Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/239

 TOPULAR LIFE AS REFLECTED BY ART 227 the various feasts and public sports — some of them singular — in which the jester and the donkey 1 played a prominent part. The innumerable witty sayings, comic pictures and caricatures of that age, attest the truth of this theory. Where firm faith reigns, fun and humour grow abundantly, for the mind which is convinced of the truth enjoys life, and meets it with composure, for- titude, and intelligence. In times of unbelief or narrow bigotry and fanaticism popular humour disappears. Had the Church desired in the Middle Ages to sup- press popular humour and fun, the strength of her power and influence would have made it an easy matter ; but such discipline was far from her system. Embracing all classes of men in her fold, she under- stood their various wants and aspirations, and en- €Ouraged a free and independent expression of their feelings so long as belief as such, and she herself as its guardian, were not impugned ; she fostered and en- couraged the spirit of humour, and, so to speak, allowed it ' to mount guard over the holy places,' as if to keep man mindful of the distance between the sacred and the profane. Not alone on the buttresses and the water-spouts and exterior parts of consecrated places were grotesque caricatures to be found, but also on the interior pillars, the lecterns, in the sanctuary, and even on the very tabernacle, were they carved. From harmless ridicule we sometimes find this art pass into satire, but always giving evidence of the general thirst for truth, the sense of the nothingness of earthly great- ness, and the struggle between good and evil ever going on in the soul of man. 1 ' Our popular religious feasts of the Middle Ages,' says Gervinus (xi. 277-278), ' were full of poetry, while now everything is chilled hy formality.' Q 2