Page:Amusements in mathematics.djvu/140

128 In the abbey church of St. Bertin, at St. Omer, is another of these curious floors, representing the Temple of Jerusalem, with stations for pilgrims. These mazes were actually visited

2.—Maze in Chartres Cathedral.

and traversed by them as a compromise for not going to the Holy Land in fulfilment of a vow. They were also used as a means of penance, the penitent frequently being directed to go the whole course of the maze on hands and knees.

The maze in Chartres Cathedral, of which I give an illustration (Fig. 2), is 40 feet across, and was used by penitents following the procession

3.—Maze in Lucca Cathedral.

of Calvary. A labyrinth in Amiens Cathedral was octagonal, similar to that at St. Quentin, measuring 42 feet across. It bore the date 1288, but was destroyed in 1708. In the chapter-house at Bayeux is a labyrinth formed of tiles, red, black, and encaustic, with a pattern of brown and yellow. Dr. Ducarel, in his Tour through Part of Normandy" (printed in 1767), mentions the floor of the great guard-chamber in the abbey of St. Stephen, at Caen, "the middle whereof represents a maze or labyrinth about 10 feet diameter, and so artfully contrived that, were we to suppose a man following all the intricate meanders of its volutes, he could not travel less than a mile before he got from one end to the other."

Then these mazes were sometimes reduced in size and represented on a single tile (Fig. 3). I give an example from Lucca Cathedral. It is on one of the porch piers, and is 19½ inches in diameter. A writer in 1858 says that, "from the continual attrition it has received from thousands of tracing fingers, a central group of Theseus and the Minotaur has now been very

4.—Maze at Saffron Walden, Essex.

nearly effaced." Other examples were, and perhaps still are, to be found in the Abbey of Toussarts, at Châlons-sur-Marne, in the very ancient church of St. Michele at Pavia, at Aix in Provence, in the cathedrals of Poitiers, Rheims, and Arras, in the church of Santa Maria in Aquiro in Rome, in San Vitale at Ravenna, in the Roman mosaic pavement found at Salzburg, and elsewhere. These mazes were sometimes called "Chemins de Jerusalem," as being emblematical of the difficulties attending a journey to the earthly Jerusalem and of those encountered by the Christian before he can reach the heavenly Jerusalem—where the centre was frequently called "Ciel."

Common as these mazes were upon the Continent, it is probable that no example is to be found in any English church; at least I am not aware of the existence of any. But almost every county has, or has had, its specimens of