THE BUILDER NOVEMBER 1925

THE STUDY CLUB

The Symbolism of Medieval Architecture

By BRO. R. J. MEEKREN

ONE point about the Masonic Institution will be assented to by all
students, that there is a real organic connection between the
Speculative fraternity of today and the Operative organization of
the past--but regarding the question how much of Operative usage
and tradition has survived there have been, and still are, wide
differences of opinion. At the least during the period of
transition (say from 1680 to 1730, more or less) the old must have
been mingled with new material, the new expanding and the old
fading out until it was all gone-- except the name, and some
technicalities much changed in meaning; while at the highest we may
suppose the essentials of the old were all retained and only
changed in detail and by the addition of formal Speculative
explanations. Between, these two extremes must lie the opinions of
everyone at all conversant with the facts. It follows, therefore,
that our present symbolism must either be derived from the medieval
craft of Masonry or else have been borrowed from other and
extraneous sources during the period of transition just mentioned,
or even later still.

Of course the present system (or aggregation) that we possess may
be of mixed origin in any proportion of the two elements, original
and borrowed, and as the matter is too complex to deal with except
one step at a time we will now confine our attention to the
tangible symbolism in the architectural monuments erected with such
loving care and patience by our Operative predecessors.

The supposition that medieval Masons recorded hidden doctrines in
the symbols they carved in stone is incredible on the face of it.
Any such teaching that the Craft may have possessed was quite
easily and safely transmissible through the organization of the
lodge, there would be no need to record it publicly, even if under
a veil. As a matter of fact we find that the emblems and devices
actually used were such as were either commonly or traditionally
known and employed, or else such as might easily be understood by
obvious allusion. For instance, the fox preaching from a pulpit is
as plain a denunciation of clerical rapacity as the bishop being
dragged down to hell in a fresco of the last judgment still
existing in an old church at Salisbury is a reminder that high
position, even in the church, is no passport to salvation.

It has often been asserted that the old churches of Europe are full
of symbolism, books written in stone for those able to read. That
they are full of significance is undoubtedly true, and it may also
be the fact that people today have generally lost the key to
understanding them, but it does not follow that because we need
special study to interpret the meaning that it was so when they
were built. An inscription in Greek is unintelligible to most among
ourselves today --to the citizen of old Athens it was as clear as
the headlines of a newspaper. Among the people of Europe, in the
thirteenth century say, there was perhaps no larger percentage who
could read at all than among us who can read Greek or Latin, and to
them generally written inscriptions would be as unintelligible as
their emblematic and symbolic representations are apt to be to us.
But when we go back and laboriously attempt to interpret these last
we are faced with an added complexity that did not exist when they
were newly carved. Most of these devices were conventional, at
least to the extent that they were generally recognized and
understood. Such a device stood for such an idea, as to us the
symbol + means "add" or % means "percent." We do not think when we
see these and like characters of what they may have meant in the
first place, or how they came to mean what they do to us, we glance
at them and take their face value and pass on. But in deciphering
the symbols of a forgotten language it is quite different, to get
at any meaning at all we must dig into their history and when we
have found that we really know too much to easily realize their
content at any given time.

SYMBOLS BECOME ORNAMENTAL

The key pattern, honeysuckle, etc., may once have been symbols, but
became decoration merely. There were many emblems and motifs
carried over into church decoration from non-Christian sources
through folk tradition, but these were either given new meanings,
or their meaning was forgotten. The maze, or labyrinth, from being
probably the ground laid out for a heathen ritual dance, became a
means of a minor form of penance. On the other hand the medieval
Mason had a sense of humor, and frequently indulged in
mystification, and sometimes concealed his meaning. The architect
of the Pharos, the great lighthouse of Alexandria, is said to have
carved his own name on a great stone in the base and then covered
it with cement in which was cut the name of the King--expecting the
cement eventually to disintegrate when his name would remain. The
story is doubtful but the Mason who carved a grotesque and evil
looking dragon set in the gable end of a building at Glastonbury,
which when seen rom the side appears as the profile portrait of
the Abbot of the time, certainly recorded his opinion of his
employer--but he played safe for it is impossible to see the
carving from the side except by climbing a ladder, or getting on
the roof of another building, where an abbot would be hardly likely
to go.

Recent investigation into the habits and customs of the so-called
white Indians of Central America show that they have a highly
developed picture writing, but that also certain individuals draw
or paint pictures with no symbolic import, but from pure artistic
impulse. Certain individuals among the Esquimaux have also been
found who drew or carved most realistically animals in groups or
singly, with no ulterior purpose but the pleasure of delineation.
Pre-historic men, or at least certain pre-historic races, notably
that called after the hamlet of Cro-Magnon in the south of France
where their remains were first discovered in any quantity, seemed
to have had the artistic instinct abnormally developed, almost
comparably with the classical Greek or his Mycenaean predecessors.
Yet it is possible these drawings and carvings had a magical
purpose. That at least is the accepted theory. But such care and
skill was not necessary for magic, cruder work would have served.
We may suppose that this was the purpose but that the magician lost
himself in the artist--just as the Greek sculptor carved statues of
the gods, but made them ideal human beings.

Other races, however, such as the Azilians, showed little depictive
ability--and went in for geometrical patterns. The purpose of their
inscribed and painted pebbles is most obscure. Perhaps it was no
more than a semi-serious play on the part of child-men. It is hard
to say. But if one takes pebbles and a paint brush and undertakes
to mark them with dots and lines and circles, or if one takes wet
clay and a piece of pointed stick and attempts some kind of simple
decoration it will be found how easily certain forms supposed to be
symbols can be formed, how they will come of themselves
practically, circles with dots in them, triangles, parallel lines,
crosses and so on. The combinations of simple lines that give any
effect as a pattern motif are not so many but that almost any child
will hit on most of them. It is for this reason that it is so
impossible to say whether the origin of a given device was in a
pattern or ornament, or was a symbolic representation. The cross is
an example. Found practically everywhere and at all times, it seems
almost everywhere to have been venerated as a very sacred, or at
least significant, symbol. Yet no combination of lines is simpler
or more obvious, a geometrical pattern can hardly be designed
without the cross appearing in it somewhere, openly or concealed,
and the original association which made of it a most sacred symbol
is even yet not agreed upon by those most competent to judge.

Returning now to Christian Churches, we must, to begin with,
clearly grasp why they were in the first place built at all. Every
religion has sacred or holy places, most have sacred buildings, and
these have varied in character according to the religion. A mosque
is primarily a place where individual worshippers can pray, and
secondarily where the Koran can be read and expounded. A Greek
temple was the house or shelter of the cult image of some deity--
the ritual all took place outside. Churches were first built as
places where the sacrament of the Eucharist could be celebrated;
and until the Reformation we may generally say that this was always
the fundamental idea underlying the planning of churches. The
evolution of the cathedral from the simplest form of basilica
reflects the evolution of sacramental doctrine, though very likely
the growing complexity of structure may have had an obscure,
unconscious, reaction and stimulated the very advance in dogma by
which it was caused. However, to trace this out in detail would
take us too far afield and into controversial subjects besides; but
in order to understand the Medieval churches and cathedrals this
much must be borne in mind, that both priests and people, employers
and builders, believed quite simply and literally that the sacred
edifice would shelter the very presence of God, not spiritually
only but in a sense physically, not only sacramentally but bodily.
That every day, at the altar, the sacrifice of the cross would be
symbolically yet really re-enacted, and that the bread and wine
would become daily the flesh and blood of Christ. Believing this a
number of things naturally and inevitably followed. Perhaps the
very first would be the arrangements whereby the congregation of
the faithful could see and worship, but with this would follow also
that nothing could be too good for such a place. The costliest
materials, the most skilful craftsmanship, the richest ornaments.
But though the artist is always making new combinations, and going
to nature for new elements of design, yet always (at least in the
earlier schools) he starts with something traditional. Sometimes
old symbols can be pressed into use, sometimes they have lost all
meaning as we have seen and are simply pattern elements, but
whichever it was it beautified and glorified the House of God. Thus
we find that one of the first types used to represent the Lord was
the old mythological figure of Orpheus.

Orpheus it has been fabled descended to hades and by the power of
his music obtained the release of his dead wife Eurydice; so he was
taken to represent the Christ who saves men from death and hell.
Another pagan figure adopted was Apollo, in the guise of the good
shepherd, that is as carrying a lamb. Here we have an example of
the inextricably tangled strands that go to the making of a symbol.
Both the shepherd and the lamb represented the Saviour as taken
directly from scriptural parable and metaphor. But Apollo had been
regarded as a Saviour god, he represented the sun, and thus was
equated with the sun of righteousness, and in addition the ram was
an animal sacred to the sun, the stories of the golden fleece, or
the purple lamb of Atreus, are in part sun myths. So that in this
symbolic figure were many lines of association which made it full
of significance to the converts to the new faith to whom these
tales were as familiar as Bible stories are to us--or should we say
to our grandfathers and grandmothers? There was the added
advantage, during the first centuries, that such symbols were
noncommittal--the unbeliever would see in them nothing to cause
comment or remark. In the Christian sense they were secret symbols;
later when it was quite safe to be a Christian newer devices took
their place, and these earlier ones were modified in form and
emphasis and gradually fell into the background.

In the mosaic design from North Africa, here reproduced from Mr.
Lethaby's work on Medieval Art, we have probably part of the floor
of a very early church. From the colors it is evident that the
arches springing from the vases are intended for fountains, the
wavy border being also a conventional representation of water. The
deer drinking at the two streams of water springing from the holy
mount refer to the Psalmist's verse, "As the hart panteth after the
water brookx so panteth my soul after Thee, O God." The peacocks
strangely enough were an early Christian symbol of the
Resurrection, from a supposed fact of natural science (as then
understood) which no one ever troubled to verify, that the
peacock's flesh was incorruptible. It may be conjectured that this
very beautiful bird when first introduced from the East was thought
of as representing, or being like, the fabled Phoenix. The stories
about the latter and its rebirth in fire show that originally it
was the sun represented as a bird. The spreading tail of the
peacock again and its many "eyes" was possibly connected with
"thousand-eyed Argus" who was a personification of the starry sky.
These two associations would have been enough to account for what
was believed about the peacock in an unscientific age, which held
also that the terrible unicorn was tame and docile in the presence
of a virgin, and that the pelican pierced its own breast to feed
its young.

Again the streams of water at which the two deer are drinking, the
fountains and the wavy border, all have undoubtedly a reference to
baptism; the border may also have reference to the four rivers of
Paradise, while the two streams flowing from the mount would remind
the believer of the rock in the wilderness that Moses struck to
give water to the people. The rock or mountain was constantly
referred to Jehovah himself in the Old Testament; "The Lord is my
rock and my fortress," "O Lord, my rock," "Be thou my strong rock,"
are but a few instances from the Psalms, while the sacred
mountains, Sinai, Horeb, Zion, and later the Mount of Olives and
the Mount of Transfiguration would also be brought to mind. But the
associations or meanings of the symbol are even yet not exhausted.
The two streams would recall inevitably the mingled water and blood
that flowed from the Saviour's side when pierced by the centurion's
spear, a detail even yet dwelt on in many popular hymns.

In the first centuries the cross does not seem to have been much
used as a symbol by the Christians, and when used at all it was
more frequently in the form of the Greek letter "Chi"--that is X,
the St. Andrew's Cross. This was the first letter of the word
"Christos and was most frequently used in the still familiar "Chi
Rho" monogram. There was a natural reason for not emphasizing it,
for it was still a common and peculiarly dishonorable mode of
execution, reserved for slaves and especially atrocious criminals.
But in Western Europe it was different. The late Baring Gould
collected evidence to show that all the peoples of Western Europe,
Celt and Teuton alike, used the cross as a sacred symbol, and he
showed also that it is probable that its use in the church spread
from West to East. That is, in the West it formed a link between
the new and the old faiths. It does not mean that heathen ideas
were necessarily carried over, but that the symbol being familiar
and sacred, and being capable of a purely Christian meaning, was
naturally employed, just as in preaching to the unconverted it was
necessary to use their own terms for God, heaven and so on, in
order to be intelligible to the hearers. With symbols as with words
the form persists but the meaning changes.

When we come to the churches of the great period of the Middle
Ages, in the full development of Gothic architecture, we find that
they are filled in every available part with sculptured and painted
symbolism of this kind. To enter a church, to walk around it, was
to pass in review the representations of every fundamental point of
Christian faith, and much else besides. On the facade, above the
main entrances, the Last Judgment was often depicted, as a warning
to both those in and out of the Church's fold. In the porch, or in
the west end of the nave, would be types of the initiatory rite of
baptism, such as the Ark, the Israelites passing through the Red
Sea, the baptism of our Lord, St. Peter sinking in the sea. On the
screen separating nave from chancel was the crucifix; over the high
Altar, the Ascension, or the Lord in glory surrounded by angels.
The Annunciation, the Nativity, would be depicted, the Wise Men
from the East. The genealogy of the Lord in a "Jesse Tree," and
everywhere the representations of saints and angels, martyrs,
confessors, those who had defined or supported the faith, with many
allusions to their stories. Virtues and vices allegorically and
symbolically represented, the seasons of the year, and the
characteristic occupations carried on in each--the whole of life
and of history as known to the builders was set forth in such wise
that the simple and unlearned could understand.

But the question arises, who devised all this? The only answer that
seems possible is that it must have been those who had the churches
built. Here again we must remember that whether priest and
congregation, bishop or noble, all were at one on the matter. And
the builders, the masons, were not a caste apart so far as religion
was concerned, they had the same faith, and the same ideas about
religion as their employers. Those who provided the funds, knew, as
those today who consult an architect, something of what they
wanted. They knew which saint they wished to dedicate the church
to, they had an idea of the size they could afford, they doubtless
referred to other churches as having this or that point they would
like included. Then with these indications the master would sketch
a design. The final plans would be a result of consultation and
discussion between all parties concerned. When it came to details
the same process seems to have been gone through. We will say that
a doorway is in question. It has been decided between the Master
and his employees that a certain subject shall be treated, let us
suppose the "Last Supper", or as it would then have been thought
of, the "Institution of the Holy Eucharist." The Master would
depict this to one of the craftsmen, who in his turn would make
sketches and discuss them with the Master, and then after the
general outline had been decided on he would proceed to do the
work. Over the doorway might be a relief showing Christ and the
Twelve sitting at table. Or it might be arranged as a series of
separate statues, the Lord in the central position, with the
chalice and paten, the statues of the Apostles on each side, each
with his distinguishing attribute. Over each there would be a
canopy, while under the brackets supporting each statue might be
some allegorical or symbolic device worked into the design, that
would have some reference to the person represented. Here if
anywhere would be found the expression of individual ideas. But
whatever these were they would be in accord with the general scheme
outlined. In certain places, as in mouldings, the carvings on the
misereres, or in the gargoyles, the craftsman might let himself go,
and introduce satyrical or humorous subjects-- but these would in
general be as obvious in intention as are comic supplements or
political cartoons to us. Sometimes again frankly pre-Christian
devices with the old pagan intent were inserted, but these would be
in the nature of traditional survivals of which there are so many
examples in all the higher religions as well as in traditional
Christianity. This will be touched on in a succeeding article.

The conclusion the evidence thus far examined has led to is that
the medieval church builders systematically employed symbolism, of
a specifically didactic character. It ranged from bare conventional
signs to the highest flights of artistic representation in
sculpture and painting, and it was designed with the conscious
purpose of recalling the tenets of the Christian faith, and of
other points regarded as interesting or edifying to the
worshippers, and lastly, that there was nothing secret about it,
that it was intended to be, and doubtless was, as obvious in
meaning as the advertisements on our billboards.

REFERENCES

For a general view Medieval Architecture by A. Kingsley Porter is
one of the best works on the subject. A smaller, but most excellent
work, is W. R. Lethaby's Medieval Art, from which the illustrations
in the article have been taken.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

What was the real character of the symbolism found in the churches
built in the Middle Ages? Was there any esoteric meaning attached
to the symbols employed? If there were such hidden meanings by whom
were they intended and for what purpose? How much of the original
meaning clung to old pagan symbols when used with a Christian
reference?

The Masonic Teaching

Masonry teaches man to practice charity and benevolence, to protect
chastity, to respect the ties of blood and friendship, to adopt the
principles and revere the ordinances of religion, to assist the
feeble, guide the blind, raise up the downtrodden shelter the
orphan, guard the altar, support the Government inculcate morality,
promote learning, love man, fear God, implore His mercy and hope
for happiness.

"Loyalty to one's country is an essential qualification in
Freemasonry, and those only are acceptable who cheerfully conform
to every lawful authority. Disloyalty in any form is abhorred to a
Freemason, and is regarded as a serious Masonic offense.
