Among the animals which took a leading part in mediæval sculpture at this period was the fox, and a text of the Physiologus was widely translated into sculpture. This text ran as follows: "When the fox is hungry, it lies down in a furrow of the field and covers itself partly with earth, as though it had been long dead. Then the ravens and other rapacious birds come to devour it, when it suddenly leaps up and tears them to pieces. Thus the devil deceives those who love the corrupt things of this world and obey the lusts of the flesh, and entices them to their own destruction." Representations of this scene and others in which the fox plays a leading part are very common in the later mediæval sculpture. In Worcester Cathedral is a carving showing foxes running in and out of holes, while John the Evangelist stands near with his gospel in his hand and an eagle at his feet. Here the foxes are types of the devil, and John the Evangelist the herald of divine truth. In Canterbury Cathedral are sculptures representing a fox dressed like a monk and preaching to an assembly of geese.
Very severe at this later period were some of the caricatures by devout Catholic sculptors upon the begging friars. In the church of St. Victor at Xanten are carvings in which is represented a monster with the feet of a pig, the tail of a fox, and the head of a monk.[1]
The ass was also used for a similar purpose. Thus, on a column of St. Peter's Church at Aulnay an ass is represented as standing on his hind legs and clothed in ecclesiastical costume. Even in so devout a country as Spain, and in such a theological center as the Cathedral of Toledo, we find striking examples of this same satirical spirit; and at the Cathedral of Burgos are sculptured satires no less striking, against vice and folly.
More and more frequently throughout Europe we have in sculpture these figures of foxes preaching to fowls, with other foxes lying in wait behind the pulpit to catch the congregation; of asses wearing rosaries, of donkeys playing upon the lyre, of pigs playing upon the bagpipes, of foxes confessing birds, and of wolves confessing sheep; and these appear not only in sculpture, but in other forms of art. In the collections at Cornell University are some very curious specimens. A very rare missal, obtained by the writer of this article in Germany some years since, is full of illustrations of this kind.
Very interesting is the final chapter of Prof. Evans's work, entitled Whimseys of Ecclesiology and Symbology, and among these the reader will doubtless most rejoice in the extracts from a paper on Vestiges of the Blessed Trinity in the Material Crea-
- ↑ See work cited, p. 224.
