Page:Surrey Archaeological Collections Volume 7.djvu/428

 to him a sulphurous drink in a red-hot chalice, who, when he had drunken, the lid being removed, was sent into the well. But the pilgrim, as he stood before the infernal threshold, and seeing such things, trembled, the Devil loudly calling out, " Bring over to me that lord who stands outside, who of late, selling his gar- ment of pilgrimage, got drunk." On hearing which the pilgrim, turning to the Angel of the Lord who had led him thither, promised that he would never more get drunk, since now at that hour he delivered him from im- minent peril, who, presently returning to himself, noted the day and hour, and, returning to his country, knew that the aforesaid abbot had died at the same time. " I saw," says Csesarius, " the same abbot at Cologne, and he was a very secular man, more conformable to a soldier than a monk." 1 This very curious story, being one out of several related by this Cistercian monk, leads us to another in- ference of much interest respecting the author of the painting. He must have been one of those artist monks of the same order who frequently wandered about in the practice of their art, as related in the Dialogus Miracu- lorum, Dist. 8, c. xxiv. No secular person could then have been acquainted with the numerous stories of Ca3sarius, nor is it probable that anyone, out of the order to which he belonged, was familiar with that which could not have been published out of it so early as the close of the 1 2th century. It is very possible he was German or Flemish, as Csesarius himself became the Prior of Villers, in Brabant, and art influences travelled a good deal by the Rhine, it being a natural highway to the West. The very great importance of the Cistercian order in the 13th century may also have tended to disseminate such religious teachings as are found in the Dialogus Miraculorum. The " Ladder," which is the principal symbol in this painting, I have already shown was of early use. The metaphor is indeed most natural, and it would not be correct were we to ascribe the origin of the "Ladder to 1 Csesarii Ht-isterb. Dia^oyus Miraculorum, Disb. 12, cap. xl.