Imagine you are a Europeasant of the Middle Ages. To keep you in your place, and to ensure you do not get any funny ideas, the Church vaunts its power over you, both temporal and spiritual, in ways designed to stun your puny mediaeval mind. Cathedrals can still, sometimes, dominate a modern city skyline – how much grander and awe-inspiring they must have seemed when they dwarfed every other building around them. And the treasures inside! Bright colours, gold and silver, precious stones, glorious riches contrasting so sharply with the filth and muck of your own pitiable existence. Much of the art of course didactic, pictures for the illiterate, shared symbolism easily understood even by the thick-headed.
That is why, you see, when crusaders returned from the Crusades bringing all sorts of exotica from far distant lands, it was obvious what to do with those embalmed crocodiles they carried home. Clearly such a monster was Satanic, the spawn of hell. Thus were crocodiles wrapped in chains and hung from the ceilings of churches and cathedrals, to impress upon the peasants both the awful power and the ineffable mystery of Christ.
Fretful about its evaporating congregations, perhaps the Church of England could revive this sensible practice.
Mr Key is indebted to The Artificial Kingdom : A Treasury Of The Kitsch Experience by Celeste Olalquiaga (Bloomsbury, 1999), wherein he learned about this particular method of church decoration.
good god, is it true?
In these consumerist times, I think they should promote the positive aspects of what they’re selling. I’d like to see red and green glasses on pews and a 3D feel good movie of god in his heaven, followed by new, improved, special offers, an after christmas sale, reduced eco-packaging, and, perhaps, a loyalty card would be nice.
yes, and maybe a Greggs in the foyer
I think they should hang in chains from the ceiling a life-size Darth Vader.
and a Gary Glitter
“designed to stun your puny mediaeval mind”
At the risk of overreacting, the post-enlightenment view of the medieval mind as a fearful place of superstition and limited vision has always annoyed me. You only have to read Shakespeare and Chaucer to realise that it is a falsehood. The only difference between us and them is, possibly, that they had a more highly developed sense of the ridiculous. Otherwise it is just a bunch of Whigs and moderns bigging themselves up with tales of their assumed superiority to all who built their civilisation.
Well, better stuffed crocs in chains than people dangling from the roof, I suppose. I wonder if Jesus knew what a crocodile was or ever saw one? A croc caused a plane to crash a few days ago after escaping from some luggage. The passengers fled to the front of the aircraft and the shift in weight sent it out of control. Perhaps in a few hundred years, readers (if any are left) will consider this primo superstition since it wasn’t, apparently, a very big croc and could likely have been subdued without much trouble. Instead, fear took hold and the superstitious instincts of crowds did the rest. I’d like to think the “medieval mind” would have taken a more robust view and simply knocked the beast out, perhaps using a handy butt of sack, until the plane had landed.
Recusant, you are absolutely correct. However, those familiar with my work will know that it is not merely the brains of mediaeval persons which are termed puny, but those of sundry others, including – repeatedly – my own.
Of course, he did, Mark. How do you imagine he walked upon the water? (I saw Roger Moore do it that way the other night…) But there’s no mention of a kangeroo.
Wasn’t Behemoth a crocodile?