medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yeah, but one may speculate, mayn't one? ;-) Monsters and gargoyles appear
in all kinds of religious mss too, don't they?
Henk
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] Namens Christopher Crockett
Verzonden: maandag 20 december 2010 16:50
Aan: [log in to unmask]
Onderwerp: Re: [M-R] saints of the day 20. December
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: Henk <[log in to unmask]>
>...the dragon in the bible stands for the abominable error of heathendom.
During the middle ages it became a symbol of evil in general and is
identified
with the devil. So as a religious symbol it is wholly bad.
> Byzantium as well as Celtic Britain, however, use the dragon/wyvern as
symbols of power, usually in the shape of battle standards, which IMO goes
back to Roman ensigns. Christ is AFAIK never identifies with dragons, except
for trampling one under one foot, while the other tramples a lion. So what
these wyverns are doing on the façade of a Swiss church beats me. Maybe they
just fill up the spaces next to the arch, just like they do in manuscripts.
i haven't seen the church in question, but would be rather circumspect in
seeing suchlike objects as mere "space fillers."
this is a particularly unsustainable position when the works in question are
prominently on display --on a facade or portal, for example.
the fact that we (me) are unable to figure out what the hell those
sculptures
are doing in such a "sacred" context is, of course, irrelevant.
a case in point of some interest to me is to be found on the north (main)
facade of the church of Ste Mary Madeleine in Chateaudun (30 miles south of
Chartres),
http://ariadne.org/cc/chateaudun/SMCD-North/north-facade.jpg
an early 18th c. engraving suggests what the original sculptural program of
c.
1140 looked like before it was severely redecorated in 1793, when the
collegiate church was turned into a "Temple de la Raison," at the
extraordinary cost of more than 5,000 livres, some of which was spent to
virtually totally efface the offensive facade sculptures:
http://ariadne.org/cc/chateaudun/SMCD-North/Lancelot/Lancelot-Facade-Crop.gi
f
http://ariadne.org/cc/chateaudun/SMCD-North/Lancelot/Lancelot-Portal-d.gif
http://ariadne.org/cc/chateaudun/SMCD-North/Lancelot/Lancelot-3-4.gif
http://ariadne.org/cc/chateaudun/SMCD-North/Lancelot/Lancelot-7-8.gif
some pitiful fragments remain, however, including:
http://ariadne.org/cc/chateaudun/griffin.jpg
here naively mis-identified as a "griffin."
as i read it, this is some sort of beast, with four paws (three visible
--therefore not a wyvern, but some sort of dragonesque creature?)-- short
wings on its hind flanks, and a serpentine tail
http://ariadne.org/cc/chateaudun/griffinpaws.jpg
i have no idea what that guy is doing up there, but he's not there by
accident
--that is not some provincial backwater, but rather the principle facade of
the main ecclesiastical institution in the third most important town in the
diocese, part of a building program which was sponsored by the bishop of
Chartres (who was also the Papal Legate for most of France at the time), in
what was to be a showcase building (in the spiffy new "Early Gothic" style),
constructed as part of a reform program which had been decades in the
making).
c
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