Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance

by P. L. Jacob

Fig. 357.—Tomb erected in the Church of the Dominicans, at Puy-en-Velay, to the memory of Du Guesclin, by Marshal de Sancerre, his friend.—This tomb dates from the close of the Fourteenth Century.

Archæologists have endeavoured to discover the meaning of the recumbent figures—some in full dress, others without clothing—which were placed upon the tombs of Christians, and they think that this usage is but an instinctive return to the customs of the ancient Etruscans, who represented upon the top of the tomb the body of the deceased, either bent double or in a sitting position, or stretched at full length or leaning upon his elbows, according as he had been laid in his grave. The early funeral sculptors, as unskilful as they were ignorant, copying only some particular model set before them, fashioned merely an imperfect and roughly executed figure, with scarcely any approach to bas-relief. In process of time the statue became better defined, and, in the reign of Louis VII., was altogether in alto relievo. The monks of the Abbey of St. Germain des Prés did for their benefactor, King Childebert, what Suger had done for the illustrious dead who had for several centuries been interred in the basilica of St. Denis, and erected a cenotaph with a life-like figure of the monarch, the artist hollowing out the upper part of the tomb in the shape of a basin, so as to make the features stand out. The king is represented holding in one hand a model of the small church which he had founded, and in the other his sceptre.

With the advent of Gothic architecture, towards the middle of the twelfth century, the tombs were decorated with vaulted arches in the shape of quarter-foils, and these arches were afterwards made to serve as a framework within which the bas-reliefs were placed. Within the pointed arch of one is represented a monk mourner, one of those who were hired to assist at the funeral ceremonies. The figure lying upon the table was called the gisant, as is proved by old account-books containing the following item: “So much to a certain person for having carved the figure of a gisant.” The essentially French art of funeral architecture and sculpture reached its apogee in the fifteenth century, and nothing can be more perfect or beautiful than the tombs of the dukes of Burgundy at Dijon, and of the dukes of Berri at Bourges.

After the thirteenth century, one or two lions, or a dog, were placed at the feet of the gisant; and the war ballads relate that these symbolic animals were termed cagnets or cagnons—the lion being the emblem of force, and the dog of fidelity (léauté).

The tomb of a personage of rank or wealth was often decorated with secondary figures, carved in relief in marble or stone—sometimes the Virgin, or some saint, or some scene from the Old or the New Testament; upon one side the personification of the virtues, upon the other, mourners, or perhaps the family of the deceased. Thus there are carved figures of the princes and princesses of the second House of Burgundy around the tomb of Philip de Marle at Lille; a funeral ceremony was represented upon that of Philip the Bold at Narbonne.

In the fourteenth century, the sculptors surmounted the tomb with a bed, upon which a figure of the deceased was carved, with a kind of stone dais or canopy; two angels with outstretched wings held a spread-out veil, upon which they were bearing aloft a small naked figure, standing erect, and meant to represent the soul of the deceased person. In other monuments, the angels had a censer, with which they are scattering incense upon the soul of the departed, as at Neuilly-sur-Marne, upon the tomb of the famous preacher Foulques, who died about the year 1200. In others, the angels are represented holding the helmet and shield of the deceased, bearing up his train, or presenting him on their knees an open prayer-book. The tomb of Philip Pot (Fig. 358), formerly in the abbey-church of the Cistercians, was supported by eight statues of women dressed in mourning. Some of the statues placed upon the tombs were carved out of hard limestone instead of marble; those of Charles VII. and his consort were of alabaster. In many cases the hands and the head only were of alabaster or marble, and the rest of the body of stone. The tomb of the Sire de Barbazan, who died in 1432, was entirely of bronze; that of Charles VIII. at St. Denis, constructed of the most valuable marble, had on it the statue of that prince in bronze, flanked by four angels, each with the royal shield.

Fig. 358.—Tomb of Philip Pot, Grand Seneschal of Burgundy, who died in 1494; formerly in the Abbey of Citeaux, now in the Museum at Dijon. The knight is laid out upon a sepulchral stone, which is being borne up by eight mourners, each of whom carries on the arm a shield of his family alliances.

From this period French art had to give place to Italian art, which Charles VIII. had brought back as a trophy from his expedition to Naples, and which eventually took root in France, and expanded with all the splendours of the Renaissance until the close of the sixteenth century. Foreign artists began to distinguish themselves in the composition of tombs. Francis I., who had been struck with admiration by the monuments of this kind at Florence, Rome, and Milan, determined to have some equally remarkable in his own kingdom. The tomb of Louis XII., the chef-d’œuvre of a Florentine artist, served as a type and a model for those of Francis I. and Henry II., which were completed with still greater magnificence by the French artists Pierre Bontemps and Germain Pilon, under the superintendence of Philibert de Lorme. These funeral monuments are the most marvellous of all that have been produced by French, in imitation of Italian, art (Fig. 361).