The spirit of the times determines the standard of wit. At various periods in the world's history, men have been amused by strange and differing forms of drollery; what seemed excruciatingly funny to our grandparents does not strike us as being at all entertaining. Each generation has its own idea of humour, and its own fun-makers, varying as much as fashion in dress.
In mediæval times, the sense of humour in art was more developed than at any period except our own day. Even-while the monk was consecrating his time to the work of beautifying the sanctuary, his sense of humour was with him, and must crop out. The grotesque has always played an important part in art; in the subterranean Roman vaults of the early centuries, one form of this spirit is exhibited. But the element of wit is almost absent; it is displayed in oppressively obvious forms, so that it loses its subtlety: it represents women terminating in floral scrolls, or sea-horses with leaves growing instead of fins. The same spirit is seen in the grotesques of the Renaissance, where the sense of humour is not emphasized, the ideal in this class of decoration being simply to fill the space acceptably, with voluptuous graceful lines, mythological monstrosities, the inexpressive mingling of human and vegetable characteristics, grinning dragons, supposed to inspire horror, and such conceits, while the attempt to amuse the spectator is usually absent.
In mediæval art, however, the beauty of line, the sense of horror, and the voluptuous spirit, are all more or less subservient to the light-hearted buoyancy of a keen sense of fun. To illustrate this point, I wish to call the attention of the reader to the wit of the monastic scribes during the Gothic period. Who could look at the little animals which are found tucked away almost out of sight in the flowery margins of many illuminated manuscripts, without seeing that the artist himself must have been amused at their pranks, and intended others to be so? One can picture a gray-hooded brother, chuckling alone at his own wit, carefully tracing a jolly little grotesque, and then stealing softly to the alcove of some congenial spirit, and in a whisper inviting his friend to come and see the satire which he has carefully introduced: "A perfect portrait of the Bishop, only with claws instead of legs! So very droll! And dear brother, while you are here, just look at the expression of this little rabbit's ears, while he listens to the bombastic utterance of this monkey who wears a stole!"
| CARICATURE OF A BISHOP |
Such a fund of playful humour is seldom found in a single book as that embodied in the Tenison Psalter, of which only a few pages remain of the work of the original artist. The book was once the property of Archbishop Tenison. These few pages show to the world the most perfect example of the delicacy and skill of the miniaturist. On one page, a little archer, after having pulled his bow-string, stands at the foot of the border, gazing upwards after the arrow, which has been caught in the bill of a stork at the top of the page. The attitude of a little fiddler who is exhibiting his trick monkeys can hardly be surpassed by caricaturists of any time. A quaint bit of cloister scandal is indicated in an initial from the Harleian Manuscript, in which a monk who has been entrusted with the cellar keys is seen availing himself of the situation, eagerly quaffing a cup of wine while he stoops before a large cask. In a German manuscript I have seen, cuddled away among the foliage, in the margin, a couple of little monkeys, feeding a baby of their own species with pap from a spoon. The baby monkey is closely wrapped in the swathing bands with which one is familiar as the early trussing of European children. Satire and wrath are curiously blended in a German manuscript of the twelfth century, in which the scribe introduces a portrait of himself hurling a missile at a venturesome mouse who is eating the monk's cheese—a fine Camembert!—under his very nose. In the book which he is represented as transcribing, the artist has traced the words—"Pessime mus, sepius me provocas ad iram, ut te Deus perdat." ("Wicked mouse, too often you provoke me to anger—may God destroy thee!")
In their illustrations the scribes often showed how literal was their interpretation of Scriptural text. For instance, in a passage in the book known as the Utrecht Psalter, there is an illustration of the verse, "The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in the furnace, purified seven times." A glowing forge is seen, and two craftsmen are working with bellows, pincers, and hammer, to prove the temper of some metal, which is so molten that a stream of it is pouring out of the furnace. Another example of this literal interpretation, is in the Psalter of Edwin, where two men are engaged in sharpening a sword upon a grindstone, in illustration of the text about the wicked, "who whet their tongue like a sword."
There is evidence of great religious zeal in the exhortations of the leaders to those who worked under them. Abbot John of Trittenham thus admonished the workers in the Scriptorium in 1486: "I have diminished your labours out of the monastery lest by working badly you should only add to your sins, and have enjoined on you the manual labour of writing and binding books. There is in my opinion no labour more becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical books.... You will recall that the library of this monastery... had been dissipated, sold, or made way with by disorderly monks before us, so that when I came here I found but fourteen volumes."
It was often with a sense of relief that a monk finished his work upon a volume, as the final word, written by the scribe himself, and known as the Explicit, frequently shows. In an old manuscript in the Monastery of St. Aignan the writer has thus expressed his emotions: "Look out for your fingers! Do not put them on my writing! You do not know what it is to write! It cramps your back, it obscures your eyes, it breaks your sides and stomach!" It is interesting to note the various forms which these final words of the scribes took; sometimes the Explicit is a pathetic appeal for remembrance in the prayers of the reader, and sometimes it contains a note of warning. In a manuscript of St. Augustine now at Oxford, there is written: "This book belongs to St. Mary's of Robert's Bridge; whoever shall steal it or in any way alienate it from this house, or mutilate it, let him be Anathema Marantha!" A later owner, evidently to justify himself, has added, "I, John, Bishop of Exeter, know not where this aforesaid house is, nor did I steal this book, but acquired it in a lawful way!"
The Explicit in the Benedictional of Ethelwold is touching: the writer asks "all who gaze on this book to ever pray that after the end of the flesh I may inherit health in heaven; this is the prayer of the scribe, the humble Godemann." A mysterious Explicit occurs at the end of an Irish manuscript of 1138, "Pray for Moelbrighte who wrote this book. Great was the crime when Cormac Mac Carthy was slain by Tardelvach O'Brian." Who shall say what revelation may have been embodied in these words? Was it in the nature of a confession or an accusation of some hitherto unknown occurrence? Coming as it does at the close of a sacred book, it was doubtless written for some important reason.
Among curious examples of the Explicit may be quoted the following: "It is finished. Let it be finished, and let the writer go out for a drink." A French monk adds: "Let a pretty girl be given to the writer for his pains." Ludovico di Cherio, a famous illuminator of the fifteenth century, has this note at the end of a book upon which he had long been engaged: "Completed on the vigil of the nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, on an empty stomach." (Whether this refers to an imposed penance or fast, or whether Ludovico considered that the offering of a meek and empty stomach would be especially acceptable, the reader may determine.)