Part 6

The same absence of the Triforium feature is observable in Italy, save where the building was erected under Byzantine or Eastern influences--as S. Mark’s, Venice, which is to some extent a copy of S. Vitale at Ravenna. S. Vitale largely followed the plan of SS. Sergius and Bacchus built at Constantinople by Justinian before the erection of S. Sophia. There is another striking tradition connected with S. Mark’s at Venice, which relates how this magnificent church was a copy of the Emperor Justinian’s vanished Church of the Holy Apostles, which was designed to act as the Mausoleum of the Byzantine Emperors.

This Constantinopolitan Basilica of “the Apostles” certainly contained great galleries for women worshippers, probably similar to those still existing in S. Sophia.

* * * * *

[Illustration: The Triforium of Gloucester Cathedral, looking into the Choir. XI, XII, XIV Centuries.]

But among the important Western churches, strangely enough, when we come to the Anglo-Norman Romanesque abbeys and cathedrals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Triforium gallery, so exclusively an Eastern feature, reappears; indeed a great Triforium is positively a characteristic feature in Norman-Romanesque work in England--the Cathedrals of Ely, Peterborough, Norwich, Southwell, Winchester, Durham, and the Triforium of the famous Choir of Gloucester, may be cited as conspicuous examples.

It is hard to explain this striking reappearance of a great Triforium gallery. It is absolutely, as far as we can see, of no possible use, for, different to the East, as we have observed, in the West the sexes are not separated in divine worship; and a gallery for women, therefore, was never required.

What was in the mind here of the great Anglo-Norman builders of the eleventh and twelfth centuries when they arranged a Triforium gallery in their churches is really unknown to us. Was is simply a graceful and striking ornamental architectural device, to enhance the beauty of the interior of these great churches? This it undoubtedly does. Was it any way connected with the visits of pilgrims, so notable a practice in these centuries? Was it in some way intended to multiply the interest of their visit, by providing them with a larger and far more extended procession round and about the church? Something of this kind possibly may account for the strange reappearance of a great Triforium gallery in buildings, for the most part resorted to by great crowds of pilgrims, when the original purpose of a Triforium no longer existed.

That the growing passion for pilgrimage was considered in the planning of these vast Anglo-Norman abbeys and minsters is indisputable, for we find in the design of important abbeys such as Gloucester a large ambulatory or processional aisle, introduced as a prominent feature in these great churches. Such an aisle was doubtless designed for the convenience of pilgrims who frequently thronged these piles. The Triforium gallery possibly, then, was introduced in view of these crowds of pilgrims. We cannot, however, at all pronounce for a certainty that this was the main reason for its introduction in the North and West--quite an unaccustomed feature, but which at once strikes the eye in the Anglo-Norman minsters.

It is an unexplained difficulty, and must be left with these interesting but scarcely satisfactory suggestions.

* * * * *

To sum up: When the great Triforium of an Anglo-Norman cathedral is wondered at, and the question is asked, When was this striking portion of the church first designed, and what was the original purpose which it was intended to serve; and to what uses was it ever put? the inquirer must be told at once to carry his thoughts back to the age of the Emperor Justinian, perhaps somewhat earlier, when the great churches of Constantinople and Salonica were planned and built, when in the planning of these churches a great gallery was designed for the _exclusive use_ of the women worshippers. It was in such a gallery, at S. Sophia, where the Empress Theodora sat and listened when Chrysostom preached, and denounced with his fiery eloquence the vices of the court and society of his age.

This was undoubtedly the origin of the Triforium in Eastern churches which now excites the wonder of the inquirer as to what purpose it was designed and used for. Then the inquirer must be reminded that in the West and North--in Gaul and Italy, indeed throughout the Latin Church--where, different to the Eastern Church, no separation of the sexes was contemplated--no Triforium gallery was, as a rule, planned. It is true that in the important Anglo-Norman cathedrals and abbeys this ancient oriental feature again made its appearance.

But for what special purpose that great school of Norman-Romanesque builders again brought back this striking feature when they planned their mighty piles, will probably for ever remain an undiscovered secret.

* * * * *

On the unexplained secret of the reappearance of the Triforium gallery in certain of the great mediæval churches of the West, notably in the Anglo-Norman Romanesque piles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries--a very remarkable suggestion appears in Mr. Edward Hutton’s eloquent work on Ravenna.

He is describing the great Romanesque Basilica of S. Apollinare Nuovo, the work of Theodoric, the Ostro-Gothic king.

The Mosaics, probably in large part the work of the artists of Justinian, are of an extraordinary and exceptional beauty. They represent upon both sides, through the whole length of the nave, as it were, two long processions of saints--on the one side a procession of Martyrs--some twenty-five figures (men), SS. Clement, Sixtus, Laurence, Cyprian, etc.; on the other side a procession of Virgin Martyrs--Pelagia, Agatha, Eulalia, Cecilia, etc., some twenty-one figures. Mr. Edward Hutton writes here “that there is nothing in Christendom to compare with these Mosaics; they are unique, and, as I like to think, in their wonderful significance are the key to a mystery which has for long remained unsolved.

“For these long processions of saints, representing that great crowd of witnesses, of which S. Paul speaks, stand there above the arcade and under the clerestory where in a Gothic church the triforium is set. But the triforium is the one inexplicable and seemingly useless feature of a Gothic building. It seems to us, in our ignorance of the mind of the Middle Age, of what it took for granted, to be there simply for the sake of beauty, to have no use at all.

“But what if this church in Ravenna, the work indeed of a very different school and time, but springing out of the same spiritual tradition, should hold the key?

“What if the triforium of a Gothic church should have been built as it were for a great crowd of witnesses--the invisible witnesses of the Everlasting Sacrifice, the Sacrifice of Calvary, the Sacrifice of the Mass?

“It is not only in the presence of the living, devout or half indifferent, that that great Sacrifice is offered through the world, yesterday, to-day and for ever, but be sure in the midst of the chivalry of heaven, a multitude that no man can number, none the less real because invisible, among whom one day we too are to be numbered--not for the living only, but for the whole Church men offer that Sacrifice, _pro redemptione animarum suarum, pro spe salutis et incolumitatis suæ--Memento etiam Domine, famulorum famularumque tuarum qui nos præcesserunt cum signo fidei et dormiunt in somno pacis_.... Here in S. Apollinare, at any rate, for ever they await the renewal of that moment.

“Those marvellous figures that appear in ghostly procession upon the walls of S. Apollinare in Ravenna are really indescribable; they must be seen, if the lovely significance of their beauty is to be understood. What can one say of them?”

* * * * *

Mr. Hutton alludes to the Triforium of a _Gothic_ church, but this unexplained and strange feature of the Triforium in the West reappeared in the great early Anglo-Norman Romanesque piles--in the Choir of Gloucester and in many others.

The _Gothic_ churches, where such a Triforium exists, have simply copied their Anglo-Norman predecessors.

The author of this work by no means must be thought to endorse the above singular explanation of the “secret” of the Triforium which so strangely reappeared in certain of the churches of the West. But he judged it fitting to quote here the striking and remarkable words of the author of _Ravenna_. He cannot, however, recall any quotation from a mediæval writer in support of the theory in question. It is to him a perfectly novel thought--a thought at once strange and haunting--and here as an interesting and novel suggestion he must leave it.

[Illustration: S. APOLLINARE NUOVO, RAVENNA.

Circa A.D. 519.]

THE LADY CHAPEL

The date of the first appearance in the Eastern Church of the mediæval estimate of the Virgin Mother is uncertain. In the Latin or Western Church the development of Mariolatry, as it has been termed, was somewhat slower than in Eastern Christianity, but, as we shall see, it became eventually even more accentuated in the West than in the East.

All signs of this exalted estimate of the Virgin Mary are notoriously absent in the New Testament books, and when a new feeling as to the position of the blessed Virgin appeared in the oldest liturgies of the Church, it was of a nature widely different from the mediæval estimate of Mary. To take a well-known example. In the very ancient liturgy of S. John Chrysostom, still in use in the Eastern Church, the Virgin Mary is prayed for. In this venerable liturgy we read: “We offer unto Thee (God the Father) this reasonable service for the faithful dead, our forefathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles ... martyrs and confessors, but especially for our most holy, immaculate and blessed Lady the Mother of God and ever Virgin, Mary.”

This most ancient liturgy, in the form we now find it, has without doubt been altered and added to since the days of Chrysostom in the latter years of the fourth century, but certainly not in the direction of lowering the position of the Virgin, a position which in the teaching of the Eastern Church grew more and more definitely exalted as the ages passed, till such a place of eminence was ascribed to her, that no loftier one, _outside the blessed Trinity_, is conceivable. Similar testimony is given in the ancient liturgies of SS. Basil, Gregory Nazianzus, and Cyril.

Very exalted indeed was the estimation in which the Virgin Mary was held in the Eastern Church as early as in the first half of the sixth century, when in the great building age of the Emperor Justinian many noble churches arose, dedicated to the “Mother of God.” In the seventh century the Emperor Heraclius blazoned the Virgin Mary on his banner of war. To the tutelar protection of the Virgin, Constantinople looked against the Saracens.

In the Western or Latin Church, as we have said, the development of Mariolatry was somewhat slower, still as early as the time of Gregory the Great, early in the seventh century, the honour paid to the Virgin Mother in Christian worship became more and more accentuated.

The state and influence of the blessed dead, at a comparatively early period, occupied the minds of Christian teachers. Such glorified human beings after a time began to be looked upon as powerful intercessors at the Throne of Grace for those still on earth. As S. Bernard of Clairvaux expresses it, “They who have come out of great tribulation, shall they not recognise those who still continue in it?”

Gradually the numbers of these glorified Saints became multiplied and even well-nigh deified. These blessed ones having been human, were conceived as still endowed with human sympathies, and were looked upon as more accessible to human prayer and supplication than the three co-eternal Persons of the Trinity in their unapproachable solitude and awful majesty. In a way, these glorified Saints intercepted the worship of the ever blessed Trinity, and to them, rather than _through_ them, in time prayer was addressed.

High above this host of Saints was seated the Queen of Heaven, for to this strange position, dating certainly from the days of Gregory the Great in the West, the Virgin was gradually raised.

Still it was not until the eve of the wonderful awakening of Church life in the West, toward the close of the eleventh century, that the cult of the Virgin attained the strange prominence which it maintained all through the later Middle Ages. Very lofty indeed was the place ascribed to the Virgin Mother, but something yet was needed, however, in the form of a great popular movement to introduce into the every-day life of the people this strange cult which so powerfully influenced the Christianity of the Middle Ages.

This great impulse was given by the Crusades, those marvellous religious wars which took so mighty a hold of the popular imagination in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It came about in this fashion.

Chivalry, at least the religious aspect which chivalry assumed in all its acts, language and ceremonies, may be said to have been the result of the Crusades, for before the Crusades, chivalry, if it existed at all, appears to have had no special reference to religion. But war was now sanctified by religion, and men were taught that the noblest end to which they could dedicate their lives was the rescue of the Redeemer’s sepulchre at Jerusalem from the hands of the infidel conquerors, the disciples of the false prophet Mahommed.

The inescapable duty of a Christian knight was self-devotion for others, especially for the defenceless and weak; thus courtesy to and protection of the weaker sex became the imperative duty, as well as the privilege of knighthood. “The love of God and the ladies was enjoined as the paramount duties in the teaching of chivalry. Thus was formed that strange amalgam of religious and military feeling which was formed around women in the age of chivalry which was, in fact, the age of the Crusades, and which no succeeding change of habit or belief has wholly destroyed.”[21]

“There was one Lady of whom, high above and beyond all, every knight was the vowed servant, the Virgin Mother of that blessed Saviour,” the rescue of whose sacred sepulchre was the primary object of the Crusades.

Thus the adoration of the Virgin, long inculcated by theologians, became popularised among the Crusaders of varied ranks and orders, and through them, among all Western peoples who, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, supplied the vast armies of the Cross; and this popular devotion to the Virgin continued to grow through the Middle Ages, till it influenced and coloured Christian worship in all the countries of Western Christendom.

“And so it came to pass that religious chivalry, that strange outcome of the Crusades, seemed to array the Christian world as the Church militant of the Virgin, and it was to her that the knight looked especially for success in battle. From the soldier to the people was but a little step, and very soon this sentiment of adoration became universal. The Redeemer passed gradually into a more remote and awful Godhead; the Virgin Mary seemed a nearer, a more familiar and sympathetic object of adoration.”

Soon every cathedral and abbey, every important church had its “Mary” Chapel. Hymns were written and everywhere sang in her honour. Liturgies in which her name was the principal feature were introduced. Manuals of private and of public devotion, in which the name of Mary the Mother of the Lord was conspicuous above every name, were copied and recopied in every monastic Scriptorium or Cloister. A new and startling theological adoration was thus generally added to all popular Christian teaching. “The incommunicable attributes of the Godhead were even assigned to Mary. She was positively represented as sitting between the Cherubim and Seraphim, as commanding by her maternal influence, if not by her authority, her Eternal Son. The idea of the ‘Queen of Heaven’ became a familiar one in popular theology.” This new devotion was largely called into being, as we have shown, by the influence of the Crusades, and showed the mighty hold it had obtained over the popular mind in the erection and lavish adornment of those often splendid and costly shrines known as the Lady Chapels, of which the splendid annexe at the east end of Gloucester Cathedral is a conspicuous and well-known example. This Lady Chapel may even be cited as the crowning instance of this outward and visible sign of the strange novel cult, as we might venture to term it. The Lady Chapel of Gloucester was one of the _last_ great examples of these new additions to the great churches of the mediæval period, for the years which witnessed its completion were the years which historians consider closed the long and many-coloured story of the Middle Ages.

* * * * *

We resume our sketch of the progress of the Cult of the Virgin.

In the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Mariolatry received another vast impulse through the teaching of the great and popular mendicant orders of S. Francis and S. Dominic. One of the most interesting chapters in mediæval Church history is filled with the story of the “coming” of the new orders of mendicant Friars, among whom the Franciscan and Dominican were by far the most numerous and influential. Widespread was the influence exercised by these Friars over the masses of the people.

And in the teaching of both these great communities the Virgin Mary occupied a peculiar and lofty position. Exalted as was the position claimed by the Franciscans for Mary; if possible the Dominicans professed a yet greater devotion to the blessed Virgin, whom the disciples of Dominic even were pleased to regard as the special protectress of their famous Order. According to a well-loved tradition of their schools, it was Mary herself who revealed to S. Dominic that form of prayer known as the “Rosary” which from the years 1212-1215 became alike among rich and poor the popular badge of Catholic devotion--“The ‘Rosary,’ that curious and novel form of prayer, with the refrain ‘Ave Maria’ (Hail, Mary) repeated again and again. A prayer which has maintained in Roman Catholic countries its wonderful popularity down to our own days and times, and which perhaps has done more to perpetuate the popular cult of her whom Roman Catholic teachers, with an insistence pathetic as it is historically baseless, love to term the ‘Queen of Heaven’ than all the rhapsodies of mystics, or learned treatises of doctors or authoritative pronouncements of the See of Rome.”

But this novel form of Christian dogma, with its ever-multiplying developments, it must be confessed, excited even in the hearts of some of the most ardent devotees of the New Cult, now and again qualms and hesitations--for instance, Bernard of Clairvaux in the middle of the twelfth century--the glory of the Cistercian Order, one of the most influential and loved monks that ever lived, whilst professing the deepest tenderness towards, and affection and admiration for the Mother of his Lord, wrote in a spirit of indignant remonstrance against the doctrine of the “Immaculate conception of the Virgin” which in the twelfth century had already been suggested for acceptation. “Are we more instructed,” wrote S. Bernard, “or more devout than the fathers?... It is perilous presumption in us, when their prudence in such things is exceeded. The Royal Virgin needs no fictitious honours.” Aquinas, Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, denied this doctrine, or at least hesitated before adopting it.[22]

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The testimony of _Art_ to this strange development in Christian doctrine is striking and instructive. Art, it must be remembered, is ever the expression of popular opinion. Outside the Catacomb pictures which here are indeed few in number and very simple, and give no support whatever to the lofty mediæval conceptions of Mary;[23] the earliest representations of the Virgin are found in ancient Christian sarcophaguses; there the Virgin, when she is represented at all, occupies a place less prominent than that given to the Apostles. A conspicuous position is only accorded to her in the Western Church, towards the eighth and ninth centuries, when the Crucifixion began to be a popular subject in the design of ornamentation. The Virgin is depicted in these scenes at the foot of the Cross on the right side, S. John occupying a similar place on the left.

But in the twelfth century, a marked change in Art appears in the presentment of the Virgin. Dating from about the year 1140, Mary becomes a prominent figure in sculpture and in painted glass; she now appears commonly seated on a throne and wearing a crown, but ever holding on her knees the infant Saviour. In her right hand she often holds a sceptre. An aureole of glory surrounds her head and the head of the Child Christ. No doubt this new fashion of representing Mary was borrowed from the Greek and Byzantine pictures and sculptures, of which a large number were brought from the East by returning Crusaders. Still in these early representations, the Child Christ remains the principal figure, and He is depicted on His mother’s knees in the attitude of blessing with an outstretched little hand.

But a change even here is soon observable. In the thirteenth century, save in a scene picturing the adoration of the Magi, the Virgin is rarely depicted in a sitting posture with the Child Christ in her arms. She now generally appears standing, crowned and triumphant; if she holds the Child in her arms, it is simply to mark the source and origin of the power and authority which she is evidently portrayed as exercising. But emphatically in these thirteenth century and later statues and glass pictures, she is the central figure, and to her, not to the Divine Child, is adoration unmistakably offered and prayer addressed. Very different indeed from the humble and grief-stricken Mary of the seventh and eighth centuries kneeling with S. John at the foot of the Cross, is the crowned and sceptred Queen of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; her head encircled with an aureole of glory, accepting the devout homage of Christian worshippers, and listening to their supplications addressed to her.

It is thus during the thirteenth and two following centuries, she appears in unnumbered instances, alike in jewelled window as on the carved porch of the house of God, unmistakably, as the popular hymns and liturgies were everywhere teaching, “the Queen of Heaven.”

[Illustration: Annexe to Gloucester Cathedral--The Lady Chapel, XV Century--showing the little South Transept and the square east end.]

_An Appendix on two remarkable Architectural Features in the Lady Chapel of Gloucester._

In the Lady Chapel of Gloucester there are two remarkable features which have, I believe, generally escaped attention. The stranger standing on the grass lawn which forms the outside pavement of the cathedral, perhaps notices that the east end of the great Lady Chapel is _square_--rectangular; and looking down the pile perceives two small transepts; then as the eye travels down the great building beyond the Lady Chapel, it is again arrested by two more transepts of far greater size.