The earlier croziers had a simple volute usually ending in a dragon’s or serpent’s head, with snapping jaws, which symbolizes the struggle between the serpent and the cross,[23] the latter being borne by the symbolic ram, a development of the Agnus Dei. This ram is the symbol of Christ; as St. Ambrose says, because he washes his fleece, guides the flock, clothes the shepherd, conquers the wolves by his strength and was the victim which replaced Isaac at the sacrifice, and again, because the ram is silent before the shearers, as Christ was before his judges, and finally the crozier curls like the horn of a ram, a symbol of force.
The famous crozier (so-called of “St. Gregory”) in the Monastery of St. Gregory on the Cœlian Hill at Rome, shows the dragon’s head, the ram bearing the cross and a strange little lion cub, which is a direct reference to the death and resurrection of Christ. In the natural history of the Middle Ages, which drew more on fancy than on fact, it was narrated how the lion cub died at birth and could only be recalled to life by the breath of its father.
The Romanesque Church plunged even deeper into this symbolic thought, and the Pascal Taper, which signifies the life of Christ on earth was placed in a candelabrum supported by lions.
The strange pagan form, half human and half serpent, with a cock’s head, is none other than the mystic Abraxas, whose name in Greek numerals represented in the elaborate Gnostic calculations the whole hierarchy of heaven and the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.
This symbol was supposed to have great talismanic powers to ward off evil, and though it was contrary to canonical rules, Gnostic gems engraved with the Abraxas deity were often set in the episcopal croziers, or even the crook was decorated with this mysterious symbol, as on the ivory crozier in the British Museum.
These croziers became more and more complicated in design, whole groups of figures were introduced and foliage of a freer pattern, as in the Staff of St. Ives, Bishop of Chartres, which is now in the Bargello at Florence. The Gothic artists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries filled the volutes with figures and exquisite foliage, the groups of the Crucifixion and the Virgin in glory fitting back to back so accurately, that each side appeared perfect, and the join of the ivory volute on to the wooden staff was often hidden by a row of saints under delicate Gothic canopies.
The book cover of the Princess Melisanda, daughter of Baldwin II., King of Jerusalem (✝1160), is preserved in the MS. Department of the British Museum; it is especially interesting as it shows the curious mixture of Byzantine, Arabian, and Western art which had been adopted by the Frankish rulers of the East, and which must have had considerable influence on French art. The upper panel is ornamented with representations of the six good actions, the principal actor being richly apparelled as a Byzantine basileus. These medallions are surrounded by a cord-like scroll, and the spaces are filled with struggling oriental animals, which symbolize the combat of the Virtues and Vices. On the lower leaf the medallions contain scenes from the life of King David and both panels are surrounded by a border of thoroughly oriental design.
Before entering on the subject of Gothic carvings, one class of bone caskets should be mentioned which are roughly carved in imitation of the Romanesque monumental style, with rows of tall figures under round arcades. Molinier thinks they are rather archaistic than archaic, being made in Constantinople as late as the thirteenth century, from old models, and sold to contain the relics brought back from the East by the Crusaders.
There are examples in the Berlin Museum, the Louvre, and the Musée Cluny; the latter contained the relics of St. Barnaby, and was the gift of Hugh, Abbot d’Estival and Bishop of Ptolemaïs in the thirteenth century.
The stages of development from the Romanesque to Gothic are almost imperceptible, and it is hard to say when the lingering classical traditions received their final transformation. The same breath which awakened the life in architecture freed the sculptor from the chains of custom, and we may consider the statues on the porch at Chartres as the commencement of modern sculpture. Like the Greeks, the Gothic artists formed a type by the process of selection from individuals. The new art was at first absolutely religious and simple, but the research for grace and the ever growing naturalism, mitigated, it is true, by extreme elegance and delicacy, gradually engrossed the entire mind of the artist and ended in the exclusion of all spirituality.