A History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art
by Thomas Wright · English · Gutenberg #44566 · 1,032,134 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: A History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art
Author: Thomas Wright
Illustrator: F. W. Fairholt
Release date: January 2, 2014 [eBook #44566]
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Language: English
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Transcriber's Notes
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A HISTORY
OF
CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.
[Illustration: _ARISTOTLE AND PYTHAÏS._
_From an Engraving by Burgmair_ (_15th cent._)]
A HISTORY
OF
CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE
In Literature and Art.
BY THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A., F.S.A.
[Illustration]
THE ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN AND ENGRAVED BY
F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A.
London:
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
1875.
LONDON:
SAVILL, EDWARDS, AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
I have felt some difficulty in selecting a title for the contents of
the following pages, in which it was, in fact, my design to give, as
far as may be done within such moderate limits, and in as popular a
manner as such information can easily be imparted, a general view of
the History of Comic Literature and Art. Yet the word comic seems to
me hardly to express all the parts of the subject which I have sought
to bring together in my book. Moreover, the field of this history is
very large, and, though I have only taken as my theme one part of it,
it was necessary to circumscribe even that, in some degree; and my
plan, therefore, is to follow it chiefly through those branches which
have contributed most towards the formation of modern comic and satiric
literature and art in our own island.
Thus, as the comic literature of the middle ages to a very great
extent, and comic art in a considerable degree also, were founded
upon, or rather arose out of, those of the Romans which had preceded
them, it seemed desirable to give a comprehensive history of this
branch of literature and art as it was cultivated among the peoples of
antiquity. Literature and art in the middle ages presented a certain
unity of general character, arising, probably, from the uniformity of
the influence of the Roman element of society, modified only by its
lower degree of intensity at a greater distance from the centre, and
by secondary causes attendant upon it. To understand the literature
of any one country in Western Europe, especially during what we may
term the feudal period--and the remark applies to art equally--it
is necessary to make ourselves acquainted with the whole history of
literature in Western Europe during that time. The peculiarities in
different countries naturally became more marked in the progress of
society, and more strongly individualised; but it was not till towards
the close of the feudal period that the literature of each of these
different countries was becoming more entirely its own. At that period
the plan I have formed restricts itself, according to the view stated
above. Thus, the satirical literature of the Reformation and pictorial
caricature had their cradle in Germany, and, in the earlier half of
the sixteenth century, carried their influence largely into France and
England; but from that time any influence of German literature on these
two countries ceases. Modern satirical literature has its models in
France during the sixteenth century, and the direct influence of this
literature in France upon English literature continued during that and
the succeeding century, but no further. Political caricature rose to
importance in France in the sixteenth century, and was transplanted
to Holland in the seventeenth century, and until the beginning of the
eighteenth century England owed its caricature, indirectly or directly,
to the French and the Dutch; but after that time a purely English
school of caricature was formed, which was entirely independent of
Continental caricaturists.
There are two senses in which the word history may be taken in regard
to literature and art. It has been usually employed to signify a
chronological account of authors or artists and their works, though
this comes more properly under the title of biography and bibliography.
But there is another and a very different application of the word, and
this is the meaning which I attach to it in the present volume. During
the middle ages, and for some period after (in special branches),
literature--I mean poetry, satire, and popular literature of all
kinds--belonged to society, and not to the individual authors, who
were but workmen who gained a living by satisfying society's wants;
and its changes in form or character depended all upon the varying
progress, and therefore changing necessities, of society itself. This
is the reason why, especially in the earlier periods, nearly the whole
mass of the popular--I may, perhaps, be allowed to call it the social
literature of the middle ages, is anonymous; and it was only at rare
intervals that some individual rose and made himself a great name by
the superiority of his talents. A certain number of writers of fabliaux
put their names to their compositions, probably because they were names
of writers who had gained the reputation of telling better or racier
stories than many of their fellows. In some branches of literature--as
in the satirical literature of the sixteenth century--society still
exercised this kind of influence over it; and although its great
monuments owe everything to the peculiar genius of their authors, they
were produced under the pressure of social circumstances. To trace all
these variations in literature connected with society, to describe the
influences of society upon literature and of literature upon society,
during the progress of the latter, appears to me to be the true meaning
of the word history, and it is in this sense that I take it.
This will explain why my history of the different branches of popular
literature and art ends at very different periods. The grotesque and
satirical sculpture, which adorned the ecclesiastical buildings,
ceased with the middle ages. The story-books, as a part of this social
literature, came down to the sixteenth century, and the history of
the jest-books which arose out of them cannot be considered to extend
further than the beginning of the seventeenth; for, to give a list of
jest-books since that time would be to compile a catalogue of books
made by booksellers for sale, copied from one another, and, till
recently, each more contemptible than its predecessor. The school of
satirical literature in France, at all events as far as it had any
influence in England, lasted no longer than the earlier part of the
seventeenth century. England can hardly be said to have had a school of
satirical literature, with the exception of its comedy, which belongs
properly to the seventeenth century; and its caricature belongs
especially to the last century and to the earlier part of the present,
beyond which it is not a part of my plan to carry it.
These few remarks will perhaps serve to explain what some may consider
to be defects in my book; and with them I venture to trust it to the
indulgence of its readers. It is a subject which will have some novelty
for the English reader, for I am not aware that we have any previous
book devoted to it. At all events, it is not a mere compilation from
other people's labours.
THOMAS WRIGHT.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
ORIGIN OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE
IN EGYPT--MONSTERS: PYTHON AND GORGON--GREECE--THE
DIONYSIAC CEREMONIES, AND ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA--THE OLD
COMEDY--LOVE OF PARODY--PARODIES ON SUBJECTS TAKEN
FROM GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY: THE VISIT TO THE LOVER; APOLLO
AT DELPHI--THE PARTIALITY FOR PARODY CONTINUED AMONG
THE ROMANS: THE FLIGHT OF ÆNEAS 1
CHAPTER II.
ORIGIN OF THE STAGE IN ROME--USES OF THE MASK
AMONG THE ROMANS--SCENES FROM ROMAN COMEDY--THE
SANNIO AND MIMUS--THE ROMAN DRAMA--THE ROMAN
SATIRISTS--CARICATURE--ANIMALS INTRODUCED IN THE
CHARACTERS OF MEN--THE PIGMIES, AND THEIR INTRODUCTION
INTO CARICATURE; THE FARM-YARD; THE PAINTER'S STUDIO;
THE PROCESSION--POLITICAL CARICATURE IN POMPEII; THE
GRAFFITI 23
CHAPTER III.
THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE
AGES--THE ROMAN MIMI CONTINUED TO EXIST--THE TEUTONIC
AFTER-DINNER ENTERTAINMENTS--CLERICAL SATIRES:
ARCHBISHOP HERIGER AND THE DREAMER; THE SUPPER OF THE
SAINTS--TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT TO MEDIÆVAL ART--TASTE
FOR MONSTROUS ANIMALS, DRAGONS, ETC.; CHURCH OF SAN
FEDELE, AT COMO--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE AND LOVE OF
GROTESQUE AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF
DEMONS--NATURAL TENDENCY OF THE EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS
TO DRAW IN CARICATURE--EXAMPLES FROM EARLY MANUSCRIPTS
AND SCULPTURES 40
CHAPTER IV.
THE DIABOLICAL IN CARICATURE--MEDIÆVAL LOVE OF THE
LUDICROUS--CAUSES WHICH MADE IT INFLUENCE THE NOTIONS
OF DEMONS--STORIES OF THE PIOUS PAINTER AND THE ERRING
MONK--DARKNESS AND UGLINESS CARICATURED--THE DEMONS IN
THE MIRACLE PLAYS--THE DEMON OF NOTRE DAME 61
CHAPTER V.
EMPLOYMENT OF ANIMALS IN MEDIÆVAL SATIRE--POPULARITY
OF FABLES; ODO DE CIRINGTON--REYNARD THE
FOX--BURNELLUS AND FAUVEL--THE CHARIVARI--LE MONDE
BESTORNÉ--ENCAUSTIC TILES--SHOEING THE GOOSE, AND
FEEDING PIGS WITH ROSES--SATIRICAL SIGNS; THE MUSTARD
MAKER 75
CHAPTER VI.
THE MONKEY IN BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE--TOURNAMENTS
AND SINGLE COMBATS--MONSTROUS COMBINATIONS OF
ANIMAL FORMS--CARICATURES ON COSTUME--THE HAT--THE
HELMET--LADIES' HEAD-DRESSES--THE GOWN, AND ITS LONG
SLEEVES 95
CHAPTER VII.
PRESERVATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MIMUS AFTER THE FALL
OF THE EMPIRE--THE MINSTREL AND JOGELOUR--HISTORY OF
POPULAR STORIES--THE FABLIAUX--ACCOUNT OF THEM--THE
CONTES DEVOTS 106
CHAPTER VIII.
CARICATURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE--STATE OF DOMESTIC LIFE
IN THE MIDDLE AGES--EXAMPLES OF DOMESTIC CARICATURE
FROM THE CARVINGS OF THE MISERERES--KITCHEN
SCENES--DOMESTIC BRAWLS--THE FIGHT FOR THE
BREECHES--THE JUDICIAL DUEL BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE AMONG
THE GERMANS--ALLUSIONS TO WITCHCRAFT--SATIRES ON THE
TRADES: THE BAKER, THE MILLER, THE WINE-PEDLAR AND
TAVERN KEEPER, THE ALE-WIFE, ETC. 118
CHAPTER IX.
GROTESQUE FACES AND FIGURES--PREVALENCE OF THE TASTE FOR
UGLY AND GROTESQUE FACES--SOME OF THE POPULAR FORMS
DERIVED FROM ANTIQUITY: THE TONGUE LOLLING OUT, AND
THE DISTORTED MOUTH--HORRIBLE SUBJECTS: THE MAN
AND THE SERPENTS--ALLEGORICAL FIGURES: GLUTTONY AND
LUXURY--OTHER REPRESENTATIONS OF CLERICAL GLUTTONY
AND DRUNKENNESS--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF INDIVIDUALS,
AND GROTESQUE GROUPS--ORNAMENTS OF THE BORDERS OF
BOOKS--UNINTENTIONAL CARICATURE; THE MOTE AND THE BEAM 144
CHAPTER X.
SATIRICAL LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES--JOHN
DE HAUTEVILLE AND ALAN DE LILLE--GOLIAS AND
THE GOLIARDS--THE GOLIARDIC POETRY--TASTE FOR
PARODY--PARODIES ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS--POLITICAL
CARICATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES--THE JEWS OF
NORWICH--CARICATURE REPRESENTATIONS OF
COUNTRIES--LOCAL SATIRE--POLITICAL SONGS AND POEMS 159
CHAPTER XI.
MINSTRELSY A SUBJECT OF BURLESQUE AND
CARICATURE--CHARACTER OF THE MINSTRELS--THEIR JOKES
UPON THEMSELVES AND UPON ONE ANOTHER--VARIOUS
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS REPRESENTED IN THE SCULPTURES
OF THE MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS--SIR MATTHEW GOURNAY AND
THE KING OF PORTUGAL--DISCREDIT OF THE TABOR AND
BAGPIPES--MERMAIDS 188
CHAPTER XII.
THE COURT FOOL--THE NORMANS AND THEIR GABS--EARLY
HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS--THEIR COSTUME--CARVINGS IN
THE CORNISH CHURCHES--THE BURLESQUE SOCIETIES OF THE
MIDDLE AGES--THE FEASTS OF ASSES, AND OF FOOLS--THEIR
LICENCE--THE LEADEN MONEY OF THE FOOLS--THE BISHOP'S
BLESSING 200
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DANCE OF DEATH--THE PAINTINGS IN THE CHURCH OF
LA CHAISE DIEU--THE REIGN OF FOLLY--SEBASTIAN
BRANDT; THE SHIP OF FOOLS--DISTURBERS OF
CHURCH SERVICE--TROUBLESOME BEGGARS--GEILER'S
SERMONS--BADIUS, AND HIS SHIP OF FOOLISH WOMEN--THE
PLEASURES OF SMELL--ERASMUS; THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 214
CHAPTER XIV.
POPULAR LITERATURE AND ITS HEROES; BROTHER RUSH, TYLL
EULENSPIEGEL, THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM--STORIES AND
JEST-BOOKS--SKELTON, SCOGIN, TARLTON, PEELE 228
CHAPTER XV.
THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION--THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL
SATIRES--FRUITFULNESS OF FOLLY--HANS SACHS--THE
TRAP FOR FOOLS--ATTACKS ON LUTHER--THE POPE AS
ANTICHRIST--THE POPE-ASS AND THE MONK-CALF--OTHER
CARICATURES AGAINST THE POPE--THE GOOD AND BAD
SHEPHERDS 244
CHAPTER XVI.
ORIGIN OF MEDIÆVAL FARCE AND MODERN
COMEDY--HROTSVITHA--MEDIÆVAL NOTIONS OF TERENCE--THE
EARLY RELIGIOUS PLAYS--MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE
PLAYS--THE FARCES--THE DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 264
CHAPTER XVII.
DIABLERIE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY--EARLY TYPES OF THE
DIABOLICAL FORMS--ST. ANTHONY--ST. GUTHLAC--REVIVAL OF
THE TASTE FOR SUCH SUBJECTS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY--THE FLEMISH SCHOOL OF BREUGHEL--THE
FRENCH AND ITALIAN SCHOOLS--CALLOT, SALVATOR ROSA 288
CHAPTER XVIII.
CALLOT AND HIS SCHOOL--CALLOT'S ROMANTIC HISTORY--HIS
"CAPRICI," AND OTHER BURLESQUE WORKS--THE "BALLI"
AND THE BEGGARS--IMITATORS OF CALLOT; DELLA
BELLA--EXAMPLES OF DELLA BELLA--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE 300
CHAPTER XIX.
THE SATIRICAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY--PASQUIL--MACARONIC POETRY--THE EPISTOLÆ
OBSCURORUM VIRORUM--RABELAIS--COURT OF THE QUEEN OF
NAVARRE, AND ITS LITERARY CIRCLE; BONAVENTURE DES
PERIERS--HENRI ETIENNE--THE LIGUE, AND ITS SATIRE: THE
"SATYRE MENIPPEE" 312
CHAPTER XX.
POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ITS INFANCY--THE REVERS DU
JEU DES SUYSSES--CARICATURE IN FRANCE--THE THREE
ORDERS--PERIOD OF THE LIGUE; CARICATURES AGAINST HENRI
III.--CARICATURES AGAINST THE LIGUE--CARICATURE IN
FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--GENERAL GALAS--THE
QUARREL OF AMBASSADORS--CARICATURE AGAINST LOUIS XXV.;
WILLIAM OF FURSTEMBERG 347
CHAPTER XXI.
EARLY POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ENGLAND--THE SATIRICAL
WRITINGS AND PICTURES OF THE COMMONWEALTH
PERIOD--SATIRES AGAINST THE BISHOPS; BISHOP
WILLIAMS--CARICATURES ON THE CAVALIERS; SIR JOHN
SUCKLING--THE ROARING BOYS; VIOLENCE OF THE ROYALIST
SOLDIERS--CONTEST BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND
INDEPENDENTS--GRINDING THE KING'S NOSE--PLAYING-CARDS
USED AS THE MEDIUM FOR CARICATURE; HASELRIGGE AND
LAMBERT--SHROVETIDE 360
CHAPTER XXII.
ENGLISH COMEDY--BEN JONSON--THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS
SCHOOL--INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES--COMEDY
AFTER THE RESTORATION--THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE
OF BUCKINGHAM; THE REHEARSAL--WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE
LATTER PART OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--INDECENCY OF
THE STAGE--COLLEY CIBBER--FOOTE 375
CHAPTER XXIII.
CARICATURE IN HOLLAND--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE--THE ENGLISH
REVOLUTION--CARICATURES ON LOUIS XIV. AND
JAMES II.--DR. SACHEVERELL--CARICATURE BROUGHT
FROM HOLLAND TO ENGLAND--ORIGIN OF THE WORD
"CARICATURE"--MISSISSIPPI AND THE SOUTH SEA; THE YEAR
OF BUBBLES 406
CHAPTER XXIV.
ENGLISH CARICATURE IN THE AGE OF GEORGE II.--ENGLISH
PRINTSELLERS--ARTISTS EMPLOYED BY THEM--SIR ROBERT
WALPOLE'S LONG MINISTRY--THE WAR WITH FRANCE--THE
NEWCASTLE ADMINISTRATION--OPERA INTRIGUES--ACCESSION
OF GEORGE III., AND LORD BUTE IN POWER 420
CHAPTER XXV.
HOGARTH--HIS EARLY HISTORY--HIS SETS OF PICTURES--THE
HARLOT'S PROGRESS--THE RAKE'S PROGRESS--THE MARRIAGE A
LA MODE--HIS OTHER PRINTS--THE ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY, AND
THE PERSECUTION ARISING OUT OF IT--HIS PATRONAGE BY
LORD BUTE--CARICATURE OF THE TIMES--ATTACKS TO WHICH
HE WAS EXPOSED BY IT, AND WHICH HASTENED HIS DEATH 434
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE LESSER CARICATURISTS OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE
III.--PAUL SANDBY--COLLET: THE DISASTER,
AND FATHER PAUL IN HIS CUPS--JAMES SAYER:
HIS CARICATURES IN SUPPORT OF PITT, AND HIS
REWARD--CARLO KHAN'S TRIUMPH--BUNBURY'S: HIS
CARICATURES ON HORSEMANSHIP--WOODWARD: GENERAL
COMPLAINT--ROWLANDSON'S INFLUENCE ON THE STYLE OF
THOSE WHOSE DESIGNS HE ETCHED--JOHN KAY OF EDINBURGH:
LOOKING A ROCK IN THE FACE 450
CHAPTER XXVII.
GILLRAY--HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS--HIS CARICATURES BEGIN
WITH THE SHELBURNE MINISTRY--IMPEACHMENT OF
WARREN HASTINGS--CARICATURES ON THE KING; NEW
WAY TO PAY THE NATIONAL DEBT--ALLEGED REASON FOR
GILLRAY'S HOSTILITY TO THE KING--THE KING AND THE
APPLE-DUMPLINGS--GILLRAY'S LATER LABOURS--HIS IDIOTCY
AND DEATH 464
CHAPTER XXVIII.
GILLRAY'S CARICATURES ON SOCIAL LIFE--THOMAS
ROWLANDSON--HIS EARLY LIFE--HE BECOMES A
CARICATURIST--HIS STYLE AND WORKS--HIS DRAWINGS--THE
CRUIKSHANKS 480
A HISTORY
OF
CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE IN
EGYPT.--MONSTERS: PYTHON AND GORGON.--GREECE.--THE DIONYSIAC
CEREMONIES, AND ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA.--THE OLD COMEDY.--LOVE OF
PARODY.--PARODIES ON SUBJECTS TAKEN FROM GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY: THE
VISIT TO THE LOVER: APOLLO AT DELPHI.--THE PARTIALITY FOR PARODY
CONTINUED AMONG THE ROMANS: THE FLIGHT OF ÆNEAS.
It is not my intention in the following pages to discuss the question
what constitutes the comic or the laughable, or, in other words, to
enter into the philosophy of the subject; I design only to trace
the history of its outward development, the various forms it has
assumed, and its social influence. Laughter appears to be almost a
necessity of human nature, in all conditions of man's existence,
however rude or however cultivated; and some of the greatest men of
all ages, men of the most refined intellects, such as Cicero in the
ages of antiquity, and Erasmus among the moderns, have been celebrated
for their indulgence in it. The former was sometimes called by his
opponents _scurra consularis_, the "consular jester;" and the latter,
who has been spoken of as the "mocking-bird," is said to have laughed
so immoderately over the well-known "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,"
that he brought upon himself a serious fit of illness. The greatest of
comic writers, Aristophanes, has always been looked upon as a model of
literary perfection. An epigram in the Greek Anthology, written by the
divine Plato, tells us how, when the Graces sought a temple which would
not fall, they found the soul of Aristophanes:--
Ἁι χάριτες τέμενός τι λαβεῖν ὁπερ οὐχὶ πεσεῖται
Ζητοῦσαι, ψυχὴν εὔρον Ἀριστοφάνους.
On the other hand, the men who never laughed, the ἀγέλαστοι, were
looked upon as the least respectable of mortals.
A tendency to burlesque and caricature appears, indeed, to be a feeling
deeply implanted in human nature, and it is one of the earliest talents
displayed by people in a rude state of society. An appreciation of, and
sensitiveness to, ridicule, and a love of that which is humorous, are
found even among savages, and enter largely into their relations with
their fellow men. When, before people cultivated either literature or
art, the chieftain sat in his rude hall surrounded by his warriors,
they amused themselves by turning their enemies and opponents into
mockery, by laughing at their weaknesses, joking on their defects,
whether physical or mental, and giving them nicknames in accordance
therewith,--in fact, caricaturing them in words, or by telling stories
which were calculated to excite laughter. When the agricultural slaves
(for the tillers of the land were then slaves) were indulged with a
day of relief from their labours, they spent it in unrestrained mirth.
And when these same people began to erect permanent buildings, and
to ornament them, the favourite subjects of their ornamentation were
such as presented ludicrous ideas. The warrior, too, who caricatured
his enemy in his speeches over the festive board, soon sought to give
a more permanent form to his ridicule, which he endeavoured to do by
rude delineations on the bare rock, or on any other convenient surface
which presented itself to his hand. Thus originated caricature and
the grotesque in art. In fact, art itself, in its earliest forms, is
caricature; for it is only by that exaggeration of features which
belongs to caricature, that unskilful draughtsmen could make themselves
understood.
[Illustration: _No. 1. An Egyptian Lady at a Feast._]
Although we might, perhaps, find in different countries examples of
these principles in different states of development, we cannot in any
one country trace the entire course of the development itself: for in
all the highly civilised races of mankind, we first become acquainted
with their history when they had already reached a considerable
degree of refinement; and even at that period of their progress, our
knowledge is almost confined to their religious, and to their more
severely historical, monuments. Such is especially the case with
Egypt, the history of which country, as represented by its monuments
of art, carries us back to the remotest ages of antiquity. Egyptian
art generally presents itself in a sombre and massive character, with
little of gaiety or joviality in its designs or forms. Yet, as Sir
Gardner Wilkinson has remarked in his valuable work on the "Manners
and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," the early Egyptian artists
cannot always conceal their natural tendency to the humorous, which
creeps out in a variety of little incidents. Thus, in a series of grave
historical pictures on one of the great monuments at Thebes, we find
a representation of a wine party, where the company consists of both
sexes, and which evidently shows that the ladies were not restricted
in the use of the juice of the grape in their entertainments; and,
as he adds, "the painters, in illustrating this fact, have sometimes
sacrificed their gallantry to a love of caricature." Among the
females, evidently of rank, represented in this scene, "some call the
servants to support them as they sit, others with difficulty prevent
themselves from falling on those behind them, and the faded flower,
which is ready to drop from their heated hands, is intended to be
characteristic of their own sensations." One group, a lady whose
excess has been carried too far, and her servant who comes to her
assistance, is represented in our cut No. 1. Sir Gardner observes that
"many similar instances of a talent for caricature are observable in
the compositions of the Egyptian artists, who executed the paintings
of the tombs" at Thebes, which belong to a very early period of the
Egyptian annals. Nor is the application of this talent restricted
always to secular subjects, but we see it at times intruding into the
most sacred mysteries of their religion. I give as a curious example,
taken from one of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's engravings, a scene in the
representation of a funeral procession crossing the Lake of the Dead
(No. 2), that appears in one of these early paintings at Thebes, in
which "the love of caricature common to the Egyptians is shown to have
been indulged even in this serious subject; and the retrograde movement
of the large boat, which has grounded and is pushed off the bank,
striking the smaller one with its rudder, has overturned a large table
loaded with cakes and other things, upon the rowers seated below, in
spite of all the efforts of the prowman, and the earnest vociferations
of the alarmed steersman." The accident which thus overthrows and
scatters the provisions intended for the funeral feast, and the
confusion attendant upon it, form a ludicrous scene in the midst of a
solemn picture, that would be worthy of the imagination of a Rowlandson.
[Illustration: _No. 2. Catastrophe in a Funeral Procession._]
[Illustration: _No. 3. An Unfortunate Soul._]
Another cut (No. 3), taken from one of the same series of paintings,
belongs to a class of caricatures which dates from a very remote
period. One of the most natural ideas among all people would be to
compare men with the animals whose particular qualities they possessed.
Thus, one might be as bold as a lion, another as faithful as a dog,
or as cunning as a fox, or as swinish as a hog. The name of the
animal would thus often be given as a nickname to the man, and in
the sequel he would be represented pictorially under the form of the
animal. It was partly out of this kind of caricature, no doubt, that
the singular class of apologues which have been since distinguished
by the name of fables arose. Connected with it was the belief in
the metempsychosis, or transmission of the soul into the bodies of
animals after death, which formed a part of several of the primitive
religions. The earliest examples of this class of caricature of mankind
are found on the Egyptian monuments, as in the instance just referred
to, which represents "a soul condemned to return to earth under the
form of a pig, having been weighed in the scales before Osiris and
been found wanting. Being placed in a boat, and accompanied by two
monkeys, it is dismissed the sacred precinct." The latter animals, it
may be remarked, as they are here represented, are the cynocephali, or
dog-headed monkeys (the _simia inuus_), which were sacred animals among
the Egyptians, and the peculiar characteristic of which--the dog-shaped
head--is, as usual, exaggerated by the artist.
The representation of this return of a condemned soul under the
repulsive form of a pig, is painted on the left side wall of the long
entrance-gallery to the tomb of King Rameses V., in the valley of
royal catacombs known as the Biban-el-Molook, at Thebes. Wilkinson
gives the date of the accession of this monarch to the throne as 1185,
B.C. In the original picture, Osiris is seated on his throne
at some distance from the stern of the boat, and is dismissing it from
his presence by a wave of the hand. This tomb was open in the time of
the Romans, and termed by them the "Tomb of Memnon;" it was greatly
admired, and is covered with laudatory inscriptions by Greek and Roman
visitors. One of the most interesting is placed beneath this picture,
recording the name of a _daduchus_, or torch-bearer in the Eleusinian
mysteries, who visited this tomb in the reign of Constantine.
[Illustration: _No. 4. The Cat and the Geese._]
[Illustration: _No. 5. The Fox turned Piper._]
The practice having been once introduced of representing men under the
character of animals, was soon developed into other applications of the
same idea--such as that of figuring animals employed in the various
occupations of mankind, and that of reversing the position of man and
the inferior animals, and representing the latter as treating their
human tyrant in the same manner as they are usually treated by him.
The latter idea became a very favourite one at a later period, but
the other is met with not unfrequently among the works of art which
have been saved from the wrecks of antiquity. Among the treasures
of the British Museum, there is a long Egyptian picture on papyrus,
originally forming a roll, consisting of representations of this
description, from which I give three curious examples. The first (see
cut No. 4) represents a cat in charge of a drove of geese. It will be
observed that the cat holds in her hand the same sort of rod, with a
hook at the end, with which the monkeys are furnished in the preceding
picture. The second (No. 5) represents a fox carrying a basket by means
of a pole supported on his shoulder (a method of carrying burthens
frequently represented on the monuments of ancient art), and playing on
the well-known double flute, or pipe. The fox soon became a favourite
personage in this class of caricatures, and we know what a prominent
part he afterwards played in mediæval satire. Perhaps, however, the
most popular of all animals in this class of drolleries was the monkey,
which appears natural enough when we consider its singular aptitude
to mimic the actions of man. The ancient naturalists tell us some
curious, though not very credible, stories of the manner in which this
characteristic of the monkey tribes was taken advantage of to entrap
them, and Pliny (Hist. Nat. lib. viii. c. 80) quotes an older writer,
who asserted that they had even been taught to play at draughts. Our
third subject from the Egyptian papyrus of the British Museum (No. 6)
represents a scene in which the game of draughts--or, more properly
speaking, the game which the Romans called the _ludus latrunculorum_,
and which is believed to have resembled our draughts--is played by two
animals well known to modern heraldry, the lion and the unicorn. The
lion has evidently gained the victory, and is fingering the money; and
his bold air of swaggering superiority, as well as the look of surprise
and disappointment of his vanquished opponent, are by no means ill
pictured. This series of caricatures, though Egyptian, belongs to the
Roman period.
[Illustration: _No. 6. The Lion and the Unicorn._]
[Illustration: _No. 7. Typhon._]
The monstrous is closely allied to the grotesque, and both come within
the province of caricature, when we take this term in its widest
sense. The Greeks, especially, were partial to representations of
monsters, and monstrous forms are continually met with among their
ornaments and works of art. The type of the Egyptian monster is
represented in the accompanying cut (No. 7), taken from the work of
Sir Gardner Wilkinson before quoted, and is said to be the figure
of the god Typhon. It occurs frequently on Egyptian monuments, with
some variation in its forms, but always characterised by the broad,
coarse, and frightful face, and by the large tongue lolling out. It is
interesting to us, because it is the apparent origin of a long series
of faces, or masks, of this form and character, which are continually
recurring in the grotesque ornamentation, not only of the Greeks and
Romans, but of the middle ages. It appears to have been sometimes given
by the Romans to the representations of people whom they hated or
despised; and Pliny, in a curious passage of his "Natural History,"[1]
informs us that at one time, among the pictures exhibited in the Forum
at Rome, there was one in which a Gaul was represented, "thrusting
out his tongue in a very unbecoming manner." The Egyptian Typhons had
their exact representations in ancient Greece in a figure of frequent
occurrence, to which antiquaries have, I know not why, given the name
of Gorgon. The example in our cut No. 8, is a figure in terra-cotta,
now in the collection of the Royal Museum at Berlin.[2]
[1] Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 8.
[2] Panoska Terracotten des Museums Berlin, pl. lxi. p. 154.
[Illustration: _No. 8. Gorgon._]
In Greece, however, the spirit of caricature and burlesque
representation had assumed a more regular form than in other
countries, for it was inherent in the spirit of Grecian society.
Among the population of Greece, the worship of Dionysus, or Bacchus,
had taken deep root from a very early period--earlier than we can
trace back--and it formed the nucleus of the popular religion and
superstitions, the cradle of poetry and the drama. The most popular
celebrations of the people of Greece, were the Dionysiac festivals,
and the phallic rites and processions which accompanied them, in
which the chief actors assumed the disguise of satyrs and fawns,
covering themselves with goat-skins, and disfiguring their faces by
rubbing them over with the lees of wine. Thus, in the guise of noisy
bacchanals, they displayed an unrestrained licentiousness of gesture
and language, uttering indecent jests and abusive speeches, in which
they spared nobody. This portion of the ceremony was the especial
attribute of a part of the performers, who accompanied the procession
in waggons, and acted something like dramatic performances, in which
they uttered an abundance of loose extempore satire on those who
passed or who accompanied the procession, a little in the style of
the modern carnivals. It became thus the occasion for an unrestrained
publication of coarse pasquinades. In the time of Pisistratus, these
performances are assumed to have been reduced to a little more order by
an individual named Thespis, who is said to have invented masks as a
better disguise than dirty faces, and is looked upon as the father of
the Grecian drama. There can be no doubt, indeed, that the drama arose
out of these popular ceremonies, and it long bore the unmistakable
marks of its origin. Even the name of tragedy has nothing tragic in
its derivation, for it is formed from the Greek word _tragos_
(τράγος), a goat, in the skins of which animal the satyrs clothed
themselves, and hence the name was given also to those who personated
the satyrs in the processions. A _tragodus_ (τραγῳδὸς) was the singer,
whose words accompanied the movements of a chorus of satyrs, and the
term _tragodia_ was applied to his performance. In the same manner,
a _comodus_ (κωμωδὸς) was one who accompanied similarly, with chants
of an abusive or satirical character, a _comus_ (κῶμος), or band of
revellers, in the more riotous and licentious portion of the
performances in the Bacchic festivals. The Greek drama always betrayed
its origin by the circumstance that the performances took place
annually, only at the yearly festivals in honour of Bacchus, of which
in fact they constituted a part. Moreover, as the Greek drama became
perfected, it still retained from its origin a triple division, into
tragedy, comedy, and the satiric drama; and, being still performed
at the Dionysiac festival in Athens, each dramatic author was expected
to produce what was called a _trilogy_, that is, a tragedy, a satirical
play, and a comedy. So completely was all this identified in the
popular mind with the worship of Bacchus, that, long afterwards, when
even a tragedy did not please the audience by its subject, the common
form of disapproval was, τί ταῦτα πρὸς τὸν Διόνυσον--"What has this
to do with Bacchus?" and, οὐδὲν πρὸς τὸν Διόνυσον--"This has nothing
to do with Bacchus."
We have no perfect remains of the Greek satiric drama, which was,
perhaps, of a temporary character, and less frequently preserved; but
the early Greek comedy is preserved in a certain number of the plays
of Aristophanes, in which we can contemplate it in all its freedom of
character. It represented the waggon-jesting, of the age of Thespis, in
its full development. In its form it was burlesque to a wanton degree
of extravagance, and its essence was personal vilification, as well as
general satire. Individuals were not only attacked by the application
to them of abusive epithets, but they were represented personally on
the stage as performing every kind of contemptible action, and as
suffering all sorts of ludicrous and disgraceful treatment. The drama
thus bore marks of its origin in its extraordinary licentiousness
of language and costume, and in the constant use of the mask. One
of its most favourite instruments of satire was parody, which was
employed unsparingly on everything which society in its solemn moments
respected--against everything that the satirist considered worthy of
being held up to public derision or scorn. Religion itself, philosophy,
social manners and institutions--even poetry--were all parodied in
their turn. The comedies of Aristophanes are full of parodies on the
poetry of the tragic and other writers of his age. He is especially
happy in parodying the poetry of the tragic dramatist Euripides. The
old comedy of Greece has thus been correctly described as the comedy of
caricature; and the spirit, and even the scenes, of this comedy, being
transferred to pictorial representations, became entirely identical
with that branch of art to which we give the name of caricature in
modern times. Under the cover of bacchanalian buffoonery, a serious
purpose, it is true, was aimed at; but the general satire was chiefly
implied in the violent personal attacks on individuals, and this became
so offensive that when such persons obtained greater power in Athens
than the populace the old comedy was abolished.
Aristophanes was the greatest and most perfect poet of the Old Comedy,
and his remaining comedies are as strongly marked representations of
the hostility of political and social parties in his time, as the
caricatures of Gillray are of party in the reign of our George III.,
and, we may add, even more minute. They range through the memorable
period of the Peloponnesian war, and the earlier ones give us the
regular annual series of these performances, as far as Aristophanes
contributed them, during several years. The first of them, "The
Acharnians," was performed at the Lenæan feast of Bacchus in the sixth
year of the Peloponnesian war, the year 425 B.C., when it gained the
first prize. It is a bold attack on the factious prolongation of the
war through the influence of the Athenian demagogues. The next, "The
Knights," brought out in B.C. 424, is a direct attack upon Cleon, the
chief of these demagogues, although he is not mentioned by name; and
it is recorded that, finding nobody who had courage enough to make a
mask representing Cleon, or to play the character, Aristophanes was
obliged to perform it himself, and that he smeared his face with lees
of wine, in order to represent the flushed and bloated countenance of
the great demagogue, thus returning to the original mode of acting
of the predecessors of Thespis. This, too, was the first of the
comedies of Aristophanes which he published in his own name. "The
Clouds," published in 423, is aimed at Socrates and the philosophers.
The fourth, "The Wasps," published in B.C. 422, presents a satire on
the litigious spirit of the Athenians. The fifth, entitled "Peace"
(Ἔιρηνη), appeared in the year following, at the time of the peace of
Nicias, and is another satire on the bellicose spirit of the Athenian
democracy. The next in the list of extant plays comes after an interval
of several years, having been published in B.C. 414, the first year of
the Sicilian war, and relates to an irreligious movement in Athens,
which had caused a great sensation. Two Athenians are represented as
leaving Athens, in disgust at the vices and follies of their fellow
citizens, and seeking the kingdom of the birds, where they form a new
state, by which the communication between the mortals and the immortals
is cut off, and is only opened again by an arrangement between all
the parties. In the "Lysistrata," believed to have been brought out
in 411, when the war was still at its height, the women of Athens are
represented as engaging in a cunning and successful plot, by which
they gain possession of the government of the state, and compel their
husbands to make peace. "The Thesmophoriazusæ," appears to have been
published in B.C. 410; it is a satire upon Euripides, whose writings
were remarkable for their bitter attacks on the character of the
female sex, who, in this comedy, conspire against him to secure his
punishment. The comedy of "The Frogs" was brought out in the year
405 B.C., and is a satire on the literature of the day; it
is aimed especially at Euripides, and was perhaps written soon after
his death, its real subject being the decline of the tragic drama,
which Euripides was accused of having promoted. It is perhaps the most
witty of the plays of Aristophanes which have been preserved. "The
Ecclesiazusæ," published in 392, is a burlesque upon the theories of
republican government, which were then started among the philosophers,
some of which differed little from our modern communism. The ladies
again, by a clever conspiracy, gain the mastery in the estate, and they
decree a community of goods and women, with some laws very peculiar
to that state of things. The humour of the piece, which is extremely
broad, turns upon the disputes and embarrassments resulting from this
state of things. The last of his comedies extant, "Plutus," appears to
be a work of the concluding years of the active life of Aristophanes;
it is the least striking of them all, and is rather a moral than a
political satire.
In a comedy brought out in 426, the year before "The Archarnians,"
under the title of "The Babylonians," Aristophanes appears to have
given great offence to the democratic party, a circumstance to which
he alludes more than once in the former play. However, his talents and
popularity seem to have carried him over the danger, and certainly
nothing can have exceeded the bitterness of satire employed in his
subsequent comedies. Those who followed him were less fortunate.
One of the latest writers of the Old Comedy was Anaximandrides,
who cast a reflection on the state of Athens in parodying a line of
Euripides. This poet had said,--
ἡ φύσις ἐβούλεθ’ ἦ νόμων οὐδεν μέλει
(Nature has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws);
which Anaximandrides changed to--
ἡ πόλις ἐβούλεθ’ ἦ νόμων οὐδεν μέλει
(The state has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws).
Nowhere is oppression exercised with greater harshness than under
democratic governments; and Anaximandrides was prosecuted for this
joke as a crime against the state, and condemned to death. As may be
supposed, liberty of speech ceased to exist in Athens. We are well
acquainted with the character of the Old Comedy, in its greatest
freedom, through the writings of Aristophanes. What was called the
Middle Comedy, in which political satire was prohibited, lasted from
this time until the age of Philip of Macedon, when the old liberty of
Greece was finally crushed. The last form of Greek comedy followed,
which is known as the New Comedy, and was represented by such names as
Epicharmus and Menander. In the New Comedy all caricature and parody,
and all personal allusions, were entirely proscribed; it was changed
entirely into a comedy of manners and domestic life, a picture of
contemporary society under conventional names and characters. From this
New Comedy was taken the Roman comedy, such as we now have it in the
plays of Plautus and Terence, who were professed imitators of Menander
and the other writers of the new comedy of the Greeks.
[Illustration: _No. 9. A Greek Parody._]
Pictorial caricature was, of course, rarely to be seen on the public
monuments of Greece or Rome, but must have been consigned to objects
of a more popular character and to articles of common use; and,
accordingly, modern antiquarian research has brought it to light
somewhat abundantly on the pottery of Greece and Etruria, and on the
wall-paintings of domestic buildings in Herculaneum and Pompeii. The
former contains comic scenes, especially parodies, which are evidently
transferred to them from the stage, and which preserve the marks and
other attributes--some of which I have necessarily omitted--proving the
model from which they were taken. The Greeks, as we know from many
sources, were extremely fond of parodies of every description, whether
literary or pictorial. The subject of our cut No. 9 is a good example
of the parodies found on the Greek pottery; it is taken from a fine
Etruscan vase,[3] and has been supposed to be a parody on the visit of
Jupiter to Alcmena. This appears rather doubtful, but there can be no
doubt that it is a burlesque representation of the visit of a lover
to the object of his aspirations. The lover, in the comic mask and
costume, mounts by a ladder to the window at which the lady presents
herself, who, it must be confessed, presents the appearance of giving
her admirer a very cold reception. He tries to conciliate her by a
present of what seem to be apples, instead of gold, but without much
effect. He is attended by his servant with a torch, to give him light
on the way, which shows that it is a night adventure. Both master and
servant have wreaths round their heads, and the latter carries a third
in his hand, which, with the contents of his basket, are also probably
intended as presents to the lady.
[3] Given in Panofka, "Antiques du Cabinet Pourtalès," pl. x.
A more unmistakable burlesque on the visit of Jupiter to Alcmena is
published by Winckelmann from a vase, formerly in the library of the
Vatican, and now at St. Petersburg. The treatment of the subject is
not unlike the picture just described. Alcmena appears just in the
same posture at her chamber window, and Jupiter is carrying his ladder
to mount up to her, but has not yet placed it against the wall. His
companion is identified with Mercury by the well-known caduceus he
carries in his left hand, while with his right hand he holds a lamp
up to the window, in order to enable Jupiter to see the object of his
amour.
It is astonishing with how much boldness the Greeks parodied and
ridiculed sacred subjects. The Christian father, Arnobius, in writing
against his heathen opponents, reproached them with this circumstance.
The laws, he says, were made to protect the characters of men from
slander and libel, but there was no such protection for the characters
of the gods, which were treated with the greatest disrespect.[4] This
was especially the case in their pictorial representations.
[4] Arnobius (_contra Gentes_), lib. iv. p. 150. Carmen malum
conscribere, quo fama alterius coinquinatur et vita, decemviralibus
scitis evadere noluistis impune: ac ne vestras aures convitio
aliquis petulantiore pulsaret, de atrocibus formulas constituistis
injuriis. Soli dii sunt apud vos superi inhonorati, contemtibiles,
viles: in quos jus est vobis datum quæ quisque voluerit dicere
turpitudinem, jacere quas libido confinxerit atque excogitaverit
formas.
Pliny informs us that Ctesilochus, a pupil of the celebrated Apelles,
painted a burlesque picture of Jupiter giving birth to Bacchus, in
which the god was represented in a very ridiculous posture.[5] Ancient
writers intimate that similar examples were not uncommon, and mention
the names of several comic painters, whose works of this class were
in repute. Some of these were bitter personal caricatures, like a
celebrated work of a painter named Ctesicles, described also by Pliny.
It appears that Stratonice, the queen of Seleucus Nicator, had received
this painter ill when he visited her court, and in revenge he executed
a picture in which she was represented, according to a current scandal,
as engaged in an amour with a common fisherman, which he exhibited in
the harbour of Ephesus, and then made his escape on ship-board. Pliny
adds that the queen admired the beauty and accuracy of the painting
more than she felt the insult, and that she forbade the removal of the
picture.[6]
[5] Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 40.
[6] Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 40.
[Illustration: _No. 10. Apollo at Delphi._]
The subject of our second example of the Greek caricature is better
known. It is taken from an oxybaphon which was brought from the
Continent to England, where it passed into the collection of Mr.
William Hope.[7] The _oxybaphon_ (ὀξύβαφον), or, as it was called
by the Romans, _acetabulum_, was a large vessel for holding vinegar,
which formed one of the important ornaments of the table, and was
therefore very susceptible of pictorial embellishment of this
description. It is one of the most remarkable Greek caricatures
of this kind yet known, and represents a parody on one of the most
interesting stories of the Grecian mythology, that of the arrival of
Apollo at Delphi. The artist, in his love of burlesque, has spared
none of the personages who belonged to the story. The Hyperborean
Apollo himself appears in the character of a quack doctor, on his
temporary stage, covered by a sort of roof, and approached by wooden
steps. On the stage lies Apollo's luggage, consisting of a bag, a
bow, and his Scythian cap. Chiron (ΧΙΡΩΝ) is represented as labouring
under the effects of age and blindness, and supporting himself by the
aid of a crooked staff, as he repairs to the Delphian quack-doctor for
relief. The figure of the centaur is made to ascend by the aid of a
companion, both being furnished with the masks and other attributes of
the comic performers. Above are the mountains, and on them the nymphs
of Parnassus (ΝΥΜΦΑΙ), who, like all the other actors in the scene, are
disguised with masks, and those of a very grotesque character. On the
right-hand side stands a figure which is considered as representing the
_epoptes_, the inspector or overseer of the performance, who alone wears
no mask. Even a pun is employed to heighten the drollery of the scene,
for instead of ΠΥΘΙΑΣ, the Pythian, placed over the head of the
burlesque Apollo, it seems evident that the artist had written ΠΕΙΘΙΑΣ,
the consoler, in allusion, perhaps, to the consolation which the
quack-doctor is administering to his blind and aged visitor.
[7] Engraved by Ch. Lenormant et J. de Witt, "Elite des Monuments
Céramographiques," pl. xciv.
[Illustration: _No. 11. The Flight of Æneas from Troy._]
The Greek spirit of parody, applied even to the most sacred subjects,
however it may have declined in Greece, was revived at Rome, and we
find examples of it on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum. They
show the same readiness to turn into burlesque the most sacred and
popular legends of the Roman mythology. The example given (cut No. 11),
from one of the wall-paintings, is peculiarly interesting, both from
circumstances in the drawing itself, and because it is a parody on
one of the favourite national legends of the Roman people, who prided
themselves on their descent from Æneas. Virgil has told, with great
effect, the story of his hero's escape from the destruction of Troy--or
rather has put the story into his hero's mouth. When the devoted
city was already in flames, Æneas took his father, Anchises, on his
shoulder, and his boy, Iulus, or, as he was otherwise called, Ascanius,
by the hand, and thus fled from his home, followed by his wife--
_Ergo age, care pater, cervici imponere nostræ;
Ipse subibo humeris, nec me labor iste gravabit.
Quo res cumque cadent, unum et commune periclum,
Una salus ambobus erit. Mihi parvus Iulus
Sit comes, et longe servat vestigia conjux._
--Virg. Æn., lib. ii. l. 707.
Thus they hurried on, the child holding by his father's right hand, and
dragging after with "unequal steps,"--
_dextræ se parvus Iulus
Implicuit sequiturque patrem non passibus æquis._
--Virg. Æn., lib. ii. 1. 723.
And thus Æneas bore away both father and son, and the penates, or
household gods, of his family, which were to be transferred to another
country, and become the future guardians of Rome--
_Ascanium, Anchisemque patrem, Tencrosque penates._--Ib., 1. 747.
[Illustration: _No. 12. The Flight of Æneas._]
In this case we know that the design is intended to be a parody, or
burlesque, upon a picture which appears to have been celebrated at the
time, and of which at least two different copies are found upon ancient
intaglios. It is the only case I know in which both the original and
the parody have been preserved from this remote period, and this is so
curious a circumstance, that I give in the cut on the preceding page
a copy of one of the intaglios.[8] It represented literally Virgil's
account of the story, and the only difference between the design on the
intaglios and the one given in our first cut is, that in the latter
the personages are represented under the forms of monkeys. Æneas,
personified by the strong and vigorous animal, carrying the old monkey,
Anchises, on his left shoulder, hurries forward, and at the same time
looks back on the burning city. With his right hand he drags along
the boy Iulus, or Ascanius, who is evidently proceeding _non passibus
æquis_, and with difficulty keeps up with his father's pace. The boy
wears a Phrygian bonnet, and holds in his right hand the instrument
of play which we should now call a "bandy"--the pedun. Anchises has
charge of the box, which contains the sacred penates. It is a curious
circumstance that the monkeys in this picture are the same dog-headed
animals, or cynocephali, which are found on the Egyptian monuments.
[8] These intaglios are engraved in the Museum Florentinum of Gorius,
vol. ii. pl. 30. On one of them the figures are reversed.
* * * * *
When this chapter was already given for press, I first became
acquainted with an interesting paper, by Panofka, on the "Parodieen
und Karikaturen auf Werken der Klassischen Kunst," in the
"Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin," for the
year 1854, and I can only now refer my readers to it.
CHAPTER II.
ORIGIN OF THE STAGE IN ROME.--USES OF THE MASK AMONG THE
ROMANS.--SCENES FROM ROMAN COMEDY.--THE SANNIO AND MIMUS.--THE
ROMAN DRAMA.--THE ROMAN SATIRISTS.--CARICATURE.--ANIMALS
INTRODUCED IN THE CHARACTERS OF MEN.--THE PIGMIES, AND THEIR
INTRODUCTION INTO CARICATURE; THE FARM-YARD; THE PAINTER'S STUDIO;
THE PROCESSION.--POLITICAL CARICATURE IN POMPEII; THE GRAFFITI.
The Romans appear to have never had any real taste for the regular
drama, which they merely copied from the Greeks, and from the earliest
period of their history we find them borrowing all their arts of this
description from their neighbours. In Italy, as in Greece, the first
germs of comic literature may be traced in the religious festivals,
which presented a mixture of religious worship and riotous festivity,
where the feasters danced and sung, and, as they became excited with
wine and enthusiasm, indulged in mutual reproaches and abuse. The
oldest poetry of the Romans, which was composed in irregular measure,
was represented by the _versus saturnini_, said to have been so called
from their antiquity (for things of remote antiquity were believed to
belong to the age of Saturn). Nævius, one of the oldest of Latin poets,
is said to have written in this verse. Next in order of time came the
Fescennine verses, which appear to have been distinguished chiefly
by their license, and received their name because they were brought
from Fescennia, in Etruria, where they were employed originally in the
festivals of Ceres and Bacchus. In the year 391 of Rome, or 361 B.C.,
the city was visited by a dreadful plague, and the citizens hit upon
what will appear to us the rather strange expedient of sending for
performers (_ludiones_) from Etruria, hoping, by employing them, to
appease the anger of the gods. Any performer of this kind appears to
have been so little known to the Romans before this, that there was
not even a name for him in the language, and they were obliged to adopt
the Tuscan word, and call him a _histrio_, because _hister_ in that
language meant a player or pantomimist. This word, we know, remained
in the Latin language. These first Etrurian performers appear indeed
to have been mere pantomimists, who accompanied the flute with all
sorts of mountebank tricks, gestures, dances, gesticulations, and the
like, mixed with satirical songs, and sometimes with the performance of
coarse farces. The Romans had also a class of performances rather more
dramatic in character, consisting of stories which were named _Fabulæ
Atellanæ_, because these performers were brought from Atella, a city of
the Osci.
A considerable advance was made in dramatic Art in Rome about the
middle of the third century before Christ. It is ascribed to a freedman
named Livius Andronicus, a Greek by birth, who is said to have brought
out, in the year 240 B.C., the first regular comedy ever performed in
Rome. Thus we trace not only the Roman comedy, but the very rudiments
of dramatic art in Rome, either direct to the Greeks, or to the Grecian
colonies in Italy. With the Romans, as well as with the Greeks, the
theatre was a popular institution, open to the public, and the state
or a wealthy individual paid for the performance; and therefore the
building itself was necessarily of very great extent, and, in both
countries open to the sky, except that the Romans provided for throwing
an awning over it. As the Roman comedy was copied from the new comedy
of the Greeks, and therefore did not admit of the introduction of
caricature and burlesque on the stage, these were left especially to
the province of the pantomime and farce, which the Romans, as just
stated, had received from a still earlier period.
[Illustration: _No. 13. A Scene from Terence._]
[Illustration: _No. 14. Geta and Demea._]
Whether the Romans borrowed the mask from the Greeks, or not, is
rather uncertain, but it was used as generally in the Roman theatres,
whether in comedy or tragedy, as among the Greeks. The Greek actors
performed upon stilts, in order to magnify their figures, as the area
of the theatre was very large and uncovered, and without this help
they were not so well seen at a distance; and one object of utility
aimed at by the mask is said to have been to make the head appear
proportionate in size to the artificial height of the body. It may
be remarked that the mask seems generally to have been made to cover
the whole head, representing the hair as well as the face, so that
the character of age or complexion might be given complete. Among the
Romans the stilts were certainly not in general use, but still the
mask, besides its comic or tragic character, is supposed to have served
useful purposes. The first improvement upon its original structure
is said to have been the making it of brass, or some other sonorous
metal, or at least lining the mouth with it, so as to reverberate, and
give force to the voice, and also to the mouth of the mask something
of the character of a speaking-trumpet.[9] All these accessories could
not fail to detract much from the effect of the acting, which must in
general have been very measured and formal, and have received most of
its importance from the excellence of the poetry, and the declamatory
talents of the actors. We have pictures in which scenes from the Roman
stage are accurately represented. Several rather early manuscripts of
Terence have been preserved, illustrated with drawings of the scenes
as represented on the stage, and these, though belonging to a period
long subsequent to the age in which the Roman stage existed in its
original character, are, no doubt, copied from drawings of an earlier
date. A German antiquary of the last century, Henry Berger, published
in a quarto volume a series of such illustrations from a manuscript of
Terence in the library of the Vatican at Rome, from which two examples
are selected, as showing the usual style of Roman comic acting, and
the use of the mask. The first (No. 13) is the opening scene in the
_Andria_. On the right, two servants have brought provisions, and on
the left appear Simo, the master of the household, and his freedman,
Sosia, who seems to be entrusted with the charge of his domestic
affairs. Simo tells his servants to go away with the provisions, while
he beckons Sosia to confer with him in private:--
Si. _Vos istæc intro auferte; abite. Sosia,
Adesdum; paucis te volo._ So. _Dictum puta
Nempe ut curentur recte hæc._ Si. _Imo aliud_.
Terent. Andr., Actus i., Scena 1.
When we compare these words with the picture, we cannot but feel
that in the latter there is an unnecessary degree of energy put into
the _pose_ of the figures; which is perhaps less the case in the
other (No. 14), an illustration of the sixth scene of the fifth act
of the _Adelphi_ of Terence. It represents the meeting of Geta, a
rather talkative and conceited servant, and Demea, a countryfied and
churlish old man, his acquaintance, and of course superior. To Geta's
salutation, Demea asks churlishly, as not at first knowing him, "Who
are you?" but when he finds that it is Geta, he changes suddenly to an
almost fawning tone:--
G. ... _Sed eccum Demeam. Salvus fies._
D. _Oh, qui vocare?_ G. _Geta._ D. _Geta, hominem maximi
Pretii esse te hodie judicavi animo mei._
[9] It is said to have received its Latin name from this circumstance,
_persona, a personando_. See Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att., lib. v.
c. 7.
[Illustration: _No. 15. Comic Scene from Pompeii._]
That these representations are truthful, the scenes in the
wall-paintings of Pompeii leave us no room to doubt. One of these is
produced in our cut No. 15, which is no doubt taken from a comedy
now lost, and we are ignorant whom the characters are intended to
represent. The _pose_ given to the two comic figures, compared with
the example given from Berger, would lead us to suppose that this
over-energetic action was considered as part of the character of comic
acting.
[Illustration: _No. 16. Cupids at Play._]
The subject of the Roman masks is the more interesting, because they
were probably the origin of many of the grotesque faces so often met
with in mediæval sculpture. The comic mask was, indeed, a very popular
object among the Romans, and appears to have been taken as symbolical
of everything that was droll and burlesque. From the comic scenes of
the theatre, to which it was first appropriated, it passed to the
popular festivals of a public character, such as the Lupercalia, with
which, no doubt, it was carried into the carnival of the middle ages,
and to our masquerades. Among the Romans, also, the use of the mask
soon passed from the public festivals to private supper parties. Its
use was so common that it became a plaything among children, and was
sometimes used as a bugbear to frighten them. Our cut No. 16, taken
from a painting at Resina, represents two cupids playing with a mask,
and using it for this latter purpose, that is, to frighten one another;
and it is curious that the mediæval gloss of Ugutio explains _larva_,
a mask, as being an image, "which was put over the face to frighten
children."[10] The mask thus became a favourite ornament, especially on
lamps, and on the antefixa and gargoyls of Roman buildings, to which
were often given the form of grotesque masks, monstrous faces, with
great mouths wide open, and other figures, like those of the gargoyls
of the mediæval architects.
[10] "Simulacrum ... quod opponitur faciei ad terrendos parvos."
(Ugutio, ap. Ducange, v. _Masca_.)
[Illustration: _No. 17. The Roman Sannio, or Buffoon._]
While the comic mask was used generally in the burlesque
entertainments, it also became distinctive of particular characters.
One of these was the _sannio_, or buffoon, whose name was derived from
the Greek word σάννος, "a fool," and who was employed in performing
burlesque dances, making grimaces, and in other acts calculated to
excite the mirth of the spectator. A representation of the _sannio_
is given in our cut No. 17, copied from one of the engravings in the
"Dissertatio de Larvis Scenicis," by the Italian antiquary Ficoroni,
who took it from an engraved gem. The sannio holds in his hand what is
supposed to be a brass rod, and he has probably another in the other
hand, so that he could strike them together. He wears the _soccus_, or
low shoe peculiar to the comic actors. This buffoon was a favourite
character among the Romans, who introduced him constantly into their
feasts and supper parties. The _manducus_ was another character of this
description, represented with a grotesque mask, presenting a wide mouth
and tongue lolling out, and said to have been peculiar to the Atellane
plays. A character in Plautus (Rud., ii. 6, 51) talks of hiring himself
as a _manducus_ in the plays.
"_Quid si aliquo ad ludos me pro manduco locem?_"
The mediæval glosses interpret _manducus_ by _joculator_, "a jogelor,"
and add that the characteristic from which he took his name was the
practice of making grimaces like a man gobbling up his food in a vulgar
and gluttonous manner.
[Illustration: _No. 18. Roman Tom Fool._]
Ficoroni gives, from an engraved onyx, a figure of another burlesque
performer, copied in our cut No. 18, and which he compares to the
Catanian dancer of his time (his book was published in 1754), who was
called a _giangurgolo_. This is considered to represent the Roman
_mimus_, a class of performers who told with mimicry and action scenes
taken from common life, and more especially scandalous and indecent
anecdotes, like the jogelors and performers of farces in the middle
ages. The Romans were very much attached to these performances, so much
so, that they even had them at their funeral processions and at their
funeral feasts. In our figure, the _mimus_ is represented naked, masked
(with an exaggerated nose), and wearing what is perhaps intended as a
caricature of the Phrygian bonnet. In his right hand he holds a bag,
or purse, full of objects which rattle and make a noise when shaken,
while the other holds the _crotalum_, or castanets, an instrument in
common use among the ancients. One of the statues in the Barberini
Palace represents a youth in a Phrygian cap playing on the _crotalum_.
We learn, from an early authority, that it was an instrument especially
used in the satirical and burlesque dances which were so popular among
the Romans.
As I have remarked before, the Romans had no taste for the regular
drama, but they retained to the last their love for the performances
of the popular _mimi_, or _comædi_ (as they were often called), the
players of farces, and the dancers. These performed on the stage, in
the public festivals, in the streets, and were usually introduced at
private parties.[11] Suetonius tells us that on one occasion, the
emperor Caligula ordered a poet who composed the Atellanes (_Attellanæ
poetam_) to be burnt in the middle of the amphitheatre, for a pun. A
more regular comedy, however, did flourish, to a certain degree, at
the same time with these more popular compositions. Of the works of
the earliest of the Roman comic writers, Livius Andronicus and Nævius,
we know only one or two titles, and a few fragments quoted in the
works of the later Roman writers. They were followed by Plautus, who
died B.C. 184, and nineteen of whose comedies are preserved and well
known; by several other writers, whose names are almost forgotten, and
whose comedies are all lost; and by Terence, six of whose comedies are
preserved. Terence died about the year 159 B.C. About the same time
with Terence lived Lucius Afranius and Quinctius Atta, who appear to
close the list of the Roman writers of comedy.
[11] See, for allusions to the private employment of these
performances, Pliny, Epist. i. 15, and ix. 36.
But another branch of comic literature had sprung out of the satire of
the religious festivities. A year after Livius Andronicus produced the
first drama at Rome, in the year 239 B.C., the poet Ennius was born
at Rudiæ, in Magna Græcia. The satirical verse, whether Saturnine or
Fescennine, had been gradually improving in its form, although still
very rude, but Ennius is said to have given at least a new polish, and
perhaps a new metrical shape, to it. The verse was still irregular, but
it appears to have been no longer intended for recitation, accompanied
by the flute. The Romans looked upon Ennius not only as their earliest
epic poet, but as the father of satire, a class of literary composition
which appears to have originated with them, and which they claimed
as their own.[12] Ennius had an imitator in M. Terentius Varro. The
satires of these first writers are said to have been very irregular
compositions, mixing prose with verse, and sometimes even Greek with
Latin; and to have been rather general in their aim than personal. But
soon after this period, and rather more than a century before Christ,
came Caius Lucilius, who raised Roman satirical literature to its
perfection. Lucilius, we are told, was the first who wrote satires in
heroic verse, or hexameters, mixing with them now and then, though
rarely, an iambic or trochaic line. He was more refined, more pointed,
and more personal, than his predecessors, and he had rescued satire
from the street performer to make it a class of literature which was
to be read by the educated, and not merely listened to by the vulgar.
Lucilius is said to have written thirty books of satires, of which,
unfortunately, only some scattered lines remain.
[12] Quintilian says, "_Satira quidem tota nostra est_." De Instit.
Orator., lib. x. c. 1.
Lucilius had imitators, the very names of most of whom are now
forgotten, but about forty years after his death, and sixty-five
years before the birth of Christ, was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus,
the oldest of the satirists whose works we now possess, and the most
polished of Roman poets. In the time of Horace, the satire of the
Romans had reached its highest degree of perfection. Of the two other
great satirists whose works are preserved, Juvenal was born about the
year 40 of the Christian era, and Persius in 43. During the period
through which these writers flourished, Rome saw a considerable number
of other satirists of the same class, whose works have perished.
In the time of Juvenal another variety of the same class of literature
had already sprung up, more artificial and somewhat more indirect
than the other, the prose satiric romance. Three celebrated writers
represent this school. Petronius, who, born about the commencement
of our era, died in A.D. 65, is the earliest and most remarkable of
them. He compiled a romance, designed as a satire on the vices of the
age of Nero, in which real persons are supposed to be aimed at under
fictitious names, and which rivals in license, at least, anything
that could have been uttered in the Atellanes or other farces of the
_mimi_. Lucian, of Samosata, who died an old man in the year 200, and
who, though he wrote in Greek, may be considered as belonging to the
Roman school, composed several satires of this kind, in one of the
most remarkable of which, entitled "Lucius, or the Ass," the author
describes himself as changed by sorcery into the form of that animal,
under which he passes through a number of adventures which illustrate
the vices and weaknesses of contemporary society. Apuleius, who was
considerably the junior of Lucian, made this novel the groundwork of
his "Golden Ass," a much larger and more elaborate work, written in
Latin. This work of Apuleius was very popular through subsequent ages.
[Illustration: _No. 19. The Farm-yard in Burlesque._]
[Illustration: _No. 20. An Asilla-Bearer._]
Let us return to Roman caricature, one form of which seems to have
been especially a favourite among the people. It is difficult to
imagine how the story of the pigmies and of their wars with the cranes
originated, but it is certainly of great antiquity, as it is spoken
of in Homer, and it was a very popular legend among the Romans, who
eagerly sought and purchased dwarfs to make domestic pets of them. The
pigmies and cranes occur frequently among the pictorial ornamentations
of the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum; and the painters of Pompeii
not only represented them in their proper character, but they made use
of them for the purpose of caricaturing the various occupations of
life--domestic and social scenes, grave conferences, and many other
subjects, and even personal character. In this class of caricatures
they gave to the pigmies, or dwarfs, very large heads, and very small
legs and arms. I need hardly remark that this is a class of caricature
which is very common in modern times. Our first group of these pigmy
caricatures (No. 19) is taken from a painting on the walls of the
Temple of Venus, at Pompeii, and represents the interior of a farm-yard
in burlesque. The structure in the background is perhaps intended for a
hayrick. In front of it, one of the farm servants is attending on the
poultry. The more important-looking personage with the pastoral staff
is possibly the overseer of the farm, who is visiting the labourers,
and this probably is the cause why their movements have assumed so much
activity. The labourer on the right is using the _asilla_, a wooden
yoke or pole, which was carried over the shoulder, with the _corbis_,
or basket, suspended at each end. This was a common method of carrying,
and is not unfrequently represented on Roman works of art. Several
examples might be quoted from the antiquities of Pompeii. Our cut No.
20, from a gem in the Florentine Museum, and illustrating another class
of caricature, that of introducing animals performing the actions and
duties of men, represents a grasshopper carrying the _asilla_ and the
_corbes_.
[Illustration: _No. 21. A Painter's Studio._]
A private house in Pompeii furnished another example of this style
of caricature, which is given in our cut No. 21. It represents the
interior of a painter's studio, and is extremely curious on account
of the numerous details of his method of operation with which it
furnishes us. The painter, who is, like most of the figures in these
pigmy caricatures, very scantily clothed, is occupied with the portrait
of another, who, by the rather exaggerated fulness of the gathering
of his toga, is evidently intended for a dashing and fashionable
patrician, though he is seated as bare-legged and bare-breeched as the
artist himself. Both are distinguished by a large allowance of nose.
The easel here employed resembles greatly the same article now in use,
and might belong to the studio of a modern painter. Before it is a
small table, probably formed of a slab of stone, which serves for a
palette, on which the painter spreads and mixes his colours. To the
right a servant, who fills the office of colour-grinder, is seated by
the side of a vessel placed over hot coals, and appears to be preparing
colours, mixed, according to the directions given in old writers,
with punic wax and oil. In the background is seated a student, whose
attention is taken from his drawing by what is going on at the other
side of the room, where two small personages are entering, who look as
if they were amateurs, and who appear to be talking about the portrait.
Behind them stands a bird, and when the painting was first uncovered
there were two. Mazois, who made the drawing from which our cut is
taken, before the original had perished--for it was found in a state
of decay--imagined that the birds typified some well-known singers or
musicians, but they are, perhaps, merely intended for cranes, birds so
generally associated with the pigmies.
[Illustration: _No. 22. Part of a Triumphal Procession._]
According to an ancient writer, combats of pigmies were favourite
representations on the walls of taverns and shops;[13] and, curiously
enough, the walls of a shop in Pompeii have furnished the picture
represented in our cut No. 22, which has evidently been intended for
a caricature, probably a parody. All the pigmies in this picture
are crowned with laurel, as though the painter intended to turn to
ridicule some over-pompous triumph, or some public, perhaps religious,
ceremony. The two figures to the left, who are clothed in yellow
and green garments, appear to be disputing the possession of a bowl
containing a liquid. One of these, like the two figures on the right,
has a hoop thrown over his shoulder. The first of the latter personages
wears a violet dress, and holds in his right hand a rod, and in his
left a statuette, apparently of a deity, but its attributes are not
distinguishable. The last figure to the right has a robe, or mantle, of
two colours, red and green, and holds in his hand a branch of a lily,
or some similar plant; the rest of the picture is lost. Behind the
other figure stands a fifth, who appears younger and more refined in
character than the others, and seems to be ordering or directing them.
His dress is red.
[13] ἐπί των καπηλίων. Problem. Aristotelic. Sec. x. 7.
We can have no doubt that political and personal caricature flourished
among the Romans, as we have some examples of it on their works of art,
chiefly on engraved stones, though these are mostly of a character
we could not here conveniently introduce; but the same rich mine of
Roman art and antiquities, Pompeii, has furnished us with one sample
of what may be properly considered as a political caricature. In the
year 59 of the Christian era, at a gladiatorial exhibition in the
amphitheatre of Pompeii, where the people of Nuceria were present,
the latter expressed themselves in such scornful terms towards the
Pompeians, as led to a violent quarrel, which was followed by a pitched
battle between the inhabitants of the two towns, and the Nucerians,
being defeated, carried their complaints before the reigning emperor,
Nero, who gave judgment in their favour, and condemned the people of
Pompeii to suspension from all theatrical amusements for ten years.
The feelings of the Pompeians on this occasion are displayed in the
rude drawing represented in our cut No. 23, which is scratched on the
plaster of the external wall of a house in the street to which the
Italian antiquarians have given the name of the street of Mercury. A
figure, completely armed, his head covered with what might be taken
for a mediæval helmet, is descending what appear to be intended for
the steps of the amphitheatre. He carries in his hand a palm-branch,
the emblem of victory. Another palm-branch stands erect by his side,
and underneath is the inscription, in rather rustic Latin, "CAMPANI
VICTORIA VNA CVM NVCERINIS PERISTIS"--"O Campanians, you perished in
the victory together with the Nucerians." The other side of the picture
is more rudely and hastily drawn. It has been supposed to represent
one of the victors dragging a prisoner, with his arms bound, up a
ladder to a stage or platform, on which he was perhaps to be exhibited
to the jeers of the populace. Four years after this event, Pompeii
was greatly damaged by an earthquake, and sixteen years later came
the eruption of Vesuvius, which buried the town, and left it in the
condition in which it is now found.
[Illustration: _No. 23. A Popular Caricature._]
[Illustration: _No. 24. Early Caricature upon a Christian._]
This curious caricature belongs to a class of monuments to which
archæologists have given technically the Italian name of _graffiti_,
scratches or scrawls, of which a great number, consisting chiefly of
writing, have been found on the walls of Pompeii. They also occur
among the remains on other Roman sites, and one found in Rome itself
is especially interesting. During the alterations and extensions which
were made from time to time in the palace of the Cæsars, it had been
found necessary to build across a narrow street which intersected the
Palatine, and, in order to give support to the structure above, a
portion of the street was walled off, and remained thus hermetically
sealed until about the year 1857, when some excavations on the spot
brought it to view. The walls of the street were found to be covered
with these _graffiti_, among which one attracted especial attention,
and, having been carefully removed, is now preserved in the museum
of the Collegio Romano. It is a caricature upon a Christian named
Alexamenos, by some pagan who despised Christianity. The Saviour is
represented under the form of a man with the head of an ass, extended
upon a cross, the Christian, Alexamenos, standing on one side in the
attitude of worship of that period. Underneath we read the inscription,
ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟΣ CΕΒΕΤΕ (for σεβεται), "Alexamenos worships God." This
curious figure, which may be placed among the most interesting as well
as early evidences of the truth of Gospel history, is copied in our cut
No. 24. It was drawn when the prevailing religion at Rome was still
pagan, and a Christian was an object of contempt.
CHAPTER III.
THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE AGES.--THE
ROMAN MIMI CONTINUED TO EXIST.--THE TEUTONIC AFTER-DINNER
ENTERTAINMENTS.--CLERICAL SATIRES; ARCHBISHOP HERIGER AND THE
DREAMER; THE SUPPER OF THE SAINTS.--TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT
TO MEDIÆVAL ART.--TASTE FOR MONSTROUS ANIMALS, DRAGONS, ETC.;
CHURCH OF SAN FEDELE, AT COMO.--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE AND LOVE
OF GROTESQUE AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS.--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF
DEMONS.--NATURAL TENDENCY OF THE EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS TO DRAW IN
CARICATURE.--EXAMPLES FROM EARLY MANUSCRIPTS AND SCULPTURES.
The transition from antiquity to what we usually understand by the name
of the middle ages was long and slow; it was a period during which much
of the texture of the old society was destroyed, while at the same
time a new life was gradually given to that which remained. We know
very little of the comic literature of this period of transition; its
literary remains consist chiefly of a mass of heavy theology and of
lives of saints. The stage in its perfectly dramatic form--theatre and
amphitheatre--had disappeared. The pure drama, indeed, appears never
to have had great vitality among the Romans, whose tastes lay far more
among the vulgar performances of the mimics and jesters, and among
the savage scenes of the amphitheatre. While probably the performance
of comedies, such as those of Plautus and Terence, soon went out of
fashion, and tragedies, like those of Seneca, were only written as
literary compositions, imitations of the similar works which formed
so remarkable a feature in the literature of Greece, the Romans of
all ranks loved to witness the loose attitudes of their _mimi_, or
listen to their equally loose songs and stories. The theatre and the
amphitheatre were state institutions, kept up at the national expense,
and, as just stated, they perished with the overthrow of the western
empire; and the sanguinary performances of the amphitheatre, if the
amphitheatre itself continued to be used (which was perhaps the case
in some parts of western Europe), and they gave place to the more
harmless exhibitions of dancing bears and other tamed animals,[14] for
deliberate cruelty was not a characteristic of the Teutonic race. But
the mimi, the performers who sung songs and told stories, accompanied
with dancing and music, survived the fall of the empire, and continued
to be as popular as ever. St. Augustine, in the fourth century, calls
these things _nefaria_, detestable things, and says that they were
performed at night.[15] We trace in the capitularies the continuous
existence of these performances during the ages which followed the
empire, and, as in the time of St. Augustine, they still formed the
amusement of nocturnal assemblies. The capitulary of Childebert
proscribes those who passed their nights with drunkenness, jesting,
and songs.[16] The council of Narbonne, in the year 589, forbade
people to spend their nights "with dancings and filthy songs."[17] The
council of Mayence, in 813, calls these songs "filthy and licentious"
(_turpia atque luxuriosa_); and that of Paris speaks of them as
"obscene and filthy" (_obscæna et turpia_); while in another they are
called "frivolous and diabolic." From the bitterness with which the
ecclesiastical ordinances are expressed, it is probable that these
performances continued to preserve much of their old paganism; yet it
is curious that they are spoken of in these capitularies and acts of
the councils as being still practised in the religious festivals, and
even in the churches, so tenaciously did the old sentiments of the
race keep their possession of the minds of the populace, long after
they had embraced Christianity. These "songs," as they are called,
continued also to consist not only of general, but of personal satire,
and contained scandalous stories of persons living, and well known to
those who heard them. A capitulary of the Frankish king Childeric III.,
published in the year 744, is directed against those who compose and
sing songs in defamation of others (_in blasphemiam alterius_, to use
the rather energetic language of the original); and it is evident that
this offence was a very common one, for it is not unfrequently repeated
in later records of this character in the same words or in words to the
same purpose. Thus one result of the overthrow of the Roman empire was
to leave comic literature almost in the same condition in which it was
found by Thespis in Greece and by Livius Andronicus in Rome. There was
nothing in it which would be contrary to the feelings of the new races
who had now planted themselves in the Roman provinces.
[14] On this subject, see my "History of Domestic Manners and
Sentiments," p. 65. The dancing bear appears to have been a
favourite performer among the Germans at a very early period.
[15] Per totam noctem cantabantur hic nefaria et a cantatoribus
saltabatur. Augustini Serm. 311, part v.
[16] Noctes pervigiles cum ebrietate, scurrilitate, vel canticis. See
the Capitulary in Labbei Concil., vol. v.
[17] Ut populi.....saltationibus et turpibus invigilant canticis.
The Teutonic and Scandinavian nations had no doubt their popular
festivals, in which mirth and frolic bore sway, though we know little
about them; but there were circumstances in their domestic manners
which implied a necessity for amusement. After the comparatively early
meal, the hall of the primitive Teuton was the scene--especially in the
darker months of winter--of long sittings over the festive board, in
which there was much drinking and much talking, and, as we all know,
such talking could not preserve long a very serious tone. From Bede's
account of the poet Cædmon, we learn that it was the practice of the
Anglo-Saxons in the seventh century, at their entertainments, for all
those present to sing in their turns, each accompanying himself with a
musical instrument. From the sequel of the story we are led to suppose
that these songs were extemporary effusions, probably mythic legends,
stories of personal adventure, praise of themselves, or vituperation
of their enemies. In the chieftain's household there appears to have
been usually some individual who acted the part of the satirist, or, as
we should perhaps now say, the comedian. Hunferth appears as holding
some such position in Beowulf; in the later romances, Sir Kay held a
similar position at the court of king Arthur. At a still later period,
the place of these heroes was occupied by the court fool. The Roman
_mimus_ must have been a welcome addition to the entertainments of the
Teutonic hall, and there is every reason to think that he was cordially
received. The performances of the hall were soon delegated from the
guests to such hired actors, and we have representations of them in
the illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.[18] Among the earliest
amusements of the Anglo-Saxon table were riddles, which in every form
present some of the features of the comic, and are capable of being
made the source of much laughter. The saintly Aldhelm condescended to
write such riddles in Latin verse, which were, of course, intended for
the tables of the clergy. In primitive society, verse was the ordinary
form of conveying ideas. A large portion of the celebrated collection
of Anglo-Saxon poetry known as the "Exeter Book," consists of riddles,
and this taste for riddles has continued to exist down to our own
times. But other forms of entertainment, if they did not already
exist, were soon introduced. In a curious Latin poem, older than the
twelfth century, of which fragments only are preserved, and have been
published under the title of "Ruodlieb," and which appears to have
been a translation of a much earlier German romance, we have a curious
description of the post-prandial entertainments after the dinner of a
great Teutonic chieftain, or king. In the first place there was a grand
distribution of rich presents, and then were shown strange animals, and
among the rest tame bears. These bears stood upon their hind legs, and
performed some of the offices of a man; and when the minstrels (_mimi_)
came in, and played upon their musical instruments, these animals
danced to the music, and performed all sorts of strange tricks.
_Et pariles ursi....
Qui vas tollebant, ut homo, bipedesque gerebant.
Mimi quando fides digitis tangunt modulantes,
Illi saltabant, neumas pedibus variabant.
Interdum saliunt, seseque super jaciebant.
Alterutrum dorso se portabant residendo,
Amplexando se, luctando deficiunt se._
Then followed dancing-girls, and exhibitions of other kinds.[19]
[18] The reader is referred, for further information on this subject,
to my "History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments," pp. 33-39.
[19] This curious Latin poem was printed by Grimm and Schmeller, in
their Lateinische Gedichte des x. und xi. Jh., p. 129.
Although these performances were proscribed by the ecclesiastical laws,
they were not discountenanced by the ecclesiastics themselves, who, on
the contrary, indulged as much in after-dinner amusements as anybody.
The laws against the profane songs are often directed especially at
the clergy; and it is evident that among the Anglo-Saxons, as well as
on the Continent, not only the priests and monks, but the nuns also,
in their love of such amusements, far transgressed the bounds of
decency.[22] These entertainments were the cradle of comic literature,
but, as this literature in the early ages of its history was rarely
committed to writing, it has almost entirely perished. But, at the
tables of the ecclesiastics, these stories were sometimes told in
Latin verse, and as Latin was not so easily carried in the memory as
the vernacular tongue, in this language they were sometimes committed
to writing, and thus a few examples of early comic literature have
fortunately been preserved. These consist chiefly of popular stories,
which were among the favourite amusements of mediæval society--stories
many of which are derived from the earliest period of the history of
our race, and are still cherished among our peasantry. Such are the
stories of the Child of Snow, and of the Mendacious Hunter, preserved
in a manuscript of the eleventh century.[21] The first of these was
a very popular story in the middle ages. According to this early
version, a merchant of Constance, in Switzerland, was detained abroad
for several years, during which time his wife made other acquaintance,
and bore a child. On his return, she excused her fault by telling him
that on a cold wintry day she had swallowed snow, by which she had
conceived; and, in revenge, the husband carried away the child, and
sold it into slavery, and returning, told its mother, that the infant
which had originated in snow, had melted away under a hotter sun. Some
of these stories originated in the different collections of fables,
which were part of the favourite literature of the later Roman period.
Another is rather a ridiculous story of an ass belonging to two sisters
in a nunnery, which was devoured by a wolf.[20] curious how soon the
mediæval clergy began to imitate their pagan predecessors in parodying
religious subjects and forms, of which we have one or two very curious
examples. Visits to purgatory, hell, and paradise, in body or spirit,
were greatly in fashion during the earlier part of the middle ages,
and afforded extremely good material for satire. In a metrical Latin
story, preserved in a manuscript of the eleventh century, we are
told how a "prophet," or visionary, went to Heriger, archbishop of
Mayence from 912 to 926, and told him that he had been carried in a
vision to the regions below, and described them as a place surrounded
by thick woods. It was the Teutonic notion of hell, and indeed of
all settlements of peoples; and Heriger replied with a sneer that he
would send his herdsmen there with his lean swine to fatten them. Each
"mark," or land of a family or clan, in the early Teutonic settlements,
was surrounded by woodland, which was common to all members of the clan
for fattening their swine and hunting. The false dreamer added, that he
was afterwards carried to heaven, where he saw Christ sitting at the
table and eating. John the Baptist was butler, and served excellent
wine round to the saints, who were the Lord's guests. St. Peter was
the chief cook. After some remarks on the appointments to these two
offices, archbishop Heriger asked the informant how he was received in
the heavenly hall, where he sat, and what he eat. He replied that he
sat in a corner, and stole from the cooks a piece of liver, which he
eat, and then departed. Instead of rewarding him for his information,
Heriger took him on his own confession for the theft, and ordered him
to be bound to a stake and flogged, which, for the offence, was rather
a light punishment.
[20] On the character of the nuns among the Anglo-Saxons, and indeed of
the inmates of the monastic houses generally, I would refer my
readers to the excellent and interesting volume by Mr. John
Thrupp, "The Anglo-Saxon Home: a History of the Domestic
Institutions and Customs of England from the fifth to the eleventh
century." London, 1862.
[21] These will be found in M. Edélestand du Méril's Poésies Populaires
Latines antérieures au douzième siècle, pp. 275, 276.
[22] This, and the metrical story next referred to, were printed in
the "Altdeutsche Blätter," edited by Moriz Haupt and Heinrich
Hoffmann, vol. i. pp. 390, 392, to whom I communicated them from
a manuscript in the University Library at Cambridge.
_Heriger illum
jussit ad palum
loris ligari,
scopisque cedi,
sermone duro
hunc arguendo._
These lines will serve as a specimen of the popular Latin verse in
which these monkish after-dinner stories were written; but the most
remarkable of these early parodies on religious subjects, is one which
may be described as the supper of the saints; its title is simply
_Cœna_. It is falsely ascribed to St. Cyprian, who lived in the
third century; but it is as old as the tenth century, as a copy was
printed by professor Endlicher from a manuscript of that period at
Vienna. It was so popular, that it is found and known to have existed
in different forms in verse and in prose. It is a sort of drollery,
founded upon the wedding feast at which the Saviour changed water into
wine, though that miracle is not at all introduced into it. It was a
great king of the East, named Zoel, who held his nuptial feast at Cana
of Galilee. The personages invited are all scriptural, beginning with
Adam. Before the feast, they wash in the river Jordan, and the number
of the guests was so great, that seats could not be provided for them,
and they took their places as they could. Adam took the first place,
and seated himself in the middle of the assembly, and next to him Eve
sat upon leaves (_super folia_),--fig-leaves, we may suppose. Cain sat
on a plough, Abel on a milk-pail, Noah on an ark, Japhet on tiles,
Abraham on a tree, Isaac on an altar, Lot near the door, and so with
a long list of others. Two were obliged to stand--Paul, who bore it
patiently, and Esau, who grumbled--while Job lamented bitterly because
he was obliged to sit on a dunghill. Moses, and others, who came late,
were obliged to find seats out of doors. When the king saw that all
his guests had arrived, he took them into his wardrobe, and there, in
the spirit of mediæval generosity, distributed to them dresses, which
had all some burlesque allusion to their particular characters. Before
they were allowed to sit down to the feast, they were obliged to go
through other ceremonies, which, as well as the eating, are described
in the same style of caricature. The wines, of which there was great
variety, were served to the guests with the same allusions to their
individual characters; but some of them complained that they were badly
mixed, although Jonah was the butler. In the same manner are described
the proceedings which followed the dinner, the washing of hands, and
the dessert, to the latter of which Adam contributed apples, Samson
honey; while David played on the harp and Mary on the tabor; Judith led
the round dance; Jubal played on the psalter; Asael sung songs, and
Herodias acted the part of the dancing-girl:--
_Tunc Adam poma ministrat, Samson favi dulcia.
David cytharum percussit, et Maria tympana.
Judith choreas ducebat, et Jubal psalteria.
Asael metra canebat, saltabat Herodias._
Mambres entertained the company with his magical performances; and
the other incidents of a mediæval festival followed, throughout which
the same tone of burlesque is continued; and so the story continues,
to the end.[23] We shall find these incipient forms of mediæval comic
literature largely developed as we go on.
[23] The text of this singular composition, with a full account of the
various forms in which it was published, will be found in M. du
Méril's "Poésies Populaires Latines antérieures au douzième
siècle," p. 193.
[Illustration: _No. 25. Saturn Devouring his Child._]
The period between antiquity and the middle ages was one of such great
and general destruction, that the gulf between ancient and mediæval art
seems to us greater and more abrupt than it really was. The want of
monuments, no doubt, prevents our seeing the gradual change of one into
the other, but nevertheless enough of facts remain to convince us that
it was not a sudden change. It is now indeed generally understood that
the knowledge and practice of the arts and manufactures of the Romans
were handed onward from master to pupil after the empire had fallen;
and this took place especially in the towns, so that the workmanship
which had been declining in character during the later periods of the
empire, only continued in the course of degradation afterwards. Thus,
in the first Christian edifices, the builders who were employed, or at
least many of them, must have been pagans, and they would follow their
old models of ornamentation, introducing the same grotesque figures,
the same masks and monstrous faces, and even sometimes the same
subjects from the old mythology, to which they had been accustomed. It
is to be observed, too, that this kind of iconographical ornamentation
had been encroaching more and more upon the old architectural purity
during the latter ages of the empire, and that it was employed more
profusely in the later works, from which this taste was transferred
to the ecclesiastical and to the domestic architecture of the middle
ages. After the workmen themselves had become Christians, they still
found pagan emblems and figures in their models, and still went on
imitating them, sometimes merely copying, and at others turning them
to caricature or burlesque. And this tendency continued so long, that,
at a much later date, where there still existed remains of Roman
buildings, the mediæval architects adopted them as models, and did not
hesitate to copy the sculpture, although it might be evidently pagan in
character. The accompanying cut (No. 25) represents a bracket in the
church of Mont Majour, near Nismes, built in the tenth century. The
subject is a monstrous head eating a child, and we can hardly doubt
that it was really intended for a caricature on Saturn devouring one of
his children.
Sometimes the mediæval sculptors mistook the emblematical designs
of the Romans, and misapplied them, and gave an allegorical meaning
to that which was not intended to be emblematical or allegorical,
until the subjects themselves became extremely confused. They readily
employed that class of parody of the ancients in which animals were
represented performing the actions of men, and they had a great taste
for monsters of every description, especially those which were made up
of portions of incongruous animals joined together, in contradiction to
the precept of Horace:--
_Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam
Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas,
Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum
Desinet in piscem mulier formosa superne;
Spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici?_
[Illustration: _No. 26. Sculpture from San Fedele, at Como._]
The mediæval architects loved such representations, always and in all
parts, and examples are abundant. At Como, in Italy, there is a very
ancient and remarkable church dedicated to San Fedele (Saint Fidelis);
it has been considered to be of so early a date as the fifth century.
The sculptures that adorn the doorway, which is triangular-headed, are
especially interesting. On one of these, represented in our cut No. 26,
in a compartment to the left, appears a figure of an angel, holding in
one hand a dwarf figure, probably intended for a child, by a lock of
his hair, and with the other hand directing his attention to a seated
figure in the compartment below. This latter figure has apparently the
head of a sheep, and as the head is surrounded with a large nimbus,
and the right hand is held out in the attitude of benediction, it
may be intended to represent the Lamb. This personage is seated on
something which is difficult to make out, but which looks somewhat
like a crab-fish. The boy in the compartment above carries a large
basin in his arms. The adjoining compartment to the right contains the
representation of a conflict between a dragon, a winged serpent, and a
winged fox. On the opposite side of the door, two winged monsters are
represented devouring a lamb's head. I owe the drawing from which this
and the preceding engraving were made to my friend Mr. John Robinson,
the architect, who made the sketches while travelling with the medal
of the Royal Academy. Figures of dragons, as ornaments, were great
favourites with the peoples of the Teutonic race; they were creatures
intimately wrapped up in their national mythology and romance, and they
are found on all their artistic monuments mingled together in grotesque
forms and groups. When the Anglo-Saxons began to ornament their books,
the dragon was continually introduced for ornamental borders and
in forming initial letters. One of the latter, from an Anglo-Saxon
manuscript of the tenth century (the well-known manuscript of Cædmon,
where it is given as an initial V), is represented in our cut on the
next page, No. 27.
[Illustration: _No. 27. Anglo-Saxon Dragons._]
Caricature and burlesque are naturally intended to be heard and seen
publicly, and would therefore be figured on such monuments as were most
exposed to popular gaze. Such was the case, in the earlier periods of
the middle ages, chiefly with ecclesiastical buildings, which explains
how they became the grand receptacles of this class of Art. We have few
traces of what may be termed comic literature among our Anglo-Saxon
forefathers, but this is fully explained by the circumstance that very
little of the popular Anglo-Saxon literature has been preserved. In
their festive hours the Anglo-Saxons seem to have especially amused
themselves in boasting of what they had done, and what they could do;
and these boasts were perhaps often of a burlesque character, like the
_gabs_ of the French and Anglo-Norman romancers of a later date, or
so extravagant as to produce laughter. The chieftains appear also to
have encouraged men who could make jokes, and satirise and caricature
others; for the company of such men seems to have been cherished, and
they are not unfrequently introduced in the stories. Such a personage,
as I have remarked before, is Hunferth in Beowulf; such was the Sir
Kay of the later Arthurian romances; and such too was the Norman
minstrel in the history of Hereward, who amused the Norman soldiers at
their feasts by mimicry of the manners of their Anglo-Saxon opponents.
The too personal satire of these wits often led to quarrels, which
ended in sanguinary brawls. The Anglo-Saxon love of caricature is
shown largely in their proper names, which were mostly significant of
personal qualities their parents hoped they would possess; and in these
we remark the proneness of the Teutonic race, as well as the peoples
of antiquity, to represent these qualities by the animals supposed to
possess them, the animals most popular being the wolf and the bear.
But it is not to be expected that the hopes of the parents in giving
the name would always be fulfilled, and it is not an uncommon thing
to find individuals losing their original names to receive in their
place nicknames, or names which probably expressed qualities they did
possess, and which were given to them by their acquaintances. These
names, though often not very complimentary, and even sometimes very
much the contrary, completely superseded the original name, and were
even accepted by the individuals to whom they applied. The second names
were indeed so generally acknowledged, that they were used in signing
legal documents. An Anglo-Saxon abbess of rank, whose real name was
Hrodwaru, but who was known universally by the name Bugga, the Bug,
wrote this latter name in signing charters. We can hardly doubt that
such a name was intended to ascribe to her qualities of a not agreeable
character, and very different to those implied by the original name,
which perhaps meant, a dweller in heaven. Another lady gained the name
of the Crow. It is well known that surnames did not come into use
till long after the Anglo-Saxon period, but appellatives, like these
nicknames, were often added to the name for the purpose of distinction,
or at pleasure, and these, too, being given by other people, were
frequently satirical. Thus, one Harold, for his swiftness, was called
Hare-foot; a well-known Edith, for the elegant form of her neck,
was called Swan-neck; and a Thurcyl, for a form of his head, which
can hardly have been called beautiful, was named Mare's-head. Among
many other names, quite as satirical as the last-mentioned, we find
Flat-nose, the Ugly Squint-eye, Hawk-nose, &c.
Of Anglo-Saxon sculpture we have little left, but we have a few
illuminated manuscripts which present here and there an attempt at
caricature, though they are rare. It would seem, however, that the two
favourite subjects of caricature among the Anglo-Saxons were the clergy
and the evil one. We have abundant evidence that, from the eighth
century downwards, neither the Anglo-Saxon clergy nor the Anglo-Saxon
nuns were generally objects of much respect among the people; and their
character and the manner of their lives sufficiently account for it.
Perhaps, also, it was increased by the hostility between the old clergy
and the new reformers of Dunstan's party, who would no doubt caricature
each other. A manuscript psalter, in the University Library, Cambridge
(Ff. 1, 23), of the Anglo-Saxon period, and apparently of the tenth
century, illustrated with rather grotesque initial letters, furnishes
us with the figure of a jolly Anglo-Saxon monk, given in our cut No.
28, and which it is hardly necessary to state represents the letter Q.
As we proceed, we shall see the clergy continuing to furnish a butt for
the shafts of satire through all the middle ages.
[Illustration: _No. 28. A Jolly Monk._]
[Illustration: _No. 29. Satan in Bonds._]
The inclination to give to the demons (the middle ages always looked
upon them as innumerable) monstrous forms, which easily ran into the
grotesque, was natural, and the painter, indeed, prided himself on
drawing them ugly; but he was no doubt influenced in so generally
caricaturing them, by mixing up this idea with those furnished by the
popular superstitions of the Teutonic race, who believed in multitudes
of spirits, representatives of the ancient satyrs, who were of a
playfully malicious description, and went about plaguing mankind in
a very droll manner, and sometimes appeared to them in equally droll
forms. They were the Pucks and Robin Goodfellows of later times;
but the Christian missionaries to the west taught their converts to
believe, and probably believed themselves, that all these imaginary
beings were real demons, who wandered over the earth for people's ruin
and destruction. Thus the grotesque imagination of the converted people
was introduced into the Christian system of demonology. It is a part of
the subject to which we shall return in our next chapter; but I will
here introduce two examples of the Anglo-Saxon demons. To explain the
first of these, it will be necessary to state that, according to the
mediæval notions, Satan, the arch demon, who had fallen from heaven
for his rebellion against the Almighty, was not a free agent who went
about tempting mankind, but he was himself plunged in the abyss,
where he was held in bonds, and tormented by the demons who peopled
the infernal regions, and also issued thence to seek their prey upon
God's newest creation, the earth. The history of Satan's fall, and the
description of his position (No. 29), form the subject of the earlier
part of the Anglo-Saxon poetry ascribed to Cædmon, and it is one of
the illuminations to the manuscript of Cædmon (which is now preserved
at Oxford), which has furnished us with our cut, representing Satan
in his bonds. The fiend is here pictured bound to stakes, over what
appears to be a gridiron, while one of the demons, rising out of a
fiery furnace, and holding in his hand an instrument of punishment,
seems to be exulting over him, and at the same time urging on the troop
of grotesque imps who are swarming round and tormenting their victim.
The next cut, No. 30, is also taken from an Anglo-Saxon manuscript,
preserved in the British Museum (MS. Cotton., Tiberius, C. vi.), which
belongs to the earlier half of the eleventh century, and contains a
copy of the psalter. It gives us the Anglo-Saxon notion of the demon
under another form, equally characteristic, wearing only a girdle
of flames, but in this case the especial singularity of the design
consists in the eyes in the fiend's wings.
[Illustration: _No. 30. Satan._]
[Illustration: _No. 31. The Temptation._]
[Illustration: _No. 32. David and the Lion._]
Another circumstance had no doubt an influence on the mediæval taste
for grotesque and caricature--the natural rudeness of early mediæval
art. The writers of antiquity tell us of a remote period of Grecian
art when it was necessary to write under each figure of a picture the
name of what it was intended to represent, in order to make the whole
intelligible--"this is a horse," "this is a man," "this is a tree."
Without being quite so rude as this, the early mediæval artists,
through ignorance of perspective, want of knowledge of proportion, and
of skill in drawing, found great difficulty in representing a scene in
which there was more than one figure, and in which it was necessary
to distinguish them from each other; and they were continually trying
to help themselves by adopting conventional forms or conventional
positions, and by sometimes adding symbols that did not exactly
represent what they meant. The exaggeration in form consisted chiefly
in giving an undue prominence to some characteristic feature, which
answered the same purpose as the Anglo-Saxon nickname and distinctive
name, and which is, in fact, one of the first principles of all
caricature. Conventional positions partook much of the character of
conventional forms, but gave still greater room for grotesque. Thus
the very first characteristics of mediæval art implied the existence
of caricature, and no doubt led to the taste for the grotesque. The
effect of this influence is apparent everywhere, and in innumerable
cases serious pictures of the gravest and most important subjects are
simply and absolutely caricatures. Anglo-Saxon art ran much into this
style, and is often very grotesque in character. The first example we
give (cut No. 31) is taken from one of the illustrations to Alfric's
Anglo-Saxon version of the Pentateuch, in the profusely illuminated
manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Cotton., Claudius B iv.), which
was written at the end of the tenth, or beginning of the eleventh,
century. It represents the temptation and fall of man; and the subject
is treated, as will be seen, in a rather grotesque manner. Eve is
evidently dictating to her husband, who, in obeying her, shows a
mixture of eagerness and trepidation. Adam is no less evidently going
to swallow the apple whole, which is, perhaps, in accordance with the
mediæval legend, according to which the fruit stuck in his throat. It
is hardly necessary to remark that the tree is entirely a conventional
one; and it would be difficult to imagine how it came to bear apples at
all. The mediæval artists were extremely unskilful in drawing trees;
to these they usually gave the forms of cabbages, or some such plants,
of which the form was simple, or often of a mere bunch of leaves. Our
next example (cut No. 32) is also Anglo-Saxon, and is furnished by
the manuscript in the British Museum already mentioned (MS. Cotton.,
Tiberius C vi.) It probably represents young David killing the lion,
and is remarkable not only for the strange posture and bad proportions
of the man, but for the tranquillity of the animal and the exaggerated
and violent action of its slayer. This is very commonly the case in the
mediæval drawings and sculptures, the artists apparently possessing
far less skill in representing action in an animal than in man, and
therefore more rarely attempting it. These illustrations are both taken
from illuminated manuscripts. The two which follow are furnished by
sculptures, and are of a rather later date than the preceding. The
abbey of St. George of Boscherville, in the diocese of Auxerre (in
Normandy), was founded by Ralph de Tancarville, one of the ministers of
William the Conqueror, and therefore in the latter half of the eleventh
century. A history of this religious house was published by a clever
local antiquary--M. Achille Deville--from whose work we take our cut
No. 33, one of a few rude sculptures on the abbey church, which no
doubt belonged to the original fabric. It is not difficult to recognise
the subject as Joseph taking the Virgin Mary with her Child into
Egypt; but there is something exceedingly droll in the unintentional
caricature of the faces, as well as in the whole design. The Virgin
Mary appears without a nimbus, while the nimbus of the Infant Jesus
is made to look very like a bonnet. It may be remarked that this
subject of the flight into Egypt is by no means an uncommon one in
mediæval art; and a drawing of the same subject, copied in my "History
of Domestic Manners and Sentiments" (p. 115), presents a remarkable
illustration of the contrast of the skill of a Norman sculptor and of
an almost contemporary Anglo-Norman illuminator. Our cut also furnishes
us with evidence of the error of the old opinion that ladies rode
astride in the middle ages. Even one, who by his style of art must have
been an obscure local carver on stone, when he represented a female on
horseback, placed her in the position which has always been considered
suitable to the sex.
[Illustration: _No. 33. The flight into Egypt._]
[Illustration: _No. 34. David and Goliah._]
For the drawing of the other sculpture to which I allude, I am indebted
to Mr. Robinson. It is one of the subjects carved on the façade of
the church of St. Gilles, near Nismes, and is a work of the twelfth
century. It appears to represent the young David slaying the giant
Goliah, the latter fully armed in scale armour, and with shield and
spear, like a Norman knight; while to David the artist has given a
figure which is feminine in its forms. What we might take at first
sight for a basket of apples, appears to be meant for a supply of
stones for the sling which the young hero carries suspended from his
neck. He has slain the giant with one of these, and is cutting off his
head with his own sword.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DIABOLICAL IN CARICATURE.--MEDIÆVAL LOVE OF THE
LUDICROUS.--CAUSES WHICH MADE IT INFLUENCE THE NOTIONS
OF DEMONS.--STORIES OF THE PIOUS PAINTER AND THE ERRING
MONK.--DARKNESS AND UGLINESS CARICATURED.--THE DEMONS IN THE
MIRACLE PLAYS.--THE DEMON OF NOTRE DAME.
As I have already stated in the last chapter, there can be no doubt
that the whole system of the demonology of the middle ages was
derived from the older pagan mythology. The demons of the monkish
legends were simply the elves and hobgoblins of our forefathers, who
haunted woods, and fields, and waters, and delighted in misleading
or plaguing mankind, though their mischief was usually of a rather
mirthful character. They were represented in classical mythology by
the fauns and satyrs who had, as we have seen, much to do with the
birth of comic literature among the Greeks and Romans; but these
Teutonic elves were more ubiquitous than the satyrs, as they even
haunted men's houses, and played tricks, not only of a mischievous,
but of a very familiar character. The Christian clergy did not look
upon the personages of the popular superstitions as fabulous beings,
but they taught that they were all diabolical, and that they were
so many agents of the evil one, constantly employed in enticing and
entrapping mankind. Hence, in the mediæval legends, we frequently find
demons presenting themselves under ludicrous forms or in ludicrous
situations; or performing acts, such as eating and drinking, which are
not in accordance with their real character; or at times even letting
themselves be outwitted or entrapped by mortals in a very undignified
manner. Although they assumed any form they pleased, their natural form
was remarkable chiefly for being extremely ugly; one of them, which
appeared in a wild wood, is described by Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote
at the end of the twelfth century, as being hairy, shaggy, and rough,
and monstrously deformed.[24] According to a mediæval story, which
was told in different forms, a great man's cellar was once haunted by
these demons, who drank all his wine, while the owner was totally at a
loss to account for its rapid disappearance. After many unsuccessful
attempts to discover the depredators, some one, probably suspecting
the truth, suggested that he should mark one of the barrels with holy
water, and next morning a demon, much resembling the description given
by Giraldus, was found stuck fast to the barrel. It is told also of
Edward the Confessor, that he once went to see the tribute called
the Danegeld, and it was shown to him all packed up in great barrels
ready to be sent away--for this appears to have been the usual mode
of transporting large quantities of money. The saintly king had the
faculty of being able to see spiritual beings--a sort of spiritual
second-sight--and he beheld seated on the largest barrel, a devil, who
was "black and hideous."
_Vit un déable saer desus
Le tresor, noir et hidus._--Life of S. Edward, l. 944.
[Illustration: _No. 35. The Demon of the Treasure._]
An early illuminator, in a manuscript preserved in the library of
Trinity College, Cambridge (MS. Trin. Col., B x. 2), has left us a
pictorial representation of this scene, from which I copy his notion
of the form of the demon in cut No. 35. The general idea is evidently
taken from the figure of the goat, and the relationship between the
demon and the classical satyr is very evident.
[24] "Formam quandam villosam, hispidam, et hirsutam, adeoque enormiter
deformem." Girald. Camb., Itiner. Camb., lib. i. c. 5.
Ugliness was an essential characteristic of the demons, and, moreover,
their features have usually a mirthful cast, as though they greatly
enjoyed their occupation. There is a mediæval story of a young
monk, who was sacristan to an abbey, and had the directions of the
building and ornamentation. The carvers of stone were making admirable
representations of hell and paradise, in the former of which the demons
"seemed to take great delight in well tormenting their victims"--
_Qui par semblant se delitoit
En ce que bien les tormentoit._
The sacristan, who watched the sculptors every day, was at last moved
by pious zeal to try and imitate them, and he set to work to make a
devil himself, with such success, that his fiend was so black and ugly
that nobody could look at it without terror.
_Tant qu'un déable à fere emprist;
Si i mist sa poine et sa cure,
Que la forme fu si oscure
Et si laide, que cil doutast
Que entre deus oilz l'esgardast._
The sacristan, encouraged by his success--for it must be understood
that his art was a sudden inspiration (as he had not been an artist
before)--continued his work till it was completed, and then "it was so
horrible and so ugly, that all who saw it affirmed upon their oaths
that they had never seen so ugly a figure either in sculpture or in
painting, or one which had so repulsive an appearance, or a devil which
was a better likeness than the one this monk had made for them"--
_Si horribles fu et si lez,
Que trestouz cels que le véoient
Seur leur serement afermoient
C'onques mès si laide figure,
Ne en taille ne en peinture,
N'avoient à nul jor véue,
Qui si éust laide véue,
Ne déable miex contrefet
Que cil moines leur avoit fet._--Meon's Fabliaux, tom. ii. p. 414.
The demon himself now took offence at the affront which had been
put upon him, and appearing the night following to the sacristan,
reproached him with having made him so ugly, and enjoined him to break
the sculpture, and execute another representing him better looking, on
pain of very severe punishment; but, although this visit was repeated
thrice, the pious monk refused to comply. The evil one now began to
work in another way, and, by his cunning, he drew the sacristan into a
disgraceful amour with a lady of the neighbourhood, and they plotted
not only to elope together by night, but to rob the monastery of its
treasure, which was of course in the keeping of the sacristan. They
were discovered, and caught in their flight, laden with the treasure,
and the unfaithful sacristan was thrown into prison. The fiend now
appeared to him, and promised to clear him out of all his trouble on
the mere condition that he should break his ugly statue, and make
another representing him as looking handsome--a bargain to which the
sacristan acceded without further hesitation. It would thus appear that
the demons did not like to be represented ugly. In this case, the fiend
immediately took the form and place of the sacristan, while the latter
went to his bed as if nothing had happened. When the other monks found
him there next morning, and heard him disclaim all knowledge of the
robbery or of the prison, they hurried to the latter place, and found
the devil in chains, who, when they attempted to exorcise him, behaved
in a very turbulent manner, and disappeared from their sight. The
monks believed that it was all a deception of the evil one, while the
sacristan, who was not inclined to brave his displeasure a second time,
performed faithfully his part of the contract, and made a devil who
did not look ugly. In another version of the story, however, it ends
differently. After the third warning, the monk went in defiance of the
devil, and made his picture uglier than ever; in revenge for which the
demon came unexpectedly and broke the ladder on which he was mounted
at his work, whereby the monk would undoubtedly have been killed. But
the Virgin, to whom he was much devoted, came to his assistance, and,
seizing him with her hand, and holding him in the air, disappointed
the devil of his purpose. It is this latter _dénouement_ which is
represented in the cut No. 36, taken from the celebrated manuscript in
the British Museum known as "Queen Mary's Psalter" (MS. Reg. 2 B vii.).
The two demons employed here present, well defined, the air of mirthful
jollity which was evidently derived from the popular hobgoblins.
[Illustration: _No. 36. The Pious Sculptor._]
[Illustration: _No. 37. The Monk's Disaster._]
[Illustration: _No. 38. The Demons Disappointed._]
There was another popular story, which also was told under several
forms. The old Norman historians tell it of their duke Richard
Sans-Peur. There was a monk of the abbey of St. Ouen, who also held
the office of sacristan, but, neglecting the duties of his position,
entered into an intrigue with a lady who dwelt in the neighbourhood,
and was accustomed at night to leave the abbey secretly, and repair
to her. His place as sacristan enabled him thus to leave the house
unknown to the other brethren. On his way, he had to pass the little
river Robec, by means of a plank or wooden bridge, and one night
the demons, who had been watching him on his errand of sin, caught
him on the bridge, and threw him over into the water, where he was
drowned. One devil seized his soul, and would have carried it away,
but an angel came to claim him on account of his good actions, and
the dispute ran so high, that duke Richard, whose piety was as great
as his courage, was called in to decide it. The same manuscript from
which our last cut was taken has furnished our cut No. 37, which
represents two demons tripping up the monk, and throwing him very
unceremoniously into the river. The body of one of the demons here
assumes the form of an animal, instead of taking, like the other, that
of a man, and he is, moreover, furnished with a dragon's wings. There
was one version of this story, in which it found its place among the
legends of the Virgin Mary, instead of those of duke Richard. The
monk, in spite of his failings, had been a constant worshipper of the
Virgin, and, as he was falling from the bridge into the river, she
stepped forward to protect him from his persecutors, and taking hold
of him with her hand, saved him from death. One of the compartments
of the rather early wall-paintings in Winchester Cathedral represents
the scene according to this version of the story, and is copied in
our cut No. 38. The fiends here take more fantastic shapes than we
have previously seen given to them. They remind us already of the
infinitely varied grotesque forms which the painters of the age of the
Renaissance crowded together in such subjects as "The Temptation of
St. Anthony." In fact these strange notions of the forms of the demons
were not only preserved through the whole period of the middle ages,
but are still hardly extinct. They appear in almost exaggerated forms
in the illustrations to books of a popular religious character which
appeared in the first ages of printing. I may quote, as an example, one
of the cuts of an early and very rare block-book, entitled the _Ars
Moriendi_, or "Art of Dying," or, in a second title, _De Tentationibus
Morientium_, on the temptations to which dying men are exposed. The
scene, of which a part is given in the annexed cut (No. 39), is in the
room of the dying man, whose bed is surrounded by three demons, who
are come to tempt him, while his relatives of both sexes are looking
on quite unconscious of their presence. The figures of these demons
are particularly grotesque, and their ugly features betray a degree of
vulgar cunning which adds not a little to this effect. The one leaning
over the dying man suggests to him the words expressed in the label
issuing from his mouth, _Provideas amicis_, "provide for your friends;"
while the one whose head appears to the left whispers to him, _Yntende
thesauro_, "think of your treasure." The dying man seems grievously
perplexed with the various thoughts thus suggested to him.
[Illustration: _No. 39. A Mediæval Death-bed._]
[Illustration: _No. 40. Condemned Souls carried to their Place of
Punishment._]
Why did the mediæval Christians think it necessary to make the devils
black and ugly? The first reply to this question which presents itself
is, that the characteristics intended to be represented were the
blackness and ugliness of sin. This, however, is only partially the
explanation of the fact; for there can be no doubt that the notion
was a popular one, and that it had previously existed in the popular
mythology; and, as has been already remarked, the ugliness exhibited
by them is a vulgar, mirthful ugliness, which makes you laugh instead
of shudder. Another scene, from the interesting drawings at the foot
of the pages in "Queen Mary's Psalter," is given in our cut No. 40. It
represents that most popular of mediæval pictures, and, at the same
time, most remarkable of literal interpretations, hell mouth. The
entrance to the infernal regions was always represented pictorially
as the mouth of a monstrous animal, where the demons appeared leaving
and returning. Here they are seen bringing the sinful souls to their
last destination, and it cannot be denied that they are doing the work
right merrily and jovially. In our cut No. 41, from the manuscript in
the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, which furnished a former
subject, three demons, who appear to be the guardians of the entrance
to the regions below--for it is upon the brow above the monstrous mouth
that they are standing--present varieties of the diabolical form. The
one in the middle is the most remarkable, for he has wings not only
on his shoulders, but also on his knees and heels. All three have
horns; in fact, the three special characteristics of mediæval demons
were horns, hoofs--or, at least, the feet of beasts,--and tails, which
sufficiently indicate the source from which the popular notions of
these beings were derived. In the cathedral of Treves, there is a mural
painting by William of Cologne, a painter of the fifteenth century,
which represents the entrance to the shades, the monstrous mouth, with
its keepers, in still more grotesque forms. Our cut No. 42 gives but a
small portion of this picture, in which the porter of the regions of
punishment is sitting astride the snout of the monstrous mouth, and
is sounding with a trumpet what may be supposed to be the call for
those who are condemned. Another minstrel of the same stamp, spurred,
though not booted, sits astride the tube of the trumpet, playing on
the bagpipes; and the sound which issues from the former instrument is
represented by a host of smaller imps who are scattering themselves
about.
[Illustration: _No. 41. The Guardians of Hell Mouth._]
[Illustration: _No. 42. The Trumpeter of Evil._]
It must not be supposed that, in subjects like these, the drollery of
the scene was accidental; but, on the contrary, the mediæval artists
and popular writers gave them this character purposely. The demons and
the executioners--the latter of whom were called in Latin _tortores_,
and in popular old English phraseology the "tormentours"--were the
comic characters of the time, and the scenes in the old mysteries or
religious plays in which they were introduced were the comic scenes,
or farce, of the piece. The love of burlesque and caricature was,
indeed, so deeply planted in the popular mind, that it was found
necessary to introduce them even in pious works, in which such scenes
as the slaughter of the innocents, where the "knights" and the women
abused each other in vulgar language, the treatment of Christ at
the time of His trial, some parts of the scene of the crucifixion,
and the day of judgment, were essentially comic. The last of these
subjects, especially, was a scene of mirth, because it often consisted
throughout of a coarse satire on the vices of the age, especially on
those which were most obnoxious to the populace, such as the pride and
vanity of the higher ranks, and the extortions and frauds of usurers,
bakers, taverners, and others. In the play of "Juditium," or the day
of doom, in the "Towneley Mysteries," one of the earliest collections
of mysteries in the English language, the whole conversation among
the demons is exactly of that joking kind which we might expect from
their countenances in the pictures. When one of them appears carrying
a bag full of different offences, another, his companion, is so joyful
at this circumstance, that he says it makes him laugh till he is out
of breath, or, in other words, till he is ready to burst; and, while
asking if anger be not among the sins he had collected, proposes to
treat him with something to drink--
Primus dæmon. _Peasze, I pray the, be stille; I laghe that I kynke.
Is oghte ire in thi bille? and then salle thou drynke._
--Towneley Mysteries, p. 309.
And in the continuation of the conversation, one telling of the events
which had preceded the announcement of Doomsday says, rather jeeringly,
and somewhat exultingly, "Souls came so thick now of late to hell, that
our porter at hell gate is ever held so close at work, up early and
down late, that he never rests"--
_Saules cam so thyk now late unto helle,
As ever
Oure porter at helle gate
Is halden so strate,
Up erly and downe late,
He rystys never._--Ib., p. 314.
With such popular notions on the subject, we have no reason to be
surprised that the artists of the middle ages frequently chose the
figures of demons as objects on which to exercise their skill in
burlesque and caricature, that they often introduced grotesque figures
of their heads and bodies in the sculptured ornamentation of building,
and that they presented them in ludicrous situations and attitudes in
their pictures. They are often brought in as secondary actors in a
picture in a very singular manner, of which an excellent example is
furnished by the beautifully illuminated manuscript known as "Queen
Mary's Psalter," which is copied in our cut No. 43. Nothing is more
certain than that in this instance the intention of the artist was
perfectly serious. Eve, under the influence of a rather singularly
formed serpent, having the head of a beautiful woman and the body of
a dragon, is plucking the apples and offering them to Adam, who is
preparing to eat one, with evident hesitation and reluctance. But three
demons, downright hobgoblins, appear as secondary actors in the scene,
who exercise an influence upon the principals. One is patting Eve
on the shoulder, with an air of approval and encouragement, while a
second, with wings, is urging on Adam, and apparently laughing at his
apprehensions; and a third, in a very ludicrous manner, is preventing
him from drawing back from the trial.
[Illustration: _No. 43. The Fall of Man._]
In all the delineations of demons we have yet seen, the ludicrous is
the spirit which chiefly predominates, and in no one instance have
we had a figure which is really demoniacal. The devils are droll but
not frightful; they provoke laughter, or at least excite a smile,
but they create no horror. Indeed, they torment their victims so
good-humouredly, that we hardly feel for them. There is, however, one
well-known instance in which the mediæval artist has shown himself
fully successful in representing the features of the spirit of evil. On
the parapet of the external gallery of the cathedral church of Notre
Dame in Paris, there is a figure in stone, of the ordinary stature of
a man, representing the demon, apparently looking with satisfaction
upon the inhabitants of the city as they were everywhere indulging in
sin and wickedness. We give a sketch of this figure in our cut No. 44.
The unmixed evil--horrible in its expression in this countenance--is
marvellously portrayed. It is an absolute Mephistophiles, carrying in
his features a strange mixture of hateful qualities--malice, pride,
envy--in fact, all the deadly sins combined in one diabolical whole.
[Illustration: _No. 44. The Spirit of Evil._]
CHAPTER V.
EMPLOYMENT OF ANIMALS IN MEDIÆVAL SATIRE.--POPULARITY OF FABLES;
ODO DE CIRINGTON.--REYNARD THE FOX.--BURNELLUS AND FAUVEL.--THE
CHARIVARI.--LE MONDE BESTORNÉ.--ENCAUSTIC TILES.--SHOEING THE
GOOSE, AND FEEDING PIGS WITH ROSES.--SATIRICAL SIGNS; THE MUSTARD
MAKER.
The people of the middle ages appear to have been great admirers
of animals, to have observed closely their various characters and
peculiarities, and to have been fond of domesticating them. They
soon began to employ their peculiarities as means of satirising and
caricaturing mankind; and among the literature bequeathed to them by
the Romans, they received no book more eagerly than the "Fables of
Æsop," and the other collections of fables which were published under
the empire. We find no traces of fables among the original literature
of the German race; but the tribes who took possession of the Roman
provinces no sooner became acquainted with the fables of the ancients,
than they began to imitate them, and stories in which animals acted
the part of men were multiplied immensely, and became a very important
branch of mediæval fiction.
Among the Teutonic peoples especially, these fables often assumed very
grotesque forms, and the satire they convey is very amusing. One of the
earliest of these collections of original fables was composed by an
English ecclesiastic named Odo de Cirington, who lived in the time of
Henry II. and Richard I. In Odo's fables, we find the animals figuring
under the same popular names by which they were afterwards so well
known, such as Reynard for the Fox, Isengrin for the wolf, Teburg for
the cat, and the like. Thus the subject of one of them is "Isengrin
made Monk" (_de Isengrino monacho_). "Once," we are told, "Isengrin
desired to be a monk. By dint of fervent supplications, he obtained
the consent of the chapter, and received the tonsure, the cowl, and
the other insignia of monachism. At length they put him to school,
and he was to learn the 'Paternoster,' but he always replied, 'lamb'
(_agnus_) or 'ram' (_aries_). The monks taught him that he ought to
look upon the crucifix and upon the sacrament, but he ever directed his
eyes to the lambs and rams." The fable is droll enough, but the moral,
or application is still more grotesque. "Such is the conduct of many
of the monks, whose only cry is 'aries,' that is, good wine, and who
have their eyes always fixed on fat flesh and their platter;" whence the
saying in English--
_They thou the vulf hore_ _Though thou the hoary wolf_
_hod to preste,_ _consecrate to a priest,_
_they thou him to skole sette_ _though thou put him to school_
_salmes to lerne,_ _to learn Psalms,_
_hevere bet hise geres_ _ever are his ears turned_
_to the grove grene_. _to the green grove._
These lines are in the alliterative verse of the Anglo-Saxons, and
show that such fables had already found their place in the popular
poetry of the English people. Another of these fables is entitled "Of
the Beetle (_serabo_) and his Wife." "A beetle, flying through the
land, passed among most beautiful blooming trees, through orchards
and among roses and lilies, in the most lovely places, and at length
threw himself upon a dunghill among the dung of horses, and found there
his wife, who asked him whence he came. And the beetle said, 'I have
flown all round the earth and through it; I have seen the flowers of
almonds, and lilies, and roses, but I have seen no place so pleasant as
this,' pointing to the dunghill." The application is equally droll with
the former and equally uncomplimentary to the religious part of the
community. Odo de Cirington tells us that, "Thus many of the clergy,
monks, and laymen listen to the lives of the fathers, pass among the
lilies of the virgins, among the roses of the martyrs, and among the
violets of the confessors, yet nothing ever appears so pleasant and
agreeable as a strumpet, or the tavern, or a singing party, though it
is but a stinking dunghill and congregation of sinners."
[Illustration: _No. 45. The Fox in the Pulpit._]
[Illustration: _No. 46. Ecclesiastical Sincerity._]
[Illustration: _No. 47. Reynard turned Monk._]
Popular sculpture and painting were but the translation of popular
literature, and nothing was more common to represent, in pictures
and carvings, than individual men under the forms of the animals
who displayed similar characters or similar propensities. Cunning,
treachery, and intrigue were the prevailing vices of the middle ages,
and they were those also of the fox, who hence became a favourite
character in satire. The victory of craft over force always provoked
mirth. The fabulists, or, we should perhaps rather say, the satirists,
soon began to extend their canvas and enlarge their picture, and,
instead of single examples of fraud or injustice, they introduced
a variety of characters, not only foxes, but wolves, and sheep,
and bears, with birds also, as the eagle, the cock, and the crow,
and mixed them up together in long narratives, which thus formed
general satires on the vices of contemporary society. In this manner
originated the celebrated romance of "Reynard the Fox," which in
various forms, from the twelfth century to the eighteenth, has enjoyed
a popularity which was granted probably to no other book. The plot of
this remarkable satire turns chiefly on the long struggle between the
brute force of Isengrin the Wolf, possessed only with a small amount
of intelligence, which is easily deceived--under which character is
presented the powerful feudal baron--and the craftiness of Reynard
the Fox, who represents the intelligent portion of society, which had
to hold its ground by its wits, and these were continually abused to
evil purposes. Reynard is swayed by a constant impulse to deceive
and victimise everybody, whether friends or enemies, but especially
his uncle Isengrin. It was somewhat the relationship between the
ecclesiastical and baronial aristocracy. Reynard was educated in the
schools, and intended for the clerical order; and at different times
he is represented as acting under the disguise of a priest, of a monk,
of a pilgrim, or even of a prelate of the church. Though frequently
reduced to the greatest straits by the power of Isengrin, Reynard
has generally the better of it in the end: he robs and defrauds
Isengrin continually, outrages his wife, who is half in alliance
with him, and draws him into all sorts of dangers and sufferings,
for which the latter never succeeds in obtaining justice. The old
sculptors and artists appear to have preferred exhibiting Reynard in
his ecclesiastical disguises, and in these he appears often in the
ornamentation of mediæval architectural sculpture, in wood-carvings,
in the illuminations of manuscripts, and in other objects of art. The
popular feeling against the clergy was strong in the middle ages, and
no caricature was received with more favour than those which exposed
the immorality or dishonesty of a monk or a priest. Our cut No. 45 is
taken from a sculpture in the church of Christchurch, in Hampshire, for
the drawing of which I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt.
It represents Reynard in the pulpit preaching; behind, or rather
perhaps beside him, a diminutive cock stands upon a stool--in modern
times we should be inclined to say he was acting as clerk. Reynard's
costume consists merely of the ecclesiastical hood or cowl. Such
subjects are frequently found on the carved seats, or misereres, in the
stalls of the old cathedrals and collegiate churches. The painted glass
of the great window of the north cross-aisle of St. Martin's church in
Leicester, which was destroyed in the last century, represented the
fox, in the character of an ecclesiastic, preaching to a congregation
of geese, and addressing them in the words--_Testis est mihi Deus,
quam cupiam vos omnes visceribus meis_ (God is witness, how I desire
you all in my bowels), a parody on the words of the New Testament.[25]
Our cut No. 46 is taken from one of the misereres in the church of
St. Mary, at Beverley, in Yorkshire. Two foxes are represented in the
disguise of ecclesiastics, each furnished with a pastoral staff, and
they appear to be receiving instructions from a prelate or personage
of rank--perhaps they are undertaking a pilgrimage of penance. But
their sincerity is rendered somewhat doubtful by the geese concealed
in their hoods. In one of the incidents of the romance of Reynard,
the hero enters a monastery and becomes a monk, in order to escape the
wrath of King Noble, the lion. For some time he made an outward show of
sanctity and self-privation, but unknown to his brethren he secretly
helped himself freely to the good things of the monastery. One day he
observed, with longing lips, a messenger who brought four fat capons as
a present from a lay neighbour to the abbot. That night, when all the
monks had retired to rest, Reynard obtained admission to the larder,
regaled himself with one of the capons, and as soon as he had eaten it,
trussed the three others on his back, escaped secretly from the abbey,
and, throwing away his monastic garment, hurried home with his prey. We
might almost imagine our cut No. 47, taken from one of the stalls of
the church of Nantwich, in Cheshire, to have been intended to represent
this incident, or, at least, a similar one. Our next cut, No. 48, is
taken from a stall in the church of Boston, in Lincolnshire. A prelate,
equally false, is seated in his chair, with a mitre on his head, and
the pastoral staff in his right hand. His flock are represented by a
cock and hens, the former of which he holds securely with his right
hand, while he appears to be preaching to them.
[25] An engraving of this scene, modernised in character, is given in
Nichols's "Leicestershire," vol. i. plate 43.
[Illustration: _No. 48. The Prelate and his Flock._]
Another mediæval sculpture has furnished events for a rather curious
history, at the same time that it is a good illustration of our
subject. Odo de Cirington, the fabulist, tells us how, one day, the
wolf died, and the lion called the animals together to celebrate his
exequies. The hare carried the holy water, hedgehogs bore the candles,
the goats rang the bells, the moles dug the grave, the foxes carried
the corpse on the bier. Berengarius, the bear, celebrated mass, the ox
read the gospel, and the ass the epistle. When the mass was concluded,
and Isengrin buried, the animals made a splendid feast out of his
goods, and wished for such another funeral. Our satirical ecclesiastic
makes an application of this story which tells little to the credit
of the monks of his time. "So it frequently happens," he says, "that
when some rich man, an extortionist or a usurer, dies, the abbot or
prior of a convent of beasts, _i.e._ of men living like beasts, causes
them to assemble. For it commonly happens that in a great convent of
black or white monks (Benedictines or Augustinians) there are none
but beasts--lions by their pride, foxes by their craftiness, bears by
their voracity, stinking goats by their incontinence, asses by their
sluggishness, hedgehogs by their asperity, hares by their timidity,
because they were cowardly where there was no fear, and oxen by their
laborious cultivation of their land."[26]
[26] The Latin text of this and some others of the fables of Odo de
Cirington will be found in my "Selection of Latin Stories," pp.
50-52, 55-58, and 80.
[Illustration: _No. 49. The Funeral of the Fox._]
A scene closely resembling that here described by Odo, differing only
in the distribution of the characters, was translated from some such
written story into the pictorial language of the ancient sculptured
ornamentation of Strasburg Cathedral, where it formed, apparently,
two sides of the capital or entablature of a column near the chancel.
The deceased in this picture appears to be a fox, which was probably
the animal intended to be represented in the original, although, in
the copy of it preserved, it looks more like a squirrel. The bier is
carried by the goat and the boar, while a little dog underneath is
taking liberties with the tail of the latter. Immediately before the
bier, the hare carries the lighted taper, preceded by the wolf, who
carries the cross, and the bear, who holds in one hand the holy-water
vessel and in the other the aspersoir. This forms the first division
of the subject, and is represented in our cut No. 49. In the next
division (cut No. 50), the stag is represented celebrating mass, and
the ass reads the Gospel from a book which the cat supports with its
head.
[Illustration: _No. 50. The Mass for the Fox._]
This curious sculpture is said to have been of the thirteenth century.
In the fifteenth century it attracted the attention of the reformers,
who looked upon it as an ancient protest against the corruptions of
the mass, and one of the more distinguished of them, John Fischart,
had it copied and engraved on wood, and published it about the year
1580, with some verses of his own, in which it was interpreted as a
satire upon the papacy. This publication gave such dire offence to the
ecclesiastical authorities of Strasburg, that the Lutheran bookseller
who had ventured to publish it, was compelled to make a public apology
in the church, and the wood-engraving and all the impressions were
seized and burnt by the common hangman. A few years later, however, in
1608, another engraving was made, and published in a large folio with
Fischart's verses; and it is from the diminished copy of this second
edition--given in Flögel's "Geschichte des Komisches Literatur"--that
our cuts are taken. The original Sculpture was still more unfortunate.
Its publication and explanation by Fischart was the cause of no little
scandal among the Catholics, who tried to retort upon their opponents
by asserting that the figures in this funeral celebration were intended
to represent the ignorance of the Protestant preachers; and the
sculpture in the church continued to be regarded by the ecclesiastical
authorities with dissatisfaction until the year 1685, when, to take
away all further ground of scandal, it was entirely defaced.
[Illustration: _No. 51. The Fox Provided._]
Reynard's mediæval celebrity dates certainly from a rather early
period. Montflaucon has given an alphabet of ornamental initial
letters, formed chiefly of figures of men and animals, from a
manuscript which he ascribes to the ninth century, among which is the
one copied in our cut No. 51, representing a fox walking upon his hind
legs, and carrying two small cocks, suspended at the ends of a cross
staff. It is hardly necessary to say that this group forms the letter
T. Long before this, the Frankish historian Fredegarius, who wrote
about the middle of the seventh century, introduces a fable in which
the fox figures at the court of the lion. The same fable is repeated
by a monkish writer of Bavaria, named Fromond, who flourished in the
tenth century, and by another named Aimoinus, who lived about the year
1,000. At length, in the twelfth century, Guibert de Nogent, who died
about the year 1124, and who has left us his autobiography (_de Vita
sua_), relates an anecdote in that work, in explanation of which he
tells us that the wolf was then popularly designated by the name of
Isengrin; and in the fables of Odo, as we have already seen, this name
is commonly given to the wolf, Reynard to the fox, Teburg to the cat,
and so on with the others. This only shows that in the fables of the
twelfth century the various animals were known by these names, but it
does not prove that what we know as the romance of Reynard existed.
Jacob Grimm argued from the derivation and forms of these names, that
the fables themselves, and the romance, originated with the Teutonic
peoples, and were indigenous to them; but his reasons appear to me to
be more specious than conclusive, and I certainly lean to the opinion
of my friend Paulin Paris, that the romance of Reynard was native of
France,[27] and that it was partly founded upon old Latin legends
perhaps poems. Its character is altogether feudal, and it is strictly
a picture of society, in France primarily, and secondly in England and
the other nations of feudalism, in the twelfth century. The earliest
form in which this romance is known is in the French poem--or rather
poems, for it consists of several branches or continuations--and is
supposed to date from about the middle of the twelfth century. It soon
became so popular, that it appeared in different forms in all the
languages of Western Europe, except in England, where there appears
to have existed no edition of the romance of Reynard the Fox until
Caxton printed his prose English version of the story. From that time
it became, if possible, more popular in England than elsewhere, and
that popularity had hardly diminished down to the commencement of the
present century.
[27] See the dissertation by M. Paulin Paris, published in his nice
popular modern abridgment of the French romance, published in
1861, under the title "Les Aventures de Maître Renart et
d'Ysengrin son compère." On the debated question of the origin
of the Romance, see the learned and able work by Jonckbloet,
8vo., Groningue, 1863.
The popularity of the story of Reynard caused it to be imitated in a
variety of shapes, and this form of satire, in which animals acted
the part of men, became altogether popular. In the latter part of the
twelfth century, an Anglo-Latin poet, named Nigellus Wireker, composed
a very severe satire in elegiac verse, under the title of _Speculum
Stultorum_, the "Mirror of Fools." It is not a wise animal like the
fox, but a simple animal, the ass, who, under the name of Brunellus,
passes among the various ranks and classes of society, and notes their
crimes and vices. A prose introduction to this poem informs us that its
hero is the representative of the monks in general, who were always
longing for some new acquisition which was inconsistent with their
profession. In fact, Brunellus is absorbed with the notion that his
tail was too short, and his great ambition is to get it lengthened.
For this purpose he consults a physician, who, after representing to
him in vain the folly of his pursuit, gives him a receipt to make
his tail grow longer, and sends him to the celebrated medical school
of Salerno to obtain the ingredients. After various adventures, in
the course of which he loses a part of his tail instead of its being
lengthened, Brunellus proceeds to the University of Paris to study and
obtain knowledge; and we are treated with a most amusingly satirical
account of the condition and manners of the scholars of that time.
Soon convinced of his incapacity for learning, Brunellus abandons the
university in despair, and he resolves to enter one of the monastic
orders, the character of all which he passes in review. The greater
part of the poem consists of a very bitter satire on the corruptions of
the monkish orders and of the Church in general. While still hesitating
which order to choose, Brunellus falls into the hands of his old
master, from whom he had run away in order to seek his fortune in the
world, and he is compelled to pass the rest of his days in the same
humble and servile condition in which he had begun them.
A more direct imitation of "Reynard the Fox" is found in the early
French romance of "Fauvel," the hero of which is neither a fox nor
an ass, but a horse. People of all ranks and classes repair to the
court of Fauvel, the horse, and furnish abundant matter for satire
on the moral, political, and religious hypocrisy which pervaded the
whole frame of society. At length the hero resolves to marry, and,
in a finely illuminated manuscript of this romance, preserved in the
Imperial Library in Paris, this marriage furnishes the subject of a
picture, which gives the only representation I have met with of one of
the popular burlesque ceremonies which were so common in the middle
ages.
[Illustration: _No. 52. A Mediæval Charivari._]
Among other such ceremonies, it was customary with the populace, on the
occasion of a man's or woman's second marriage, or an ill-sorted match,
or on the espousals of people who were obnoxious to their neighbours,
to assemble outside the house, and greet them with discordant music.
This custom is said to have been practised especially in France, and
it was called a _charivari_. There is still a last remnant of it in
our country in the music of marrow-bones and cleavers, with which the
marriages of butchers are popularly celebrated; but the derivation
of the French name appears not to be known. It occurs in old Latin
documents, for it gave rise to such scandalous scenes of riot and
licentiousness, that the Church did all it could, though in vain, to
suppress it. The earliest mention of this custom, furnished in the
_Glossarium_ of Ducange, is contained in the synodal statutes of the
church of Avignon, passed in the year 1337, from which we learn that
when such marriages occurred, people forced their way into the houses
of the married couple, and carried away their goods, which they were
obliged to pay a ransom for before they were returned, and the money
thus raised was spent in getting up what is called in the statute
relating to it a _Chalvaricum_. It appears from this statute, that
the individuals who performed the _charivari_ accompanied the happy
couple to the church, and returned with them to their residence,
with coarse and indecent gestures and discordant music, and uttering
scurrilous and indecent abuse, and that they ended with feasting.
In the statutes of Meaux, in 1365, and in those of Hugh, bishop of
Beziers, in 1368, the same practice is forbidden, under the name of
_Charavallium_; and it is mentioned in a document of the year 1372,
also quoted by Ducange, under that of _Carivarium_, as then existing at
Nîmes. Again, in 1445, the Council of Tours made a decree, forbidding,
under pain of excommunication, "the insolences, clamours, sounds, and
other tumults practised at second and third nuptials, called by the
vulgar a _Charivarium_, on account of the many and grave evils arising
out of them."[28] It will be observed that these early allusions to
the _charivari_ are found almost solely in documents coming from the
Roman towns in the south of France, so that this practice was probably
one of the many popular customs derived directly from the Romans.
When Cotgrave's "Dictionary" was published (that is, in 1632) the
practice of the _charivari_ appears to have become more general in its
existence, as well as its application; for he describes it as "a public
defamation, or traducing of; a foule noise made, blacke santus rung,
to the shame and disgrace of another; hence an infamous (or infaming)
ballad sung, by an armed troupe, under the window of an old dotard,
married the day before unto a yong wanton, in mockerie of them both."
And, again, a _charivaris de poelles_ is explained as "the carting of
an infamous person, graced with the harmonie of tinging kettles and
frying-pan musicke."[29] The word is now generally used in the sense
of a great tumult of discordant music, produced often by a number of
persons playing different tunes on different instruments at the same
time.
[28] "Insultationes, clamores, sonos, et alios tumultus, in
secundis et tertiis quorundam nuptiis, quos charivarium vulgo
appellant, propter multa et gravia incommoda, prohibemus sub pœna
excommunitationis."--Ducange, v. _Charivarium_.
[29] Cotgrave's Dictionarie, v. _Charivaris_.
[Illustration: _No. 53. Continuation of the Charivari._]
As I have stated above, the manuscript of the romance of "Fauvel" is in
the Imperial Library in Paris. A copy of this illumination is engraved
in Jaime's "Musée de la Caricature," from which our cuts Nos. 52 and 53
are taken. It is divided into three compartments, one above another,
in the uppermost of which Fauvel is seen entering the nuptial chamber
to his young wife, who is already in bed. The scene in the compartment
below, which is copied in our cut No. 52, represents the street
outside, and the mock revellers performing the _charivari_; and this is
continued in the third, or lowest, compartment, which is represented
in our cut No. 53. Down each side of the original illumination is a
frame-work of windows, from which people, who have been disturbed by
the noise, are looking out upon the tumult. It will be seen that all
the performers wear masks, and that they are dressed in burlesque
costume. In confirmation of the statement of the ecclesiastical synods
as to the licentiousness of these exhibitions, we see one of the
performers here disguised as a woman, who lifts up his dress to expose
his person while dancing. The musical instruments are no less grotesque
than the costumes, for they consist chiefly of kitchen utensils, such
as frying-pans, mortars, saucepans, and the like.
[Illustration: _No. 54. The Tables Turned._]
There was another series of subjects in which animals were introduced
as the instruments of satire. This satire consisted in reverting
the position of man with regard to the animals over which he had
been accustomed to tyrannise, so that he was subjected to the same
treatment from the animals which, in his actual position, he uses
towards them. This change of relative position was called in old French
and Anglo-Norman, _le monde bestorné_, which was equivalent to the
English phrase, "the world turned upside down." It forms the subject
of rather old verses, I believe, both in French and English, and
individual scenes from it are met with in pictorial representation at
a rather early date. During the year 1862, in the course of accidental
excavations on the site of the Friary, at Derby, a number of encaustic
tiles, such as were used for the floors of the interiors of churches
and large buildings, were found.[30] The ornamentation of these tiles,
especially of the earlier ones, is, like all mediæval ornamentations,
extremely varied, and even these tiles sometimes present subjects of
a burlesque and satirical character, though they are more frequently
adorned with the arms and badges of benefactors to the church or
convent. The tiles found on the site of the priory at Derby are
believed to be of the thirteenth century, and one pattern, a diminished
copy of which is given in our cut No. 54, presents a subject taken
from the _monde bestorné_. The hare, master of his old enemy, the
dog, has become hunter himself, and seated upon the dog's back he
rides vigorously to the chace, blowing his horn as he goes. The design
is spiritedly executed, and its satirical intention is shown by the
monstrous and mirthful face, with the tongue lolling out, figured on
the outer corner of the tile. It will be seen that four of these tiles
are intended to be joined together to make the complete piece. In an
illumination in a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British
Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E iv.), the hares are taking a still more severe
vengeance on their old enemy. The dog has been caught, brought to trial
for his numerous murders, and condemned, and they are represented here
(cut No. 55) conducting him in the criminal's cart to the gallows. Our
cut No. 56, the subject of which is furnished by one of the carved
stalls in Sherborne Minster (it is here copied from the engraving
in Carter's "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture"), represents another
execution scene, similar in spirit to the former. The geese have seized
their old enemy, Reynard, and are hanging him on a gallows, while two
monks, who attend the execution, appear to be amused at the energetic
manner in which the geese perform their task. Mr. Jewitt mentions two
other subjects belonging to this series, one of them taken from an
illuminated manuscript; they are, the mouse chasing the cat, and the
horse driving the cart--the former human carter in this case taking the
place of the horse between the shafts.
[30] Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, in his excellent publication, the
_Reliquary_, for October, 1862, has given an interesting paper on
the encaustic tiles found on this occasion, and on the conventual
house to which they belonged.
[Illustration: _No. 55. Justice in the Hands of the Persecuted._]
[Illustration: _No. 56. Reynard brought to Account at Last._]
"The World turned upside down; or, the Folly of Man," has continued
amongst us to be a popular chap-book and child's book till within a
very few years, and I have now a copy before me printed in London
about the year 1790. It consists of a series of rude woodcuts, with a
few doggrel verses under each. One of these, entitled "The Ox turned
Farmer," represents two men drawing the plough, driven by an ox. In the
next, a rabbit is seen turning the spit on which a man is roasting,
while a cock holds a ladle and bastes. In a third, we see a tournament,
in which the horses are armed and ride upon the men. Another represents
the ox killing the butcher. In others we have birds netting men and
women; the ass, turned miller, employing the man-miller to carry his
sacks; the horse turned groom, and currying the man; and the fishes
angling for men and catching them.
In a cleverly sculptured ornament in Beverley Minster, represented
in our cut No. 57, the goose herself is represented in a grotesque
situation, which might almost give her a place in "The World turned
upside down," although it is a mere burlesque, without any apparent
satirical aim. The goose has here taken the place of the horse at the
blacksmith's, who is vigorously nailing the shoe on her webbed foot.
[Illustration: _No. 57. Shoeing the Goose._]
[Illustration: _No. 58. Food for Swine._]
Burlesque subjects of this description are not uncommon, especially
among architectural sculpture and wood-carving, and, at a rather
later period, on all ornamental objects. The field for such subjects
was so extensive, that the artist had an almost unlimited choice,
and therefore his subjects might be almost infinitely varied, though
we usually find them running on particular classes. The old popular
proverbs, for instance, furnished a fruitful source for drollery, and
are at times delineated in an amusingly literal or practical manner.
Pictorial proverbs and popular sayings are sometimes met with on the
carved misereres. For example, in one of those at Rouen, in Normandy,
represented in our cut No. 58, the carver has intended to represent
the idea of the old saying, in allusion to misplaced bounty, of
throwing pearls to swine, and has given it a much more picturesque and
pictorially intelligible form, by introducing a rather dashing female
feeding her swine with roses, or rather offering them roses for food,
for the swine display no eagerness to feed upon them.
[Illustration: _No. 59. The Industrious Sow._]
We meet with such subjects as these scattered over all mediæval
works of art, and at a somewhat later period they were transferred
to other objects, such as the signs of houses. The custom of placing
signs over the doors of shops and taverns, was well known to the
ancients, as is abundantly manifested by their frequent occurrence
in the ruins of Pompeii; but in the middle ages, the use of signs
and badges was universal, and as--contrary to the apparent practice
in Pompeii, where certain badges were appropriated to certain trades
and professions--every individual was free to choose his own sign,
the variety was unlimited. Many still had reference, no doubt, to the
particular calling of those to whom they belonged, while others were of
a religious character, and indicated the saint under whose protection
the householder had placed himself. Some people took animals for their
signs, others monstrous or burlesque figures; and, in fact, there were
hardly any of the subjects of caricature or burlesque familiar to
the mediæval sculptor and illuminator which did not from time to time
appear on these popular signs. A few of the old signs still preserved,
especially in the quaint old towns of France, Germany, and the
Netherlands, show us how frequently they were made the instruments of
popular satire. A sign not uncommon in France was _La Truie qui file_
(the sow spinning). Our cut No. 59 represents this subject as treated
on an old sign, a carving in bas-relief of the sixteenth century, on
a house in the Rue du Marché-aux-Poirées, in Rouen. The sow appears
here in the character of the industrious housewife, employing herself
in spinning at the same time that she is attending to the wants of her
children. There is a singularly satirical sign at Beauvais, on a house
which was formerly occupied by an _épicier-moutardier_, or grocer who
made mustard, in the Rue du Châtel. In front of this sign, which is
represented in our cut No. 60, appears a large mustard-mill, on one
side of which stands Folly with a staff in her hand, with which she
is stirring the mustard, while an ape with a sort of sardonic grin,
throws in a seasoning, which may be conjectured by his posture.[31] The
trade-mark of the individual who adopted this strange device, is carved
below.
[31] See an interesting little book on this subject by M. Ed. de
la Quérière, entitled "Recherches sur les Enseignes des Maisons
Particulières," 8vo., Rouen, 1852, from which both the above
examples are taken.
[Illustration: _No. 60. Adulteration._]
CHAPTER VI.
THE MONKEY IN BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE.--TOURNAMENTS AND SINGLE
COMBATS.--MONSTROUS COMBINATIONS OF ANIMAL FORMS.--CARICATURES ON
COSTUME.--THE HAT.--THE HELMET.--LADIES' HEAD-DRESSES.--THE GOWN,
AND ITS LONG SLEEVES.
The fox, the wolf, and their companions, were introduced as instruments
of satire, on account of their peculiar characters; but there were
other animals which were also favourites with the satirist, because
they displayed an innate inclination to imitate; they formed, as it
were, natural parodies upon mankind. I need hardly say that of these
the principal and most remarkable was the monkey. This animal must
have been known to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers from a remote period,
for they had a word for it in their own language--_apa_, our _ape_.
Monkey is a more modern name, and seems to be equivalent with maniken,
or a little man. The earliest _Bestiaries_, or popular treatises on
natural history, give anecdotes illustrative of the aptness of this
animal for imitating the actions of men, and ascribe to it a degree of
understanding which would almost raise it above the level of the brute
creation. Philip de Thaun, an Anglo-Norman poet of the reign of Henry
I., in his _Bestiary_, tells us that "the monkey, by imitation, as
books say, counterfeits what it sees, and mocks people:"--
_Li singe par figure, si cum dit escripture,
Ceo que il vait contrefait, de gent escar hait._[32]
He goes on to inform us, as a proof of the extraordinary instinct of
this animal, that it has more affection for some of its cubs than for
others, and that, when running away, it carried those which it liked
before it, and those it disliked behind its back. The sketch from the
illuminated manuscript of the Romance of the Comte d'Artois, of the
fifteenth century, which forms our cut No. 61, represents the monkey,
carrying, of course, its favourite child before it in its flight, and
what is more, it is taking that flight mounted on a donkey. A monkey on
horseback appears not to have been a novelty, as we shall see in the
sequel.
[32] See my "Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle
Ages," p. 107.
[Illustration: _No. 61. A Monkey Mounted._]
Alexander Neckam, a very celebrated English scholar of the latter part
of the twelfth century, and one of the most interesting of the early
mediæval writers on natural history, gives us many anecdotes, which
show us how much attached our mediæval forefathers were to domesticated
animals, and how common a practice it was to keep them in their houses.
The baronial castle appears often to have presented the appearance
of a menagerie of animals, among which some were of that strong and
ferocious character that rendered it necessary to keep them in close
confinement, while others, such as monkeys, roamed about the buildings
at will. One of Neckam's stories is very curious in regard to our
subject, for it shows that the people in those days exercised their
tamed animals in practically caricaturing contemporary weaknesses and
fashions. This writer remarks that "the nature of the ape is so ready
at acting, by ridiculous gesticulations, the representations of things
it has seen, and thus gratifying the vain curiosity of worldly men
in public exhibitions, that it will even dare to imitate a military
conflict. A jougleur (_histrio_) was in the habit of constantly taking
two monkeys to the military exercises which are commonly called
tournaments, that the labour of teaching might be diminished by
frequent inspection. He afterwards taught two dogs to carry these apes,
who sat on their backs, furnished with proper arms. Nor did they want
spurs, with which they strenuously urged on the dogs. Having broken
their lances, they drew out their swords, with which they spent many
blows on each other's shields. Who at this sight could refrain from
laughter?"[33]
[33] Alexander Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, lib. ii. c. 129.
[Illustration: _No. 62. A Tournament._]
Such contemporary caricatures of the mediæval tournament, which was
in its greatest fashion during the period from the twelfth to the
fourteenth century, appear to have been extremely popular, and are not
unfrequently represented in the borders of illuminated manuscripts.
The manuscript now so well known as "Queen Mary's Psalter" (MS. Reg.
2 B vii.), and written and illuminated very early in the fourteenth
century, contains not a few illustrations of this description. One of
these, which forms our cut No. 62, represents a tournament not much
unlike that described by Alexander Neckam, except that the monkeys
are here riding upon other monkeys, and not upon dogs. In fact, all
the individuals here engaged are monkeys, and the parody is completed
by the introduction of the trumpeter on one side, and of minstrelsy,
represented by a monkey playing on the tabor, on the other; or,
perhaps, the two monkeys are simply playing on the pipe and tabor,
which were looked upon as the lowest description of minstrelsy, and are
therefore the more aptly introduced into the scene.
The same manuscript has furnished us with the cut No. 63. Here the
combat takes place between a monkey and a stag, the latter having
the claws of a griffin. They are mounted, too, on rather nondescript
animals--one having the head and body of a lion, with the forefeet
of an eagle; the other having a head somewhat like that of a lion,
on a lion's body, with the hind parts of a bear. This subject may,
perhaps, be intended as a burlesque on the mediæval romances, filled
with combats between the Christians and the Saracens; for the ape--who,
in the moralisations which accompany the _Bestiaries_, is said to
represent the devil--is here armed with what are evidently intended for
the sabre and shield of a Saracen, while the flag carries the shield
and lance of a Christian knight.
[Illustration: _No. 63. A Feat of Arms._]
The love of the mediæval artists for monstrous figures of animals,
and for mixtures of animals and men, has been alluded to in a former
chapter. The combatants in the accompanying cut (No. 64), taken from
the same manuscript, present a sort of combination of the rider and
the animal, and they again seem to be intended for a Saracen and a
Christian. The figure to the right, which is composed of the body of
a satyr, with the feet of a goose and the wings of a dragon, is armed
with a similar Saracenic sabre; while that to the left, which is on
the whole less monstrous, wields a Norman sword. Both have human faces
below the navel as well as above, which was a favourite idea in the
grotesque of the middle ages. Our mediæval forefathers appear to
have had a decided taste for monstrosities of every description, and
especially for mixtures of different kinds of animals, and of animals
and men. There is no doubt, to judge by the anecdotes recorded by such
writers as Giraldus Cambrensis, that a belief in the existence of such
unnatural creatures was widely entertained. In his account of Ireland,
this writer tells us of animals which were half ox and half man, half
stag and half cow, and half dog and half monkey.[34] It is certain that
there was a general belief in such animals, and nobody could be more
credulous than Giraldus himself.
[34] See Girald. Cambr., Topog. Hiberniæ, dist. ii. cc. 21, 22; and the
Itinerary of Wales, lib. ii. c. 11.
[Illustration: _No. 64. A Terrible Combat._]
[Illustration: _No. 65. Fashionable Dress._]
The design to caricature, which is tolerably evident in the subjects
just given, is still more apparent in other grotesques that adorn
the borders of the mediæval manuscripts, as well as in some of the
mediæval carvings and sculpture. Thus, in our cut No. 65, taken from
one of the borders in the Romance of the Comte d'Artois, a manuscript
of the fifteenth century, we cannot fail to recognise an attempt at
turning to ridicule the contemporary fashions in dress. The hat is
only an exaggerated form of one which appears to have been commonly
used in France in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and which
appears frequently in illuminated manuscripts executed in Burgundy;
and the boot also belongs to the same period. The latter reappeared at
different times, until at length it became developed into the modern
top-boots. In cut No. 66, from the same manuscript, where it forms the
letter T, we have the same form of hat, still more exaggerated, and
combined at the same time with grotesque faces.
[Illustration: _No. 66. Heads and Hats._]
Caricatures on costume are by no means uncommon among the artistic
remains of the middle ages, and are not confined to illuminated
manuscripts. The fashionable dresses of those days went into far more
ridiculous excesses of shape than anything we see in our times--at
least, so far as we can believe the drawings in the manuscripts;
but these, however seriously intended, were constantly degenerating
into caricature, from circumstances which are easily explained, and
which have, in fact, been explained already in their influence on
other parts of our subject. The mediæval artists in general were not
very good delineators of form, and their outlines are much inferior
to their finish. Conscious of this, though perhaps unknowingly,
they sought to remedy the defect in a spirit which has always been
adopted in the early stages of art-progress--they aimed at making
themselves understood by giving a special prominence to the peculiar
characteristics of the objects they wished to represent. These were
the points which naturally attracted people's first attention, and
the resemblance was felt most by people in general when these points
were put forward in excessive prominence in the picture. The dresses,
perhaps, hardly existed in the exact forms in which we see them in
the illuminations, or at least those were only exceptions to the
generally more moderate forms; and hence, in using these pictorial
records as materials for the history of costume, we ought to make a
certain allowance for exaggeration--we ought, indeed, to treat them
almost as caricatures. In fact, much of what we now call caricature,
was then characteristic of serious art, and of what was considered its
high development. Many of the attempts which have been made of late
years to introduce ancient costume on the stage, would probably be
regarded by the people who lived in the age which they were intended to
represent, as a mere design to turn them into ridicule. Nevertheless,
the fashions in dress were, especially from the twelfth century to the
sixteenth, carried to a great degree of extravagance, and were not only
the objects of satire and caricature, but drew forth the indignant
declamations of the Church, and furnished a continuous theme to the
preachers. The contemporary chronicles abound with bitter reflections
on the extravagance in costume, which was considered as one of the
outward signs of the great corruption of particular periods; and they
give us not unfrequent examples of the coarse manner in which the
clergy discussed them in their sermons. The readers of Chaucer will
remember the manner in which this subject is treated in the "Parson's
Tale." In this respect the satirists of the Church went hand in hand
with the pictorial caricaturists of the illuminated manuscripts,
and of the sculptures with which we sometimes meet in contemporary
architectural ornamentation. In the latter, this class of caricature is
perhaps less frequent, but it is sometimes very expressive. The very
curious _misereres_ in the church of Ludlow, in Shropshire, present the
caricature reproduced in our cut No. 67. It represents an ugly, and, to
judge by the expression of the countenance, an ill-tempered old woman,
wearing the fashionable head-dress of the earlier half of the fifteenth
century, which seems to have been carried to its greatest extravagance
in the beginning of the reign of Henry VI. It is the style of coiffure
known especially as the horned head-dress, and the very name carries
with it a sort of relationship to an individual who was notoriously
horned--the spirit of evil. This dashing dame of the olden time appears
to have struck terror into two unfortunates who have fallen within
her influence, one of whom, as though he took her for a new Gorgon,
is attempting to cover himself with his buckler, while the other,
apprehending danger of another kind, is prepared to defend himself with
his sword. The details of the head-dress in this figure are interesting
for the history of costume.
[Illustration: _No. 67. A Fashionable Beauty._]
[Illustration: _No. 68. A Man of War._]
Our next cut, No. 68, is taken from a manuscript in private possession,
which is now rather well known among antiquaries by the name of the
"Luttrell Psalter," and which belongs to the fourteenth century. It
seems to involve a satire on the aristocratic order of society--on the
knight who was distinguished by his helmet, his shield, and his armour.
The individual here represented presents a type which is anything
but aristocratic. While he holds a helmet in his hand to show the
meaning of the satire, his own helmet, which he wears on his head, is
simply a bellows. He may be a knight of the kitchen, or perhaps a mere
_quistron_, or kitchen lad.
[Illustration: _No. 69. A Lady's Head-dress._]
We have just seen a caricature of one of the ladies' head-dresses of
the earlier half of the fifteenth century, and our cut No. 69, from
an illuminated manuscript in the British Museum of the latter half of
the same century (MS. Harl., No. 4379), furnishes us with a caricature
of a head-dress of a different character, which came into fashion in
the reign of our Edward IV. The horned head-dress of the previous
generation had been entirely laid aside, and the ladies adopted in its
place a sort of steeple-shaped head-dress, or rather of the form of a
spire, made by rolling a piece of linen into the form of a long cone.
Over this lofty cap was thrown a piece of fine lawn or muslin, which
descended almost to the ground, and formed, as it were, two wings. A
short transparent veil was thrown over the face, and reached not quite
to the chin, resembling rather closely the veils in use among our
ladies of the present day (1864). The whole head-dress, indeed, has
been preserved by the Norman peasantry; for it may be observed that,
during the feudal ages, the fashions in France and England were always
identical. These steeple head-dresses greatly provoked the indignation
of the clergy, and zealous preachers attacked them roughly in their
sermons. A French monk, named Thomas Conecte, distinguished himself
especially in this crusade, and inveighed against the head-dress with
such effect, that we are assured that many of the women threw down
their head-dresses in the middle of the sermon, and made a bonfire
of them at its conclusion. The zeal of the preacher soon extended
itself to the populace, and, for a while, when ladies appeared in this
head-dress in public, they were exposed to be pelted by the rabble.
Under such a double persecution it disappeared for a moment, but when
the preacher was no longer present, it returned again, and, to use the
words of the old writer who has preserved this anecdote, "the women
who, like snails in a fright, had drawn in their horns, shot them out
again as soon as the danger was over." The caricaturist would hardly
overlook so extravagant a fashion, and accordingly the manuscript in
the British Museum, just mentioned, furnishes us with the subject of
our cut No. 69. In those times, when the passions were subjected to no
restraint, the fine ladies indulged in such luxury and licentiousness,
that the caricaturist has chosen as their fit representative a sow, who
wears the objectionable head-dress in full fashion. The original forms
one of the illustrations of a copy of the historian Froissart, and was,
therefore, executed in France, or, more probably, in Burgundy.
The sermons and satires against extravagance in costume began at
an early period. The Anglo-Norman ladies, in the earlier part of
the twelfth century, first brought in vogue in our island this
extravagance in fashion, which quickly fell under the lash of satirist
and caricaturist. It was first exhibited in the robes rather than
in the head-dress. These Anglo-Norman ladies are understood to have
first introduced stays, in order to give an artificial appearance of
slenderness to their waists; but the greatest extravagance appeared in
the forms of their sleeves. The robe, or gown, instead of being loose,
as among the Anglo-Saxons, was laced close round the body, and the
sleeves, which fitted the arm tightly till they reached the elbows,
or sometimes nearly to the wrist, then suddenly became larger, and
hung down to an extravagant length, often trailing on the ground, and
sometimes shortened by means of a knot. The gown, also, was itself
worn very long. The clergy preached against these extravagances in
fashion, and at times, it is said, with effect; and they fell under
the vigorous lash of the satirist. In a class of satires which became
extremely popular in the twelfth century, and which produced in the
thirteenth the immortal poem of Dante--the visions of purgatory and of
hell--these contemporary extravagances in fashion are held up to public
detestation, and are made the subject of severe punishment. They were
looked upon as among the outward forms of pride. It arose, no doubt,
from this taste--from the darker shade which spread over men's minds in
the twelfth century--that demons, instead of animals, were introduced
to personify the evil-doers of the time. Such is the figure (cut No.
70) which we take from a very interesting manuscript in the British
Museum (MS. Cotton. Nero, C iv.). The demon is here dressed in the
fashionable gown with its long sleeves, of which one appears to have
been usually much longer than the other. Both the gown and sleeve are
shortened by means of knots, while the former is brought close round
the waist by tight lacing. It is a picture of the use of stays made at
the time of their first introduction.
[Illustration: _No. 70. Sin in Satins._]
This superfluity of length in the different parts of the dress was a
subject of complaint and satire at various and very distant periods,
and contemporary illuminations of a perfectly serious character show
that these complaints were not without foundation.
CHAPTER VII.
PRESERVATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MIMUS AFTER THE FALL OF
THE EMPIRE.--THE MINSTREL AND JOGELOUR.--HISTORY OF POPULAR
STORIES.--THE FABLIAUX.--ACCOUNT OF THEM.--THE CONTES DEVOTS.
I have already remarked that, upon the fall of the Roman empire, the
popular institutions of the Romans were more generally preserved to
the middle ages than those of a higher and more refined character.
This is understood without difficulty, when we consider that the lower
class of the population--in the towns, what we might perhaps call the
lower and middle classes--continued to exist much the same as before,
while the barbarian conquerors came in and took the place of the ruling
classes. The drama, which had never much hold upon the love of the
Roman populace, was lost, and the theatres and the amphitheatres, which
had been supported only by the wealth of the imperial court and of
the ruling class, were abandoned and fell into ruin; but the _mimus_,
who furnished mirth to the people, continued to exist, and probably
underwent no immediate change in his character. It will be well to
state again the chief characteristics of the ancient _mimus_, before we
proceed to describe his mediæval representative.
The grand aim of the _mimus_ was to make people laugh, and he employed
generally every means he knew of for effecting this purpose, by
language, by gestures or motions of the body, or by dress. Thus he
carried, strapped over his loins, a wooden sword, which was called
_gladius histricus_ and _clunaculum_, and wore sometimes a garment
made of a great number of small pieces of cloth of different colours,
which was hence called _centunculus_, or the hundred-patched dress.[35]
These two characteristics have been preserved in the modern harlequin.
Other peculiarities of costume may conveniently be left undescribed;
the female mimæ sometimes exhibited themselves unrestricted by dress.
They danced and sung; repeated jokes and told merry stories; recited
or acted farces and scandalous anecdotes; performed what we now call
mimicry, a word derived from the name of mimus; and they put themselves
in strange postures, and made frightful faces. They sometimes acted
the part of a fool or zany (_morio_), or of a madman. They added to
these performances that of the conjurer or juggler (_præstigiator_),
and played tricks of sleight of hand. The mimi performed in the streets
and public places, or in the theatres, and especially at festivals, and
they were often employed at private parties, to entertain the guests at
a supper.
[35] "Uti me consuesse tragœdi syrmate, histrionis crotalone ad
trieterica orgia, aut mimi centunculo."--Apuleius, Apolog.
We trace the existence of this class of performers during the earlier
period of the middle ages by the expressions of hostility towards
them used from time to time by the ecclesiastical writers, and the
denunciations of synods and councils, which have been quoted in a
former chapter.[36] Nevertheless, it is evident from many allusions
to them, that they found their way into the monastic houses, and were
in great favour not only among the monks, but among the nuns also;
that they were introduced into the religious festivals; and that they
were tolerated even in the churches. It is probable that they long
continued to be known in Italy and the countries near the centre
of Roman influence, and where the Latin language was continued, by
their old name of _mimus_. The writers of the mediæval vocabularies
appear all to have been much better acquainted with the meaning of
this word than of most of the Latin words of the same class, and they
evidently had a class of performers existing in their own times to whom
they considered that the name applied. The Anglo-Saxon vocabularies
interpret the Latin _mimus_ by _glig-mon_, a gleeman. In Anglo-Saxon,
_glig_ or _gliu_ meant mirth and game of every description, and as the
Anglo-Saxon teachers who compiled the vocabularies give, as synonyms
of _mimus_, the words _scurra_, _jocista_, and _pantomimus_, it is
evident that all these were included in the character of the gleeman,
and that the latter was quite identical with his Roman type. It was
the Roman _mimus_ introduced into Saxon England. We have no traces of
the existence of such a class of performers among the Teutonic race
before they became acquainted with the civilisation of imperial Rome.
We know from drawings in contemporary illuminated manuscripts that the
performances of the gleeman did include music, singing, and dancing,
and also the tricks of mountebanks and jugglers, such as throwing up
and catching knives and balls, and performing with tamed bears, &c.[37]
[36] See before, p. 41 of the present volume.
[37] See examples of these illuminations in my "History of Domestic
Manners and Sentiments," pp. 34, 35, 37, 65.
But even among the peoples who preserved the Latin language, the word
_mimus_ was gradually exchanged for others employed to signify the
same thing. The word _jocus_ had been used in the signification of a
jest, playfulness, _jocari_ signified to jest, and _joculator_ was a
word for a jester; but, in the debasement of the language, _jocus_
was taken in the signification of everything which created mirth. It
became, in the course of time the French word _jeu_, and the Italian
_gioco_, or _giuoco_. People introduced a form of the verb, _jocare_,
which became the French _juer_, to play or perform. _Joculator_ was
then used in the sense of _mimus_. In French the word became _jogléor_,
or _jougléor_, and in its later form _jougleur_. I may remark that, in
mediæval manuscripts, it is almost impossible to distinguish between
the _u_ and the _n_, and that modern writers have misread this last
word as _jongleur_, and thus introduced into the language a word which
never existed, and which ought to be abandoned. In old English, as we
see in Chaucer, the usual form was _jogelere_. The mediæval joculator,
or jougleur, embraced all the attributes of the Roman _mimus_,[38] and
perhaps more. In the first place he was very often a poet himself, and
composed the pieces which it was one of his duties to sing or recite.
These were chiefly songs, or stories, the latter usually told in verse,
and so many of them are preserved in manuscripts that they form a very
numerous and important class of mediæval literature. The songs were
commonly satirical and abusive, and they were made use of for purposes
of general or personal vituperation. Out of them, indeed, grew the
political songs of a later period. There were female jougleurs, and
both sexes danced, and, to create mirth among those who encouraged
them, they practised a variety of performances, such as mimicking
people, making wry and ugly faces, distorting their bodies into strange
postures, often exposing their persons in a very unbecoming manner, and
performing many vulgar and indecent acts, which it is not necessary to
describe more particularly. They carried about with them for exhibition
tame bears, monkeys, and other animals, taught to perform the actions
of men. As early as the thirteenth century, we find them including
among their other accomplishments that of dancing upon the tight-rope.
Finally, the jougleurs performed tricks of sleight of hand, and were
often conjurers and magicians. As, in modern times, the jougleurs of
the middle ages gradually passed away, sleight of hand appears to have
become their principal accomplishment, and the name only was left in
the modern word _juggler_. The jougleurs of the middle ages, like
the mimi of antiquity, wandered about from place to place, and often
from country to country, sometimes singly and at others in companies,
exhibited their performances in the roads and streets, repaired to all
great festivals, and were employed especially in the baronial hall,
where, by their songs, stories, and other performances, they created
mirth after dinner.
[38] People in the middle ages were so fully conscious of the identity
of the mediæval jougleur with the Roman mimus, that the Latin writers
often use mimus to signify a jougleur, and the one is interpreted by
the others in the vocabularies. Thus, in Latin-English vocabularies of
the fifteenth century, we have--
_Hic joculator_, }
} _Anglice_ jogulour.
_Hic m
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