Mediæval masons followed the example of Pagan antiquity, and like the architects of Persia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India and Mexico, loved to trace upon their holy buildings the allegories of Time, whether in the form of the personification of the twelve months, of the four seasons, or the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The months are symbolised with extraordinary cleverness of detail, in a manner at once naïve and effective, by the recreations and employments to which they lend themselves.
The zodiacal signs are given in the verses of Ausonius:—
‘Sunt Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo,
Libraque, Scorpius, Arcitenens, Caper, Amphora, Pisces.’
And as to the months, they, in the quatrain attributed to the venerable Bede, describe themselves as follows:—
‘Poto—ligna cremo—de vite superflua demo;
Do gramen gratum—mihi flos servit—mihi pratum:
Fenum declino—messes meto—vina propino;
Semen humi jacto—pasco sues,—immolo porcos.’[63]
The studious visitor may compare the treatment of them in the windows and porch at Chartres with that which they receive at Venice, Reims, Verona, Sens, Amiens, Bruges and the English churches.
In the tympanum of the right-hand doorway the Virgin (1150) sits, crowned and throned, a sceptre in her hand, sharing the triumph of her Son. The Holy Child is in the act of blessing the world, and on either side are two archangels, censing. Beneath are the chief scenes of the life of Mary—the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, appearance of the Angels to the Shepherds and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple; and above, in the vaulting which forms the frame of this picture, are, in one row, six archangels carrying incense in honour of Mary, and, in the other, the seven Liberal Arts, each of them symbolised by two statuettes, the one representing the inventor or paragon, the other the allegory of the art. Here, then, as at Laon, Sens, Auxerre and many other places, we have the carved expression of the opinion of Albertus Magnus, that in Music (Pythagoras), Dialectic (Aristotle), Rhetoric (Cicero), Geometry (Euclid), Arithmetic (Nichomachus), Astronomy (Ptolemy), and Grammar (Priscian), in all the knowledge of the Middle Ages, in fact, the Virgin Mary was well skilled.
The tympanums of the right and the left bays have both suffered much from years: they are blurred and defaced with age, and it is perhaps partly for this reason that, in spite of many fine points, they seem inferior, crude even, by the side of the tympanum of the central bay.
This is one of the most beautiful masterpieces of mediæval statuary. In the centre is the risen Christ, enthroned, triumphant, yet full of mercy and tenderness. An aureole is about His head, His feet are set upon the footstool of the earth. With an infinite pity, it would seem, He beholds and blesses the thousands who for seven hundred years pass, and have passed, beneath Him into the Cathedral. With one hand He blesses, with the other He holds the book sealed with the seven seals. He is there, clad in an antique mantle, which falls in a cascade of folds about His naked feet, a bearded Christ, with long, straight hair, and an expression of sweet gravity, and the artist has succeeded somehow in convincing us that this is the Christ expected and foretold, fulfilling the past as He will fulfil the future, and reigning for ever in time upon earth, and hereafter for ever beyond time in heaven. Above Him two angels hold a large crown, destined for the eternal King of the Ages.