ys
read. The sculptors and illuminators of those times no doubt shared in
common the popular feelings, and boldly trusted to the paintings or the
carvings which met the eyes of their luxurious and indolent masters
their satirical inventions. As far back as in 1300, we find in
Wolfius[90] the description of a picture of this kind, in a MS. of
AEsop's Fables found in the Abbey of Fulda, among other emblems of the
corrupt lives of the churchmen. The present was a wolf, large as life,
wearing a monkish cowl, with a shaven crown, preaching to a flock of
sheep, with these words of the apostle in a label from his mouth--"God
is my witness how I long for you all in my bowels!" And underneath was
inscribed--"This hooded wolf is the hypocrite of whom is said in the
Gospel, 'Beware of false prophets!'" Such exhibitions were often
introduced into articles of furniture. A cushion was found in an old
abbey, in which was worked a fox preaching to geese, each goose holding
in his bill his praying beads! In the stone wall, and on the columns of
the great church at Strasburg, was once viewed a number of wolves,
bears, foxes, and other mischievous animals, carrying holy water,
crucifixes, and tapers; and others more indelicate. These, probably as
old as the year 1300, were engraven in 1617 by a protestant; and were
not destroyed till 1685, by the pious rage of the catholics, who seemed
at length to have rightly construed these silent lampoons; and in their
turn broke to pieces the protestant images, as the others had done the
papistical dolls. The carved seats and stalls in our own cathedrals
exhibit subjects not only strange and satirical, but even indecent.[91]
At the time they built churches they satirised the ministers; a curious
instance how the feelings of the people struggle to find a vent. It is
conjectured that rival orders satirised each other, and that some of the
carvings are caricatures of certain monks. The margins of illuminated
manuscripts frequently contain ingenious caricatures, or satirical
allegories. In a magnificent chronicle of Froissart I observed several.
A wolf, as usual, in a monk's frock and cowl, stretching his paw to
bless a cock, bending its head submissively to the wolf: or a fox with a
crosier, dropping beads, which a cock is picking up; to satirise the
blind devotion of the bigots; perhaps the figure of the cock alluded to
our Gallic neighbours. A cat in the habit of a nun, holding a platter in
its paws to