonery — Traffic 
 in holy relics — Satirized in Heywood's play of The Four 
 P.P. — Anatomical peculiarities of saints — Queer freaks 
 in sacred osteology — Specimens of relics in Catholic 
 churches — Miraculous power of self-multiplication — 
 Choice collection of Frederic the Wise — Anti-Semitic 
 sculptures in Christian churches — Coarse relief ridiculing 
 the Jews at Wittenberg, and its interpretation by Luther 
 — Similar carvings in other cities — Decrees of John the 
 Good and Frederic the Hohenstaufe concerning usury 
 — Classical myths in Christian art — Orpheus a prototype 
 246 
 
Animal Symbolism 247 
 
 of Christ — Bacchus and the Lord's vineyard — Greek 
 comic poets adored as Christian saints — Isis as the 
 Virgin Mary^Crude symbolism of early Christian art — 
 Influence of Pagan antiquity— The peacock as a Christian 
 emblem — Moralization of the myth of Ai;gus and lo — 
 Sirens and centaurs in architecture — The Sigurd Saga 
 — Weighing of souls — Recording angels and devils — 
 Woman as an emissary of Satan — The devil in Christian 
 art — Dance of death— Oldest representation of it — Its 
 democratic character and popularity — Manuscripts with 
 miniatures — Holbein's drawings — Sensational sermons 
 of Honore de Sainte Marie — Modern delineations of the 
 theme by Rethel, Seitz, Liihrig, and others. 
 
 As the cross was the symbol of human redemption, 
 and the whole creation since the Fall was supposed 
 to have been groaning and travailing together in 
 longing for the advent of the Messiah and the 
 consummation of the Atonement, the Fathers of 
 the Church and the later defendants of the faith, 
 Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Jerome, Origen, Jacobus 
 de Voragine, and Hrabanus Maurus, imagined they 
 discovered cruciform and cruciferous phenomena 
 everywhere in animate and inanimate nature, and 
 laid great stress upon this fancy as an incontestable 
 proof of the divine origin of Christianity. Further- 
 more, as the Jewish people was the special channel 
 through which this salvation was to be received, 
 the literary and historical records of the Jews were 
 assumed to be full of allusions to the cross, and 
 their religious rites were interpreted as having no 
 purpose or validity except as prophecies and pre- 
 figurations of it. We are told that man was created 
 in the form of a cross, a curious and characteristic 
 example of what logicians call hysteron-proteron, 
 
248 Animal Symbolism 
 
 or what in common parlance is said to be putting 
 the cart before the horse, since the cross took this 
 shape because, as an instrument of human punish- 
 ment and torture, it was made to fit the man. 
 Again, as a primitive physico-psychology resolved 
 man into seven elements, four of the body and 
 three of the soul, so the cross is composed of four 
 notches and three pieces of wood. Three multiplied 
 by four makes twelve, and this number corresponds 
 to the sum of the commandments of the Old (ten) 
 and New (two) Testaments. Four and three form 
 respectively the basis of the quadrivium and the 
 trivium, which together constitute the seven liberal 
 arts, and comprise the whole cycle of human 
 knowledge. The cross was made of wood, because 
 it was through a tree that man fell, and by a tree 
 he must be raised up and redeemed. Indeed some 
 typologists are sufficiently strenuous to maintain 
 that the cross was originally a tree in the Garden 
 of Eden, where it grew in the form of the Hebrew 
 letter Tau (T), that Adam and Eve hid themselves 
 behind it, after they had sinned and when they 
 heard the voice of God, and that the blood of the 
 murdered Abel cried out from under it, thus 
 prefiguring the expiatory blood of Christ. It was 
 a branch of this tree that Moses cast into the 
 waters of Marah to make them sweet, and the great 
 lawgiver's wonder-working wand was a piece of 
 the same wood. The world itself is constructed in 
 the shape of a cross, whose four points correspond 
 to the four cardinal points or intersections of the 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 249 
 
 horizon with the meridian. Birds cannot rise in 
 the air and fly unless their wings are extended in 
 the form of a cross ; men assume this attitude in 
 prayer and in swimming ; a ship cannot sail with- 
 out making the sign of the cross with the mast 
 and the yard-arms ; and the spade with which man 
 tills the ground, toiling in the sweat of his brow as 
 the penalty of his transgression, is cruciform. A 
 poet and divine of the seventeenth century has put 
 these forced conceits into a verse quite worthy of 
 the theme — 
 
 "Who can blot out the cross, which th' instrument 
 Of God dewed on me in the sacrament ? 
 Who can deny me power and liberty 
 To stretch mine arms, and mine own cross to be ? 
 Swim, and at every stroke thou art thy cross ! 
 The mast and yard make one when seas do toss. 
 Look down, thou spy'st ever crosses in small things; 
 Look up, thou seest birds raised on crossed wings. 
 All the globe's frame and sphere is nothing else 
 But the meridian's crossing parallels." 
 
 In the twelfth chapter of the Epistle of Barnabas, 
 the act of Moses in stretching out his hands, in 
 order that Israel might overcome Amalek in battle, 
 is said to signify the power of the cross. The 
 same interpretation is given to the words of Isaiah : 
 " I have spread out my hands all the day unto 
 a rebellious people," which mystic christology 
 explains as the rejection of the crucified Saviour 
 by the Jews. The youthful David prevailed over 
 Goliath because he had a cross-shaped staff in his 
 hand, to which alone he owed his victory. The 
 
250 Animal Symbolism 
 
 two sticks which the widow of Zarephath gathered 
 to cook a cake with, she held in the form of a 
 cross, and it was the wonder-working virtue of this 
 sign that caused the barrel of meal to waste not, 
 and the cruse of oil not to fail ; afterwards the 
 prophet Elijah restored her son to life by stretching 
 himself three times upon the child in the form of 
 a cross and in adoration of the Trinity. The 
 faggot which Isaac bore on his shoulders to the 
 place of sacrifice took the same shape, and it was 
 for this reason that God sent an angel to arrest 
 the hand of Abraham, and accepted a ram for a 
 burnt-offering instead of his son. That the brazen 
 serpent which Moses put upon a pole prefigured 
 the Crucifixion is not a matter of the slightest 
 doubt, even to the most enlightened orthodox 
 hermeneutician of the present day. St. Jerome 
 was so sure of this that he did not scruple to 
 translate " in cruce " the phrase which means 
 simply "upon a pole," and is so rendered in the 
 Septuagint (h So/cw) ; and an eminent American 
 divine recently declared that the efficacy of the 
 brazen serpent in healing the children of Israel 
 was due solely to its typical connection with the 
 atoning death of Christ. The fact that Tau, the 
 imaginary symbol of the cross, is the last letter of 
 the Hebrew alphabet, was adduced as conclusive 
 proof that Judaism, in reality the most intensely 
 tribal of all religions, and reflecting more fully 
 than any other the life and character of the race 
 that originated it, existed merely as a system of 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 251 
 
 shadowy types, having for its whole end and aim 
 the gospel of the cross.^ The same sort of reason- 
 ing has discovered a profound significance in the 
 accidental resemblance of the Roman numeral X 
 to St. Andrew's cross {crux decussata), which must 
 therefore bear some mystic relation to the decalogue. 
 The pascha, according to Justin Martyr, was a 
 symbolic adumbration of the Crucifixion. " For 
 the lamb which was roasted was so placed as to 
 resemble the figure of a cross ; with one spit it 
 was pierced longitudinally, from the tail to the 
 head ; with another it was transfixed through the 
 shoulders, so that the fore legs became extended." 
 However natural it may have been for Paul, as a 
 Jew, to speak of Christ metaphorically as " our 
 Passover," it is little creditable to the critical 
 acumen and logical perception of later theologians 
 that they should have taken this figure of speech 
 literally, and reared an imposing christological 
 superstructure on the unsubstantial basis of a 
 trope. The smearing of the door-posts with blood 
 in the celebration of the Jewish feast, says Justin 
 Martyr, has direct reference to the death of the 
 Redeemer, " because the Greek word to smear, 
 XpUaOai, and the word Christ are the same." As 
 smearing is only another term for anointing, and 
 Christ means anointed, and is the Greek synonym 
 
 ^ " Unde non inconvenienter reor quod sicut omnium 
 elementorum finis est, ita totidem librorum veteris Testa- 
 menti finis est crux." — Paschasius Radbert, In Lam. Jer. 
 Bibl. Patrum, xiv. 773. 
 
252 Animal Symbolism 
 
 of the Hebrew Messiah {mdshiah), there is nothing 
 very startHng in such an etymological coincidence. 
 
 Before the twelfth century Christ was represented 
 as fastened to the cross with four nails, one in each 
 hand and foot ; but out of deference to the doctrine 
 of the Trinity it was deemed necessary to use only 
 three nails ; the feet were therefore made to rest 
 upon a wooden support, held to the upright beam 
 by a single nail. Soon afterwards the simpler 
 method was devised of placing one foot upon the 
 other with a spike driven through both of them. 
 Cimabue was the first to adopt this mode of 
 arranging the feet in painting ; and it was in the 
 twentieth year of his age that the celebration of 
 the Feast of the Holy Trinity in the Romish 
 Church was authorized and enjoined by the Synod 
 of Aries (1260). This is but one example of the 
 far-reaching and permanent influence of ecclesi- 
 astical decrees and the promulgation of dogmas 
 upon art. 
 
 The legends of the Holy Rood surpass in ex- 
 travagance and absurdity all that pagan Germans 
 ever fabled of the sacred ash Yggdrasil, or Brah- 
 mans of their sacrificial post, the Yupa, or Buddhists 
 of the Bodhitree. With what persistence and 
 apparent pleasure the theological mind still continues 
 to run in this old and abandoned rut, is startlingly 
 and depressingly revealed in a paper on " Vestiges 
 of the Blessed Trinity in the Material Creation," 
 published in T/ie Dublin Review for January 1893 
 by the Rev. John S. Vaughan, who finds traces of 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 253 
 
 this doctrine " written large across the whole face 
 of nature," and everywhere suggested by "such 
 familiar things as rocks, mountains, seas, and 
 lakes." He discovers " the mystery of the Trinity " 
 in the fact that every object has three dimensions 
 that a plant is composed of seed, stalk, and flower 
 that life is " vegetative, sensitive, and rational " 
 that matter is solid, fluid, and gaseous ; that time is 
 past, present, and future ; and above all, that there 
 are " three fundamental colours," which " dissolve 
 in the unity of white light." Red, he says, is the 
 caloric ray, and corresponds to the Father, the 
 source of vital warmth and energy ; the yellow is 
 the luminous ray, and corresponds to the Son, 
 " the Light of the world " ; the blue is the chemical 
 or actinic ray, and corresponds to the Holy Spirit. 
 If cucumbers or melons, he adds, be placed under 
 glass absorbing the blue ray, they will grow rapidly 
 and put forth luxuriant blossoms, but soon fade 
 away without bearing fruit, and this phenomenon 
 he calls "a physical reflection of the Christian 
 precept, ' Quench not the Spirit.' " Only an in- 
 tellect that had been wont to feed upon the husks 
 of hermeneutic theology, to the exclusion of all 
 wholesomer nutriment, could conceive of such 
 twaddle, and offer it to an enlightened public as 
 an argument from analogy. The wonder is that 
 he did not go more deeply into the exact and 
 natural sciences, and make the triangle, the trefoil, 
 and the trilobite a three-fold confirmation of Trini- 
 tarianism. The investigator who puts Nature to 
 
254 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the rack, and questions her like an inquisitor with 
 the boot and the thumbkin, can easily extort from 
 her a confession of the truth of any whimsey he 
 may choose to entertain. 
 
 William Durand, in his Rationale Divinorum 
 Officiorum, printed in 1459 by Gutenberg and Fust 
 at Mayence, makes every portion of the church 
 edifice full of symbolic significance. The erudite 
 and ingenious ecclesiologist gives free rein to his 
 fancy, and discovers mystic meanings in the struc- 
 ture, of which the architect had not the faintest 
 presentiment. The latter seems, therefore, to have 
 "builded better than he knew," and to have put 
 unconsciously into his work more things than he 
 ever dreamed of in draughting his designs, just as 
 the great poets, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe, 
 have embodied in their writings many deep 
 thoughts of which they themselves were utterly 
 ignorant, and which would have been wholly lost to 
 the world if some learned and acute commentator 
 had not taken pains to point them out. Thus, 
 according to Durand, the stones represent the 
 faithful ; the lime, which binds the stones together, 
 is fervent love and charity ; its mixture with sand 
 refers to " actions performed for the temporal good 
 of our brethren"; the water, that serves to mix the 
 lime and sand, is an emblem of the Holy Spirit ; 
 and "as stones cannot adhere without mortar, so 
 man without charity cannot enter as an element 
 into the construction of the heavenly Jerusalem." 
 
 Also bells, being made of brass, are shriller and 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 255 
 
 louder than the trumpets of the law, and denote 
 that God, who under the old dispensation was 
 known only to the Jews, is now proclaimed to the 
 whole world ; the durable material out of which 
 they are formed indicates that the truths of the 
 Gospel are not to be superseded, but will endure 
 to the end of time ; the hardness of this material 
 signifies the fortitude of the Christian apostle, to 
 whom it is said : " I have given thee a forehead 
 more hard than their forehead." Paul's assertion : 
 " I am become as sounding brass," proves that the 
 bell typifies the mouth of the preacher, whose 
 tongue, like that of the bell, strikes both sides, 
 expounding and proclaiming both Testaments ; it 
 shows also that the preacher should, on one side, 
 correct vice in himself, and, on the other side, re- 
 prove it in his hearers. The wooden frame on 
 which the bell is suspended stands for the cross ; 
 the iron fastening it to the wood is the binding 
 force of moral duty, which is inseparable from the 
 cross. The wheel by which the bell is rung is the 
 preacher's mind, through which the knowledge of 
 the divine law passes into the understanding of the 
 people ; and the three cords or strands of the bell- 
 rope denote the threefold character of Scripture, 
 consisting of history, allegory, and morality. As 
 the rope descends from the wooden trestle to the 
 hand, so the mystery of the cross descends to the 
 hand and produces good works ; while the upward 
 and downward motion of the rope shows that 
 Scripture speaks of high things and low things, or, 
 
256 Animal Symbolism 
 
 in other words, is to be interpreted literally and 
 mystically. 
 
 Curiously enough, there are still educated persons 
 who earnestly pursue researches and fondly indulge 
 in speculations of this sort, and seem to be edified 
 thereby. In a book on Symbolisms in the ChurcJies 
 of the Middle Ages, written by J. Mason Neable 
 and Benjamin Webb, and translated into French 
 with an introduction by the Abbe Bourassee 
 (Tours, 1857), the authors, as staunch Catholics, re- 
 gard the use of the ogive in Protestant churches as 
 a desecration of this symbol of the Holy Trinity. 
 No Catholic architect, they declare, should design 
 a triple window for a dissenting or heretical sect 
 (including the Established Church of England), or 
 introduce the trefoil into such building, since this 
 use of them would be a " sacrilegious prostitution 
 of sacred architecture, which is the voice of the 
 Church." The only wonder is, from this point of 
 view, that the Creator should permit clover and 
 other trifoliate plants to grow in Protestant ceme- 
 teries or tricuspid molars in a heretic's mouth, and 
 that an angry and outraged Deity does not strike 
 the impious Unitarian dead who dares to sit on 
 a three-legged stool, or presumes to steep his tea on 
 a tripod. 
 
 Touching the signification of orientation in ec- 
 clesiastical architecture, Gregory the Great, in his 
 exposition of Ezekiel xl. 6, says the east gate of 
 the temple in the prophet's vision designates Jesus 
 Christ. "Who else can be meant by this gate 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 257 
 
 but our Lord and Redeemer, who is to us the gate 
 of heaven, as it is written, ' No man cometh unto 
 the Father but by Me ' ; and again, ' He that 
 entereth not in by the door . . . the same is a 
 thief and a robber ' ; and then soon afterwards, * I 
 am the door.' He it is of whom Zechariah said, 
 * Behold the man, whose name is the East.' 1 The 
 gate looking toward the East refers, therefore, 
 to Him who has shown us the way to the source of 
 light." One cannot but admire the cogency of the 
 illustrious pope's reasoning, and the peculiar perti- 
 nence of his scriptural citations. 
 
 According to the Talmud, the manifestations of 
 God are revealed in the West in distinction from 
 the East, toward which the heathen and the heretics 
 (Essenes) turn their faces in their devotions. 
 Patristic superstition, on the contrary, looked upon 
 the West as the seat of darkness, and the abode of 
 demons ; for this reason, the rose-window was 
 placed high up in the western wall of the church, 
 as the light of the Gospel that is thus made visible 
 to those sitting in darkness, and " turneth the 
 shadow of death into the morning." - The towers 
 at the western end of the edifice, with their 
 bells, were intended to terrify and discomfit the 
 demons, and, at the same time, to summon the 
 
 ^ The passage (Zech. vi. 12) reads in the Vulgate : "Ecce 
 vir, oriens nomen ejus." In the original, the word here 
 translated " oriens " means " springing up," and in our 
 English version is rendered " the Branch." 
 
 2 Cf. Lactantius, Divin. Iiistit.^ ii. 10 ; Hieronym, In Amos 
 and In Ezech. 
 
258 Animal Symbolism 
 
 nations to Christ, who in the earliest churches 
 was seated over the western entrance to receive 
 them. After the twelfth century, when the dread 
 of the last judgment, which it was supposed 
 would take place at the end of the eleventh 
 century and introduce the millennium, had com- 
 pletely passed away, the space above the door- 
 way was usually occupied by the image of the 
 saint to whom the church was dedicated, thus 
 marking a transition from christolatry to hagi- 
 olatry. The sculptures of the doorway plane, 
 and the paintings of the Catharine-wheel windows, 
 very frequently represented the revolt of the 
 angels, as may be seen in Freiburg Minster, and 
 in the cathedral of St. John in Lyons. The 
 North is the region of meteorological devils, 
 which, under the dominion and leadership of the 
 " Prince of the power of the air," produce storm.s 
 and convulsions in nature, and foster unruly 
 passions and deeds of violence in man. The evil 
 principle, as embodied in unclean beasts and 
 exhibited in obscene and lascivious actions, was 
 properly portrayed in the sculptures and paintings 
 on the north side of the church, which was assigned 
 to Satan and his satellites, and known as " the 
 black side." On the other hand, the South shared 
 the sacred character of the East, and was con- 
 secrated to saints and martyrs and the famous 
 doctors of theology and sturdy defenders of the 
 faith. On the walls and in the windows toward 
 the south are depicted the triumphs of Christianity, 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 259 
 
 the millennial reign of Christ, the worship of the 
 Lamb, and similar scenes. Does not the prophet 
 Habakkuk say that God came from Teman, and 
 does not Teman mean South ? What more con- 
 clusive proof could any rational and not utterly 
 carnal mind desire ? 
 
 In the first half of the fifth century, Eucherius, 
 Bishop of Lyons, wrote a book of formulas of 
 spiritual knowledge {Liber Formularum Spiritualis 
 IntelligenticB), modelled after the Clavis of Melito, 
 in which this symbolism of the points of the com- 
 pass is elaborately amplified and explained. The 
 south signifies the " fervour of faith "; " the 
 streams in the south," spoken of by the Psalmist 
 (cxxvi. 4), refer to the effluence of the Holy Spirit; 
 the ardently erotic and highly poetic passage in 
 Solomon's Song (iv. 16), " Awake, O north wind; 
 and come, thou south," is interpreted as equivalent 
 to the words, " Get thee behind me, Satan ; and 
 draw near to me, O divine Spirit." 
 
 Durand finds some esoteric meaning, known 
 only to ecclesiologists, in every part and proportion 
 of the sacred structure. " Its length indicates 
 long-suffering, which patiently endures adversity 
 and affliction, waiting to reach the heavenly home. 
 Its breadth is the largeness of Christian charity, 
 which embraces friends and foes. Its height is 
 the measure of the lofty hope of eternal happiness." 
 Every joist and buttress, every stone and timber 
 from the crypt to the corona of the cornice, every 
 arch and pinnacle, the lantern of the dome, and the 
 
26o Animal Symbolism 
 
 weather-cock on the steeple, is made to yield some 
 mystic quality, or convey some moral lesson. 
 " The panes of the windows," according to Claude 
 Villette {Raisons de V Office, Paris, 1601), "are the 
 Scriptures, which communicate the light of truth 
 coming from above and ward off the wind, snow, 
 and hail of heresies, false doctrines, and schisms, 
 sent by the father of lies. The frames, in which 
 the panes of glass are firmly set, signify the 
 CEcumenical Councils by which the Scriptures are 
 interpreted and upheld, and the doctrines they 
 teach made manifest. The size of the windows 
 shows the depth and magnitude of Holy Writ, 
 incomprehensible to the natural man ; their circular 
 form denotes that the Church is complete in herself, 
 and consistent in all her doctrines." 
 
 Such are a few specimens of the subtilties and 
 trivialities of mediaeval and modern symbologists, 
 which suffice to illustrate the general tendency of 
 their speculations, and the excess of abstrusity 
 and absurdity to which they carried their queer 
 conceits. 
 
 Hebrew literature has only a very meagre 
 mythology, compared with the literature of India 
 or Greece or any ancient people of Aryan blood. 
 The jealously vindictive and supreme ascendency 
 of the Jewish tribal god did not favour the growth 
 and exercise of the mythopoeic faculty, but made 
 every attempt to foster it fatal alike to the safety 
 and comfort of the individual, and to the consoli- 
 dation and continuity of the national life. But the 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 261 
 
 Hebrew imagination, although debarred from the 
 populous regions of Olympus and Tartarus by the 
 stern command of Jehovah, " Thou shalt have no 
 other gods before Me," would not be cheated of its 
 rights, and mythologized in less inviting but un- 
 forbidden directions, grazing and ruminating on 
 the stubbled fields of scholia, and getting what 
 nutriment could be extracted from such dry and 
 sapless fodder. In this wise, the Rabbis succeeded 
 in evolving a whole system of myths and fables 
 out of their sacred books and ceremonial institu- 
 tions. Noah's dove, which returned to the ark 
 with an olive branch, had received it, according to 
 the Talmudists, from the hand of God ; and out of 
 this assumption was developed a most luxuriant 
 and wide-spreading banyan forest of allegory. 
 The Sabbath was also personified and made to 
 appear before the seat of God, like Schiller's poet 
 before the throne of Zeus, and to complain of its 
 isolation in being set apart as a holy day. Jehovah 
 regretted that he could not change this condition 
 of things without destroying the consecrated cha- 
 racter of the seventh day, but he conferred upon it, 
 in compensation for its loneliness, the privilege of 
 being for ever united with the chosen people in 
 nuptial ties, and of fostering as the fruit of this 
 union the so-called Sabbath-soul of Israel. And 
 the Lord blessed this marriage, and declared it to 
 be sacred and indissoluble, and absolutely essential 
 to the happiness and prosperity of the Jewish 
 nation. When the Roman government forbade 
 
262 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the observance of the Sabbath by severe penalties, 
 Rabbi Simon Ben Jochai went to Rome and suc- 
 ceeded in having the prohibition removed, using 
 this fable in his interview with the emperor in 
 order to enforce the claims of the Sabbath as a 
 divine institution, indispensable to the welfare of 
 Israel. There is an apologue by Rabbi Jehuda 
 Bar Shalom, in which the rite of circumcision is the 
 chief actor, and the Sabbath plays a subordinate 
 and less commendable part, being too much given 
 up to convivial pleasures. 
 
 The Rabbis mythologized even with the letters of 
 the alphabet, all of which, from Aleph to Tau, 
 appear in person before Jehovah to present their 
 respective claims to consideration, and indulge 
 in the most wearisome and nonsensical harangues. 
 This sort of apologue arose from the peculiar 
 sacredness attached to the text of the law orThora, 
 which was identified with the wisdom personified 
 in the eighth chapter of Proverbs, and with the 
 uncreated Word, which was with God before the 
 creation of the world, and afterwards became the 
 incarnate Logos of the Gnostics and the synonym 
 of Christ.i 
 
 This superstitious reverence for the letter of the 
 law was transmitted to the early Christians, who 
 naturally applied it to their own sacred records, 
 declaring them to be theopneustic, or " given by 
 
 ^ Cf. Die Fabel im Talmud ttnd Midrasch^ von Dr. Samuel 
 Back, in Monatsschrift fiir Geschtchte und Wissenschaft des 
 Jtcdenthiuns. Krotoschin, 1880-81. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 263 
 
 inspiration of God." Out of this feeling, dogmatic 
 theology easily developed the doctrine of plenary 
 inspiration, which the Reformers and later Pro- 
 testants used as an effective weapon, opposing the 
 infallible authority of Holy Writ to the infallible 
 authority of the Holy See, and which was finally 
 carried to that extreme of fetichistic bibliolatry 
 that has been such a serious obstacle to the spread 
 of knowledge and to the progress of the race, and 
 is now just beginning to be set aside by scientific 
 research and sound criticism. 
 
 At the beginning of the Christian era the theatre 
 had fallen into decay, and hardly anything re- 
 mained of it except the brutal butcheries of the 
 amphitheatre, and the noisy and turbulent diver- 
 sions of the circus. It was natural enough that 
 the early Christians should have detested and de- 
 nounced such performances. Actors as a class were 
 anathematized and declared accursed by ecclesi- 
 astical authorities, A capitulary of Charlemagne, 
 inspired and dictated by the Church, declared all 
 players {Jiistriones) to be infamous and incompetent 
 to testify in courts of justice. The Provincial 
 Councils of Mayence, Tours, and Chalons in 813 
 decreed the histrionic profession ignominious, and 
 excommunicated all clergymen who countenanced 
 theatrical representations. In 1186, Philippe 
 Auguste issued an edict banishing actors from his 
 realm. 
 
 But the passion for the theatre is too deeply 
 rooted in human nature to be easily eradicated ; 
 
S64 Animal Symbolism 
 
 and the Church, finding all efforts to suppress it 
 unavailing, determined to direct and utilize it. 
 Accordingly theatrical elements were introduced 
 into the celebration of Christian festivals, which 
 were mostly of pagan origin. The old Roman 
 Lupercalia became the feast of the Purification ; 
 the Saturnalia-survived in the Carnival ; the Robi- 
 galia, consisting of offerings in the fields to the 
 god Robigus (or according to Ovid, Fast., iv. 905-35, 
 the goddess Robigo) to avert mildew, gave rise to 
 the processions of Rogation week ; the pagan feast 
 of the dead is celebrated as All Souls' Day ; and 
 St. John's Day and Christmas are relics of sol- 
 stitial worship and fulfilments of the Baptist's 
 prophecy : " He must increase, but I must decrease." 
 At a very early period the Church began to 
 invest her solemn rites with a theatrical character. 
 At Christmas, children robed as angels sang songs 
 in differents parts of the sacred edifice above the 
 choir, a group of shepherds passed through the 
 transept towards a stable built behind the altar, 
 and were met by two priests costumed as midwives, 
 who inquired : " What seek ye ? " The shepherds 
 replied : " Our Saviour, the Christ." " The child 
 is here," was the response, and all knelt before the 
 crib in the presence of the mother, and chanted the 
 Salve Virgo. On the feast of the Epiphany the 
 three kings entered through the chief portal and 
 advanced in gorgeous array to the place where the 
 infant lay and worshipped Him, presenting their 
 gifts. They then went out through the door of 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 265 
 
 the transept in accordance with the statement that 
 the wise men "departed into their own country 
 another way." Priests in albs mounted up on 
 towers to represent the Ascension ; and at Pentecost 
 a dove descended from the arched ceiHng of the 
 church to denote the Holy Spirit coming down 
 from heaven. On Palm Sunday an immense crowd 
 of people approached the city from the country, 
 strewing branches in the way of a man riding on 
 an ass ; as the procession drew near, the priests 
 and choristers sang : " Lift up your heads, O ye 
 gates." 
 
 Such are a few examples of the childish and 
 clumsy manner in which the Church sought to 
 render her ceremonies more vivid and impressive 
 as well as more entertaining. This rude dramatiz- 
 ation of the principal incidents of the Gospel story 
 was gradually extended to religious legends, thus 
 giving rise to semi-liturgic mysteries, miracle-plays, 
 and moralities, and leading to a revival of the 
 secular drama. The clergy encouraged hilarity 
 and gaiety, -because they wished to attract the 
 vulgar throng, and to keep their hold on the 
 masses by providing for their amusement. In this 
 desire originated such festivals as the Feast of 
 Fools and of Innocents, and the Ass's Feast. 
 
 At Rouen at Christmas, twelve of the clergy, 
 dressed to represent six Jews and six Gentiles, 
 were placed respectively on the right and the left 
 of a pyre burning in the centre of the choir. Two 
 young priests then call upon them to recognize and 
 
266 Animal Symbolism 
 
 revere the mystery of the divine Incarnation. They 
 refuse to do so, and in order to convince them of 
 the truth, the principal personages of the Bible are 
 made to appear : Moses with long beard and horns, 
 the greater and lesser prophets, Balaam on his ass 
 with the messengers of Balak and the angel stand- 
 ing in the way, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego 
 in the fiery furnace, apostles, sibyls, and Vergil, 
 who had foretold the advent of Christ, and many 
 other witnesses of the true God. This overwhelm- 
 ing testimony admits of no contradiction, and the 
 stubborn Jews and ignorant Gentiles are converted 
 from the error of their ways. Whether the burning 
 pyre was reserved as an iiltinia ratio in case of 
 final obduracy is not stated, but would seem to be 
 suggested. These spectacles were first given in 
 the nave of the church, but, as the throng increased, 
 they were transferred to the open air, and scaffold- 
 ings were erected for the purpose in front of the 
 cathedral. 
 
 In 1 2 12, the Council of Paris forbade the nuns 
 to celebrate the Feast of Fools, on account of the 
 excesses and scandals which it occasioned. In 
 1245, Archbishop Odon found it necessary to 
 suppress the licentious amusements of the nuns in 
 the convents of Rouen, and mentions especially 
 their accustomed dissolute sports (" ludibria con- 
 sueta "), and their dances either among themselves 
 or with secular priests ("aut inter vos seu cum 
 secularibus choreas ducendo "). These dances, which 
 were performed on the great ecclesiastical feast- 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 267 
 
 days, were accompanied by comical and scurrilous 
 songs and other unseemly exhibitions. The chapter 
 of the cathedral of Senlis issued in 1497 an order 
 permitting the lower clergy to " enjoy their diver- 
 sions before the principal portal of the church on 
 the eve of the Epiphany, provided they do not sing 
 infamous songs, with ribald and obscene words, or 
 dance in a lewd manner, all of which things," they 
 add, "took place on last Innocents' Day." In an 
 old collection of forty sermons on the destruction 
 of Nineveh (^Sertnones quadraginta de destriictione 
 NinevcE, Paris, 1525), the author asserts that priests 
 and monks were wont to visit nunneries both by 
 night and by day, and to perform indecent dances 
 with the inmates; "as to the rest," he concludes, 
 " I keep silent, lest perchance I may offend pious 
 ears." 
 
 Even within the memory of persons still living, 
 the midnight masses, especially in France, were 
 attended by all sorts of rude horse-play, such as 
 strewing the pavement of the church with " fulmi- 
 nating peas," which exploded when trodden upon, 
 barricading the aisles with chairs or cords, filling 
 the stoups with ink, and embracing young girls in 
 " the dim religious light " of the chapels. 
 
 A very queer notion was entertained and in- 
 culcated in the middle ages, and seems still to 
 prevail in some less enlightened portions of 
 Christendom, that there is a mysterious and far- 
 reaching analogy between the anatomy of an 
 ass and the architecture of a cathedral. Thus 
 
268 Animal Symbolism 
 
 M. Jerome Bugeau, in his Chansons Populaires des 
 Provinces de V Quest (Niort, 1866), gives the follow- 
 ing catechism taken down from the Hps of children 
 in Angoumois (now in the department of Charente), 
 and evidently forming an important part of their 
 religious instruction — 
 
 " Priest. What do the two ears of the ass signify ? 
 " Children. The two ears of the ass signify the two 
 
 great patron saints of our city. 
 ''Priest. What does the head of the ass signify ? 
 " Childre7i. The head of the ass signifies the great 
 bell, and the rein is the clapper of the great 
 bell in the tower of the cathedral dedicated 
 to the patron saints of our city. 
 " Priest. What does the throat of the ass signify } 
 " Children. The throat of the ass signifies the 
 chief portal of the cathedral dedicated to the 
 patron saints of our city. 
 " Priest. What does the body of the ass signify } 
 " Children. The body of the ass signifies the whole 
 structure of the cathedral dedicated to the 
 patron saints of our city." 
 In this style the catechism goes on, showing the 
 analogies or rather the homologies between the 
 animal and the edifice; the four legs of the ass 
 are' the four principal pillars of the building; the 
 heart, liver, kidneys, and other internal organs 
 are the lamps ; the paunch is the poor-box, in 
 which the pious put their offerings ; the skin is the 
 cope worn by the clergy during divine service ; 
 the tail is the aspergill for sprinkling holy water 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 269 
 
 on the people ; even the buttocks are not omitted, 
 but stand for " the beautiful stoup, which holds the 
 holy water in the cathedral dedicated to the patron 
 saints of our city." 
 
 The Angoumois catechism offers a fair specimen 
 of the weak and vapid pap with which the youth- 
 ful mind is usually fed in clerical schools, and 
 especially in those conducted by the Jesuits. The 
 late Dr. DoUinger of Munich relates his experience 
 with a student, who had received his preparatory 
 training at such an institute. In answer to the 
 question, " What is that branch of knowledge which 
 we call theology .-' " the candidate for holy orders 
 replied with the perfunctory promptness of a 
 parrot : " Theology is that branch of knowledge 
 which has St. Catherine for its patroness." " But 
 what is the branch of knowledge of which St. 
 Catherine is the patroness .-' " asked the doctor, and 
 received the ready response : " St. Catherine is the 
 patroness of theology ; " and no ingenuity of in- 
 terrogation availed to get the young man out of 
 this vicious hagiological circle. It is by the stupe- 
 fying effects of such teaching that the supreme 
 goal of Jesuitical discipline, namely, the sacrifice 
 of the intellect (" il sacrificio dell' intelletto "), can be 
 most perfectly attained. 
 
 It may seem strange that the ass should have 
 been chosen as the homologue of the cathedral ; 
 but it must be remembered that in the Orient this 
 animal is noted for its beauty, strength, and in- 
 telligence, and that our domestic donkey is the 
 
2/0 Animal Symbolism 
 
 degenerate scion of a noble stock. There is also 
 reason to believe that this creature was an object 
 of peculiar reverence to the early Christians, owing 
 probably to the fact that Christ made His triumphal 
 entry into Jerusalem sitting upon an ass, and that 
 the animal still bears the sign of the cross formed 
 by a black bar across the shoulders intersecting the 
 line of the back. Plutarch {Sympos., lib. iv. 5) 
 and Tacitus {Hist., lib. v.) assert that the ass was 
 adored by the Jews because it discovered springs 
 of water in the desert during the exodus, and this 
 tradition might have easily been accepted by the 
 Christians as typical of the Saviour, the well-spring 
 of eternal life. Tertullian says : " There are some 
 who imagine that our God has the head of an ass," 
 and indignantly denies the truth of this statement, 
 which, nevertheless, seems to have been quite 
 generally entertained. Indeed, this ardent and 
 eloquent apologist himself declares that the enemies 
 of the Gospel exposed publicly a picture repre- 
 senting a person with a book in his hand and 
 wearing a long robe, but with the ears and legs of 
 an ass, and under it the inscription : " The Christian 
 God with the ass's hoof." Again, Cecilius Felix 
 remarks in the Dialogue of Minutius Felix : " I 
 hear that this basest of creatures is worshipped by 
 the Christians, though I know not upon what 
 inane persuasion." In a rude drawing scrawled on 
 the walls of the barracks or guard-room on the 
 Palatine, is a man kneeling before a crucifix, on 
 which is a human being with an ass's head, and a 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 271 
 
 legend informs us that this person is " Anaxomenos 
 worshipping his God." Epiphanius affirms that the 
 Gnostics beheved that the Lord of Sabaoth had an 
 ass's head.^ 
 
 In the church of Saint-Esprit, a suburb of 
 Bayonne, is the wooden effigy of an ass bearing the 
 Virgin and the infant Jesus ; the latter is holding a 
 bird in His hand. It was originally in the convent 
 of St. Bernard, built in the thirteenth century and 
 now demolished, and is still known as the ass of St. 
 Bernard. One belonged to each of the cathedrals 
 of Rheims and Paris ; there is one in Santa Maria 
 in Organo at Verona, and formerly nearly every 
 church was provided with such an image, of which 
 a good specimen is now preserved in the Germanic 
 Museum at Nuremberg, It was not an object of 
 worship, but was used sometimes instead of the 
 living animal in celebrating the Feast of the Ass, 
 which took place at Christmas in honour of Christ's 
 entry into Jerusalem, and likewise on the fourteenth 
 of January, as a memorial of the flight into Egypt, 
 and was one of the most popular of Church festivals. 
 
 There is an old tradition that the ass on which 
 Christ made His entry into Jerusalem left Judea 
 immediately after the Crucifixion, and passing over 
 the sea dry-shod to Rhodes, Cyprus, Malta, Sicily, 
 and Aquileia, finally reached Verona, where it lived 
 to a very old age. After its death its bones were 
 collected and deposited in the belly of the wooden 
 ass of Santa Maria in Organo, which was made as 
 1 Cf. A/males Archeologiqiies, xv. p. 383. 
 
272 Animal Symbolism 
 
 a memorial of it and in its exact image. It was 
 once a popular belief, which may yet linger among 
 the lower class of Veronese, that all the asses of 
 that region are scions of this sacred stock ; but their 
 supposed origin does not appear to insure them 
 less cruel treatment than low-born donkeys are sub- 
 jected to in all parts of Italy. 
 
 An ass caparisoned with a cope and other sacer- 
 dotal apparel, and sometimes ridden by a young 
 girl with an infant in her arms, was met at the 
 principal entrance of the church by the canons and 
 other clergy, and conducted up the nave into the 
 chancel. The officiating priests held in their hands 
 urns or pitchers full of wine, and goblets of glass 
 or pewter. The censer contained, instead of the 
 usual fragrant gums and spices, fat black-pudding 
 and sausage, which in burning exhaled anything 
 but a pleasant perfume. The Introit, the Kyrie, the 
 Gloria, and the Credo were sung in a harsh braying 
 tone, after which the following ass's litany in Latin 
 was chanted, the whole body of the clergy and the 
 congregation joining vociferously as a chorus in the 
 refrain, which was French — 
 
 " Orientis partibus 
 Adventavit asinus, 
 Pulcher et fortissimus, 
 Sarcinis aptissimus. 
 
 Hez, sire asne, car chantez 
 
 Belle bouche rdchignez 
 
 Vous aurez de foin assez, 
 
 Et de I'avoine k plantd 
 
 " Lentus erat pedibus, 
 Nisi foret baculus, 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 273 
 
 Et cum in clunibus, 
 Pungeret aculeus. 
 Hez, sire asne, etc. 
 
 " Ecce magnis auribus, 
 Subjugalis filius, 
 Asinus egregius, 
 Asinorum dominus. 
 Hez, sire asne, etc. 
 
 " Hie, in collibus Sichem 
 Enutritus sub Rubem 
 Transiit per Jordanem, 
 Saliit in Bethlehem. 
 Hez, sire asne, etc. 
 
 " Saltu vincit hinnulos, 
 Dagmas et capreolos, 
 Super dromedarios 
 Velox madianeos. 
 Hez, sire asne, etc. 
 
 " Aurum de Arabia 
 Thus et myrrham de Saba, 
 TuHt in ecclesia 
 Virtus asinaria. 
 Hez, sire asne, etc. 
 
 " Dum trahit vehicula, 
 Multa cum sarcinula 
 IHius mandibula 
 Dura terit pabula. 
 Hez, sire asne, etc. 
 
 " Cum aristis hordeum 
 Comedit et carduum 
 Triticum a palea 
 Segregant in area. 
 Hez, sire asne, etc. 
 
 "Amen dicas, asine. 
 Jam satur ex gramine, 
 Amen, amen, itera ; 
 Aspernare vetera. 
 Hez, sire asne, etc." 
 
274 Animal Symbolism 
 
 This remarkable hymn may be rendered into 
 Enghsh as follows — 
 
 " From the regions of the East 
 Came the ass, the worthy beast, 
 Strong and fair beyond compare, 
 Heavy burdens fit to bear. 
 
 Huzza, Sir Ass, because you chant, 
 Fair mouth, because you bray, 
 You shall have enough of hay, 
 And also oats to plant. 
 
 " Slow of foot the beast would fare. 
 Should the staff you on him spare. 
 Or should fail with many a thump 
 To goad him on and prod his rump. 
 Huzza, Sir Ass, etc. 
 
 " Lo, with what enormous ears 
 This subjugal son appears. 
 Most egregious ass, we see 
 Lord of asses all in thee. 
 Huzza, Sir Ass, etc. 
 
 " He in Sichem's hills was bred. 
 Under Reuben's care was fed. 
 Passed through Jordan's sacred stream, 
 Skipped about in Bethlehem. 
 Huzza, Sir Ass, etc. 
 
 " Leaping he outruns the hind, 
 Hart and he-goat leaves behind, 
 Dromedaries doth surpass 
 This our swift and sturdy ass. 
 Huzza, Sir Ass, etc. 
 
 " Gold from Araby the blest. 
 Frankincense that's much in quest, 
 To the church a precious fraught 
 Asinary strength hath brought. 
 Huzza, Sir Ass, etc. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 275 
 
 " As he draws along the cart 
 Heavy-laden to the mart, 
 He his jaws doth ever ply, 
 Grinding fodder hard and dry. 
 Huzza, Sir Ass, etc. 
 
 " Barley with the awn he eats, 
 And himself to thistles treats; 
 While on threshing-floors are beat 
 From the chaff the grains of wheat. 
 Huzza, Sir Ass, etc. 
 
 "Amen thou now mayst bray, O ass. 
 Satiate with corn and grass ; 
 Amen repeat, amen reply. 
 And antiquity defy. 
 
 Huzza, Sir Ass, etc." 
 
 Sometimes the refrain was simply " Hez, sire 
 ass, hez " ; in fact, the service as well as the song 
 varied slightly in different places, and was modified 
 somewhat by circumstances, but the essential cha- 
 racter of the performance remained everywhere the 
 same. The music of this chant, which was of a 
 grave and solemn character, befitting a religious 
 service, has been published by M. Felix Clement 
 in his Choix des principales Sequences des Moyen 
 Age tirees des Manuscrits. With a courage born 
 of enthusiasm, M. Clement had this music of the 
 thirteenth century actually performed at the Col- 
 lege Stanislas, April 29, 1847, before a select audi- 
 ence, composed chieflly of musicians of the Opera 
 and Conservatoire of Paris, who are said to have 
 received it with applause.^ 
 
 ^ Cf. Didron, An. Arch., vii. et al. 
 
2/6 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Not unfrequently this festival began in the 
 morning, and continued without interruption all 
 night till the evening of the following day. The 
 singing of the anthem, Condtictus ad Pocidum 
 (" Brought to the Cup "), was the signal for the dis- 
 tribution of wine among the choristers, who drank 
 very freely, and often got fuddled. While they 
 were thus refreshing themselves with bottles of 
 wine, the ass was regaled with what the trans- 
 mogrified Bottom so greatly desired, "a bottle of 
 hay " and a bucket of water. With the intonation 
 of the second anthem, Condiictus ad Ludos ("Brought 
 to the Sports"), the ass was led into the nave of the 
 church, and danced round by the priests and the 
 people, who imitated its bray. After the dance 
 the ass was reconducted into the chancel and pro- 
 vided with fresh rations of provender. The feast 
 ended with the anthem, Conductus ad Prandiiim 
 (" Brought to the Banquet "), which was sung after 
 vespers on the second day, and was an invitation 
 to the final repast.^ At the close of the service the 
 priest, instead of uttering the usual formula of dis- 
 missal, " Ite, missa est," broke forth into a loud 
 " Hee-haw," which he repeated three times as a 
 parting benediction to the worshippers, and a trinal 
 tribute to the animal which formed the centre of 
 interest and of homage in this strange religious 
 ceremony. 
 
 There was also a preparatory meeting or con- 
 
 1 Cf. William Hone, Ancient Mysteries^ p. 165 ; London, 
 1823. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 277 
 
 vocation held on the eve of the feast, when the 
 clergy in full canonicals went in procession to 
 meet the ass at the door of the cathedral, accom- 
 panied by two choristers, who chanted the following 
 invocation — 
 
 " Lux hodie, lux letitise me judice tristis 
 Quisquis erit, removendus erit, solemnibus istis, 
 Sicut hodie, procul invidia, procul omnia moesta, 
 Laeta volunt, quiscumque celebret asinaria festa." 
 
 " O light to-day, O light of joy, I banish every sorrow ; 
 
 Wherever found, be it expelled from our solemnities to- 
 morrow. 
 
 Away with strife and grief and care from every anxious 
 heart, 
 
 And all be filled with mirth who in the Ass's Feast take 
 part." 
 
 The ass was then conducted to a table, usually in 
 the vestry, at which the dean sat with two pre- 
 bendaries, who read the order of proceedings as 
 arranged for the following day, and the names and 
 offices of the participants. The ass, offering no 
 objections, was supposed to give silent consent to 
 the programme, which was accordingly approved. 
 
 M. Pierre Louvret, in his Histoire dii Diocese de 
 Beauvais, published in 1635, gives an account of 
 the manner in which this feast was celebrated in 
 the cathedral of that city, whose bishops bore the 
 rank and title of princes, and held the highest place 
 among the civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries of the 
 realm. The ass in a cope, sculptured on an archi- 
 volt in St. Peter's Church in Aulnay, and dating 
 from the twelfth century, is a survival of the festive 
 
278 Animal Symbolism 
 
 observance just described ; indeed, the ass in sacer- 
 dotal vestments, painted in fresco, or more fre- 
 quently carved in relief, may be seen in many 
 sacred edifices. 
 
 In an essay entitled L'Ane au Moyen-Age, printed 
 in Didron's Annales Archeologiques (vols, vii., xv., 
 and xvL), M. F61ix Clement interprets the ass as 
 a symbol of the Saviour, and thus comments on 
 the first verse of the ass's litany : " It is from 
 the Orient that the light comes to us ; the Orient 
 is the cradle of the human race; from the Orient 
 came the wise men, the Magi, with whose gifts 
 the ass was laden ; in the Orient appeared the 
 star which guided them to Bethlehem." He also 
 quotes St. Bernard, who calls Jesus Christ Oriens 
 in vespere. Pulcher refers to the moral beauty 
 of Christ, fortissmius to His strength in over- 
 coming the great adversary, the prince of dark- 
 ness, and in conquering death and hell, and sarcinis 
 aptissimus to His fitness to bear the burden of a 
 sinful world, symbolized by the heavy weight of 
 the Cross. In the fourth verse Sichem is mentioned 
 because it was the ancient capital of Israel and 
 the chief place of worship of the Samaritans, and 
 Bethlehem because Christianity began there. The 
 superiority of the ass to the other animals enumer- 
 ated in the fifth verse signifies that Christ surpassed 
 in excellence all the Hebrew prophets. The eighth 
 verse indicates the office of Christ as winnower, 
 who with His fan in His hand will purge the floor, 
 gathering the wheat into the garner, but burning 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 279 
 
 the chaff with unquenchable fire. Aspernare Vetera 
 impHes that old things have passed away, and that 
 the Synagogue has been supplanted by the Church, 
 Even the refrain of the hymn, " Hez, sire asne," is 
 interpreted as an abbreviation of " Hatez vos pas, 
 divin Messie," and an earnest injunction to the 
 Lord Jesus to come quickly and complete the work 
 of human redemption. Nevertheless, M. Clement 
 does not seem to have full confidence in the cor- 
 rectness of this explanation, since he afterwards 
 proposes another theory, by which the ass from 
 the East, so full of strength and courage, becomes 
 a type of the Jewish people, the " depositary and 
 transmitter of the belief in the true God." 
 
 But whatever symbolism there may have been 
 originally, or is still discernible to the ecclesio- 
 logical eye in this feast, was soon swallowed up 
 and lost sight of in gross buffoonery, and the 
 religious service degenerated into a sort of Saturna- 
 lian amusement, which suited the coarse tastes of 
 the time, and is not to be judged by our modern 
 sense of the sacredness of things, or by the standards 
 of delicate and even fastidious feeling developed by 
 centuries of intellectual culture and inherited refine- 
 ment. The age of faith, as it is called, was not 
 at all squeamish, and did not suffer itself to be 
 shocked in the slightest degree by grotesque and 
 farcical exhibitions in sacred places. Mediaeval 
 monks and ecclesiastics were neither thin-skinned 
 nor dainty-minded, and, like the lower classes of 
 the people, from which the great majority of them 
 
28o Animal Symbolism 
 
 sprung, they indulged in the coarsest jokes, appre- 
 ciating and enjoying them all the more when they 
 were at the expense of their cloth. The Church 
 aimed to take everything under her control, and 
 to direct the pleasures as well as to dictate the 
 penances of the masses. The bishops, as Viollet-le- 
 Duc observes, preferred to throw open their cathe- 
 drals to the crowd, and to permit such jollities 
 within the consecrated walls, rather than to run the 
 risk of dangerous fermentations of popular ideas 
 outside. It was especially necessary to maintain 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction and supremacy, and not 
 let men get the fatal notion into their heads that 
 they could even indulge in merrimakes and pas- 
 times otherwise than under the auspices of the in- 
 dulgent Mother Church. Such a presumption and 
 precedent would have been as perilous to hierarch- 
 ical authority as it would be prejudicial to medical 
 prestige to let a man die without the prescription 
 of a doctor. Whatever concerned the moral or 
 material interests of the community, whether it 
 was to rebuke the vicious habits of mendicant 
 monks and wandering minstrels, or to exterminate 
 locusts, weevils, and other destructive vermin by 
 anathematisms, the Church did not deem it alien 
 to her office or injurious to her sanctity to draw 
 within her pale, and to make contributory to her 
 power and glory. 
 
 The capitals of the columns on the doorway 
 leading to the south aisle of St. Sebald's Church in 
 Nuremberg are adorned with quaint forms of 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 281 
 
 beasts which are to be interpreted in part as 
 ministering spirits outside of the precincts of the 
 sanctuary, and in part as types of human weakness 
 under temptation, and especially of priestly frailties. 
 Guy de Munois, Abbot of St. Germain d'Auxerre 
 (1285 — 1309), had for his official seal the figure of a 
 cowled ape with an abbot's staff in its hand, and the 
 legend, " Abbe de singe air main d'os serre." The 
 seal of the Bishop of Pinon in Picardie was an ape 
 in episcopal robes, with crosier and mitre. Ecclesi- 
 astical dignitaries, who took delight in satirizing 
 the infirmities of their order and in caricaturing 
 themselves and their sacred office, would not find 
 anything offensive in celebrating the Feast of the 
 Ass, and would not scruple to permit animals in 
 copes and stoles to be carved on the stalls and 
 portals of consecrated edifices, or to be represented 
 in painting and sculpture in the act of burlesquing 
 the holy Mass and the burial service. 
 
 Sincere and even ardent Catholics did not hesitate 
 to ridicule many practices which were authorized 
 and encouraged by the see of Rome. Such was 
 the sale of relics, a scandalous abuse sanctioned by 
 tlie Church, but satirized by John Heywood, a 
 graduate of Oxford and favourite of the bigoted 
 Queen Mary, a zealous papist, whom the accession 
 of Elizabeth in 1558 forced to take refuge on the 
 Continent at Mechlin, where he died towards the 
 close of the sixteenth century. In a play called 
 "The Four P.P., a very merry Enterlude of a 
 Palmer, a Pardoner, a Pothecary, and a Pedler," 
 
282 Animal Symbolism 
 
 this sturdy and scholarly Romanist exposes the 
 frauds perpetrated by preaching friars as itinerant 
 vendors of saints' bones. Pardoner exhibits and 
 extols the wonder-working virtues of his wares, and 
 bids his hearers kiss with devotion 
 
 " Of All-Hallows the blessed jaw-bone." 
 
 Pothecary, who claims to be an expert in antiquities 
 of this sort, declares that the relic is in bad odour, 
 and enough to turn the strongest stomach — 
 
 "For by All-Hallows, yet methinketh 
 That All-Hallows' breath stinketh." 
 
 Pardoner replies that Pothecary must have caught 
 a sniff of his own foul breath, and proceeds to cry 
 his merchandise with the impudence and volubility 
 of a mountebank — 
 
 " Nay, sirs, behold, here may ye see 
 The great toe of the Trinitie. 
 Who to this toe any money vowth, 
 And once may role it in his mouth, 
 All his life after, I undertake, 
 He shall never be vext with toothake." 
 
 To this assurance Pothecary retorts sarcastically — 
 
 " I pray you turn that relique about : 
 Either the Trinity had the gout, 
 Or else, because it is three toes in one, 
 God made it as much as three toes alone." 
 
 Pardoner, who has a large assortment of " holy 
 particles," and is not to be bluffed by having a 
 seeming blur cast upon any one of them, brings out 
 another specimen and says — 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 283 
 
 " Well, let that pass, and look at this. 
 Here is a relique that doth not miss 
 To help the least as well as the most: 
 This is a buttock-bone of Pentecost." 
 
 He has also "a slipper of one of the seven sleepers," 
 " an eye-tooth of the Great Turk," and 
 
 " a box full of the bumblebees 
 That stang Eve as she sat on her knees, 
 Tasting the fruit to her forbidden." 
 
 Again, in TJie Pardoner and the Friar a similar 
 assortment of relics is exposed for sale : " the great 
 toe of the Trinity " ; " All- Hallows' jaw-bone," an in- 
 fallible antidote for poisons ; "of Saint Michael eke 
 the brain-pan," commended as a specific for head- 
 ache ; the " bongrace of our gracious lady, which 
 she wore with her French hood when she went out 
 as a protection gainst sun-burning"; "a holy Jew's 
 hip-bone," which, if cooked in the pottage, will cure 
 a man of jealousy, and inspire him with perfect 
 confidence in the virtue of his wife, even " had she 
 been taken with friars two or three." As the par- 
 doner is about to show the pope's bull and other 
 credentials from Rome, the friar begins his sermon, 
 and the preaching and peddling go on simultan- 
 eously, until the two competitors for popular favour 
 fall to blackguarding each other, and finally come 
 to blows. The village parson, with the help of 
 " neighbour Prat," who acts as constable, tries to 
 separate them ; but his reverence is no match for 
 the burly friar, and soon finds, to use his own ex- 
 pression, that he has more tow on his distaff than he 
 
284 Animal Symbolism 
 
 can spin, while the pardoner, who proves to be as 
 adroit in pugilism as in pious mendacity, quickly 
 " punishes " the officious Prat. 
 
 The authors of coarse satires like these were not 
 heretics or infidels, but staunch adherents of the 
 Romish Church, who were ready to endure exile 
 or to suffer death for the faith that was in them.^ 
 That their descriptions of this traffic are scarcely 
 exaggerated is proved by the kind and quantity of 
 relics still preserved and exposed to adoration in 
 Catholic churches. In the middle ages, when such 
 articles were in great request, and the bones of 
 saints, in the jargon of the exchange, were " lively" 
 and often became "excited," the economical law of 
 demand and supply, which is as universal and un- 
 escapable as that of gravitation, worked in a marvel- 
 lous and quite miraculous way, and produced some 
 astounding results. 
 
 Some years ago a distinguished anatomist, who 
 visited an old church on the Hradshin in Prague, 
 observed that a skeleton in one of the shrines had 
 two right thigh-bones. It was suggested that this 
 idiosyncrasy might be due to the transforming effect 
 of canonization, and some devotees were inclined to 
 regard it as a sign of peculiar sanctity ; but only 
 the most credulous of the faithful accepted this view 
 as an adequate explanation of the phenomenon. 
 It was generally admitted that such abnormities 
 
 ^ Cf. Dodsley's Old Plays, i. 88, loi, etc.; William Hone's 
 Ancient Mysteries, 87-88 ; Hazlitt's edition Qi The Four P.P., 
 with modernized orthography. London, 1874. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 285 
 
 of structure were unbecoming in persons whom 
 the public had been taught to revere as patterns of 
 piety, and to imitate as models of perfection ; and 
 although they may have despised the vanities and 
 seductions of the flesh during their lives, they ought 
 not to give offence or occasion for scoffing by any 
 conspicuous irregularity in the arrangement of their 
 bones after death. Accordingly an inquest was 
 held ; the worshipful relics were " sat upon " by a 
 jury of experts, who, as the result of their investi- 
 gations, recommended a general overhauling and 
 reparation of the remains of the saints kept in the 
 churches of the Bohemian capital. The celebrated 
 anatomist. Professor Joseph Hyrtl, was induced to 
 undertake the task, which had to be performed with 
 the greatest secrecy and circumspection, and he 
 finally succeeded in ridding the enshrined skeletons 
 of their most obtrusive deviations from the organism 
 of the natural man, and establishing a certain 
 degree of harmony between the provinces of sacred 
 and scientific osteology. 
 
 It must not be inferred, however, that the saints 
 of Prague were exceptional in their variations from 
 the common sinful human type. The critical 
 examination of all the treasuries of relics in Christ- 
 endom would disclose the remains of holy men 
 and of godly women not a few, who seem to have 
 had as many arms as Briareus, and as many legs 
 as a centipede. It is well known that St. Anna 
 had three arms, only one less than Vishnu ; and 
 this tribrachial characteristic appears to have been 
 
286 Animal Symbolism 
 
 hereditary in her family, otherwise it would be 
 difficult to account for the fact that one arm of 
 the Virgin Mary is revered in Rome, another in 
 Nuremberg, and a third in Cologne. St. Vitus 
 was unquestionably quadrumanous ; one of his 
 hands is in Sienna and another in Bamberg, whilst 
 his entire skeleton, including both hands, is shown 
 in the cathedral at Prague. Perhaps the anthro- 
 pologist, who has hitherto searched for "the 
 missing link " among chimpanzees, orang-outangs, 
 and other simian tribes, will at last come upon the 
 object of his quest in the voluminous and won- 
 drous annals of hagiology. Some saints were 
 evidently in the habit of shedding their skulls at 
 different periods of their growth, just as stags 
 throw off their antlers and serpents cast their skins. 
 This was the case with St. Peter, whose skull as a 
 child may be seen in one shrine, while his fully- 
 developed cranium as an adult is kept in another. 
 As a matter of convenience for future collectors, 
 and kind consideration for a devout posterity, 
 such forethought is most remarkable, and cannot 
 be too highly praised. When the abbot Marolles 
 of Amiens was shown a head of John the Baptist, 
 he exclaimed : " Glory be to God, that is the sixth 
 head of the Redeemer's forerunner I have had the 
 good fortune to adore ! " 
 
 The miraculous power of self-multiplication with 
 which the " particles " of the saints are endowed 
 extends also to their personal effects. There are 
 now in existence about a dozen equally well 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 287 
 
 authenticated originals of the seamless vesture, 
 upon which the Roman soldiers cast lots. The 
 most celebrated specimen of this garment is the 
 " holy coat " in the cathedral of Trier, where it 
 has been repeatedly exhibited as an object of 
 worship and a source of revenue, and even as 
 recently as 1891 attracted crowds of fetichistic 
 pilgrims. Its history, as recorded in a German 
 poem of the twelfth century entitled Orendel, 
 surpasses in extravagance the wildest inventions 
 of classical and Oriental mythology. Scores of 
 churches possess pieces of the true cross, which 
 nevertheless may be seen intact in Paris ; the same 
 is the case with Aaron's rod, a portion of which is 
 at Bamberg, although the whole is in an excellent 
 state of preservation at Milan. 
 
 The superstitious fondness for sacred relics in 
 the middle ages, like the modern enthusiasm for 
 antiques and masterpieces of the Renaissance, 
 incited the dealers in such wares to wholesale 
 perpetrations of fraud. The skeleton of many a 
 malefactor, whose head was deservedly severed 
 from his body by the executioner's axe, is now 
 revered as the remains of a blessed martyr ; and 
 countless bones, set with jewels and deposited in 
 costly shrines, were originally taken from the 
 gallows-pit. That the author of TJie Foiir P.P. 
 gave a true picture of the extent to which this 
 fraudulent traffic was carried on, can be clearly 
 shown, as we have already suggested, by examining 
 the lists of relics in the older Catholic churches. 
 
288 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Thus, for example, in Santa Prassede at Rome, 
 among other queer things of this kind, are a tooth 
 of St. Peter and one of St. Paul, as well as bits 
 of their respective skulls, a scrap of the Virgin's 
 chemise, a bottle of her milk, and a piece of her 
 sepulchre, fragments of the Saviour's girdle and of 
 His swaddling-clout, the pillar at which He was 
 scourged, some of the earth on which He kneeled 
 in prayer before the Passion, the reed and sponge 
 with which He was given vinegar to drink on the 
 cross, parts of His vesture for which the Roman 
 soldiers cast lots, and three thorns from the crown 
 of thorns ; near by, in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, 
 are the superscription which Pilate put on the 
 cross, one of the thirty pieces of silver paid to 
 Judas, and the finger with which the doubting 
 Thomas was told to touch the print of the nails 
 in the hands of the risen Lord ; in the cloister 
 of St. Barbara in Coblence is the fore-skin of the 
 infant Jesus, which in the last century is said to 
 have wrought a startling and somewhat unseemly 
 miracle on one of the nuns. Before the Reform- 
 ation, Schaffliausen was proud of possessing some 
 of the breath of St. Joseph enclosed in one of 
 the gloves of Nicodemus ; Halle boasted of having 
 fragments of Noah's ark, and of the chemise 
 worn by the Virgin during her confinement ; and 
 the church of Notre-Dame-en-Vaux at Chalons 
 guarded as a rare treasure the navel of Jesus 
 Christ until 1707, when the rationalistic bishop 
 Noailles had it removed. An additional and 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 289 
 
 exceedingly strong evidence of the extent to which 
 this utterly absurd " fad " prevailed, and duped 
 with vile counterfeits even the shrewdest and most 
 sensible men, is the fact that Duke Frederic III., 
 surnamed the Wise, the Elector of Saxony and 
 the protector of Luther, had a collection of nearly 
 four thousand relics, among which were such 
 choice specimens as milk of the Virgin, yarn which 
 she spun — the yarn we suspect was of the nautical 
 sort, and spun at a much later period — remains of 
 the children slain in Bethlehem, straw and hay 
 from the manger in which Jesus was born, teeth 
 and hair of Christ, and portions of His raiment. 
 Boccaccio, in the Decameron (Giorn. vi., Nov. 10), 
 gives some specimens of Fra Cipolla's sacred col- 
 lection : the jaw-bone of Lazarus, a feather of the 
 angel Gabriel, the hood of the seraph which ap- 
 peared to St. Francis, the toe-nail of a cherub, 
 some vestments of the Holy Catholic Faith, a finger 
 of the Holy Ghost, a few rays of the star of Bethle- 
 hem, and a vial containing tones of the bells of 
 Solomon's temple. Curiously enough, the scoffing 
 poet took a religious turn in the fiftieth year of his 
 age, and became himself a diligent and devout 
 collector of religious relics. 
 
 Coarse caricatures and obscene characterizations 
 of the Jews are quite common in Christian 
 churches. Thus on the north-east corner of the 
 lofty choir near the roof in the parish church at 
 Wittenberg is a rude high-relief, hewn in stone, of 
 a sow with a litter of pigs, and among them a lot 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Satire on the Jews. 
 (Wittenberg Parish Church.) 
 
 of Jews, who are assiduously sucking her dugs to 
 the dispossession and great discomfort of her own 
 
 young. Behind the 
 sow stands a rabbi, 
 who, Hfting her right 
 leg with one hand, 
 and holding her by 
 the tail with the 
 other, earnestly en- 
 deavours to peer into 
 her insides, as though 
 he saw something 
 there worthy of his closest and keenest scrutiny. 
 According to Luther's interpretation of this re- 
 markable work of art, the Jewish doctor of the law 
 is engaged in searching into the mysteries of the 
 Talmud.^ 
 
 Above this sculpture stood originally a semi- 
 Hebrew inscription in Latin characters : " Rabini 
 Schemhamphoras," which seems to have accidentally 
 disappeared or been purposely removed during the 
 restoration of the church in 1570. Schemham- 
 phoras is the hidden name of God, which, if spoken 
 or written, works magically and is used for con- 
 
 ^ " Es ist hie zu Wittemberg an vnser Pfarrkirchen eine 
 Saw in Stein gehawen, da ligen junge Ferckel vnnd Jiiden 
 vnter, die saugen. Hinder der Saw stehet eyn Rabin, der 
 hebt der Saw das rechte bein empor, und mit seiner lincken 
 hand zeucht er den pirtzel vber sich, biickt vnnd kuckt mit 
 grossem vleis der Saw unter dem pirtzel inn den Thalmud 
 hinein, als wolt er etwas scharffes vnd sonderliches lessen 
 und ersehen." — Dr. Mar. Luther, Von Schemhamphoras vnnd 
 Ceschlecht Christi. Wittenberg, 1543, 4to. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 291 
 
 juration. Also the passage describing the miracle 
 of the pillar of the cloud and the division of the 
 waters (Ex. xiv. 19-21) consists in the original of 
 two hundred and sixteen letters, out of which the 
 cabalists form seventy-two words of three letters 
 each. They pronounce these words as numbers, 
 and understand by them the names of seventy-two 
 angels, which correspond to as many special 
 powers and attributes of God, and are exceedingly 
 potent as charms.^ 
 
 A rhymed chronicle preserved in the city 
 archives of Wittenberg states that the aforesaid 
 relief was intended to deride and vex the Jews, 
 who, by their chafferings and bickerings on Sunday 
 near the sanctuary, disturbed and scandalized all 
 good Christians. After due deliberation, it was 
 resolved to have this work made in order to heap 
 contempt upon the Jews, and to compel them to 
 seek some other place of barter. The ingenious 
 plan, the chronicler informs us, was crowned with 
 complete success, and the Hebrew traffickers felt 
 so insulted that they not only ceased to transact 
 their business in the vicinity of the church, but 
 gradually withdrew wholly from the city. 
 
 This explanation is a mere afterthought and 
 pure invention, and is not sustained by any his- 
 torical records, nor is it at all probable that the 
 Christians of Wittenberg would have been obliged 
 to resort to such indirect means of suppressing 
 
 1 Cf. Zeitschrijt fiir deuische KuUurgeschichte^ i. 463 sqq. 
 
292 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the alleged abuse. In cases of this kind, they 
 were not wont to deal in innuendoes, but to take 
 more summary measures. Besides, similar repre- 
 sentations exist elsewhere. Thus, on one of the 
 buttresses on the north side of the church of St. 
 Nicholas in Zerbst, the former capital of the 
 principality of Anhalt, is the relief of a sow with 
 two Jews sucking her teats, while two others are 
 holding her fast by the head and tail. It was 
 carved there as a memorial of the banishment of 
 the Jews from that city, as can be proved by 
 existing documents ; and the Wittenberg sculpture 
 had undoubtedly the same origin, and was intended 
 to satirize Jewish extortion and greed of gain. 
 It is well known that a pretty general persecution 
 and banishment of the Jews took place in 1348 
 and 1 349 under divers pretexts ; among other 
 accusations was that of producing pestilence by 
 poisoning the wells, the pollution of the water caused 
 by the common filthiness of the inhabitants being 
 ascribed to the wickedness of one class of the 
 population. 
 
 There is no doubt that the position to which 
 Christian intolerance condemned the Jews for 
 many centuries, closing to them all branches of 
 industry except usury, developed in them a peculiar 
 talent for finance, together with certain hard and 
 offensive traits of character naturally growing out 
 of money brokerage, and finally becoming almost 
 innate and hereditary. In the middle ages they 
 were made to serve as sponges to suck up the 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 293 
 
 people's substance in order that it might be 
 squeezed out of them at the convenience of the 
 rulers. King John II., surnamed the Good, issued 
 in 1360 a decree permitting the Jews in his realm 
 to take, as a compensation for loaning money, 
 " quatre deniers par livre par semaine," equivalent 
 to ninety per cent, per annum, not from any feeling 
 of favouritism for the Israelites, but, as he ex- 
 pressly stated, because " the greater the privileges 
 enjoyed by the Jews in this respect, the better 
 they will be able to pay the taxes levied on them 
 by the king." This " good " monarch was wont to 
 confiscate periodically a large portion of the pillage 
 thus obtained, in order to replenish his exhausted 
 exchequer, and was actually praised by his deluded 
 subjects for punishing Jewish rapacity. It was a 
 crafty system of indirect taxation worthy of modern 
 tariff legislators. Also in the early part of the 
 thirteenth century, Frederic II., the Hohenstaufe, 
 ordained that the Jews should be permitted to 
 dwell in Nuremberg and to lend money on interest, 
 stating that, " inasmuch as this sinful business is 
 essential to trade and to the commerical prosperity 
 of the city, it would be a lesser evil to let the Jews 
 carry it on, than that Christians should imperil the 
 salvation of their souls by such iniquitous practices, 
 since the former, owing to their notorious obduracy, 
 will doubtless persist in their religious perversity 
 and be damned anyhow." If the children of Israel 
 now "take a breed of barren metal," as naturally 
 as a pointer takes to pointing, or a hound to the 
 
294 Animal Symbolism 
 
 trail of a fox, this tendency is due in part at least 
 to circumstances which they did not create and 
 could not control. The chief accusation brought 
 against the modern representatives of this race by 
 Anti-Semitic agitators, is that they are unwilling 
 to follow industrial and especially agricultural 
 pursuits, in utter forgetfulness of the fact that, until 
 a comparatively recent date, they were forbidden 
 by Christian legislation either to engage in me- 
 chanical occupations or to own land, a condition of 
 things still existing in portions of Russia and other 
 half-civilized countries. 
 
 The gross method of outraging the feelings just 
 described had not even the merit of being original 
 with those who employed it. The Emperor Hadrian, 
 after having suppressed the revolt of Bar-Cochba 
 and recaptured Jerusalem, A.D. 135, caused images 
 of swine to be sculptured over the gates of the city 
 as a sign of the exclusion of the Jews, who were 
 forbidden to dwell within the walls. He then re- 
 stored it as a Roman city under the name of -^lia 
 Capitolina, and converted the tabernacle of Jehovah 
 into a temple dedicated to Jupiter.^ 
 
 On the synagogue in Heidingsfeld is an armorial 
 shield, on which are emblazoned two swine. It is 
 the escutcheon of the Prince Bishop of Wurzburg, 
 Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim, who had it placed 
 there instead of the arms of Heidingsfeld, which 
 the Jews wished to adorn their sanctuary with, but 
 
 ^ Cf. Adrichomius, Descriptio urbis Hierosolymorum. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 295 
 
 v/ere forbidden by the magistracy to use for this 
 purpose. The Rabbis were obhged to accept these 
 heraldic porkers as gosh or ceremonially clean in 
 consecrating the edifice. 
 
 A painting formerly on the lower part of the 
 
 Satire on the Jews. {Tower of Bridge at Frankfort.') 
 
 tower of the bridge across the Main in Frankfort 
 represented an old Jew with spectacles on his nose 
 sitting backwards on an enormous sow, and holding 
 her tail in his right hand. A young Jew is lying 
 on his back under the sow and eagerly sucking her 
 
296 Animal Symbolism 
 
 dugs ; another old Jew is kneeling on the ground 
 and receiving the sow's excrement into his mouth, 
 while Satan with hoofs and horns steals up behind 
 him and seizes him by the shoulder. Standing a 
 little to one side is a Jewess arrayed in fine attire, 
 holding a goat (the symbol of lechery) by the 
 horns and looking the devil boldly in the face ; 
 underneath the picture is the following verse : 
 
 " Sauf du die Milch, friss du den Dreck, 
 Das ist doch euer bestes Geschleck." 
 
 " Drink the milk and eat the dung, 
 That's a dainty for your tongue." 
 
 Above is the naked and scarred body of a Chris- 
 tian child, reputed to be the victim of a ritual 
 murder committed by the Jews in the year 1275. 
 This is the description of the painting in its original 
 form. Other accounts differ somewhat from this 
 one, probably owing to the disappearance of por- 
 tions of it in the lapse of time, and to the intro- 
 duction of slight changes by later renovators. 
 The Jews of Frankfort offered large sums of money 
 to have it removed, but in vain ; only a finer sense 
 of propriety, and a higher standard of public decency, 
 resulting from the progress of civilization, availed 
 to do away with the scandalous libel.^ 
 
 ^ Engravings of this painting are published in Der 
 Antiquarius des Neckar- Main- Lahn- unci Moselstroms, 
 Frankfurt a. M., 1740, p. 342; and in Scheible's Schaltjahr, 
 iii. p. 212. The former corresponds to the description just 
 given ; in the latter a tree stands in the place of the 
 Jewess. Cf. also Schm\A.t,JiidischeMerkwtidi£keiien, 1741, 
 ii. 256 sqq. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 297 
 
 A sow with two Jews as sucklings is carved 
 on one of the stalls of the choir in Bale Minster; 
 and in the cathedral of Magdeburg a chapel 
 dedicated to the Virgin Mary contains a similar 
 representation, dating from the fifteenth century. 
 It is a strange irony of fate that the Jewish race 
 should be thus held up to derision in a place 
 especially devoted to the worship of a Jewish 
 maiden. Among the gargoyles on the collegiate 
 church (Stiftskirche) of Wimpfen im Thai, a fine 
 Gothic edifice of the thirteenth century, is the figure 
 of a Jew sucking a sow and pushing aside a little 
 pig, which is anxious to have its turn at the 
 maternal breast. Sculptures of a like character 
 are found on the city hall (Rathhaus) of Salzburg, 
 on the chapel of St. Anna in Heiligenstadt on the 
 Leine, and among the grotesque carvings with 
 which a monk adorned the high altar and the stalls 
 of the chancel in the church at Heilbrunn, founded 
 in 1 1 32, and once famous as a place of pilgrimage. 
 
 The Jew suckled by a sow seems to have been 
 the one great Anti-Semitic joke of the middle ages, 
 and, judging from its frequent repetition and wide 
 diffusion, must have been regarded as a wonder- 
 fully clever and altogether matchless stroke of 
 Christian wit and satire. It was chiselled on the 
 cathedral of Ratisbon, probably at the time of the 
 expulsion of the Jews from that city in 15 19, an 
 event of sufficient importance to be deemed worthy 
 of commemoration by an inscription on an apothe- 
 cary's shop in Kelheim : "Anno Dom. 15 19 jar 
 
298 Animal Symbolism 
 
 wurden die juden zu Rengsburg ausgeschafft." It 
 occurs again in the cathedral of Praising on the 
 Isar with the following distich, which takes a rather 
 discouraging view of the missionary work under- 
 taken by the Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel among the Jews — 
 
 " So wahr die Maus die Katz nit frisst, 
 Wird der Jud kein wahrer Christ." 
 
 " Sure as the mouse the cat won't chew, 
 No Jew '11 become a Christian true." 
 
 The promoters of such proselytism may derive 
 some consolation from the fact that the ambiguity 
 caused by the feminine gender of " Maus " and 
 " Katz," either of which may be the subject or the 
 object of the verb, render it possible for this rather 
 clumsy verse to be so construed as to express the 
 very opposite of the sentiment intended by the 
 rhymster. 
 
 Jews formerly complained of being obliged to 
 take an oath standing on a swine's skin, but this 
 method of swearing may have been a survival of 
 the old German custom of solemnly affirming the 
 truth of any statement by the golden-bristled boar, 
 Gullinbursti, sacred to the sun-god Freyr, which 
 the Jews would naturally look upon as a parti- 
 cular grievance and intentional persecution. The 
 Romans sacrificed a swine in forming treaties and 
 making alliances, and the animal was also in this 
 case a symbol of the sun, the great revealer of 
 secrets and detecter of falsehood. In the Eumenides 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 299 
 
 of ^schylus, Apollo the purger ('ATroAAoiy KaOdpanos) 
 cleanses Orestes from the stains of matricidal pol- 
 lution with swine's blood, and Circe purifies the 
 Argonauts, the abettors of the murder of Absyrtus, 
 in the same manner. 
 
 It would be foreign to the purpose of the pre- 
 sent work to describe the various means devised to 
 throw derision upon the Jews ; only such satirical 
 delineations as are conspicuously connected with 
 ecclesiastical architecture come within its scope.^ 
 It would be unjust, however, not to mention the 
 heroic spirit of self-sacrifice which such trials tended 
 to develop, and of which the following is a note- 
 worthy instance. During a religious procession in 
 Worms, a report was spread abroad that a crucifix 
 had been mutilated. Of course the Jews, who served 
 as scapegoats for all such offences, were accused of 
 the sacrilege, and a mob of Christian zealots, hasten- 
 ing to the Jews' quarter, demanded with loud cries 
 the surrender of the culprits, and threatened, in case 
 of refusal, to wreak vengeance on the whole Jewish 
 population. A three days' respite was granted in 
 order to discover the persons who had committed the 
 outrage. Towards evening two Hebrew strangers 
 appeared at the closed entrance to the Jewry and 
 
 ^ The reader who is interested in the general subject is 
 referred to F. L. Bosigk's essay " Ueber die Judenspottbilder 
 des Mittelalters" in Zeitschrift fiir deutsche Kiilturge- 
 schichtCy i. 463-469; and to Strobel's Geistliches detiisches Kar- 
 tenspiel, pubHshed in 1691 at Sulzbach, and containing an 
 account of Schellensau, a game of cards designed to ridicule 
 the Jews. 
 
300 Animal Symbolism 
 
 begged for admittance. They were informed of 
 the terrible fate impending over the whole Israelitic 
 community, but insisted in sharing the lot of their 
 brethren, whatever it might be. At the expiration 
 of the three days' grace the infuriated and fanatical 
 rabble assembled again at the gate of the ghetto and 
 clamoured for the punishment of the sacrilegists. 
 Then the two stranger guests gave themselves up 
 as the guilty ones, and were put to death. In the 
 old synagogue at Worms are two ever-burning 
 lamps, which, as a Hebrew inscription informs us, 
 were lighted in memory of two unknown men, 
 who innocently suffered a cruel death for the sake 
 of their brethren. 
 
 Classical mythology was another source from 
 which Christian symbolism derived many concep- 
 tions and forms subsequently embodied in ecclesi- 
 astical architecture. It could hardly be expected 
 that the first Gentile converts, however sincere in 
 their profession of the new faith, would be able to 
 break away entirely from the teachings and tradi- 
 tions of their early life and education. They were 
 also told that the pagan religions were not merely 
 old wives' fables, but had a certain heavenly 
 origin and historical justification as preparatory to 
 Christianity, which they foreshadowed. The real 
 significance and raison d'etre of the deities of 
 Olympus were to be sought in their prototypical 
 relation to the expiatory sacrifice on Mount Cal- 
 vary. Hermes, who was represented in heathen 
 works of art as the protector of the herds, the 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 301 
 
 conductor of souls, and the reviver of the dead, 
 would be readily accepted as prefigurative of the 
 Saviour of mankind, and Perseus rescuing Andro- 
 meda as signifying Christ redeeming the human 
 soul. On a sarcophagus in the Museo Pio-Clemen- 
 tino at Rome is the relief of a satyr bearing a 
 lamb, and having features strongly resembling those 
 of the traditional good shepherd. There is no 
 doubt, too, that the fear of persecution led the 
 Christians of the first century to make this sym- 
 bolical use of the old mythology ; and it may have 
 been the same dictate of prudence that prevented 
 them from encircling the head of Christ with a 
 nimbus, the earliest example of which, in the 
 catacomb of St. Domitilla, belongs to the beginning 
 of the second century. 
 
 Some of the Fathers held the views still enter- 
 tained by Mr. Gladstone, that all mythologies are 
 corruptions and distortions of a primitive revela- 
 tion supernaturally communicated to " the chosen 
 people." The applications of this theory are some- 
 times very odd. Thus it was affirmed that the 
 ass's colt bound to the vine mentioned by the 
 patriarch Jacob in blessing Judah (Gen. xlix. 11) 
 is not only a prefiguration of Christ's entry into 
 Jerusalem, but also the original source of the myths 
 of Bacchus, Bellerophon, and Pegasus. The asin- 
 inity of many a one who essays to bestride the 
 winged horse of the Muses is lamentably true ; but 
 that the fiery steed itself is the foal of Shiloh's ass 
 may be reasonably questioned. Isaiah prophesies 
 
302 Animal Symbolism 
 
 that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son ; and 
 nothing is more common than for Orientals to 
 speak of the first-born as the child of a virgin ; but 
 the patristic exegetist maintains that this passage, 
 besides being a prediction of the birth of Christ, 
 suggested to the Greeks the legend of Danae, the 
 mother of Perseus. In like manner the labours 
 and wanderings of Hercules are based upon the 
 Psalmist's description of the bridegroom, who 
 rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race, and whose 
 going forth is from the end of the heaven. Whim- 
 seys of this kind have been long since relegated to 
 the waste-garret of mythological curiosities ; but 
 they are not a whit more extravagant than many 
 hermeneutical expositions still in vogue. 
 
 The magic power ascribed to the music of 
 Orpheus, which tamed wild beasts and even moved 
 trees and stones, was applied to the miraculous 
 power of Christ, who declared, on His entry into 
 Jerusalem, in reply to the protests of the Pharisees 
 against the noisy enthusiasm of the people, that, if 
 the multitude should hold their peace, the stones 
 would immediately cry out. The descent of the 
 mythical Greek poet and minstrel into the lower 
 world, and his success in rescuing his spouse 
 Eurydice from the dominion of Pluto, rendered the 
 analogy more complete, and may have given rise 
 to the legend of Christ's descent into hell for the 
 purpose of delivering the imprisoned spirits, 
 Orpheus thus became a prototype of the Saviour, 
 and as such found a place in the Christian pantheon 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 303 
 
 at a very early period. In the centre of the ceiling 
 of a cubiculum in the catacomb of St. Domitilla near 
 Rome, we see him seated on a rock and playing on 
 his lyre, surrounded by beasts and birds, which his 
 music has attracted to the spot. He figures 
 frequently on Christian sarcophagi and in the 
 frescoes of old churches. 
 
 The Bacchanal scenes which adorned the temples 
 of the son of Semele were copied or imitated by 
 the early Christians in order to illustrate the con- 
 ception of the Church as a vineyard, v/hich is 
 expressed in the parables of the householder and 
 his husbandmen, and of the labourers. An interest- 
 ing example of this adaptation is seen in the 
 mosaics of the fourth century in the cupola of 
 St. Costanza in Rome, representing the genii of 
 the vintage. 
 
 In the Gothic choir of the minster at Aix-la- 
 Chapelle is an ambo, dating from the early part of 
 the eleventh century, v^^ith ivory reliefs of a similar 
 but still more elaborate character : Bacchus with 
 the symbols of his cult, the vine, the lion, the 
 panther, and the dog. Pan and the satyrs, the 
 triumph of Galatea, centaurs, sirens, tritons, nereids, 
 dolphins, the sea-born Venus, Cupids blowing shells 
 as trumpets, and the m.yths of Demeter and Isis 
 and Horus in their assumed prefigurative relation 
 to the Virgin Mary. 
 
 Scenes from the pagan poets were occasionally 
 portrayed, as, for example, in the curious sculptures 
 of the twelfth century on a column in the choir of 
 
304 Animal Symbolism 
 
 the cathedral church of Bale, giving in four reliefs 
 the old Babylonian tale of the tragic fate of "a 
 pair of star-crossed lovers," Pyramus and Thisbe 
 as related by Ovid in the fourth book of the 
 Metamorphoses. In the first scene Thisbe has 
 taken refuge in a tree, at the foot of which a lion 
 is rending her mantle, while Pyramus approaches 
 with an uplifted sword to slay the lion, which has 
 a bit of Thisbe's mantle in its mouth. In the 
 
 Pyramus and Thisbe. (^Cathedral of Bale.') 
 
 second scene Pyramus is smiting the Hon. He 
 then goes in search of Thisbe, but, not finding her, 
 is convinced that she has been devoured by the 
 savage beast, and in a fit of despair falls on his 
 own sword. Thisbe now returns to the place of 
 rendezvous, and seeing her lover dead throws her- 
 self upon his sword. The final relief shows them 
 both pierced through by the same weapon. This 
 story of youthful passion thwarted by cruel parents 
 was exceedingly popular in the middle ages, and 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 305 
 
 was therefore fitly chosen by Shakespeare to be 
 theatrically caricatured by Nick Bottom the weaver, 
 Peter Quince the carpenter, and other " rude 
 mechanicals," as an episode of A Midsiimnier- 
 Nighfs Dream, from which it was taken by Andreas 
 Gryphius in his Absiirda Coniica oder Herr Peter 
 
 Pyramus and Thisbe. (Cathedral of Bdle.) 
 
 Squenz. What religious significance the reliefs in 
 Bale Minster may have it would be difficult to 
 determine. The lion which disturbs the meeting 
 of the lovers, and eventually causes them to commit 
 suicide, probably denotes the snares and terrors of 
 Satan. 
 
 After the conversion and accession of Constan- 
 tine, it was the settled policy of the Christians to 
 erect their churches on the sites of demolished 
 pagan temples, in order that the people might 
 the more readily assemble for the worship of the 
 true God in the places where they had been wont 
 
 X 
 
3o6 Animal Symbolism 
 
 to pay their devotions to idols. Gregory the Great, 
 towards the end of the sixth century, wrote a letter 
 of instructions to the missionaries to the Anglo- 
 Saxons directing them to pursue this plan. Some- 
 times the ancient edifice was simply transformed 
 and reconsecrated to the new cult, in which case 
 the statues and symbols of the heathen deities 
 remained and received a Christian signification as 
 objects of worship. Thus the Florentine Baptistery 
 superseded a temple dedicated to Mars, and John 
 the Baptist succeeded the Roman god of war as 
 the patron and protector of the city. The statue 
 of Mars, which once adorned the temple, was 
 placed on a tower, but was taken down when 
 Attila sacked the city in 452, and thrown into the 
 Arno, from which it was subsequently recovered 
 and set up on a bridge, where it was still standing 
 in the fourteenth century, as is evident from the 
 references to it by Dante. ^ 
 
 In the gallery of the Vatican are two portrait 
 statues of the Greek comic poets, Posidippus and 
 Menander, made of Pentelican marble probably by 
 Kephisodotos, the son of Praxiteles, for the theatre 
 at Athens. After their discovery in Paneperna 
 towards the end of the sixteenth century they were 
 for a long time adored as saints. Under the 
 church of S. Clemente in Rome is a temple dedi- 
 cated to the worship of Mithras, with the ancient 
 altar still standing. In a village church on the 
 
 J Cf. Inf., xiii. 143-15° 5 P(^^-> ^vi- 49, I45- 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 307 
 
 Danube, not far from Linz, is a statue of I sis made 
 of black basalt, to which pious Catholics pay their 
 devotions, regarding it as an image of the Virgin 
 Mary. A statue of the same goddess was wor- 
 shipped in the church of St. Germain des Pres in 
 Paris for nearly ten centuries. This church was 
 originally built by Childebert I. about the middle of 
 the sixth century on the ruins of a temple of I sis, 
 whose image was transferred to the new edifice, 
 where it was an object of adoration till 15 14, when 
 it was destroyed. Three gilded bronze statues of 
 Alemannic gods were revered in the chapel of St. 
 Aurelia at Bregenz, until St. Gallus in his prose- 
 lytic zeal broke them in pieces and threw them 
 into the lake in order to put an end to this idolatry. 
 Underneath the church of the Benedictine cloister 
 of St. Martin near Trier was found, at the time of 
 its demolition in 1802, an altar with reliefs of 
 Bellona, Minerva, Mercury, and Hercules. As late 
 as the sixteenth century a marble statue of 
 Hercules slaying the Nemean lion stood in the 
 vestibule of St. Ambrosius in Milan ; and in St. 
 Pietro in Cora the marble altar of a temple of 
 Hercules served as a font, on the front of which 
 was carved the head of Apollo encircled with a 
 halo as a solar deity. Antique sarcophagi and 
 cinerary urns were often used as Christian fonts 
 and stoups. This origin accounts for the reliefs 
 representing the myth of Hippolytus on the font, 
 or what was formerly the font, in the cathedral of 
 Girgenti, and for the scenes from the infancy of 
 
3o8 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Bacchus on a vessel which once served as a 
 baptismal ewer in the cathedral of Gaeta, but is 
 now in the Neapolitan Museum. 
 
 Cameos and other carved stones representing 
 mythological personages or narrations were prized 
 merely as jewels, and set as ornaments in crosiers, 
 crosses, and the shrines of saints, without regard 
 to the subjects engraved upon them. In the so- 
 called cross of Lothair in the minster of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle is an amethyst, on which the three Graces 
 are carved in relief; the story of Leda and the 
 swan is cut on a canonical seal of the twelfth 
 century; and an ivory reliquary in the Schloss- 
 kirche of Quedlinburg is studded with precious 
 stones, among which is an amethyst wrought into 
 the head of Bacchus.^ 
 
 The earliest Christian art was purely symbolical, 
 rudely indicating instead of fully expressing the 
 idea it was intended to convey. Thus a simple 
 cross symbolized the doctrine of the Atonement, 
 and it was not until a later period that the figure 
 of Christ was afifixed to the cross, which thus 
 became a crucifix, and gradually acquired an 
 artistic character. So, too, the cross-bearing Iamb 
 or Agnus Dei, the Good Shepherd, and similar 
 emblems, have no claim to be regarded as works of 
 art, but were nothing more than hieroglyphics or 
 monograms. This was due not so much to the 
 inwardness or spirituality of the new religion 
 
 * Cf. Piper, Myth, der christl. Kunst, i. 59-63, for numerous 
 examples of this kind. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 309 
 
 doctrinally, as to its crudeness and incapacity 
 artistically. The best productions of early Chris- 
 tian art are copies or close imitations of contem- 
 porary pagan art, such as tutelar genii, victories, 
 Amor and Psyche taken as emblems of the love of 
 God and the human soul, the golden apples guarded 
 by a dragon in the garden of the Hesperides inters- 
 preted as a tradition of the tree of knowledge and 
 the subtle serpent in the garden of Eden, Apollo 
 on the chariot of the sun transformed into Elias 
 borne to heaven on a fiery chariot, and Mercury or 
 Hermes with a ram on his shoulder expressive of 
 the Christian conception of the Saviour as the 
 Good Shepherd. 
 
 In the eleventh and twelfth centuries this servile 
 imitation is followed by a conscious appropriation 
 and independent elaboration of pagan myths by 
 Christian artists, as the result of a better appreci- 
 ation of the antique. Sibyls as well as saints and 
 prophets stand in the niches of Giotto's tower, and 
 are sculptured in relief on the bronze doors of 
 Ghiberti in Florence, and on the Casa Santa of 
 Loreto. A mosaic in San Michele at Pavia 
 celebrates the humane and heroic feat of Theseus 
 in slaying the Minotaur ; on one side of the en- 
 trance to the labyrinth is a dragon, and on the 
 other side a Pegasus ; on the left hand, as the 
 biblical counterpart of the classical myth, is David 
 fighting Goliath. It is probably a work of the 
 eleventh century. 
 
 Petrarch calls God "living Jove" and "eternal 
 
3IO Animal Symbolism 
 
 Jove"; and Dante apostrophizes Christ as " supreme 
 Jove, who for us on earth was crucified " — 
 
 " O sommo Giove, 
 Chi fosti'n terra per noi crocifisso." 
 
 Indeed, Jupiter was used as synonymous with 
 Jesus in poetry long before the features of the 
 sovereign of Olympus were borrowed by painters 
 and sculptors to lend dignity and majesty to the 
 portraitures of Christ, especially in His character 
 as stern and avenging Judge on the last day. 
 
 Giotto, whose pencil wrought in the spirit of the 
 Divine Comedy, and whose pictures are often mere 
 embodiments and illustrations of Dante's ideas, 
 introduced similar elements of ancient mythology 
 into Christian art by way of allegory. So, too, in 
 the famous frescoes of the triumph of death and the 
 last judgment by Andrea and Bernardo Orcagno 
 in the Campo Santo at Pisa, and in the Strozzi 
 chapel of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, we 
 find Charon the grim ferryman of souls, a triple- 
 necked Pluto as the personification of hell swallow- 
 ing the damned, Cerberus devouring the envious, 
 the morasses of the Styx, the bull-headed anthro- 
 pophagous Minotaur, in short the whole scenery 
 of the lower world as conceived by the poets of 
 classical antiquity and seen through mediaeval eyes. 
 
 The peacock, being sacred to Juno, became a 
 symbol of the apotheosis of Roman empresses, as 
 Jupiter's eagle was of Roman emperors. For this 
 reason these birds were carved on the tombs of the 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 3 1 1 
 
 apotheosized, and on funeral lamps. From pagan 
 monuments of the dead they passed to Christian 
 sepulchres, on which they signified the Christian's 
 conception of apotheosis, the ascension of the 
 sanctified soul and its union with God. Owing 
 to the belief that the flesh of the peacock was 
 incorruptible, this fowl was made an emblem of 
 the resurrection of the dead, sown in corruption, 
 but raised in incorruption. On this point Augustine 
 says {^De Civ. Dei, xxi. 4) : " Quis enim nisi Deus 
 creator omnium dedit carni pavonis mortui ne 
 putrescerent ? " " For who except God, the Creator 
 of all things, endowed the flesh of the dead pea- 
 cock with the power of never decaying ? " There 
 is a tradition that the acute and inquisitive suffra- 
 gan of Hippo experimented with the flesh of 
 this fowl, and found the popular superstition to 
 be correct. 
 
 The splendour of its plumage made it also an 
 emblem of the glories 
 of heaven. In many 
 mediaeval paintings, 
 for example, in Hans % 
 Memling's picture of 
 
 ■ 1 T i, T 1 , Peacocks. (Psalter of Isabella of France.) 
 
 the Last Judgment \ j j > 
 
 in the Dorothy Chapel of St. Mary's Church in 
 Dantzig, the angels have peacocks' feathers in their 
 wings. The Christian moralist, however, in his con- 
 demnation of all sensual beauty as diabolical in its 
 origin and influence, prefers in general to indicate 
 and emphasize the imperfections and less attractive 
 
312 Animal Symbolism 
 
 features of the bird, which it endeavours to conceal 
 under its showy quaHties. Thus, in Freidank's 
 Bescheidenheit (p. 43), the peacock is said to have 
 the sHnking gait of a thief, the voice of the devil, 
 and an angel's garb — 
 
 "der phawe diebes sliche hat, 
 tiuvels stimme, und engels wat." 
 
 On account of this peculiarity of its walk it is 
 called Petitpas ("Mincing-step") in the Roman de 
 Renart. The striking contrast between the ugly 
 feet, the awkward movement, the harsh strident 
 cry of the peacock, and its brilliant hues furnished 
 material for moralization exceedingly welcome to 
 didactic poets and homilists.^ 
 
 The Physiologtis says that when the peacock 
 wakes suddenly in the night, it cries out as if in 
 distress, because it dreams that it has lost its 
 beauty, thus typifying the soul, which in the night 
 of this sinful world is constantly fearing to lose the 
 good gifts and graces with which God has endowed 
 it. In the bestiaries a man devoid of prudence is 
 likened to a peacock that has lost its tail ; because, 
 as the author argues, the tail of the peacock 
 denotes foresight, since the tail being behind is 
 that which is to come ; and foresight is the faculty 
 of taking heed to that which is to come. As a 
 burlesque on all reasoning from analogy, nothing 
 could be better than this. 
 
 ' Cf. Victor Hehn, Kulturpfianzen und Hausthiere, Berlin, 
 1874, p. 311. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 313 
 
 The Christian version of the story of Argus and 
 lo is an excellent example of the naive manner 
 in which classical myths were diverted from their 
 natural course into the channel of moral and 
 religious instruction. " There was once a lady 
 who had a very beautiful cow. In order that it 
 might not be stolen, she hired a herdsman named 
 Argus, who had a hundred eyes, but slept with 
 only two at a time, and kept watch with all the 
 others. Nevertheless her precaution was of no 
 avail, and she lost her cow. For a certain man, 
 who coveted the animal, had a son called Mercurius, 
 who was very skilful in playing on a long, hollow 
 reed. This clever young man took occasion to 
 visit Argus, and began to talk about one thing and 
 another and to play on his pipe ; and as he went 
 on talking and playing, Argus fell asleep at first 
 with two eyes, then with four, and so on until finally 
 the hundred eyes were all closed in slumber. 
 Thereupon Mercurius cut off the head of the 
 herdsman, and drove away the cow to his father. 
 This incident is an admonition and a warning for 
 us. We are Argus, and the cow is our precious 
 soul, which we are set to keep with vigilance, and 
 the hundred eyes are the good deeds and pious 
 services by which the safety of the soul is secured. 
 The man who wished to steal the cow is the 
 devil ; and his son and emissary lulls us to sleep 
 by luxury, pride, vicious habits, and worldly 
 pleasures, and at last carries away the soul captive, 
 and delivers it to his father, the author of all evil.' 
 
3^4 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Myth of Argus. {Bestiary.) 
 
 A miniature of this scene from the Arsenal manu- 
 script has been published by 
 Cahier(J///. d' Arch., II. xx, 
 AB), and it is easy to con- 
 ceive how by such a process 
 of transformation all the 
 fables of pagan mythology 
 might serve as apt illustra- 
 tions of Christian teachings, 
 and appropriate decorations of Christian archi- 
 tecture. 
 
 In the Septuagint the word (reipT]V(9 occurs 
 frequently where owls and ostriches are spoken of 
 in the English version. Thus the prophet Isaiah 
 (xiii. 21-22) is made to declare that "sirens and 
 satyrs shall dance in Babylon, and onocentaurs 
 and demons shall dwell in their habitations." The 
 sirens are said to be of three kinds : half woman 
 
 Sirens. {Psalter 0/ Isabella 0/ France.) 
 
 and half fish, half woman and half bird, and half 
 woman and half ass. Some play on flutes, others 
 on harps, and others sing, attracting men by the 
 sweetness of their music, lulling them to sleep and 
 rending them in pieces. They symbolize the power 
 of female blandishment, and the allurements of the 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 3 1 5 
 
 flesh, and are often portrayed in missals and on 
 different parts of ecclesiastical edifices. The ship 
 of Ulysses sailing by the island of the sirens, 
 himself bound to the mast, and the ears of the 
 mariners stopped with wax, was a favourite subject 
 with ancient artists, who delineated the scene on 
 gems, mosaics, urns, and vases. In Christian art 
 the ship of the wandering king of Ithaca was 
 transformed into the ship of the Church, which 
 bears those who entrust themselves to its care and 
 keeping safely through the temptations of the 
 world. Thus in the crypt of Santa Lucia, in the 
 catacombs of Callistus, is a representation of 
 Ulysses and the sirens, which St. Maximus of 
 Turin interprets as a Christian allegory. " This 
 ship," he says, *' is the Church, and the mast 
 symbolizes the cross of Christ, to which the faith- 
 ful must cling in order to escape the seductions of 
 the senses. As our Lord Jesus Christ was nailed 
 to the cross, and remained sinless among tempta- 
 tions, so let us navigate the perilous sea of life as 
 if our ears were stopped." 
 
 As servants and messengers of Proserpina the 
 sirens, like the Scandinavian Valkyrias, carried the 
 souls of the departed to Hades, and were therefore 
 often sculptured on tombs and cinerary urns, usually 
 playing musical instruments. On the sepulchres 
 of illustrious orators like Isocrates or eminent 
 poets like Sophocles, the sirens personified the 
 magic power and irresistible persuasiveness of 
 eloquence and the charms of poetry, which capti- 
 
3i6 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 vate the souls of men. Patristic theologians and 
 exegetists confounded sirens and mermaids, and 
 believed them to be real creatures expressly in- 
 tended to serve as deterrent types of carnal 
 appetites and sensual enticements. In mediaeval 
 poetry the siren symbolizes the delusive fascinations 
 of this world, which Konrad von Wurzburg by a 
 bold metaphor calls "die syrene triigesam" ("the 
 deceitful siren "), from whose allurements the holy 
 Virgin rescues us on the voyage of life, and brings 
 us safely to the haven of eternal rest. 
 
 The siren is often represented in sacred art with 
 a fish in her hand, signifying the soul held in the 
 grip of libidinous passion, as for example on the 
 capitals of some of the columns in St. Germain 
 des Pres, the oldest of the Parisian churches ; in 
 the arcades of the cloister of St. Aubin, where the 
 siren has a fish in one hand and a knife in the 
 
 Siren presenting a Fish to a man. 
 (Church at Cunatdt-sur- Loire.) 
 
 other ; on capitals in the churches at Civaux, where 
 the siren is handing the fish to a man in a boat, 
 while another is plunging from the opposite side 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 317 
 
 of the boat into the sea, as though he feared the 
 seductress even when bringing gifts, and risked his 
 life to save his soul ; and at Cunault-sur- Loire, 
 where a similar scene is represented, the man in 
 the boat receiving the fish with an affrighted mien, 
 and his companion standing in a deprecating 
 attitude on the shore. This sculpture dates from 
 the twelfth century. Sirens are carved on the 
 stalls of the chancel in the cathedral of Poitiers 
 and in Notre Dame of Rouen, in the church of 
 St. Nicholas at Anclam, and on the portal of the 
 Schottenkirche in Ratisbon ; also winged virgins 
 with birds' legs and tails adorn the four corner 
 pillars which support the candelabra wrought in 
 bronze by Peter Vischer. 
 
 In classical mythology centaurs were associated 
 with sirens in Bacchanal processions and orgies, 
 because they both embodied and symbolized over- 
 ruling animal impulses and passions. They dis- 
 charged similar functions as agents of the gods of 
 the lower world, and for this reason were sculptured 
 on pagan sarcophagi and other funeral monuments, 
 from which they were borrowed by Christians, who 
 conceived of them as demons armed with bows and 
 arrows, and going about annoying believers and 
 assailing them with what Paul calls " the fiery darts 
 of the wicked." 
 
 St. Jerome records that when St. Anthony, in the 
 ninetieth year of his age, went to visit Paul the 
 Hermit in the desert, he met a creature half man 
 and half horse. The saint made the sign of the 
 
3i8 Animal Symbolism 
 
 cross, as a protection against diabolical influences, 
 and then inquired the way to Paul's hermitage. 
 Thereupon the strange hybrid uttered some harsh 
 semi-articulate whinnying sounds, and, pointing with 
 his right hand in the proper direction, galloped off. 
 Jerome maintains that this apparition was an emis- 
 sary of Satan sent to frighten St. Anthony, and to 
 deter him from his purpose ; but if this theory be 
 correct, the willingness with which the devil's agent 
 acted as a guide-post and helped the holy man 
 on his way is rather remarkable. The monks 
 were wont to people the desert, and other lonely 
 places in which they dwelt, with monstrous shapes 
 or entrancing visions, like those which so sorely 
 tempted St. Anthony, products of their own sup- 
 pressed but ineradicable passions, and abortions of 
 an imagination morbidly excited by asceticism and 
 solitude. 
 
 The centaur figures very frequently in architec- 
 ture from the tenth to the sixteenth century, espe- 
 cially on the doors of churches. Thus, in the reliefs 
 on the bronze doors of Augsburg Cathedral one 
 centaur is shooting at a man and another at a lion ; 
 on a frieze in the church at Brenz are reliefs of cen- 
 taurs shooting arrows, and the same subject is on 
 the bronze doors of St. Sophia in Novgorod ; on 
 the west side of St. John's, in Gmiind, is a centaur 
 with a knife ; on the portal of St. Gilles are two 
 centaurs, one shooting at a stag and another pur- 
 suing a lion ; on the portal of St. Trophine at 
 Aries we find seven reliefs of centaurs shooting at 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 3 1 9 
 
 lions, and of men fighting with divers wild beasts, 
 illustrating the conflict of fierce passions, or men 
 contending against their own lower natures, and 
 trying to subdue them. In the cloister of Zurich 
 Minster are two female centaurs, one shooting 
 an arrow at a dragon, and the other thrusting 
 a spear down its throat ; in the former cloister- 
 church at Ibbenstadt in Wetterau, on the base of 
 a pillar surmounted by a cross, is a centaur dis- 
 charging an arrow into the extended jaws of a 
 dragon ; in the Liebfrauenkirche (Church of our 
 dear Lady) at Halberstadt are reliefs on the frieze 
 of the stone enclosure of the chancel, representing 
 female centaurs nursing their young, and male 
 centaurs tearing each other's hair ; and in Freiburg 
 Minster a man fighting a winged centaur with 
 sword and shield, and a couple of female centaurs 
 contending with similar weapons. It is not easy 
 in every case to determine the precise spiritual 
 significance of such scenes, and in some instances 
 they are doubtless purely decorative, although a 
 lingering tradition of the original symbolism of the 
 centaur underlies them all, and accounts for the 
 introduction of these fabulous monsters even as 
 merely ornamental forms. 
 
 Dante {Inf., xii.) condemns those who have 
 been guilty of deeds of violence against life and 
 property, Alexander, Attila, and other great con- 
 querors and ravagers of the earth, to suffer for 
 their crimes in a turbulent stream of boiling blood, 
 guarded by centaurs armed with darts, and running 
 
320 Animal Symbolism 
 
 along the shore ; and Vergil {y^n., vi. 286) is met 
 by them as he is about to enter the lower world, 
 where they seem to have acted as warders of the 
 gate to the nether regions. In Bernardo Orcagna's 
 famous fresco of the Last Judgment in the Strozzi 
 Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, in Florence, which 
 is essentially a pictorial illustration of Dante's de- 
 scription of Inferno, the damned are pursued by 
 centaurs. In the church of the Franciscan cloister 
 at Assisi, on the groined arch over the grave of 
 St. Francis, is a centaur painted by Giotto as a 
 symbol of self-will, together with other frescoes by 
 the same master, representing allegorical figures of 
 poverty, chastity, obedience, prudence, humility, and 
 kindred virtues with which the saint was supposed 
 to have been pre-eminently endowed. In a painting 
 by Andrea Mantegna in the gallery of the Louvre 
 the vices are delineated as satyrs and centaurs ; 
 and on a stoup by Jacopo della Querela in the 
 cathedral of Sienna are reliefs of David rending the 
 jaws of a lion and Hercules slaying a centaur, 
 forming a part of a series of sculptures giving the 
 history of creation from the birth of light to the 
 expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of 
 Eden. In older works of Christian art, which have 
 for their subject the fall of man, centaurs often 
 appear as personifications of criminal impulses 
 rashly and recklessly obeyed. At a later period, 
 like other real or fabulous creatures, they gradually 
 lost their symbolical meaning, and were used for 
 satirical purposes in accordance with the general 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 321 
 
 law of degeneracy that governs this hieroglyphic 
 mode of expression. Thus, on some of the seats 
 of the stalls in the choir of Bale Minster, belonging 
 to the end of the fifteenth century, are carvings of 
 centaurs with the heads of bishops and of merry- 
 making monks and nuns, and other caricatures of 
 the clergy. 
 
 In the crypt of the cathedral at Freising, near 
 Munich in Bavaria, is a column adorned on all 
 sides with sculptures of the eleventh century, repre- 
 senting the chief incidents of the old German myth 
 of Sigurd (Siegfried). In the first group two per- 
 sons — one in armour, and wearing spurs (Sigurd), 
 and the other in a kirtle (Regino) — are slaying the 
 dragon. Next we see a naked man letting himself 
 down into the jaws of the dead dragon ; it is Sigurd 
 bathing himself in the dragon's blood, which would 
 render him invulnerable. A branch of leaves hang- 
 ing down covers a part of his shoulder, and indi- 
 cates the fatal spot which remained unwashed by 
 the monster's blood, and therefore capable of being 
 wounded. Two birds are perched on the capital 
 of the column. An animal, probably an ichneumon 
 (also a legendary killer of monsters in the form of 
 crocodiles), is rushing into the jaws of another 
 dragon resembling an alligator. On the fourth 
 side is a woman with long hair, a valkyrie, or 
 perhaps Brunhild. The legend of Sigurd symbol- 
 ized the vernal freshness and vigour of the sun 
 slaying the demon of winter, and freeing earth's 
 treasures from its icy grasp, and was therefore easily 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 turned into the channel of 
 Christian ethics and theology, 
 and made to signify the re- 
 deeming power of the Sun 
 of Righteousness. For this 
 reason scenes from it are fre- 
 quently found depicted on 
 monuments of Christian art. 
 In Norway the Sigurd Saga 
 seems to have been a favourite 
 theme of Christian architects, 
 and the adventures of this old 
 Scandinavian ideal of heroic 
 valour and strength were fre- 
 quently carved on the door- 
 posts and stalls of sacred edi- 
 fices, especially in the southern 
 provinces. The most com- 
 plete of these delineations 
 are the curious wood-carvings 
 from the portal of the church 
 at Hyllestad, in Saetersdal, 
 now in the University collec- 
 tion of Northern Antiquities 
 at Christiania, and dating 
 probably from the thirteenth 
 century. The scenes repre- 
 sented are as follows : i. The 
 smith, Regino, forges the 
 sword "Nothung," while Si- 
 gurd blows the bellows. 
 
 -A- 
 
 '-a; 
 
 ^^ 
 
 Siegfried Saga. {Freiszng.) 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 32 
 
 .^^i 
 
 (^ 
 
 Siegfried Saga. {Fi-eising.) 
 
 2. Sigurd tests the sword by- 
 smiting the anvil in twain. 
 
 3. Sigurd slays Fafnir the 
 dragon. 4. Sigurd cuts Faf- 
 nir's heart in three pieces and 
 roasts them on a spit ; while 
 Regino is asleep Sigurd touches 
 one of the pieces with his finger 
 to see if it is done ; as the juice 
 of the roast is hot he licks his 
 finger, and thus gets a taste of 
 it, and is able to understand 
 the language of the birds which 
 are singing in the branches 
 above his head. The steed 
 Grane is also visible, laden with 
 the Andvaregold, known as 
 the Rhinegold or Nibelungen 
 Hort (treasure). 5. Sigurd 
 kills Regino, whose meditated 
 treachery has been revealed to 
 him by the birds. 6. Gunnar 
 is lying in a pit of serpents 
 with his hands bound, and 
 playing a harp with his feet 
 in order to charm the venom- 
 ous reptiles and render them 
 innoxious ; one of them, how- 
 ever, is of the kind mentioned 
 by the Psalmist, " which will 
 not hearken to the voice of 
 
324 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 charmers, charming never 
 so wisely," and has bitten 
 him. This last legend is 
 more fully rendered on two 
 carved planks from the por- 
 tal of the church at Austad 
 (Saetersdal), where we find 
 two scenes from the Gjukun- 
 gasaga : Hogne's heart is 
 cut out of his breast by Atle 
 and shown to the brother of 
 the slain, Gunnar, who is 
 exposed to serpents, and 
 plays the harp with his feet. 
 The portal of the church at 
 Vegusdal, also in Saetersdal, 
 is adorned with delineations 
 of Sigurd's exploits similar 
 in character, but less fully 
 represented. Indeed, as we 
 have already stated, more 
 or less fragmentary episodes 
 of old Norse Saga-cycles 
 are found in a great number 
 of churches, as, for example, 
 at Nesland in Thalemarken, 
 at Hemsedal in Hallingdal, 
 at Lardal in Jarlsberg, at 
 Opdal in Numedal, and 
 elsewhere. A carving at 
 Lardal represents the ex- 
 
 Siegfried Saga. (Freising.') 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 325 
 
 Siegfried Saga. (Freising.) 
 
 piation made for the death 
 of the otter by heaping up 
 gold sufficient to cover its 
 skin ; round its neck is the 
 fatal Andvare ring. In the 
 church of Hitterdal, a re- 
 markably interesting speci- 
 men of the Norwegian 
 " stavekirker " of the twelfth 
 century, are decorative carv- 
 ings of Sigurd and Gunnar 
 riding up the mountain 
 towards the spot where 
 Brynhildr ( Brunhild ) is 
 asleep, encircled with a 
 barrier of fire, and, as they 
 return, Sigurd holds the ring 
 of Andvare in his hand. 
 Doubtless many monuments 
 of this kind, formerly exist- 
 ing in Scandinavia and in 
 other northern countries, have 
 perished. Fragments of sculp- 
 tures treating the Sigurd 
 Saga in the manner already 
 described may be seen still, 
 although in a very mutilated 
 condition, on a cross-shaft at 
 Kirk Andreas, in the Isle of 
 Man.i 
 
 ' Cf. Dr. L. Dietrichson and H. 
 
326 
 
 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Christianity, it must be 
 remembered, was forced upon 
 the Norwegians by sove- 
 reigns who, like King Olaf 
 Tryggvason, had been con- 
 verted in foreign lands, and 
 endeavoured to introduce the 
 new religion in a summary 
 manner by royal decree. 
 There was no change, how- 
 ever, in the religious beliefs 
 of the masses of the people, 
 who continued to worship the 
 ancestral gods and to revere 
 the mythical and semi-myth- 
 ical heroes whose deeds, as 
 celebrated in ancient songs 
 and sagas, were anything but 
 illustrations of Christian vir- 
 tues. Chief of these popular 
 demi-gods was Sigurd, the 
 most perfect embodiment of 
 the Norseman's conception 
 of manly force and fearless- 
 ness. Even Christian priests 
 themselves were not wholly 
 free from this feeling, and 
 
 Munthe, Die Holzbauktmst Nor- 
 wegens in Vergangenheit und 
 Gegenwart , Berlin, 1893, pp. 25-27; 
 Journal of the British Archcco logi- 
 cal Associatio7i, vol. xliii.. p. 260. 
 
 1j 
 
 Sigurd Saga. {Hyllestad.) 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 327 
 
 Sigurd Saga. (Hyllestad.') 
 
 cherished a lingering fond- 
 ness for the outworn creeds 
 and discarded superstitions 
 of their fathers. Partly as 
 an expression of this senti- 
 ment, and partly as a matter 
 of policy, Sigurd, the slayer 
 of Fafnir, was made to sym- 
 bolize Christ, the subduer of 
 Satan, or was regarded as 
 the pagan prototype of the 
 Christian dragon-killers, St. 
 George and St. Michael, and 
 placed at the portal of the 
 church as its protector. By 
 the same process of adapta- 
 tion and assimilation Gunnar 
 in the serpents' pit came to 
 typify man in the bondage 
 of sin, trying to comfort 
 himself and to calm his 
 conscience by resorting to 
 worldly pleasures, but 
 doomed to spiritual death. 
 Another favourite theme 
 of mediaeval art was the 
 weighing of souls, which 
 plays such a prominent and 
 decisive part in the eschato- 
 logy of the ancient Egyp- 
 tians, on whose sepulchral 
 
328 Animal Symbolism 
 
 monuments the Supreme Judge is seen determining 
 the worth of souls by weight, and condemning 
 each to be reimbodied in the animal form to 
 which the habits of life cultivated in a previous 
 existence rendered it best suited. Thus a glutton is 
 scourged with rods by cynocephali, who are re- 
 conducting his spirit to the earth, where it is 
 doomed to pass its next period of incarnation 
 as a hog. Most probably, however, the mediaeval 
 artist knew nothing of the Egyptian method of 
 procedure in determining the destiny of souls, but 
 simply intended to illustrate the words of Daniel 
 to King Belshazzar : " Thou art weighed in the 
 balances, and art found wanting ;" although this 
 metaphorical phrase is evidently based upon the 
 Oriental conception of the method by which retri- 
 butive justice is meted out in accordance with the 
 theory of metempsychosis. 
 
 In a bas-relief on a church at Velay an angel is 
 engaged in weighing souls ; the devil in the shape 
 of a pig is carrying off a woman, whose virtues 
 have been found of too light a quality, and keeping 
 one eye on the scales to see that the angel does not 
 cheat him out of the rest of the ponderable wares. 
 It is a competition in which neither will bate the 
 other even one poor scruple. In a sculpture of the 
 thirteenth century on the portal of the church at 
 Louques, in the province of Aveyron, the devil is 
 slyly touching the beam with his finger in order 
 to make it incline in his favour ; and in a stained 
 window of the cathedral of Bourses we see the 
 
'I 
 
 In Ecclesiastical Architecture 329 
 
 arch-fiend putting his foot on the scale and pressing 
 the lever with his hand, while one of his imps is 
 pulling at it from be- 
 low so as to make the 
 side of virtue kick the 
 beam. Here the good 
 
 and evil qualities are ^ VIT^^"^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^' 
 incarnate as heads. / _^ (n^rw^ ?fc5*^^:ia>v,i ■ 
 A relief on the pedi- ' ^'«^«ll'?' \«il d:^ /nu^-'J m 
 ment over a doorway 
 of the cathedral of 
 Autun represents a 
 
 crowd of naked and Weighing Souls. (_Bo7irges Cathedral.) 
 
 clawfooted devils eagerly watching a balance, in one 
 scale of which are the vices of the soul incorporate 
 in a hideously-deformed creature, and in the other 
 scale its virtues personified by a young child under 
 the protection of a lean and lank angel in exceed- 
 ingly stiff and angular drapery. Here, too, the devil 
 in charge tries to push the doubtful beam, but is 
 caught in the act and thwarted by the vigilant 
 angel. Behind the devil stands a long procession 
 of trembling souls, and in the background a fiery 
 furnace, into which a serpent-headed imp as stoker 
 is vigorously thrusting those who have been found 
 deficient in saving qualities. In Egyptian escha- 
 tology the office of weighing souls was performed 
 by Osiris and Typhon ; in Christian art the function 
 of balancing good and evil deeds and thus deter- 
 mining the future destiny of men is commonly 
 assigned to the archangel Michael and Satan. 
 
330 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Sometimes the scales are held by the hand of God 
 reaching out of the clouds, as, for example, on the 
 arch of the principal doorway of the cathedral of 
 Autun, and on a capital in the church of Saint-Croix 
 in Saint-L6 ; usually, however, it is St. Michael 
 who superintends this weighty business, and pre- 
 vents any cheating on the part of the great deceiver. 
 There is a vivid representation of this scene on the 
 portal of St. Trophine in Arles-sur-Rhone (eleventh 
 century), where the good souls under the care of 
 the tutelar archangel mount upwards and join the 
 assembly of the elect in heaven, while the bad ones 
 are seized by a gigantic demon, who already has 
 two in his clutch, holding them with their heads 
 downward. Essentially similar scenes are sculp- 
 tured on the portals of the cathedral St. Nicholas 
 at Fribourg in Switzerland, the metropolitan church 
 Notre-Dame-de-Paris, the old cathedral church of 
 Bazas in Gironde, and in many other ecclesiastical 
 edifices. 
 
 On the portal of the minster at Bonn are sculp- 
 tured an angel and a devil, each diligently writing 
 in a scroll held on the knee ; and cowering between 
 the ribs of the arch of the famous pulpit in Bale 
 Minster (hewn in i486 in the form of a Gothic 
 chalice out of a single stone) is a devil busily 
 engaged in taking notes, not probably of the sermon, 
 but of the conduct of the congregation ; underneath 
 is the inscription Prope est dies Domini (" the day 
 of the Lord is near "). In a fresco painting of the 
 thirteenth century in the cathedral of Freising 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 331 
 
 depicting the Last Judgment the archangel Michael 
 and Satan are each presenting their books to 
 Christ; this picture might serve as an illustration 
 to the fine Latin hymn also of the thirteenth 
 century, and ascribed to the Franciscan monk 
 Thomas of Celano — 
 
 " Liber scriptus proferetur, 
 In quo totiim continetur, 
 Ex quo mundus judicetur. 
 
 Judex ergo cum sedebit, 
 Quidquid latet apparebit, 
 Nil inultum remanebit." 
 
 In Indian mythology of the Post-Vedic period 
 it is Yama who fixes the fate of the soul after 
 hearing the report of his secretary Chitragupta, 
 who keeps a strict record of human actions in a 
 book called Agrasandhani. Sometimes, however, 
 in works of art this clerk is represented as weighing 
 a person with a steelyard in the presence of the 
 Judge of the Dead. 
 
 Characteristically enough, the procession waiting 
 for judgment in Christian delineations of the scene 
 consists almost entirely of women. The notion 
 that woman is, in an emphatic and peculiar sense, 
 the ally and satellite of Satan originated in the 
 legend of the fall of man, and was strengthened by 
 the institution of sacerdotal celibacy. By yielding 
 to the suggestions of the devil she brought ruin 
 upon the human race, and is still the most efficient 
 agent of the evil one in disturbing the meditations 
 of pious men. From her first appearance on the 
 
332 Animal Symbolism 
 
 stage of history her seductive influence has been 
 the cause of all the social, political, and domestic 
 intrigues that have disturbed the peace and happi- 
 ness of the world. " CJierchez la fenime " is always 
 a pertinent mandate in the presence of any such 
 calamity. This prejudice was firmly rooted in the 
 mediaeval mind, and finds drastic expression in the 
 painting and sculpture as well as in the poetry 
 and theology of that period. A troubadour of the 
 thirteenth century, in a poem entitled Les Blasine 
 des Fames, compares woman to various animals, 
 each of which is distinguished for some undesirable 
 quality : she stings like a serpent, is fiery like a 
 horse, double-natured like a dragon, deceitful like 
 a fox, greedy like a bear, and loves darkness like 
 a bat ; she is not even admitted to have that " ex- 
 cellent thing in woman," a "voice ever soft, gentle, 
 and low," but hoots and screeches like an owl — 
 
 " Fame est huans, fame est fressaie." 
 
 A picture in Notre Dame de Recouvrance in 
 Brest portrays the devil noting down the idle 
 words of two women, who are gossiping during 
 mass. This subject is often treated in sculpture 
 in the miniatures of manuscript missals and in the 
 designs of tapestries, and is thus referred to in a 
 poem written by Pierre de Grosnet in 1553 — 
 
 " Notez en I'ecclise de Dieu, 
 Femmes ensemble caquetoyent. 
 Le diable y estoit en ung lieu 
 Escripvant ce qu'elles disoyent. 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 233 
 
 Son roUet plain de poinct en poinct, 
 Tyre aux deus pour le faire croistre : 
 Sa prinse eschappe et ne tient poinct, 
 Au pillier s'en cobby la teste." 
 
 On a gable-window of the Chateau de Villeneuve 
 in Auvergne, dating from the sixteenth century, is 
 a painting of three frightful devils forging the head 
 of a woman, and three angels moulding the head of 
 a man — the female head, being of diabolical work- 
 manship, is full of diabolical propensities. The 
 artists who conceived and executed such things, 
 it must be remembered, were in the service of a 
 Mariolatrous and yet misogynistic religion. In a 
 carving in the church of Saint-Spire, in Corbeil, 
 a woman has got the better of the devil, and is 
 sawing off his infernal majesty's right ear. 
 
 The devil is by no means a prominent figure in 
 the oldest monuments of Christian art, and it is 
 difficult to determine with precision when he began 
 to claim the attention of painters and sculptors. 
 The general panic produced by the belief that the 
 end of the world was at hand, and that Christ 
 would come to judge the quick and the dead in 
 the year looo, caused the thoughts of men to turn 
 more and more anxiously to the person of his 
 Satanic majesty, who was expected to play a pro- 
 minent and fatal part in that final scene. In 
 consequence of this state of fearful anticipation, 
 we find the devil and his acolytes making their 
 appearance in the latter half of the tenth and the 
 beginning of the eleventh century on the capitals 
 
334 Animal Symbolism 
 
 and friezes, the doorwaj's and pediments of 
 churches, frequently as human monsters with jagged 
 wings and forked tail, or that hideous abortion of 
 an affrighted imagination, the dragon. The object 
 of such creations was to exert a religious influence 
 by inspiring terror. But after the period so pain- 
 fully looked forward to had passed, and the day of 
 vengeance seemed to be indefinitely postponed, a 
 reaction of feeling set in, and men began to treat 
 the devil as a bugaboo to be ridiculed rather than 
 to be dreaded. The imps which are sculptured in 
 bas-relief on the churches of the fifteenth century 
 are far more comical than terrible forms. They 
 are devils who are fallen into dotage and visible 
 decay, and with whom the artist can take all sorts 
 of liberties, turning them into clowns and buffoons 
 for the amusement of the populace. 
 
 This tendency was intensified by the scepticism 
 which attended the Renaissance movement and led 
 to the Reformation, and was naturally and inevitably 
 fostered by the success of these intellectual and 
 ecclesiastical revolts. Luther's devil was a poor 
 discrowned potentate, whom it was perfectly safe 
 to deride and vilify. No hurling of inkstands 
 would have sufficed to discomfit the devils of the 
 tenth and eleventh centuries, nor would any good 
 Christian of that day have ventured to address 
 them in such offensive terms as Luther employs 
 in his Table Talk, lest they should take him at his 
 word and effect an anal possession of his person 
 that would defy the most vigorous crepitus as a 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 335 
 
 means of expulsion. Luther's attitude towards the 
 prince of darkness, however bold and reckless it 
 may seem, was in reality nothing but the cheapest 
 and coarsest sort of swagger. The great devil in 
 the pediment over the portal of the cathedral of 
 Autun, belonging to the twelfth century, would 
 have " grinned horribly a ghastly smile " at the 
 scurrile scoffings and obscene jocularities in which 
 the Wittenberg Reformer was so fond of indulging 
 at the expense of the arch-fiend. 
 
 As Maupertuis was passing through a cemetery, 
 a friend, pointing to a heap of skulls, said, " What 
 are they grinning at?" "At us who are living," 
 was the reply. This is the moral of the Dance of 
 Death. A Tyrolese priest, preaching to a congre- 
 gation of peasants, naively remarked, "All men 
 must die, even I myself." The grim skeleton is no 
 respecter of persons, so far as riches and rank are 
 concerned ; the crown, the mitre, the tiara, the 
 surplice, and the stole do not avail to ward off 
 the inevitable fate. Death's touch paralyzes the 
 strongest arm, and his scythe strikes through the 
 heaviest helmet and pierces the network of the 
 most impenetrable coat of mail. The artists who 
 delineated such scenes enforced in the most em- 
 phatic manner the doctrine of human equality so 
 impressively taught by Hamlet in his churchyard 
 soliloquy : *' Now get you to my lady's chamber, 
 and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this 
 favour must she come." The lawyer with "his 
 quiddits, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and 
 
336 Animal Symbolism 
 
 his tricks," the jester with his gibes, his gambols, 
 his songs, his " flashes of merriment, that were wont 
 to set the table on a roar," pope, emperor, courtier, 
 beggar, miser, spendthrift, knight, peasant, soldier, 
 judge, and criminal — all join in the measured move- 
 ment directed by the untiring and unrelenting 
 corypheus. 
 
 The oldest Dance of Death of which we have 
 any knowledge dates from 13 12, and was a fresco- 
 painting in the cloister of Klingenthal at Little 
 Bale, consisting of forty representations of the 
 manner in which death arrests the activity and 
 cuts short the career of all classes and conditions 
 of men, and accompanied with explanatory verses. 
 More than a hundred years later the churchyard 
 of the Minorite cloister of the Innocents at Paris 
 was adorned with similar scenes, "begun," as a 
 contemporary record states, " in the month of 
 August, 1424, and finished in the following Lent." 
 It was called La Dance Macabre, and woodcuts 
 of it were published in a volume printed at Paris 
 in 1485, and bearing the title : Chorea ab exiinio 
 Macabro versibus alemanicis edita, etc., from which 
 it appears that the word Macabre was then sup- 
 posed to be derived from a distinguished German 
 poet, Macabrus, who composed the rhymes. Un- 
 fortunately for this theory, no poet of this name 
 ever existed in Germany, although he may have 
 owed his origin to a confusion with Marcabrus, a 
 Provencal poet of the fourteenth century, who, how- 
 ever, sang wholly different themes. Nearly a dozen 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 337 
 
 more or less ingenious interpretations have been 
 given of this phrase, which is probably a transla- 
 tion and corruption of the mediaeval Latin Chorea 
 Machabceonini, so called because the seven Mac- 
 cabean brothers with their mother were originally 
 the principal characters in it, or because it was first 
 celebrated in their honour on the day (August i) 
 devoted by the Church to their memory as martyrs ; 
 for the Dance of Death was represented dramati- 
 cally as well as pictorially, and was doubtless 
 acted in cloisters and in public places long before 
 it became the subject of artistic delineation. The 
 verses explanatory of the oldest paintings are 
 always in the form of a dialogue between the in- 
 exorable destroyer and his victims, and may be 
 regarded as fragments of the original play. 
 
 In England, France, Germany, and Switzerland 
 some fifty cities are mentioned as having had 
 paintings of the Dance of Death, the most famous 
 of which was that on the outer wall of the church- 
 yard of the Dominican cloister in Great Bale, made 
 in free imitation of the Klingenthal fresco about 
 the middle of the fifteenth century, renovated by 
 Hans Hugo Klauber in 1568, and ruthlessly de- 
 stroyed by order of an over-zealous iconoclastic 
 municipal council on account of its being " a terror 
 to children and a bugaboo to the people " — " ein 
 Kinderschreck und eine Leutescheuche." 
 
 The libraries of Heidelberg, Munich, and Paris 
 contain quite a number of manuscripts with minia- 
 tures of the Dance of Death, some of which are 
 
 Z 
 
22^ Animal Symbolism 
 
 really superb in execution, while others are crude 
 in form, but not without a certain vigour of move- 
 ment and vividness of expression. By far the 
 finest delineation of this subject is Hans Holbein's 
 Imago Mortis, the original drawings of which, now 
 in St. Petersburg, are artistically as superior to all 
 former productions of the kind as Goethe's Faust 
 is to the folk-books and puppet-plays that describe 
 the uncanny career of the mediaeval master of the 
 black art. Holbein's drawings were engraved on 
 wood by Hans Liitzelburger. These cuts, the 
 proof-impressions of which, published at Lyons 
 and Bale, resemble the best work of the artist's 
 pencil, and to which several posthumous sheets 
 were added in the early part of the present cen- 
 tury, have passed through more than a hundred 
 editions, to say nothing of copies on copper and 
 lithographic reproductions. 
 
 In the Book of Hours of Geofifroy Tory are 
 miniatures of a like character : the grim skeleton 
 is mounted on a black horse, with a scythe on his 
 shoulder, a folded letter in his hand, a raven, the 
 ominous bird of Odin, flying over his head, and his 
 pathway strewn with corpses. In a copper-plate 
 by the Nuremberger Hans Sebastian Beham, dated 
 1 54 1, and bearing the inscription, Oninem in Jioviine 
 venvstatein Mors abolet (" Death does away with 
 all beauty in man "), Death in the guise of a 
 court-fool surprises a richly-dressed maiden of patri- 
 cian birth, while gathering a bouquet of flowers. 
 Beham was a genial artist, but a lewd fellow. In 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 339 
 
 the Berlin Museum is an engraving of Death look- 
 ing with lustful emotions on a lascivious pair, on 
 the margin of which are written these words : 
 "propter quam picturam ex civitate ejectus est." 
 His fellow-burghers were so outraged by this super- 
 fluity of obsceneness that they compelled him to 
 quit the city. After his exile he went rapidly from 
 bad to worse, kept a brothel in Frankfort, and, in 
 1550, was drowned in the Main. Well-preserved 
 representations of Death's triumphs, painted by 
 Meglinger in the sixteenth century, may still be 
 seen in the pediments under the roof of the long 
 wooden bridge (Spreuer Briicke) over the Reuss at 
 Lucerne. 
 
 The spirit of the Dance of Death is thoroughly 
 democratic, and inculcates the doctrine of human 
 equality in the most emphatic and impressive 
 manner. The great leveller shows no considera- 
 tion for rank or dignity ; the lowest is not beneath, 
 nor the highest above his notice ; neither emperor 
 nor pope can escape his dominion or refuse to obey 
 his behest. He clutches the rich and powerful with 
 a rude hand, gently lulls the infant to sleep, and 
 closes the weary eyes of the poor and oppressed 
 with a touch of tenderness and compassion. He 
 delights to turn the tables on his victims, to make 
 a mockery of human faculty and function, and 
 
 " to have the engineer 
 Hoist with his own petard." 
 
 Thus he presents the monarch a fatal potion in a 
 goblet set with jewels, capers with the king's jester 
 
340 Animal Symbolism 
 
 towards an open grave, breaks the judge's staff of 
 office over his head, strikes down the miser with 
 his heavy bag of hoarded wealth, pierces the cook 
 through with a spit, combats the cavalier on horse- 
 back, tilts with a lance against the knight in the 
 lists, plays the gallant with coquettes, catches the 
 fowler in a snare, points to the doctor's pills and 
 tinctures and bids him heal himself, seizes the 
 apothecary in the midst of his drugs, snatches the 
 priest from the altar as he is praying souls out of 
 purgatory, gives the astronomer a skull in the form 
 of a globe, and says to the astrologer, who casts 
 the horoscope of others, but is ignorant of his own 
 fate— 
 
 " Tu dis par amphibologie 
 Ce qu'aux aultres doibt advenir ; 
 Dys-moy done par astrologie 
 Quand du debvras a moy venir." 
 
 " You tell by amphibology 
 What unto others is to be ; 
 Now tell me by astrology 
 When are you to come to me." 
 
 Honore de Sainte Marie, a popular and sensa- 
 tional preacher of the latter half of the seventeenth 
 century, was wont to take skulls into the pulpit 
 and address them in the sarcastic moralizing style 
 of Hamlet. To the skull of a judge he would say : 
 " Speak now, hast thoij not sold justice for gold, 
 and refused to listen to the pleadings of the poor ? " 
 The skull of a flirt he would apostrophize in the 
 following strain : " Art thou not the head of one 
 of those fair dames whose chief occupation was to 
 
In Ecclesiastical Architecture 341 
 
 lay snares for human hearts, and to catch them 
 with honeyed words as birds are taken with lime ? 
 Well then, empty and musty sconce, where are 
 those fine eyes, with their fond and furtive glances ? 
 Where are those beautiful teeth, which bit so many 
 hearts, and made them more easily devoured by the 
 devil ? Where those delicate ears, into which fops 
 have so lovingly whispered, seeking through these 
 avenues easy access to the heart ? What has 
 become of those lilies and roses, which thou didst 
 suffer to be plucked by unchaste kisses ? " It 
 would be interesting to know whether the idea of 
 delivering such discourses was original with the 
 French divine, or borrowed from Hamlet's medi- 
 tations in the churchyard. The most probable 
 supposition is that these sermons were suggested 
 by the Dance of Death, inasmuch as the Shake- 
 sperian dramas were little read and indeed hardly 
 known in France at that time, and it was not until 
 a much later period that they began to be generally 
 appreciated even in England. 
 
 It would be wholly foreign to the scope of the. 
 present work to consider at length the different 
 forms in which death has been represented in art. 
 To the poetic imagination and fine aesthetic sense 
 of the Greeks the genius of death was not a grim 
 monster, but a graceful youth leaning on an inverted 
 torch, the twin brother of sleep, as Homer calls him, 
 and it was not till the twelfth century of the Chris- 
 tian era that he began to be personified and por- 
 trayed as a mummy or a skeleton. The Dance of 
 
342 Animal Symbolism 
 
 Death doubtless originated in the Dance of the 
 Dead (Todtentanz, Danse des Morts), which accord- 
 ing to popular superstition took place in church- 
 yards at the ghostly hour of midnight. The 
 remarkable fascination of the theme is evident 
 from the frequency with which it has been por- 
 trayed by modern artists, as, for example, by Alfred 
 Rethel in six admirable xylographs of Death on 
 the barricades and in revolutionary and reactionary 
 contests suggested by the political events of 1848, 
 in the woodcuts of I lie, Pocci, and Barth, the ex- 
 cellent series of India-ink drawings by Otto Seitz, 
 and the more recent and uncommonly clever 
 sketches by Luhrig. In these and similar works 
 Death figures as a working-man in a blouse preach- 
 ing insurrection, as the " walking delegate " of a 
 labour union organizing a general strike, as a Jesuit 
 urging a monarch to resist by force of arms the will 
 of the people, as a diplomatist seated at a table 
 and kindling war by a single stroke of his pen, as a 
 Swiss guide leading a company of tourists through 
 a mist over a precipice, as a careless switchman 
 plunging an express train into an abyss, and finally 
 in the newest and most destructive role of an 
 anarchist and dynamiter. 
 
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 Wright, Thomas : Popular Treatises on Science during 
 
 the Middle Ages. London, 1841. 
 History of Caricature and the Grotesque. London, 
 
 1875- 
 and Halliwell : Reliqu^e Antique. London, 184 1 
 
 —1843. 
 Zeddel, F. C. : Beitrage zur biblischen Zoologie. 
 
 Quedlinburg, 1836. 
 Zeitschrift fiir deutsche Kulturgeschichte. Vol. i., pp. 
 
 463-69 ; 708 sq. 
 ZocKLER, O. : Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen - 
 
 Theologieund Naturwissenschaft. 2 vols. Giitersloh, 
 
 1887— 1889. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aaron's rod, two specimens of, 287 
 Ahelard, his verse on the lion's 
 
 whelp, 82 
 Abraham, signifies faitli, 67 ; sac- 
 rificing Isaac, 84 
 Actors, declared infamous, 263 
 Adam, author of a natural history, 
 
 55,56 
 Adamant, type of Christ, 45 
 Adamites, 114 
 
 ^•/(/(fZ/z^V/ of Louvraine, Queen, 71 
 yEHa Capitolina, 294 
 ^lian, on the remora, 125 ; on the 
 
 ichneumon, 132 ; on the beaver, 
 
 139 
 
 ^sckyhis, ' Eumenides,' 299 
 
 Actites, or eagle-stone, 49 
 
 Agate, virtue of, 35 ; worn in June, 
 37 ; in pearl-fishing, 47 
 
 Agizus Dei, in art, 308 
 
 Agrasandhdni, Indian book of 
 judgment, 331 
 
 Airneric de Pregidhan, simile of 
 the phoenix, 131; basilisk and 
 mirror, 165 
 
 Aix-la- Chapelle, Bacchanal and 
 other pagan scenes in the min- 
 ster of, 303 ; amethyst with the 
 three Graces in the cross of 
 Lothair, 308 
 
 Alberttts Magnus, his criticism of 
 the ' Physiologus,' 78 ; on the 
 African viper's horn, 109 ; on 
 the beaver, 139; on the wolf, 
 151 ; on the basiHsk, 169 
 
 Albrccht von Brandenburg, 136 
 Alces, or elks, described by Julius 
 
 Cajsar, 112 
 Aldhebn, his parables, 66 
 Atemannicgods,T&\txtA at Bregenz, 
 
 307 ; destroyed by St. Gallus, 
 
 307 
 
 Alexander the Great, embalmed 
 with honey, 4 ; services to 
 science, 21 ; wisdom, 116 ; lover 
 in ' Lai d'Aristote,' 226 — 228 
 
 Alexander III. , Pope, his salaman- 
 der tunic, 142 
 
 Alexander VI., Pope, his coat-of- 
 arms, 201 ; scandalous life, 202 
 
 Alexandria, ?,c}iiOo\% oi, II, 16, 26; 
 commerce and culture under the 
 Ptolemies, 11, 25 ; libraries and 
 learning, 26 
 
 All Souls' Day, pagan feast of the 
 dead, 264 
 
 Almond, symbolism of the flower- 
 ing, 166, 167 
 
 Alne, sculptures on the doorway of 
 church at, 50, 51 ; eagle, 118; 
 whale, 124 ; panther, 135 ; 
 hyena, 142 ; charadrius, 146 ; 
 antelope, 174 
 
 Amboise, church of St. Denis, 
 foxes as pilgrims witnessing the 
 slaughter of the Innocents, 211 ■ 
 
 Ajnbrosius, the "mellifluous," 3; 
 allegorical exegesis, 40 ; on the 
 viper and lamprey, 55 ; Latin 
 ' Physiologus ' attributed to, 64 ; 
 
3S^ 
 
 Index 
 
 on locusts as Gentiles, 167 ; 
 symbolism of animals, 185 
 
 Amethyst, anti-inebriant virtue of, 
 35 ; associated with February, 
 37 ; in the New Jerusalem, 39 
 
 Amianthus, supposed to be sala- 
 mander's skin, 142 
 
 Amiens Cathedral, Virtues and 
 Vices personified, 153; Samson, 
 192 ; fox preaching to fowls, 212 
 
 Amor, his duel with and likeness 
 to a bee, 2 ; Amor and Psyche 
 as Christian emblems, 309 
 
 Amorozzo da Firenze, lady-love 
 likened to a lion, 93 
 
 Amphitheatre, sports of, 23 
 
 Amsdorf, Nicholas von, letter to 
 Luther, 203 
 
 Anacreon, Eros compared to a 
 bee, I 
 
 Anasiasiits Sinaita, his anagogical 
 contemplations, 61 
 
 Anclam, sirens in St. Nicholas', 
 
 317 
 
 Ancona, lion in church at, 87 
 
 Andely, Henri d\ his ' Lai d'Aris- 
 tote' cited, 226, 228 
 
 Andvaregold, 323, 325 
 
 Angoumois, asinine catechism of, 
 268, 269 
 
 Animals, primitive superstitions 
 about, 8 ; prophetic movements 
 of, 9 ; early worship of, 10 ; 
 corrupted by Adam's fall, 29 ; 
 redeemed and regenerated by 
 Christ's death, 30 ; Roman 
 passion for pets, 24 ; occult and 
 magical properties of, 26 ; as 
 human mirrors and heavenly 
 prototypes, 27, 28, 30 ; in 
 Oriental literature and especi- 
 ally in Buddhistic teachings, 30 
 — 33 ; in Christian art, 53 ; 
 Roger Bacon's theory of their 
 place in Scripture, 58 ; as 
 symbols of the conflict between 
 Christianity and paganism, 130 ; 
 
 used to illustrate opposite quali- 
 ties, 91, 109, 131 ; an initial 
 and capital letters, 152 ; their 
 prominence in Church ornament- 
 ation of the eleventh and twelfth 
 centuries, 179, 180; protests 
 against their presence in sacred 
 places, 180 — 185; ethical and 
 satirical purposes of, 185 — 188, 
 193 — 195 ; caricaturing religious 
 rites, 188 ; fanciful and grotesque 
 delineations of, 216 — 226, 232 
 — 245 ; in satirical delineations, 
 320 ; woman compared to differ- 
 ent, 332 
 
 Annunciation, symbolized by the 
 chase of the unicorn, 96 ; auri- 
 cular conception in pictures of 
 the, 98 — 100 
 
 Anselm, cited, 40 
 
 Ant, pattern for Buddhist ascetic, 
 
 Antelope, symbolism of, 173 ; in 
 
 poetry and art, 174 
 Anti-Semitism, in art, 19, 289 — 
 
 299 
 Anti-Semitic satire, 292 — 294, 
 
 297 
 Ape, ridden by Avarice, 163 ; in 
 
 sacred architecture, 186, 189, 
 
 215, 218, 219, 223, 235 
 Apis, sacred bull, sign of, 14 
 Apocalypse, monsters of the, 30, 
 
 Apollo, the purifier, 299 ; as Elias, 
 
 309 
 
 April, consecrated to Venus, 121 
 
 Apuleius, cited, 139 
 
 Aqua marine, associated with 
 October, 37 
 
 Architects, secular, supplant monk- 
 ish, 186 
 
 ' Areopagitica,' Milton's, cited, 121 
 
 Argonauts, purified by swine's 
 blood, 299 
 
 Argus and lo, Christian apologue 
 of, 313, 314 
 
Index 
 
 353 
 
 Arians, banished, 238 
 
 Ariosto, on lovers symbolized by 
 eaglets, 119, 120 
 
 Aristotle, scientific study of nature, 
 22 ; Christianization of, 43 ; 
 fable of eagle's beak, 119; in 
 discussion with Logic, 154 ; 
 ridiculed in ' Lai d'Aristote,' 
 226 — 228 
 
 Aries, synod of, 252 ; centaurs in 
 St. Trophine's, 318; weighing 
 souls, 330 
 
 Arsenal Library, bestiaries in, 
 iiS 
 
 Art, Christian imitates pagan, 309 
 
 Ascension, celebration of, 265 
 
 Ass, type of humility, 31 ; as 
 monk or priest, 186, 189 ; in 
 architecture, 194; papal, 195 — 
 203 ; with rosary, 241 — 
 243 ; as the homologue of the 
 cathedral, 267 ; in the Angou- 
 mois catechism, 268 ; Feast of 
 the, 265, 267, 271—280; wor- 
 shipped by Jews and Christians, 
 270 ; superiority of the Oriental, 
 269 ; drawing of ass-worship in 
 the Palatine, 270 ; of St. 
 Bernard, and other effigies in 
 churches, 271 ; litany of the, 
 272 — 277 ; symbol of the 
 Saviour, 278 ; tradition of the 
 "true," 272; interpretation of 
 the litany of the, 278 ; type of 
 the Jews, 279 
 
 Assisi, Giotto's centaur in cloister 
 at, 320 
 
 Atle, cutting out the heart of 
 Hogne, 324 
 
 Atonement, symbolized by a simple 
 cross, 308 
 
 Azigslmrg, lion in cathedral of, 82 ; 
 centaurs, 318 
 
 Augustine, cited, 58, 87, 88, 91, 
 92 ; on auricular conception, 99 ; 
 on the pelican, 128 ; cited, 185 ; 
 on the peacock's flesh, 311 
 
 Aulnay, ass as priest in St. Peter's 
 church, 225, 277 
 
 Austad, Siegfried saga, 324 
 
 Aututi, fox and crane in cathedral 
 of, 209 ; weighing souls, 329 , 
 330 ; devil, 335 
 
 Auvergne, devils and angels forg- 
 ing heads, 333 
 
 Avesta, appreciation of the dog in 
 the, 91 
 
 Aveyron, devil weighing souls, 
 328 
 
 Avicenna, cited, 43 
 
 Bacchus, type of the Christian 
 vineyard, 301, 303, 308 
 
 Bacon, Roger, his spiritual interpre- 
 tation of natural things, 58 
 
 Bale, carvings in minster : phcenix 
 and pelican, 129; Jews and sow, 
 297 ; Pyramus and Thisbe, 304, 
 305 ; centaurs with heads of 
 bishops, monks, and nuns, 321 ; 
 devil and angel taking notes, 
 330 ; ' Dance of Death,' 337 
 
 Bale, lohn, on the Romish fox, 
 
 Bamberg, queer religious relics in, 
 
 286, 287 
 Baj-bazan, Etienne, his collection of 
 
 fables and tales, 226 
 Bar-Cochba, revolt of, 294 
 Barlaam und Josaphat. See Rti- 
 
 dolfvon Ems 
 Barnabas, his epistle cited, on 
 
 Judaism, 53 ; on the symbolism 
 
 of Abraham, 67 ; on the hyena, 
 
 140 ; on the prefiguration of the 
 
 cross, 249 
 Barnacle geese, symbolism of, 174, 
 
 175 
 Bar Shalom, Rabbi Jehuda, his 
 
 apologue on circumcision, 262 
 Barth, his ' Dance of Death,' 342 
 Bartholomczzis Anglicus, cited, 74 
 Basil the Great, his ' Hexaheme- 
 
 ron ' cited, 18, 55, 57 
 
 A A 
 
354 
 
 Index 
 
 Basilisk, symbolism of the, 163 — 
 
 166 ; represents Antichrist, 167 ; 
 
 method of killing it, 164, 168; 
 
 in the abbey of Vezelai, 166, 
 
 168 
 Bastard, M. de, on the snail, 218 
 Batrachitians, heretical sect, 238 
 Bayoniie, wooden ass in Saint- 
 
 EsjDrit's at, 271 
 Bazas Cathedral, weighing souls, 
 
 330 
 Bear, type of Satan, 88 ; in the 
 
 beast-epos, 189, 214, 215 
 Beast-epos in architecture, 185 ; 
 
 used for polemical purposes, 193; 
 
 scenes from, 213 — 222, 235, 236 
 Beasts of ill-07nen, in churches and 
 
 cloisters, 179, 180 
 Beativais, ass's feast in, 277 
 Beaver, symbolism of, 138 ; in art, 
 
 139 
 
 Bebenhaiiseit, lion in cloister, 83 
 
 Becket. See Thomas d. Becket 
 
 Beda, cited, 66 ; on locusts sym- 
 bolizing Gentiles, 166 
 
 Bee, Eros compared to a, I ; sym- 
 bol of immortality on tombs, 
 otherwise rare in Christian art, 
 3 ; in Greek, Oriental, and 
 modem poetry, i — 3; hive typi- 
 cal of the cloister with the 
 Virgin Mary as queen bee, 3 ; 
 Christ the asthereal and Krishna 
 the azure bee, 4 ; in Somadeva's 
 tales, 5 ; relief in the baptistery 
 of Parma, 5 ; golden bee sym- 
 bolic of sovereignty, 4 ; symbol- 
 ism of a broken bee-hive, 223. 
 See Honey 
 
 Beghards, vagabond monks satir- 
 ized, 233 
 
 Begtdnes, their licentiousness 
 scourged, 187 
 
 Behajii, Hans Sebastian, his repre- 
 sentation of Death, 338 
 
 Bell, symbolism of the church, 
 524 — 256 ; bells of the Gospel 
 
 and trumpets of the Law, 255 ; a 
 
 terror to demons, 257 
 Belleropkon, 301 
 Belli, Valeria, his phoenix in 
 
 enamel, 130 
 Bellona, relief in a church at Trier, 
 
 307 
 
 Benedict IX. , 220 
 
 Benedictines, other orders hated 
 and satirized by them, 225, 231 
 
 Ben Jochai, Rabbi Simon, his fable 
 on the Sabbath, 262 
 
 Berbezilh, Richard de, cited, 93 
 
 Berlin Museum, painting by 
 Lucas Cranach, i ; Beham's 
 representation of Death, 339 
 
 Bernard of Clairvaiix, cited, 3 ; 
 his protest against fabulous beasts 
 in cloisters, 180, 181, 183 — 185 ; 
 an ass and arch-priest, 225 ; ass 
 of, 271 ; cited, 278 
 
 Bernardines, satirical works of art 
 in their cloisters, 225 
 
 Beryl, virtues of, 37, 39 
 
 Bestiaries, Waldensian, 49 ; chief 
 source of the, 59 ; French, 71 ; 
 Tusco-Venetian, 73 ; codices in 
 Italian libraries, 73, 74 ; ' Besti" 
 aire Divin' (see William of Nor- 
 mandy) ; English bestiary on 
 the panther, 133; derivation of 
 panther in the, 137; on the 
 wolf, 150. See ' Physiologies ' for 
 animals mentioned in the besti- 
 aries 
 
 Bethlehem, star of, 278 ; relics of 
 rays from star of, 289 
 
 Beverly, carving of animals in the 
 minster (St. Mary's) of, 220 — 
 223 
 
 Bible as source of all knowledge, 
 27 
 
 BMiolatry, origin of, 263 
 
 Biblioteca Laurenziana in Flor- 
 ence, 74 ; Ricciardiana, 73 
 
 Bishop-fish, 198, 199 
 
 Bivalve, symbolism of the, 47 
 
Index 
 
 355 
 
 Black Friars, satirized, 220 
 
 ' Blasme des Fames,' quoted, 332 
 
 Boccaccio, on heliotrope, 35 ; list 
 
 of relics, 289 
 Bochart, Samuel, cited, on uni- 
 corn's horn, 107 
 Bddhitree, sacred to Buddhists, 
 
 252 
 Bodleian Library, ivory carving in, 
 
 161 
 Bonaventitra, symbolist, 185 
 Bonn, recording angel and devil 
 
 in the minster of, 330 
 Book of Ar»tagh, illuminations in, 
 
 118 
 Bordeaux, Council of, 184 
 Bbsigk, F. L., on the derision of 
 
 Jews, 299 tioie 
 Boston, Lincolnshire, carvings in 
 
 St. Botolph's, 96, 232, 234 
 Bourassee, Abbe, cited, 256 
 Bourges, lion in cathedral of, %t, ; 
 
 gospel-mill, 160 ; beasts of the 
 
 evangelists, 161; weighing souls, 
 
 328, 329 
 Brandenburg Cathedral, reliefs of 
 
 animals, 237 
 Bregenz, Alemannic gods at, 307 
 Braiz, centaurs shooting arrows, 
 
 318 
 Brest, devil noting female gossip 
 
 during mass in, 332 
 Bristol Cathedral, carvings from 
 
 beast-epos and other poems, 
 
 213 — 216 
 British Museum, 71 ; metal plate 
 
 in the, 118 
 Bron, painting of Christ triumph- 
 ant in the church of, 161 
 Bruges, execution of fox in St. 
 
 Michael and St. Ursin at, 212, 
 
 213 
 
 Brunetfo Latino, cited, 74 ; on the 
 whale, 123 ; on the wolf, 151 
 
 Brunhild, 321 
 
 Brussels, Royal Library of, 50 ; 
 eagle and eaglets, iiS 
 
 Buddhism, animal s3Tnbolism in, 
 
 31—33 
 Buffoonery in churches, 279 
 Bufonite, endowed with medicinal 
 
 and magical properties, 34 
 Biirger, G. A., his ballad quoted, 
 
 216 
 Burgos Cathedral, grotesque and 
 
 satirical carvings, 232 
 Burkhart von ILohenfels, on the 
 
 unicorn's honi, 108 
 Burlesque of sacred rites, 279, 28 1 
 
 Cadouin cloister, sculptures of 
 Aristotle's and Vergil's love ad- 
 ventures in the, 228, 229 
 
 Caen, unicorn in St. Redegonde's, 
 104 ; • Lay of Aristotle ' in St. 
 Pierre's, 228 
 
 C(Fsar, Julius, on elks, 112 
 
 Cahier, ' Melanges d'Archeologie ' 
 cited, 20, 65, 72, 151 
 
 Calanson, Gtdrant de. See Guir- 
 ant de Calanson 
 
 Calcar, sculptures at, 240, 244, 
 
 Calvin, satirized in St. Semin, 
 
 194 
 Candace, Queen, no, 137 
 Canterbury Cathedral, gospel -mill, 
 
 160 ; fox as friar, 212 
 Cantimpre, Thomas de, cited, 74 
 Caper bush, symbol of Judaism, 167 
 Capua, baptisterj', eagle fishing, 
 
 118 
 Carbuncle, virtues of, "^6 
 Caricatures of sacred rites, 186, 
 
 279; of Jews, 289 — 299 
 Cai-nival, survival of Saturnalia, 
 
 264 
 Carthusians satirized, 189 
 Ca)~vings, fanciful and grotesque, 
 
 216 — 224 
 Cassian, on the source of spiritual 
 
 discernment, 16, 17 
 Cassiodorus, cited, 66 
 Cat: "wild-cats" in churches, 183; 
 
356 
 
 Index 
 
 execution of the, 207, 234 ; at 
 
 worship, 211; in- the priest's 
 
 house, 214 
 Catacovibs of Callistus, Ulysses and 
 
 sirens, 315 
 Catharine-wheel windows, revolt 
 
 of the angels on, 258 
 Cato, on Roman effeminacy, 24 
 Cavalcanti, Gziido, erotic imagery 
 
 derived from the fable of the 
 
 unicorn, 108 
 Cecco (TAscoH, his ' Acerba ' cited, 
 
 74 
 
 Cecilms, Felix, on the cult of the 
 
 ass, 270 
 Centaur, symbol of unruly passions, 
 
 317 — 321; St. Anthony and the, 
 
 317 
 
 Cei-berus, in Santa Maria Novella 
 
 at Florence, 310 
 Chalcedony, virtues of, 36, 38 
 Chalons, Council of, 263 ; navel of 
 
 Jesus in Notre-Dame-en-Vaux, 
 
 288 
 Champagne, poet of, on Reynard's 
 
 execution, 213 
 Champfleury, definition of ' ' ecor- 
 
 cher le renard," 208 
 Charadritcs, sculpture at Alne, 50, 
 
 146 ; at Lyons, 146 ; symbolism 
 
 of, 145 — 147 ; psalter of Isabella 
 
 of France, 146 
 Charlemagne, the type of valour, 
 
 43 ; his capitulary against actors, 
 
 263 
 Charles VIII., eagle's claw as 
 
 symbol of, 201 
 Charon, as ferryman, 310 
 Chartres, relief of hare and warrior 
 
 in the cathedral of, 9 
 Chester, sculpture destroyed in the 
 
 cathedral of, 224 
 Childeric III. , golden bees in the 
 
 tomb of, 4 
 ChitragHpta, secretary of Yama,33l 
 Chiiisi, column-sustaining lions at, 
 
 91 
 
 Christ, monogram of, 12 
 Christianity, aggressiveness of, li 
 Chi-istffias, solar feast, 69, 264 
 Chrysolite, virtues of, 37, 38, 39 
 Chrysoprase, virtues of, 37 ; worn 
 
 in December, 37 
 Chrysostom, cited, 3, 185 ; ' Dicta ' 
 
 of, 65, 70 
 " Chul," signifying phoenLx, sand, 
 
 and palm, 66 
 Chttrch edifice, symbol of human 
 
 soul, 76 ; mystic meaning of its 
 
 structure, 254 — 256 
 Cicero, urged to provide panthers 
 
 for political purposes, 23 
 Cimabue, the doctrine of the 
 
 Trinity in his painting of the 
 
 Crucifixion, 252 
 Circe, purifies the Argonauts with 
 
 swine's blood, 299 
 Cistercians, as foxes, 223 ; satirized, 
 
 224 
 Civaux, sirens in the church at, 
 
 316 
 Classical myths, a source of Chris- 
 tian symbolism, 300 — 303, 305 — 
 
 321 
 Claves, keys to Holy Writ, 18; 
 
 Melito's ' Clavis,' 53, 259 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, cited, 16, 
 
 Clement VII., Pope, his pyx 
 
 adorned with a phoenix, 130 
 Clement, Felix, music of the ass's 
 
 chant, 275 ; interpretation of the 
 
 ass's litany, 278 
 Cleves, sculptures in, 240, 243, 244 
 Cloisters, wealth of English, 23 1 
 Chiny, Musee (Hotel) de. Virtues 
 
 personified, 153, 162 ; musical 
 
 pigs, 232 
 Coblence, relic in cloister of St. 
 
 Barbara, 288 
 Cochlceus, on the ' ' Miinchkalb," 204 
 Cock, symbolism of the, 161 — 163 ; 
 
 basilisk hatched from the egg of 
 
 a, 163 ; witches' ointment made 
 
Index 
 
 357 
 
 from the egg of a, 170 ; pecking 
 at the fox, 206 
 
 Cockatrice, origin and symbolism 
 of the, 163—170 
 
 Cockton, rebus, 222 
 
 Ca-lius, letter to Cicero for pan- 
 thers, 23 
 
 C^/fTfwt-, griffin's claw, 106 ; phcenix, 
 130 
 
 Colonne. See Gnido delle Colonnc 
 
 Como, sculpture of papal ass, 201 
 
 Cotistantine, sun-worshipper, 69, 
 
 305 
 Copts, their hieroglyphic signs and 
 
 symbols, 12 
 Corneliniiinster, relics in the, 106 
 Co7-beil, woman and devil, 333 
 Councils, decrees against actors, 
 
 263 ; against "Feast of Fools," 
 
 266 
 Cratiach, Lucas, painting ascribed 
 
 to, 102 note ; his drawing of the 
 
 papal ass, 195; "ein grober 
 
 Maler," 203 
 Crane, symbolism of the, 209, 223, 
 
 224 
 Credulity in the early Church com- 
 pared with that of to-day, 175 — 
 
 177 
 Crocodile, symbolism of the, 131 — 
 
 133 
 
 Cross, the, in Coptic monuments, 
 12 ; symbolized by the letter 
 Tau, 67, 248, 250 ; triumphal 
 chariot of, 161 ; its presence in 
 Nature and prefiguration in the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, 247 — 252 ; 
 symbolisms of, its delineation as 
 crucifix in art, 252; relics of, 287 
 
 Crffw, type of Christian virtues, 55, 
 
 147 
 Cunault-sur-Loire, sirens in the 
 
 church at, 316, 317 
 Cynewulf, Anglo-Saxon paraphrase 
 
 of ' De Phcenice,' 69 
 Cyprian, he-goat typical of Christ, 
 
 46 
 
 Dahlerup, Verner, his edition of 
 Icelandic 'Physiologus,' 71 
 
 Damiani, Petrus, on the monastic 
 state as exemplified by animals, 
 60 
 
 Danae, legend of, 302 
 
 ' Dance of Death,' 336 — 342 
 
 Dante, on the heliotrope, 35 ; on 
 the pearl, 48 ; on the unicorn, 
 108 ; on the eagle, 119 ; on the 
 phoenix and pelican, 131 ; beasts 
 in the path of, 138 ; comment- 
 ators on, 254 ; on the statue of 
 Mars, 306 ; Giotto as illustrator 
 of, 310; on centaurs as symbols 
 of violence, 319 
 
 Dantzig, Hans Memling's ' Last 
 Judgment ' in Dorothy Chapel of 
 St. Mary's Church, 311 
 
 David, on the hart, 171 ; his cross- 
 shaped staff, 249 ; his combat 
 with Goliath in San Michele of 
 Pavia, 309 ; slaying a lion, relief 
 at Sienna, 320 
 
 Death, Greek conception of, 341 ; 
 as a skeleton in art, 341. See 
 Dance of 
 
 '■Decameron,' specimens of sacred 
 relics, 289 
 
 Deities, Christianization of pagan, 6 
 
 Demeter, myth of, 303 
 
 ' De Tristibus Gallic^,' 204 
 
 Devil, as a lion, 88, 92, 129 ; as a 
 unicorn, 109 ; as a whale, 122, 
 123 ; as an otter, 133 ; as. a 
 dragon, 134, 172 ; as a partridge, 
 143, 144 ; as a basilisk, 164 ; as 
 a fox, 206, 209, 210 ; hoof of 
 the German, 244 ; in the myth 
 of Argus, 314; as a centaur, 
 317 ; as Fafnir, 327 ; cheating 
 in weighing souls, 328, 329 ; 
 recording female gossip during 
 mass, 330 ; woman his agent 
 and ally, 331 ; not a prominent 
 figure in Christian architecture 
 except in the tenth and eleventh 
 
358 
 
 Index 
 
 centuries, 333 ; liberties taken 
 by Luther with the, 334 ; in the 
 cathedral of Autun, 335 
 
 ' Dialogue of Creatures,^ 60 
 
 Diamond, virtues of the, 37, 45 ; 
 a protection against demons, 46 
 
 Diemer, his ' Deutsche Gedichte,' 
 38 
 
 Dioscondes, cited, 43 
 
 Dog, symbolism and diabolism of 
 the, 89 ; in the Bible, in Homer, 
 and in the Mahabharata, 89 — 91 
 
 Dollinger, on Jesuits as educators, 
 269 
 
 Dolphin, sculptured on tombs, 121 
 
 Domingo de Guzman, rosary intro- 
 duced by, 243 
 
 Dominicans, derided, 243 
 
 Dove, emblematic significance of, 
 76, 77, 261 
 
 Dracontius, ^militts, allusion to 
 the hart in his poem, 1 73 
 
 Dragon, as demon, 5 ; Solomon's, 
 41 ; at Alne, 51 ; foe of the 
 elephant, 1 1 1 ; symbol of Satan, 
 I32j 133 ; flees the panther, 
 
 135 
 
 Dresden, grifBn's claws in Museum 
 
 at, 106 
 Dreux, Philippe de, his ' Livre des 
 
 Creatures,' 71 
 Dublin, illuminations of Celtic MS. 
 
 in Trinity College, 118 
 Du Meril, cited, on Jews as owls, 
 
 77 
 Durand, on animal types, 85 ; on 
 symbolism of church edifices, 
 254, 259 
 
 Eagle, of Jupiter and John, 6 ; on 
 doorway at Alne, 51, 118; 
 renews its youth, 66, 116 — 119; 
 gazing at the sun, 84, 1 18 — I2I ; 
 breaking its beak, 119 ; in 
 "Tetramorph," 154; in papal 
 ass, 201 
 
 East, signification of, 257, 278 
 
 Easter, solar feast, 69 
 
 Ebers, Georg, on Coptic symbolism, 
 
 12 
 Ebert, Adolf, cited, 68 note 
 " Ecorcher lerenard," 208 ; in St. 
 
 Fiacre's, 209 
 Egg-threshing, in church at Kem- 
 
 pen, 239—241 
 Elder Lady Chapel, sculptures in, 
 
 219 
 Elephant, symbolism of, 32, 33, 1 10 
 
 — 113; embroidered on chasubles 
 
 to typify priestly chastity, 113; 
 
 carving of, 222 
 Elephantiasis, 20 1 
 Elisha, on dogs, 90 
 Elks, Caesar's description of, 112 
 Eltenberg, Annunciation in parish 
 
 church of, 99 
 Ely Cathedral, fox as preacher, 
 
 186, 223 
 Emden, sculptures published by 
 
 Marten at, 235 
 Emerald, virtues of, 37 — 39 
 Emtnerich, carvings of animals at, 
 
 240, 244, 245 
 Emser, his interpretation of the 
 
 " monk-calf," 204 
 Ephesus, Council of, 65 
 Epiphanius, on gems, 40 ; cited, 
 
 56, 59, 185 ; on the cult of the 
 
 ass, 271 
 Epiphany, origin of, 69 ; celebra- 
 tion of, 264, 267 
 Eros, likened to a bee, i 
 Eschatology, Egyptian, 329 
 Espagnol. See Pierre Espagnol 
 Essinus, symbolism of the, 124 — 
 
 126 
 Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons, on the 
 
 spiritual significance of the points 
 
 of the compass, 259 
 Euergetes II. , sumamed Physkon, 
 
 25 ; his book of marvels and 
 
 zeal as a collector, 26 
 ' Eumenides ' of ^schylus, cited, 
 
 298, 299 
 
Index 
 
 359 
 
 Eustatkius, his exegesis of creation, 
 
 55 . 
 Eutokios, symbolism of the, 13, 48 
 Evretix, fox as friar in St, Jaurin's, 
 
 225 
 Exegesis. See Hermeneutics 
 
 Fables^ hagiological and other, 185, 
 222 
 
 Fafnir, in Freising, 323 ; in Hylle- 
 stad, 327 
 
 Fall of man, its effect on the 
 natural world, 29 
 
 Fathers, credulity of, 175 — 177 
 
 Feasts, origin of Christian, 69 ; 
 scandalous celebration of, 265 — 
 267 
 
 Ferrara, lion in, 92 
 
 Fischart, his explanation of the 
 Strasburg sculptures, 188 
 
 Fish, symbolism of, 55, 121 — 126; 
 significance of baked, 122 
 
 Fl'dgel, cited, 192 
 
 Florence, Baptistery, 92, 306 ; St. 
 Maria Novella, 310; Uffizi, 130 
 
 Foolscap, origin of the name, 195 
 
 Fools, feast of, 265, 266 
 
 ' Four P.P.," cited, 281—284 
 
 Fox, on doorway in Alne, 5 1 ; burial 
 of, 188, 189, 235 ; on cushion 
 at Pforzheim, 192; wiles of, 205 
 — 216 ; ensnaring fowls, 208 ; 
 "pricking" the, 209; type of 
 devil, 210 ; Herod as, 206, 211 ; 
 preaching, 208, 210, 211, 212, 
 215, 221 ; execution of, 213, 215, 
 221 ; delineation of its exploits 
 in European churches, 211 — 
 
 245 . 
 Fra Cipolla, his collection of relics, 
 
 289 
 Frankfort, satire on Jews, 295 
 Franenlob, on hunting the unicorn, 
 
 107 ; on the panther's breath, 
 
 136 
 Frederic III. , Duke, his collection 
 
 of relics, 289 
 
 Freiburg Minster, lion and pelican, 
 
 83; Samson, 91, 191, 192; 
 
 wolfs novitiate, 189— 191, 235 ; 
 
 revolt of angels, 258 ; centaurs, 
 
 319 ; weighing souls, 330 
 Freidank, quoted on the peacock, 
 
 312 
 Freising, distich on the Jews, 298 ; 
 
 Siegfried saga, 321—325 
 Freyr, sun-god, 298 
 Fria, German Venus, 122 
 Friar z.n^ Tinker, 244 
 Fribourg, weighing souls, on the 
 
 cathedral doors in, 330 
 Friday, use offish on, 121 
 Friedrich, Prof., on the Gelasian 
 
 decree, 65 
 Friedrich II., his "ostrich eyes," 
 
 94 ; permits Jews to take usury, 
 
 Frog, symbolism of the, 200 note, 
 
 238 
 Fulica, type of doctrinal purity, 
 
 148 
 
 Gabriel, archangel, hunter of the 
 
 unicorn, 96, 98, lOO 
 Gaeta, Bacchus on a baptismal 
 
 ewer at, 308 
 Galatea, triumph of, 303 
 Galen, cited, 43 
 Gautier de Coinsi, his protest 
 
 against "wild-cats and lions," 
 
 183, 217 
 Gayet, on Coptic monuments, 12 
 Geese, carvings of, 193, 215, 221 
 Geiler von Kaisersberg, Johannes, 
 
 sermons censuring beguines, 187 
 Gelasins /., Pope, his apocryphal 
 
 decree condemning the ' Physi- 
 
 ologus,' 64, 152 
 Ge/iis, as amulets, 34, 35 ; virtues 
 
 of, 36, relation to months of 
 
 the year, 37 ; religious symbolism 
 
 of, 38—40 
 Gentiles, symbolized by locusts, 166 
 
 — 16S 
 
36o 
 
 Index 
 
 Gessner, his account of the bishop- 
 fish, 199 
 
 GJiiberti, his sibyls on Baptistery in 
 Florence, 309 
 
 Giotto, sibyls on his tower, 309 ; 
 illustrates Dante's ideas, 310 ; 
 his centaur in Assisi, 320 
 
 Giovanni dalV Orto, imagery de- 
 rived from the phoenix and 
 pelican, 131 
 
 Girgenti, myth of Hippolytus on 
 font in, 307 
 
 GJuktmgasaga, in the church at 
 Austad, 324 
 
 Gladstone, his theory of mythology, 
 301 
 
 Gloucester Cathedral, satirical carv- 
 ings in, 224 
 
 Gmimd, centaurs on St. John's 
 church in, 318 
 
 Gnostics, their speculations con- 
 cerning the Word, 98, 99 ; Lord 
 of Sabaoth with ass's head, 271 
 
 ' Golden Legend,' parable of human 
 life from the, 5 
 
 Goliath. See David 
 
 Gos, elephant on chasuble at, 113 
 
 C^j/^/'/w///, at Gottingen, 157, 158; 
 at Vezelai, 159 ; at Bourges, 
 Canterbury, and elsewhere, 160, 
 161 
 
 Gottfried von Strasburg, on the 
 Virgin as a turtle-dove, 147 
 
 Gottingen, picture of the fabrication 
 of theology in, 157 
 
 Gottweih Cloister, 66 
 
 ' Graf Rudolf ,' cited, 125 
 
 Gran, griffin's claw in the church 
 of, 106 
 
 Grandidier, his description of monk 
 and beguine in Strasburg, 187 
 
 Grane, in Siegfried saga, 323 
 
 Grasshopper, symbolism of, 166 
 
 Gray Friars, satirized, 220 
 
 Great Malvern Abbey, rats hanging 
 cat, 234 
 
 Gregoty I. (the Great), his love of 
 
 symbolism, 66 ; use of the 
 ' Physiologus,' 152 ; on Job, 166 ; 
 on the basilisk, 167, 168 ; on 
 Ezekiel, 256; his letter of in- 
 struction to Anglo-Saxon mis- 
 sionaries, 306 
 
 Gregory of Nazianz, Greek ' Physi- 
 ologus,' ascribed to, 64 
 
 Gregory of Nyssa, his animal typ- 
 ology, 18 ; on the dolphin, 121 
 
 Grijffins, as demons, 39 ; so-called 
 claws of, 106 ; symbols of carnal 
 passions, 192 
 
 Grimm, Jacob, on superstitious 
 dread of animals, 8 
 
 Grimnienthal, unicorn in, loi, 102 ; 
 Luther's denunciation of, 104 
 
 Grosnet. See Pierre de Grosnet 
 
 Guido delle Colonne, ladies likened 
 to panthers, 136 
 
 Guillaume. See William of Nor- 
 mandy 
 
 Gtiirant de Calanson, on the open 
 eyes of the lion, 94 
 
 Gidlinbursti, golden boar, 298 
 
 Gunnar in Siegfried saga, 323 — 
 
 325. 327 . . 
 
 Guy de Munois, ape in cowl as his 
 
 abbot's seal, 281 
 Gyrfalcon, in Coptic relief of Isis 
 
 and Horns, 13 
 
 H, signification of, 67 
 
 Hadrian, phoenix on his coin, 129 ; 
 
 had swine sculptured over gates 
 
 of Jerusalem, 294 
 Halberstadt, centaurs in Liebfrauen- 
 
 kirche, 319 
 Halle, relics of Noah's ark and 
 
 Virgin's chemise, 288 
 Hallingdal, Siegfried saga, 324 
 Havilet, cited, 233, 340 
 Hard-shell Baptist, sermon of, 45 
 Hare, superstitious fear of the, 9 ; 
 
 in the Strasburg Minster, 18S ; 
 
 in the ' Lay of Aristotle, ' 228 ; 
 
 symbol of the Trinity, 239 
 
Index 
 
 361 
 
 Harryson, John. See Bale, John 
 Hart, symbolism of, 55 note; in 
 
 Pisa Cathedral, 85, 171— 173; 
 
 carving in Ely Cathedral, 223 
 ' Heavenly Jerusalem,'' poem cited, 
 
 38. See Jerusalem 
 Zrf(^ri?w, cosmogony allegorized, 17; 
 
 mythology meagre, 260 
 Hcerbrand, Jacob, polemical treatise 
 
 of, 193 
 He-goat, type of Christ, 46 ; as 
 
 bier-bearer, 189 
 Heider, his edition of bestiary, 66 
 Heidingsfeld, swine in synagogue 
 
 at, 294 
 Heilbrunn, carvings satirizing Jews, 
 
 297 
 Heiligenstadt, Jews sucking swme, 
 
 297 
 Heliotrope, virtues of the, 35 ; 
 
 associated with March, 37 
 Hemsedal, Siegfried saga, 324 
 Henri d Andely, his ' Lai d'Aris- 
 
 tote ' cited, 226, 228 
 Henry I. of England, 71 
 Henry VIII. of England, satire on 
 
 the Roman See, 195 
 Ho-cules, taken for Samson, 6 ; 
 
 Christian interpretation of his 
 
 labours, 302 ; at Trier, 307 ; 
 
 slaying a centaur, 320 
 Hermeneiitics, importance attached 
 
 to, 27 ; essential to keep Holy 
 
 Writ abreast with the progress of 
 
 thought, 29 ; perverse ingenuity 
 
 of patristic, 40—42, 45, 54, 55, 
 
 91, 119, 145, 159, 171— 177, 
 
 Hermes, the prototype of Chnst, 
 
 300 
 Hermes Trismegistns, authority of, 
 
 169, 170 
 Herod, as fox, 206, 21 1 
 Herodotus, 197 
 
 Heron, type of Christian purity, 148 
 Herrade de Landsberg, her ' Hortus 
 
 Deliciarum,' 74 
 
 Herse. S&ejoh/t of Herse 
 ^ Herzog Ernst ,' poem, 125 
 Hesperides, Garden of Eden in 
 
 Christian art, 309 
 ' Hexahemera,'' cited, 54, 55 
 Heywood, John, his 'Four P.P.,' 
 
 281—283 
 Hierony7nus, his symbolism of 
 
 Solomon, 42 
 Hilarius, exegesis of locusts, 167 
 Hildcbert of Lav ar din, works of, 61 
 Hildefoftse, his symbolism of beasts, 
 
 60 
 
 Hildesheim, lion's head, 92 ; griffin's 
 
 claw, 106 
 Hipfolytus, sculptured on a Chris- 
 tian font, 307 
 Hitterdal, Siegfried saga, 325 
 Hog, type of Buddhist ascetic, 31, 
 32 ; as satire on Calvin, 194 ; in 
 sacred architecture, 186, 189, 
 194, 19s, 218 
 Hogne, saga of Atle and, 324 
 Holbein, his ' Imago Mortis,' 338 
 " Holy Coat," worshipped at Trier, 
 
 287 
 Holy Rood, legends of, 252 
 Hommel, his edition of Ethiopic 
 
 ' Physiologus,' 63, 71 
 Honey, antiseptic and cultic uses 
 of, 3 ; in Mithras worship, 4 ; 
 symbol of worldly seductions, 5 
 Honori' de Sainte- Marie, sermon 
 
 cited, 340, 341 
 Hoopoe, type of filial affection, 148 
 Horapollo, meaning of, 14 ; cited, 
 
 128, 129 
 '■Hortus Deliciarum,^ cited, 74; 
 destroyed, 75 ; miniature of 
 monster in, 155, 156 
 Horus, type of infant Jesus, 13 ; 
 personification of light and life, 
 14; anniversary of, 15; reliefs 
 in the Louvre and British 
 Museum, 13 ; in Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 
 303 
 Hrabanus, Maurus, his four senses 
 
362 
 
 Index 
 
 of Scripture, 17; on the cross 
 
 in nature, 247 
 Jiradshin, abnormal skeleton of a 
 
 saint there, 284 
 Hugo de Saint-Victor, treatise on 
 
 beasts falsely ascribed to, 75 
 Hugo von Langenstein, on the uni- 
 corn, 108 ; his allegory of the 
 
 panther, 135 
 Humour, coarseness of mediaeval 
 
 and Reformatory, 19 
 Hyacinth, associated with January, 
 
 37 
 
 Hyena, in Alne, 50, 142 ; nature 
 and symbolism of, 140 ; super- 
 stitions concerning, 14I ; in 
 architecture, 141, 142 
 
 Hyllestad, Siegfried saga, 322 
 
 Hymn sung to the ass, 272 — 275 ; 
 its spiritual sense, 278 
 
 Hyrtl, Joseph, saints' skeletons rec- 
 tified by, 285 
 
 /, signification of, 67 
 
 Jbbenstadt, centaurs in the cloister- 
 church of, 319 
 
 Jbex, symbol of aspiration, 153 
 
 Ichneumon, Egyptian ideograph, 
 132 ; killer of monsters, 132, 
 321 
 
 Iconoclasm in Netherland churches, 
 
 245 
 Jlle, his 'Dance of Death,' 342 
 Jnderawood. See Beverly 
 Indian stone, type of Christ, 48 
 Inghilfredi, canzoni cited, 131 
 Innocent III. , confirms mendicant 
 
 orders, 210; censures rules of 
 
 St. Francis, 224 
 lo, myth of Argus and, 313 
 Isabella of France, her psalter, 20, 
 
 146, 153 ; illustrations from it, 
 
 124, 133, 148, 162, 174, 311, 
 
 314 
 Isidore, cited, 3, 43, 48 ; his 
 ' Etymologies,' 59, 109 ; his sym- 
 bolism of animals, 185 
 
 Isis, type of the Virgin, 13 ; in 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, 303 ; her statue 
 worshipped by Christians, 307 
 
 Isle of Man, Sigurd saga in the, 
 
 325 
 Isocrates, sirens on his sepulchre, 
 
 315 
 Istar, origin of the Virgin of the 
 
 Seven Swords, 6 
 
 Jacinth, 39 
 
 Jacopo da Lentino, erotic poet, 
 
 cited, 165 
 Jacopo della Quercia, his reliefs at 
 
 Sienna, 320 
 Jacopone da Todi, his symbolism of 
 
 the serpent, 115 
 Jarlsbcrg, Siegfried saga, 324 
 Jasper, virtues of, 37, 38 
 Jeremiah, on the hyena, 139 
 y^row^, "chul" as palm-tree, 66 ; on 
 
 the two women at the mill, 159 ; 
 
 his symbolisms, 185, 247 ; on 
 
 the brazen serpent, 250 ; on St. 
 
 Anthony and the centaur, 3 1 7 
 Jerusalem, stories of the Heavenly, 
 
 38 ; swine over the gates of, 294 
 Jesuit, definition of theology, 269 
 Jesus, His remark concerning a dead 
 
 dog, 90 
 Jervels, as talismans, 34 ; blessing, 
 
 43 ; formed from hyena's eyes, 
 
 141 
 Jeius, coarse caricatures of, 289 — 
 
 299 ; self-sacrifice of two, 299, 
 
 300 
 Job, contempt of dogs, 90 
 John of Herse, his observation of 
 
 the unicorn, 105 
 John the Baptist, his six heads, 286 
 John the Evangelist, preaching, 210 
 John II. (the Good), his decree 
 
 concerning the Jews, 293 
 Joseph, relic of his breath, 288 
 Jove, name applied to God and to 
 
 Christ, 309, 310 
 Jug, symbolism of the, 33 
 
Index 
 
 363 
 
 /tmo, her symbol the peacock, 310 
 /upiter^ prototype of Jesus in art, 
 
 310 
 Justin Martyr, his ' Hexahemeron,' 
 
 55 ; on the cross in nature, 247 ; 
 
 on the pascha as foreshadowing 
 
 the Crucifixion, 251 
 Juvenal, on the beaver, 139 ; on 
 
 frogs' entrails as charms, 238 
 
 Kaulbach, his illustrations of the 
 
 beast-epos, 214, 215 
 Kelheim, inscription recording the 
 
 banishment of Jews from Ratis- 
 
 bon, 297 
 Kempen, sculptures in parish church, 
 
 239 — 244 ; excellent works of the 
 
 Flemish school, 244 
 Kephisodotos, statues by, 306 
 Kerner, Jtistinus^ on occult virtues 
 
 in stones, 44 
 Kirk Andreas, Sigurd saga, 325 
 Klingenthal, ' Dance of Death, ' 
 
 336, 337 
 Klosterneiiberg, lion, 84 ; Samson, 
 
 192 
 Konrad von Wiirzbin-g, on hunting 
 
 the unicorn, 107 ; on the panther, 
 
 136 ; on the beaver, 139 ; on the 
 
 siren, 316 
 Kdrner, Theodor, poem on precious 
 
 stones, 38 
 Krishna, his symbol a blue bee, 4 
 Ktesias, his fabulous stories, 22, 
 
 197 
 
 Laetantius, 'De Phoenice' ascribed 
 
 to, 68 
 ' Lai d'Aristote,' 226 — 228 
 Lampreeht, P/affen, his ' Alexan- 
 derlied,' description of the uni- 
 corn, no; cited, 125; Queen 
 Candace's automatic panther, 137 
 Lamp7-ey, symbolism of the, 55 
 Land, Syriac ' Physiologus,' 64 
 Lange, Konrad, Papstesel, i()6 note, 
 200 
 
 Langenstein. See Hugo von Lan- 
 genstein 
 
 Langland, William, his satire on 
 the mendicant orders in ' Piers 
 Plowman,' 230 — 232 
 
 Lapis lazuli, virtue of, 37 
 
 Lardal, Siegfried saga, 324 
 
 Lateran, Museum of the, 53; mosaic 
 of phoenix in the tribune of the, 
 127 
 
 Lauchert, Fnedrick, his history of 
 the ' Physiologus ' cited, 63, 79, 
 108, 116, 136 
 
 Lauremberg, ' Schertzgedichte,' 
 cited, 187 
 
 Lausanne, monsters in the cathe- 
 dral of, 200 
 
 Lautensaek, Paul, his altar-piece at 
 Grimmenthal, representing the 
 chase of the unicorn, 103; picture 
 burned, 104 
 
 Leeeh in IBuddhistic symbolism, 32 
 
 Leicester, fox preaching in St. 
 Martin's, 223 
 
 Le Mans. See Mans 
 
 Lentino. See Jacopo da Lentino 
 
 Le-Pny-en- Velay, personification of 
 the sciences, 154; weighing 
 souls, 328 
 
 Lessing, ' Die Biene ' cited, 2 
 
 Leviathan, as a rhinoceros, 85 ; 
 
 «=size of, 123 
 
 Liebfrauettkirche, in Halberstadt, 
 centaurs, 319 
 
 Lily, symbol of purity, 76 
 
 Limoges, foxes as mendicant friars 
 in the cathedral of, 225 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, jokes of, 43 
 
 Lincoln Cathedral, fox preaching, 
 223 
 
 Lion, winged, 10 ; three character- 
 istics of the, 81 ; symbolism of, 
 82 — 94 ; represented in archi- 
 tecture, 82 — 87, 91, 92, 130; 
 on helmets, 85 ; type of opposite 
 qualities, 87 ; in poetry, 93, 94 ; 
 as devil, 87, 88, 129 
 
3^4 
 
 Index 
 
 ' Lithiaka,' on precious stones in 
 
 ^^^'45 . . , . 
 
 ' Livre d'Hettres,' miniature of snail 
 
 and its meaning, 217, 218 
 Lizard, symbolism of, 94, 95 ; 
 
 fighting with scorpion, 154 
 Loaists signify Gentiles, 166 — 168 
 Lorenzo d'Avalos, likened to a 
 
 lion's whelp, 93 
 Lorenzo de Segtcra, Juan, his 
 
 'Poema de Alexandre,' 113; 
 
 method of capturing elephants, 
 
 113; serpent's fear of nude 
 
 persons, 116 
 Loreto, sibyls on the Casa Santa 
 
 of, 309 
 Lot, symbolism of, 67 
 Lothair, cross of, 308 
 Louise of Savoy, 162 
 Louques, devil cheating in weighing 
 
 souls in the church at, 328 
 Louvre, Mantegna's satyrs and 
 
 centaurs in the, 320 
 Lotivret, Pierre, his account of the 
 
 ass's feast, 277 
 Lucca, lions supporting pulpit, 91 
 L2icerue, Meglinger's triumphs of 
 
 death in, 339 
 Lztcretius, witty, but not scientific, 
 
 25 
 
 Ltidwig, Duke of Bavaria, com- 
 pared to various animals, 136 
 
 Liihig, his ' Dance of Death,' 342 
 
 Ljtnd, animals in the cathedral of, 
 129 
 
 Lupa {Lupanar), 150 note 
 
 L^iipercalia, the Christian feast of 
 the Purification, 264 
 
 Luther, Martin, his coarse wit, 19 ; 
 on the hart and serpent, 55 note ; 
 on the aqueous origin of swallows, 
 149 ; satirized, 194 ; on " Papst- 
 esel" and " Miinchkalb," 202 
 — 204 ; his interpretation of the 
 satire on the Jews in Witten- 
 berg, 290 ; harmlessness of his 
 devil, 334 
 
 Liitzelburger, Hans, his cuts of 
 Holbein's ' Imago Mortis,' 338 
 
 Lycosthenes, his work on prodigies 
 cited, 197, 198, 224 
 
 Lydda, ostensible birthplace of St. 
 George, 15 
 
 Lyons Cathedral, lion and whelp, 
 84; unicorn, 96; MS. in City 
 Library of, 204 ; Saint-Jean 
 (cathedral), 'Laid'Aristote,' 228 ; 
 revolt of the angels, 258 
 
 Macabre, origin of the word, 336, 
 
 337. See '■ Dance of Death' 
 Macedonians, heretical sect, 238 
 Madrid, National Library of, 
 
 'Libro de los Gatos,' 72 
 Maerlant, Jcuob van, 74 
 Alagdeburg, phoenix, 129 ; satire on 
 
 Jews, 297 
 Magi, their wisdom explained by 
 
 Luther, 55 7iote ; ass laden with 
 
 their gifts, 278 
 Maison des Templiers, fox preaching 
 
 to a congregation of animals, 211 
 Malepartus, snail storming, 217 
 Malipiero, account of papal ass, 195 
 Malvern Abbey, rats hanging cat, 
 
 234 
 
 Manchester, grotesque carvings in 
 the Collegiate Church of, 233 
 
 Mandrakes as aphrodisiacs, 1 10 
 
 Mans {Le), lion and phcenix, 83 ; 
 fox as friar, 225 
 
 Mantegna, Andrea, centaurs and 
 satyrs, 320 
 
 iJ/aKz<, 'Institutes' of, thieving part- 
 ridges, 144 
 
 Marbodius, on precious stones, 38, 
 
 43 
 Marie de France, her ' Wolfs Novi- 
 
 tiate' cited, 190, 191 
 Marienhafen, sculptures of animals, 
 
 23s, 236 
 Mark, his type a roaring lion, 85 
 Marolles, on the six heads of John 
 
 the Baptist, 286 
 
Index 
 
 3^5 
 
 Jlfars, statue of, 306 
 Marten, his drawings, 235 
 Martial, on the skill of the Romans 
 
 in taming and training animals, 24 
 Matilbronn Cloister, lion howling 
 
 over whelps, 83 
 Maitpertuis, moralization on skulls, 
 
 335 
 
 Max, Gabriel, the rose of martyr- 
 dom in the painting by, 76 ; his 
 painting, ' The Last Greeting,' 
 
 Maxtfnus, his interpretation of 
 
 sirens, 315 
 Mayence, lions in the cathedral of, 
 
 87, 92 ; Council of, 263 
 Meerbischof. See Bishop-fish 
 Megasthenes, his fabulous stories, 22 
 Megenberg, Konrad von, his ' Buch 
 
 der Natur,' 74 
 Meglinger, his ' Dance of Death, ' 
 
 339 
 Meissner, cited, 206, 208, 21 1 note, 
 
 234 
 Melatuhthon, his coarse sarcasm, 
 
 19 ; on the papal ass and the 
 
 "monk-calf," 202, 204 
 Melito, his ' Clavis ' cited, 53, 259 
 Mena, /uan de, simile of the lion's 
 
 whelp, 93 
 Menander as a Christian saint, 306 
 Mercury in Christian art, 307, 309, 
 
 313 
 
 Merl, symbolism of the, 148 
 Messiah, etymology of, 252 
 Metempsychosis, influence on animal 
 
 symbolism and heraldry, 7 ; in 
 
 Oriental eschatology, 328 
 Metz, animals in the Templars' 
 
 church at, 211 
 Michael. See St. Michael 
 Milan, first Council of, 1 84 ; Aaron's 
 
 rod in, 287 ; statue of Hercules 
 
 at, 307 
 Milton, on the eagle, 121 
 Minerva, relief of, 307 
 Minorite Cloister at Cleves, 244 
 
 Minotaur, 10 ; in Christian art, 
 
 309> 310 
 Mithras, cult of, 4 ; altar in St. 
 
 Clemente, 306 
 Mnetiis, bull of Osiris symbolized 
 
 by the sun, 14 
 Modena, lions as devils, 92 
 Monoculi, types of single-minded- 
 
 ness, 39 
 Monstrosities, as embodiments of 
 
 metempsychosis, 7 ; as portents, 
 
 196 — 204 ; satirical, 224, 245 ; 
 
 saintly, 285 — 287 
 Montalernbert, on the sculpture 
 
 satirizing Calvin, 194 
 Monza, lions as types of spiritual 
 
 vigilance, 87 
 Morris, Richard, his edition of the 
 
 ' Physiologus, ' 62 
 " Miinchkalb," description of, 203 ; 
 
 interpretations of, 204 
 Mioiich, lion relief, 82, 83 ; Royal 
 
 Library, 20, 153, 197 
 Munois. See Guy de Miinois 
 Miiotta, hares as a symbol of the 
 
 Trinity, 239 
 Museo Pio-Clementino, relief of 
 
 satyr, 301 
 Music personified, 154 
 Mythology as source of Christian 
 
 symbolism, 300 
 
 Napoleon, golden bees of, 4 
 Nass, F. /., on the Strasburg 
 
 sculptures, 188 
 Neable, /. M., on symbolisms in 
 
 churches, 256 
 Nechebt-Ilithyia, birth-easing gyr- 
 
 falcon, 13 
 Neckatn, Alexander, on natural 
 
 things, 60 
 Nesland, Sigurd saga, 324 
 Nestorius, condemned as heretic, 65 
 Netherlands, iconoclasm in the, 245 
 Nibelitngen Hort, 323 
 Nice, Council of, on sacred images, 
 
 182 
 
366 
 
 Index 
 
 Nuodemus, his glove as a relic, 288 
 Nilus, St., his letter to Olympi- 
 
 odorus, 182 
 Noailles, Bishop, relic of Jesus' 
 
 navel removed by, 288 
 
 North, assigned to Satan, 258, 259 
 
 Norway, Sigurd saga in, 322 
 
 NotrC'Dame of Paris, sleeping lion, 
 
 86 ; weighing souls, 330 ; of 
 
 Rouen, foxes as friars, 225 ; 
 
 Henri d'Andely, canon, 226 ; 
 
 -en-Vaux in Chalons, relic of 
 
 Jesus' navel, 288 ; de Recouv- 
 
 rance in Brest, female gossip 
 
 during mass noted by the devil, 
 
 332 . . 
 
 Novgorod, lion's jaws symbolizing 
 
 hell, 92 ; centaurs in St. Sophia 
 
 of, 318 
 Numbers, significance of, 40, 41 ; 
 
 symbolism of, 67 
 NiiJnedal, Sigurd saga, 324 
 Nuremberg, symbolical animals, 82, 
 
 130; tetramorph, 155 ; image of 
 
 ass, 271 ; Jews in, 293 
 Nycticorax, symbol of the recluse, 
 
 66 ; of Jews, 77 
 
 Odiutii theologicum, parody of, 154 
 
 Odo, Abbot of Cluny, 167 ; of 
 Sherington, his censures of the 
 Cistercians, 224 ; his fables, 225 
 
 Odon, Archbishop, on the dissolute 
 sports of nuns, 266 
 
 Ogive, not permissible to heretics, 
 256 
 
 Olympiodorus, scruples about ani- 
 mals in churches, 182 
 
 Onk, its significance and survival 
 in the cross, 12 
 
 Onyx, associated with August, 37 
 
 Opal, associated with October, 37 
 
 Opdal, Sigurd saga, 324 
 
 Oppenheim, auricular conception of 
 Christ, 99 
 
 Oppianus, his poem on fishing 
 cited, 125 
 
 Orcagno, Andrea and Bernardo, 
 their frescoes, 310, 320 
 
 Orendel, poem on Holy Coat, 287 
 
 Orientation, its significance in 
 sacred architecture, 257 
 
 Origen, his threefold sense of 
 Scripture, 16 ; spiritualization of 
 Hebrew cosmogony, 17 ; adam- 
 antine exegesis and ascetic zeal, 
 57, 58 ; symbolical exposition, 
 58 ; on the lion and other crea- 
 tures, 85, 185 ; on forms of the 
 cross in nature, 247 
 
 Orlandi, Guido, sonnet to, 108 
 
 Orpheus, prototype of Christ, 302 
 
 Orto, Giovanni. See Giovanni 
 dair Orto 
 
 Osiris, bulls sacred to, 14 ; weigh- 
 ing souls, 329 
 
 Osteology, freaks of sacred, 2S5 
 
 Ostrich, incubating eyes of, 94 ; 
 mentioned, 314 
 
 Otter, symbolism, 131 ; confused 
 with water-snake, 132 
 
 Ousel, symbolism of, 148 
 
 Ovid, his ' Metamorphoses ' cited, 
 
 304 
 Owl, in Buddhism, 32 ; symbol of 
 Jews, 77 ; rebus of Tyll Eulen- 
 spiegel, 243 ; sign of desolation, 
 
 314 
 
 Ox, like a deer and unicorn, 112 ; 
 
 hoof of, 195 ; coat-of-arms of 
 
 Alexander VI., 201 
 Oxford, carving in Bodleian 
 
 Library, 161 
 
 Paderborn, scenes from fables in 
 
 the cathedral of, 237 ; sculpture 
 
 of three hares, 239 
 Padua, sculpture of lion, 87 
 Pallas as Eve, 6 
 
 Palm Sunday, celebration of, 265 
 Pan, relief in Aix-la-ChapeUe 
 
 Minster, 303 
 Panther, on doorway at Alne, 5 1, 
 
 135 ; sweet breath due to its diet, 
 
Index 
 
 Z(^7 
 
 134; nature and symbolism of 
 the, 133— 138; Siegfried's quiver 
 covered with skin of, 137 ; 
 Queen Candace's automatic, 137 
 
 Panthera, legend of, 137 
 
 Papstesel, discovery and description 
 of, 195 ; allegory of Rome, 200 ; 
 sculptured on the cathedral of 
 Como, 200, 201 ; engravings of, 
 202 ; interpretations of, 204 
 
 Papias, his exegesis, 55 
 
 ^Pardoner and Friar,' assortment 
 of relics in, 283 
 
 Paris, terrobuli, 50 ; ' Evangeliari- 
 um, ' 1 52 ; illuminated manuscript, 
 161 ; Feast of Fools forbidden by 
 the Council of, 266 ; effigy of ass, 
 271 ; statue of Isis, 307 ; sleep- 
 ing lion, 86 ; weighing souls in 
 Notre-Dame of, 330 
 
 Parma, relief of human life, 5 ; 
 lion, 87 
 
 Partridge, symbolism of, 143 — 
 145 ; pilfering propensity of, 145; 
 in missals and sacred edifices, 
 
 145 
 
 Paschal lamb, symbolical of the 
 Crucifixion, 251 
 
 Patiscus, a famous hunter, 24 
 
 Paul, on the vice symbolized by 
 the hyena, 139; on lions, 142; 
 toiling at the gospel-mill, 160 ; 
 his natural man symbolized by 
 the centaur, 192; on the pascha, 
 251 ; the Hermit, 317 
 
 Pavia, Theseus slaying the Mino- 
 taur, 309 
 
 Peacock, symbolism of the, 310 — 
 312 
 
 Pearl- fishing, formation and sym- 
 bolism of, 47, 48 
 
 Pegasus as Christian prototype, 
 301, 309 
 
 Pelican, type of the holy recluse, 
 66 ; in Freiburg Minster, 83 ; 
 in Strasburg Minster, 84 ; type 
 of the Atonement, 128 ; in archi- 
 
 tecture, 129 — 131 ; in sacred and 
 
 secular poetry, 130, 131 ; oq 
 
 shield of Love, 153 
 Pentecost, celebration of, 265 
 Pepys "foxed," 209 
 Peter of Capua calls the risen 
 
 Christ *' aethereal bee," 3 
 Peter of Picardy, prose version of 
 
 * Physiologus, ' 71 
 Petrarch, unicorn in engraving of 
 
 his triumphs, 104, 105 ; calls 
 
 God Jove, 309 
 Petronius, on the Roman passion 
 
 for the arena, 23 
 Pforzheim, Provost's cushion with 
 
 wolf as monk, 193 
 Philaster, on frog-worship, 238 
 Philippe Auguste, edict banishing 
 
 actors, 263 
 Philippe de Thaun, his ' Livre des 
 
 Creatures,' 71 ; on the hyena, 
 
 140 
 
 Philo, founder of the Alexandrian 
 school, 16 
 
 Philotheos, fresco of sleeping lion 
 in the convent of, 86 
 
 Phcenix, larva of, 1 5 ; Lactantius' 
 poem on, 68 ; on coins, 69 ; 
 Cynewulfs Anglo-Saxon para- 
 phrase, 69 ; described and 
 exegetically applied, 126 ; on 
 cinerary urns, 127 ; in architec- 
 ture, 83, 84, 129 — 131 ; in 
 poetry, 130, 131 ; on the shield 
 of Devotion, 153 
 
 ^Physiologus' (the), on the Indian 
 stone, 13 ; importance of it as a 
 key to the mystical meaning of 
 natural things, 18 ; cited, 38, 
 45 ; on the tutelar virtue of the 
 diamond, 46 ; far-fetched simili- 
 tudes of, 47 ; viviparous accipi- 
 ters, 49 ; author of, 54 ; plural 
 form of, 56 ; Epiphanius' exposi- 
 tion of, 59 ; works modelled 
 after, 60 ; Theobald's version of, 
 61, 62 ; its popularity, 62, 63 ; 
 
368 
 
 Index 
 
 translations of, 62 — 74; Ethio- 
 pic, Armenian, and Syriac, 63, 
 64 ; when composed, 65 ; first 
 mention of Latin version in the 
 Index Prohihitorum, 64, 152 ; 
 MSS. and editions of the Latin, 
 65; modern translations from the 
 Latin, 70; two German versions, 
 70 ; Icelandic, 70, 71, 124 ; 
 French bestiaries based upon, 71; 
 Greek metrical, Roumanian, and 
 Spanish versions, 72 ; Provencal, 
 73 ; quoted and amplified by 
 mediaeval writers, 74 — 76 , clue 
 to these treatises, 75, 153; 
 Albertus Magnus' criticism of, 
 78 ; key to allusions and similes 
 in sermons and songs, 79 ; on 
 the characteristics of the lion, 
 81, 82; poetic imagery derived 
 from, 93, 94, 107, 108, no, 
 113, 116, 119— 121, 131, 134, 
 136, 137, 146, 147; the uni- 
 corn, 95, 109 ; elephant, 1 10 
 — 112; serpent, 114 — Il6; 
 eagle, 116 — 119; fish, 121; 
 sea-creatures, 122; phoenix, 
 126, 127 ; otter, 133 ; Walden- 
 sian version of, 49, 73, 109, 133; 
 beaver, 139 ; hyena, 139, 141 ; 
 raven, 149 ; cock, 162 ; psycho- 
 logical value of, 171 ; a prece- 
 dent for other marvels, 185, 229, 
 230 ; fox, 205, 208, 209 ; basi- 
 lisk, 237 ; swan, 238 ; peacock, 
 312; casual references to, 138, 
 151, 232, 234 
 
 Ticardie, ape on bishop's seal in, 
 281 
 
 Picards, 114 
 
 Pictures, books of the ignorant, 75 
 
 Pierre de Grosnet, poem on gossips 
 in church reported by the devil, 
 
 332 
 Pierre Espagnol, on ostrich eyes, 
 
 94 
 
 ' Piers Plowman.'' See Lan^land 
 
 Pineda, on the samir, 42 
 
 Pinon, Bishop of, ape in episcopal 
 robes as seal, 281 
 
 Pisa, sculptures of animals in the 
 cathedral of, 85, 91 ; frescoes in 
 the Campo Santo of, 310 
 
 Pitra, his ' Spicilegium Soles- 
 mense,' 53, 63 
 
 Pliny, character of his Natural 
 History, 25 ; borrowed by Mar- 
 bodius, 43 ; on the eagle-stone, 
 49 ; ichneumon, 132 
 
 Plutarch, on the ichneumon, 132; 
 on ass- worship, 270 
 
 Pluto, personification of hell, 310 
 
 Pocci, his * Dance of Death,' 342 
 
 ' Poe7na de Alexandra. ' See Lorenza 
 de Segura 
 
 Poitiers Cathedral, hog and dog as 
 harpists, 232 ; sirens, 317 
 
 Points of the compass in sacred 
 architecture, 256 — 259 
 
 Polo, Messer, his lady-love likened 
 to the panther, 136 
 
 Ponce de Leon, his version of Solo- 
 mon's Song, 147 
 
 Pope, Cranach's drawing of the 
 rise and origin of the, 203 ; elec- 
 tion of the, 223 
 
 Poseidon as Adam, 6 
 
 Posidippus as a Christian saint, 306 
 
 Prague, abnormal skeletons of 
 saints, 284 — 286 
 
 'Praise of Solomon,' poem, legend 
 of the dragon, 41 
 
 Precious stones. See Gems and 
 Jewels 
 
 Pregulhan. See Aimei'ic de P. 
 
 Proserpina, sirens messengers of. 
 
 Proverbs, illustrated in church 
 architecture, 222, 239, 245 
 
 Priidentius, Aur elites Clemens, his 
 allegorical poems, 66, 67 
 
 Psalter. See Isabella of France 
 
 Pyratnus and Thisbe in Bale Cathe- 
 dral, 304, 305 
 
Index 
 
 369 
 
 Fyroboli. See Terrobuli 
 
 Quedlinhirg, Bacchus in Schloss- 
 
 kirche of, 308 
 Quoxia. See [acopo delta Que7xia 
 
 Rabins, on sea-monsters, 123 ; their 
 
 myths and fables, 261 ; their 
 
 personification of alphabetic 
 
 characters, 262 
 Rabelais, his humour, 19 ; on 
 
 " flaying the fox," 209 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, ' The Lover ' 
 
 cited, 33 ; on hyenas, 140 
 Ram, symbol of leadership, 76 
 Raiishon, lion, 87 ; sculptures : 
 
 satire on Jews, 297; sirens, 317 
 Rats executing cat, 207 
 Raven, symbolism of, 66, 76, 1 49, 
 
 150 
 Ravenna, lions, 87 
 Rebuses, 220, 222 
 Redemption, its effect upon animals, 
 
 30 
 Reformation, sceptical tendency of, 
 
 334 
 
 Regino, Siegfried saga, 321 — 323 
 
 Reinaert de Vos, Reincke Vos, 
 and Reineke Fuchs, cited, 137, 
 187, 214, 215 
 
 Reinmar von Z'veter, on ' ' ostrich 
 eyes," 94 ; on the unicorn, 108; 
 on the phoenix, 131 
 
 Relies, \io\y, 281 — 289; repaired 
 by Prof. Hyrtl, 285 
 
 Remagen, sculpture of Samson, 192 
 
 Retnora, symbol of the Saviour, 
 122, 124; feats of the, 125 
 
 Renaissance, effect of, 334 
 
 Renart le Notwel, snail as standard- 
 bearer, quoted, 217 
 
 Rethel, Alfred, his ' Dance of 
 Death,' 342 
 
 Rkeifns, effigy of ass in the cathe- 
 dral of, 271 
 
 Rhinegold, 323 
 
 Rhinoceros, symbol of recluseness, 
 33 ; Biblical leviathan, 85 
 
 Rihbesford, eagle taking a fish, 1 18 
 
 Robigo (Robigus), origin of Roga- 
 tion week, 264 
 
 Rock-crystal, virtue of, 37 
 
 Rodari,Jcuob and Thomas, sculp- 
 ture of papal ass, 200 
 
 Rogation week, origin of, 264 
 
 ' Roman de Renat i" ' ( ' Romance of 
 Reynard '), cited, 216, 225, 230, 
 235> 236, 312 
 
 Rofnans, spectacular use of animals, 
 23—25 
 
 Rome, lions in churches, 87, 92 ; 
 relics in, 286, 288 
 
 Rosary, ass with a, 242 ; origin of 
 the, 243 
 
 Rose, symbol of martyrdom, 76 
 
 Rouen, celebration of Christmas at, 
 265 ; foxes as begging friars, 225 ; 
 sirens in Notre Dame of, 317 
 
 Ruby, virtue of, 36 
 
 Rudolf von Ems, his ' Barlaam und 
 Josaphat,'5 
 
 Rumeland, cited, metaphors from 
 animals, 136 
 
 Ritmpler, Angelus, his protest 
 against animals in churches, 183 
 
 Sabbath, personified soul of Israel, 
 261 
 
 Saetersdal, Sigurd saga, 322, 324 
 
 Sagas, Germanic, Christian sym- 
 bolism of, 185 ; Norse sagas in 
 Scandinavian churches, 324 
 
 St. Ambrosius, in Milan, statue of 
 Hercules slaying the Nemean 
 lion, 307 
 
 St. Anna, her three arms, 285 ; 
 in Ileiligenstadt, Jew sucking a 
 sow, 297 
 
 St. Anthony and the centaur, 317 
 
 St. Aubin, siren in the cloister of, 
 316 
 
 St. Aurelia, in Bregenz, statues of 
 Alemannic gods, 307 
 
 BB 
 
370 
 
 Index 
 
 Si. Barbara, in Coblence, relic of 
 
 Jesus' fore-skin, 288 
 St. Basil. See Basil the Great 
 Saints' bones, queer anomalies in, 
 
 284 ; rectified by Prof. Hyrtl, 
 
 285 ; power of multiplication, 
 
 286 
 St. BotolpJis, unicorn, 96 ; musical 
 
 pigs, 232 
 St. Cecilia, in Trastevere, phcenix, 
 
 127 
 St. Clemente, in Rome, Mithras 
 
 worship, 4, 306 
 SS. Cos/na e Da7niano, phoenix, 
 
 127 
 St. Costanza, in Rome, genii of the 
 
 vintage, 303 
 St. Croceiii Gerusalemme, relics in, 
 
 288 
 St. Croix, in Saint-L6, weighing 
 
 souls, 330 
 St. Cyprian. See Cyprian 
 St. Denis, abbey of. Assumption 
 
 of the Virgin as Venus, 7 ; 
 
 gospel-mill, 160 ; in Amboise, 
 
 foxes as pilgrims, 211 
 St. Domitilla, catacomb, Christ 
 
 with nimbus, 301 ; Orpheus, 303 
 St. Esprit, St. Bernard's ass, 271 
 St. Etienne, in Bourges, lion and 
 
 pelican, 83 ; gospel-mill, 160 ; 
 
 in Limoges, foxes as begging 
 
 friars, 225 
 St. Fiacre, wiles of fox, 206, 208 ; 
 
 "prick the fox," 208, 209 
 St. Francis, Giotto's centaur on 
 
 the tomb of, 320 
 St. Callus, images broken by, 307 
 St. George, his combat with dragon 
 
 borrowed from Horus slaying 
 
 Seth-Typhon, 13 ; Coptic relief 
 
 of, 14; his anniversary, 15; 
 
 patron of Crusaders, 15 ; analo- 
 gous to Sigurd, 327 
 St. Germain des Pris, statue of 
 
 Isis, 307 ; siren, 316 
 St. Gilles, centaurs in, 318 
 
 St. Hildefoitse. See Hildefonse 
 
 St. Isidore. See Isidore 
 
 St. Jacqiies-la-Boiicherie, Virgin in 
 the form of Venus, 7 
 
 St. Jaiirin, in Evreux, foxes as 
 friars, 225 
 
 St. Jean, in Lyons, ' Lay of Aris- 
 totle,' 228; revolt of angels, 
 258 
 
 St. John (in Lyons, see St. Jean), 
 feast of, 69, 264 ; in Gmlind, 
 centaurs, 318 
 
 St. Laurence, in Nuremberg, lion, 
 82 ; phoenix, unicorn, pelican, 
 and lion, 130 
 
 St. Lo, weighing souls, 330 
 
 St. Lucia, Ulysses and sirens in 
 the crypt of, 315 
 
 St. Maria, in Capua, eagle catching 
 fish, 118 ; in Organo, image of 
 ass, 271 ; in Dantzig, angels with 
 peacoc!<s' feathers, 311 
 
 St. Maria Novella, Charon, 310; 
 centaurs pursuing the damned, 
 320 
 
 St. Martin, in Leicester, fox 
 preaching, 186, 223 ; near Trier, 
 pagan altar, 307 
 
 St. Mary, in Beverly, foxes as 
 friars, 222 ; in Dantzig, Mem- 
 ling's angels with peacocks' 
 feathers, 311 
 
 St. Maxiinus. See Maximus 
 
 St. Michael, in Pforzheim, wolf as 
 friar, 193 ; in Bruges, execution 
 of the fox, 212, 213 ; archangel 
 analogous to Sigurd, 327 ; weigh- 
 ing souls, 329, 330 ; (Michele) 
 in Pavia, Theseus slaying Mino- 
 taur, 309 
 
 St. Nicholas, in Stralsund, lion, 83 ; 
 in Gottingen, gospel-mill, 157 ; 
 in Calcar, carvings of animals, 
 244 ; in Zerbst, Jews sucking 
 sow, 292 ; in Anclam, sirens, 
 317; in Fribourg, weighing 
 souls, 330 
 
Index 
 
 371 
 
 St. JVtzier, in Troyes, apocalyptic 
 
 beast, 156 
 St. Peta-, his two skulls, 286 
 St. Pierre, in Aulnay, ass as priest, 
 
 225, 277; in Caen, 'Lay of 
 
 Aristotle,' 228; in Poitiers, 
 
 musical hog and dog, 232 ; 
 
 (Pietro), in Cora, haloed head of 
 
 Apollo on a font, 307 
 St. Porchaire, lion's jaws typical 
 
 of hell, 92 
 St. Prassede, phcenix, 127 ; list of 
 
 relics in, 288 
 St. Redegonde, unicorn and Virgin, 
 
 104 
 St. Saitveur-de-Nevres, Samson, 
 
 192 
 St. Sebald, in Nuremberg, phoenix, 
 
 unicorn, pelican, and lion, 130 ; 
 
 beasts as ministering spirits, 280 
 St. Sernm, satire on Calvin, 194 
 St. Sophia, in Novgorod, relief of 
 
 centaurs, 318 
 St. Spire, devil over-reached by 
 
 woman, 333 
 St. Stephen, in Vienna, Samson, 
 
 192 
 St. Theophilus. See Theophilus 
 St. Trophine, in Aries, centaurs, 
 
 318 ; weighing souls, 330 
 St. Ursin, in Bruges, execution of 
 
 fox, 212, 213 
 St. Victor, in Xanten, satire on 
 
 Luther, 194; carving of monster 
 
 typical of friars, 224 
 St. Vigean, eagle taking a fish, 118 
 St, Vitus, his four hands, 286 
 Sala?nander, nature and symbolism 
 
 of, 142, 143 
 .Salisbury Cathedral, carving of 
 
 eagle and child, 234 
 Salzburg, satire on Jews, 297 
 Samir, nature of its blood utilized 
 
 by Solomon, 42 
 Savison, his exploits in Freiburg 
 
 Minster, 91, 191, 192; and 
 
 Delilah, 228 
 
 Sapphire, worn in April, 37 ; 
 symbolism of, 38 
 
 Sardius, symbolism of, 39 
 
 Sardonyx, symbolism of, 39 
 
 Satan, woman a satellite of, 331, 
 333. See also Devil 
 
 Satire, symbolism superseded by, 
 185 sqq. ; on friars as foxes 
 and other real or fabulous ani- 
 mals, 186 — 195, 204, 208—226, 
 232 — 245 ; on St. Bernard, 225 ; 
 on Calvin and Luther, 194 ; on 
 foibles, 219 ; on the Pope, 195, 
 203, 223 ; on holy relics, 281 — 
 284, 289 ; on tithes of eggs, 
 240 ; on the Dominicans, 243 ; 
 on Jews, 289 — 299 ; on women, 
 331 — 333 ; on all classes and 
 conditions of men, 335, 339 — 342 
 
 Saturnalia, Carnival a survival of, 
 264 
 
 Satyr, as good shepherd, 301 
 
 Schad, Oscar, on Strasburg sculp- 
 tures, 188 
 
 Schaffhattsai, relic of Joseph's 
 breath in the glove of Nico- 
 demus, 288 
 
 Schellensau, anti-Semitic game of 
 cards, 299 note 
 
 Schemhamphoras, meaning and use 
 of, 290 
 
 Schongrabern, relief of Samson, 192 
 
 Schott, on the sea-bishop and other 
 marvels, 199 
 
 SchotteiikircJie in Ratisbon, sirens, 
 
 317 
 Schnbert, G. H., his views of the 
 
 mineral kingdom, 45 
 Sea-bishop described, 198, 199 
 Segura. See Lorenzo de Segura 
 Seinsheim, Adam Friedrich von, 
 
 his episcopal escutcheon, 294 
 Seitz, Otto, his 'Dance of Death,' 
 
 342 
 Senlis, chapter of the cathedral 
 
 censures the clergy, 267 
 Septuagint, translation of ^'chul," 
 
Zl'^ 
 
 Index 
 
 66 ; " like the phoenix," 127 ; " as 
 a panther," 134; "lair of the 
 hyena," 139; "upon a pole," 
 250 ; sirens, 314 
 Serpent, characteristics and symbol- 
 ism of, 114 — 116; king of, 163; 
 trampled by hart, 223 ; relief of, 
 
 Serra, nature and symbolism of, 
 
 122; a sea-dragon, 125 
 Seven, significance of, 40, 4 1 
 Shakespeare, cited, 198, 254, 305 
 Sherborne Minster, fox on the 
 
 gallows, 212 
 Sibyls, sculptures of, 309 
 Sichem, in ass's litany, 274, 278 
 Siegfried {Sigtird), his quiver of 
 
 panther's skin, 137 ; saga, 321 — 
 
 327 
 
 Stenna, lion, 9 1 ; relic of St. Vitus, 
 286 ; reliefs of creation, 320 
 
 Siponto, lion, 87 
 
 Siren, symbolism of, 154, 243, 314 
 —317; in art, 315— 317 
 
 Snail, in apocalyptic beast, 157 ; 
 as gonfalonier, 217; as vine-de- 
 stroyer, 218 
 
 Snake, Buddhistic symbol of re- 
 generation, 32. See Serpent 
 
 Sodom, symbol of carnal seduction, 
 67 
 
 Solomon, his wisdom, 27 ; his 
 magical construction of the 
 Temple, 41 — 43 
 
 Somadcva, his allegory of human 
 life, 5 
 
 Sophocles, symbolized by siren, 315 
 
 South, sacred character of the, 258, 
 259 
 
 S01V, as bier-bearer, 189 ; suckling 
 Jews, 290, 292, 295 — 297 
 
 Sphinx, symbolism of, 168 
 
 Spider, Buddhistic symbol of self- 
 illusion, 32 
 
 Spire, origin of the name Protestant, 
 188 
 
 Squirrel, Buddhistic symbolism 
 
 of the, 31 ; in Ely Cathedral, 
 223 
 
 Stag, in chasuble, 186 ; chanting 
 at the altar, 189, 235 ; reading 
 breviary, 244. See also Hart 
 
 Stanley, reliefs referring to the 
 family of, 234 
 
 Stolle, Meister, on the lion and 
 ostrich, 94 
 
 Stork, type of filial piety, 55 
 
 Strabo, on the ichneumon, 132 
 
 Strasburg, relief of lion and whelps, 
 84; monk and beguine, 187; 
 burial of fox, 189 
 
 Strieker (der), his ridicule of super- 
 stition, 44 
 
 Strobel, cited, 299 note 
 
 ' Stromatens,' cited, 16 
 
 5/w//^ar/, relief of Samson, 192 
 
 Suetonius, on the remora, 125 
 
 Suger, Abbot, description of gospel- 
 mill, 160 ; animals in churches 
 prized, 181 
 
 Stm-worship, survivals of it in 
 Christian feasts, 69 
 
 Supeistition, concerning animals, S 
 — II, 22 ; precious stones, 34 — 
 40, 44 — 49 ; concerning the uni- 
 corn's horn, 105, 107 
 
 ^ Suttanipata,' cited, 33 
 
 Swallow, symbolism of the, 55 ; 
 Luther on the, 149 
 
 Swan, symbol of Christian resig- 
 nation, 153 
 
 Swine, daisies before, 242 ; playing 
 bagpipe, 242. See also Hog 
 and Sow 
 
 Symbolism, bee and flowers as 
 symbols of love, 2, 3 ; Oriental 
 source of, 5 ; of human life, 5 ; 
 its evolution out of metempsy- 
 chosis, 7 ; hybrids and monsters 
 in Egyptian, 10 ; survival of the 
 fittest in Greek, 11 ; its degen- 
 eracy into conventional forms, 
 15 ; gradually superseded by 
 satire, 18, 19, 185— 191 ; sue- 
 
Index 
 
 373 
 
 ceeded by scenes from the beast- 
 epos in religious polemics, 193 — 
 195 ; of animals and minerals 
 (see the single names) 
 Syphilis, miraculously healed at 
 Grimmenthal, 103 ; called ele- 
 phantiasis, 201 
 
 Tacitus, on Jewish ass- worship, 270 
 Talmud (the), on exegesis, 29 ; on 
 
 sea-monsters, 123 ; on west and 
 
 east, 257 
 Tarragona, reliefs in the cathedral 
 
 of, 206 
 Tau, signification of, 67, 248 
 Teman, significance of, 259 
 Terrobuli, symbolism of, 49 ; in 
 
 art, 50; sculptured at Alne, 51 
 Tertullian, his translation of Psalm 
 
 xcii. 12, 127; his criterion of 
 
 truth, 176; on the cross in nature, 
 
 247 ; on ass-worship, 270 
 Testimony, questionable value of 
 
 ocular, 105 
 7>/;-a;«o;-///, symbolism of, 154; in 
 
 art, 155, 156 
 Thalemarken, Sigurd saga, 324 
 Tkaun. See Philippe de Thaun 
 Theatre, decay of, 263 ; in sacred 
 
 rites and feasts of the Church, 
 
 264 — 267 
 Theobald of Plaisance, poem on 
 
 beasts, 61 
 Theophilus, allegorical exposition 
 
 of creation, 55 
 Theophrastus, pupil of Aristotle, 22 
 Theseus, mosaic of, 309 
 Thibault, the unicorn in his lyrics, 
 
 108 
 Thisbe. See Pyramus 
 TJwmas h Becket, verse on the 
 
 auricular conception of Christ, 99 
 Thomas de Cantimpri, his book on 
 
 natural things, 74 
 Thomas of Celano, his hymn on the 
 
 Last Judgment, 331 
 Thomasin von Zircliire, on lions 
 
 and eagles as patterns for courts 
 
 and sovereigns, 93, 120 
 Thora, personification of the, 262 
 Toledo, in Spain, cathedral of, 
 
 unicorn and Virgin, 96 ; reliefs 
 
 of animals and the ' Lay of Aris- 
 totle,' 226 
 Topaz, virtues of, 36 
 Tory, Geoffroy, Death in his ' Book 
 
 of Hours, ' 338 
 Totdeuse, satire on Calvin, 194 
 Tournay, tomb of Childeric III. 
 
 at, 4 
 lours, cathedral of, lion and 
 
 phoenix, 83 ; Council of, 263 
 Trefoil, not permissible to heretics, 
 
 256 
 Trier, ' Evangeliarium ' in the 
 
 Cathedral Library of, 156 ; Holy 
 
 Coat at, 287 ; pagan altar in St. 
 
 Martin's, near, 307 
 Trinity, Egyptian symbol of, 14 ; 
 
 symbolized by three hares, 239 ; 
 
 influence of the doctrine on art, 
 
 252; vestigesof it in the material 
 
 world, 252 — 254 
 THvium, personification of, 154 
 Troyes, apocalyptic beasts in, 156, 
 
 157 
 
 Tryggvason, King Olaf, his con- 
 version, 326 
 
 Turiu, frog as symbol of the Resur- 
 rection, 238 
 
 Tjirquaise, worn in December, 37 
 
 Turtle-dove, symbol of constancy, 
 147, 148 
 
 Tuscany, lions in the churches of, 
 
 91 
 
 Typhon {Seth-), demon of sterility 
 and death, 14 ; reliefs of Horus 
 slaying, 13 ; weighing souls, 329 
 
 Uhland, hunting-song in his col- 
 lection, 108 
 Ulysses, in Christian art, 315 
 Unicorn, symbol of cruel persons, 
 73 ; Christ's Incarnation, 84, 
 
374 
 
 Index 
 
 85, 95 — no; in art, 96 — 105, 
 130; superstitious notions con- 
 cerning its horn, 105 — 107 ; sig- 
 nifies also Satan, 109 ; mounted 
 by Chastity, 153 ; in poetry, 
 99, 107, 108, no; enmity to the 
 elephant and likeness to the he- 
 goat, 109 ; description of, 1 10 
 Urim and Tkummbn^ signification 
 and use of, 34 
 
 Valkyrias, conductors of souls, 315 ; 
 
 in the Sigurd saga, 321, 325 
 Vasishtha, invocation of frogs in 
 
 the Veda, 238 
 Vatopedi, tetramorph in the monas- 
 tery of, 155 
 Vaughan, Rev. J. S. , his discovery 
 
 of vestiges of the Trinity in the 
 
 material world, 252 — 254 
 Vegusdal, Sigurd saga, 324 
 Velay, personification of sciences, 
 
 154 ; weighing souls in a church 
 
 at, 328 
 Venus, fish sacred to, 121 
 Vergil, as a prophet of Christ, 266 ; 
 
 legend of his love adventure in 
 
 sculpture, 229 ; met by centaurs 
 
 in the lower world, 320 
 Verona, image and tradition of the 
 
 "true" ass, 271 
 Vezelai, gospel-mill, 158 ; fighting 
 
 the basilisk, 165, 166, 168 ; 
 
 weighing souls, 328 
 Viettna, griffin's claw at, 106 ; 
 
 unicorn and Virgin symbolizing 
 
 the triumph of chastity, 105 ; 
 
 Samson, 192 
 Villegas, Estevan Mattuel de, his 
 
 description of a duel between 
 
 Amor and a bee, 2 
 Villeneuve, Chdtcau de, devils and 
 
 angels forging the heads of 
 
 woman and man, 333 
 Villette, Claude, his symbolism of 
 
 church windows, 260 
 
 Villon, Francois, on pictures for 
 instructing the ignorant, 183 
 
 Vincent de Beauvais, his ' Specu- 
 lum Naturale,' 74 ; on Pope 
 Alexander's tunic of salamander 
 skins, 142 
 
 Viollei'le-Duc, on jollities in 
 churches, 280 
 
 Viper, copulation with the lamprey, 
 55 ; symbol of sin, 66 ; horn of 
 African viper, 109 
 
 Virgin of the Seven Stvords de- 
 rived from Istar, 6 ; imitation of 
 Venus, 7 ; Coptic Virgin and 
 Child an imitation of Isis and 
 Horus, 13 ; Virgin and unicorn, 
 95 — 105 ; as a crystal vessel, 
 164 ; relics of her three arms, 
 286 
 
 Virtues, personification of the seven, 
 163 
 
 Vischer, Peter, reliefs of birdlike 
 virgins on his candelabra, 317 
 
 Vishnu as Krishna, 4 
 
 Vogelweide. See Walther von der V. 
 
 Voragine, Jacobus de, his ' Golden 
 Legend,' 5 ; on the cross in 
 nature, 247 
 
 Vulgate, capitals and initials in 
 codex of the, 152; version of 
 Proverbs xxx. 27 and Eccl. xii. 
 5, 166; cited, 192; version of 
 Zech. vi. 12, 257 note 
 
 Vulture, eutokios used by, 48 ; 
 Egyptian type of compassion, 128 
 
 Wachs7nut von Miihlhausen, imag- 
 ery from the self-renewal of the 
 eagle, 120 
 
 Wake, Johannes, rebus of crowing 
 cock, 220, 222 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide, on 
 auricular conception, 99 
 
 Water-snake, confounded with the 
 otter, 132 
 
 Weasel, as slayer of serpents, 55 
 note 
 
Index 
 
 375 
 
 WeM, Boijamin, heretical desecra- 
 tion of sacred symbols denounced 
 by, 256 
 
 Weerth, Ernst aus' m, on belling the 
 cat, 243 
 
 Wcighhtg souls, represented in 
 church architecture, 328 — 331 ; 
 in Indian mythology, 331 ; prom- 
 inence of women in these deline- 
 ations, 331 
 
 Weimar, paintings of unicorn and 
 Virgin at, 98 — 102 ; griffin's 
 claws, 106 
 
 Wenzel, his copper-plate of the 
 papal ass, 202 
 
 West, twofold signification of the, 
 
 257 
 
 Whale, Jonah's, 84 ; two character- 
 istics of the, 122, 123; in archi- 
 tecture, 124 ; at Alne, 51, 124 
 
 Whitsuntide, a solar feast, 69 
 
 William, Abbot of St. Thierry, 
 St. Bernard's letter to him cen- 
 suring monstrosities in churches, 
 180 
 
 William of Normandy, ' Le Bes- 
 tiaire Divin,' date of, 72 ; on the 
 owl, 78 ; on the unicorn, 96, 
 109 ; on the panther, 137 
 
 Wimpfen im Thai, Jew sucking 
 sow at, 297 
 
 Winchester Cathedral, satirical carv- 
 ings in, 224 
 
 Wittetiberg, Jews sucking a sow 
 and prying into the Talmud, in 
 parish church of, 289 — 291 
 
 Witton, rebus, 222 
 
 ' Woes of France,^ poem, 204 
 
 Wolf, peculiarities of, 150, 151 ; 
 with crucifix, 188 ; novitiate of, 
 190 ; as preaching friar, 193 
 
 Wolfram von Eschenbach, simile of 
 lion's whelps, 92 ; on the medi- 
 
 cinal and moral virtues of the 
 unicorn's heart and horn, 107 
 
 Woman, as Satan's ally, 331 — 333 
 
 Wood-carvings, comical and gro- 
 tesque, 216 — 219 
 
 Worcester Cathedral, foxes in 
 kennels and cowls, 210 
 
 Word (the). Gnostic theory of, 98 ; 
 incarnate through the ear and 
 its representation in art, 99, 100 
 
 Worms, tetramorph at, 155 ; in- 
 scription to two self-sacrificing 
 Jews, 300 
 
 Wiirzburg, incarnation of the Word 
 through the ear in the cathedral 
 of, 99 ; swine on escutcheon of 
 Prince Bishop of, 294 
 
 Wright, his edition of an English 
 bestiary, 62 ; his translation of 
 Philippe de Thaun, 71 
 
 Xanten, St. Victor's Church, satire 
 on Luther, 194 ; monster symbol- 
 izing begging friars, 224 
 
 Yama, the fate of the soul decided 
 by, 331 
 
 Yggdrasil, 252 
 
 Yudhishthira, accompanied to 
 
 heaven by his dog, 91 
 Yiipa, sacred to Parsis, 252 
 
 Zappi, Felice, Cupids as bees in his 
 
 poem, 2 
 Zerbst, sow suckling Jews in St. 
 
 Nicholas of, 292 
 Zircldre. See Thomasin von Z. 
 Zoolatry, universality of, 10 
 Zorgi, Bertolome, his lady-love 
 
 compared to the serpent, Ii5 
 Zurich, centaurs in the minster 
 
 cloister, 319 
 Ziveter. See Reinmar von Ziveter 
 
 Richard Clay &= Sons, Limited, London &' Bungay,