by Félicité Schuler-Lagier, Interpreter and Lecturer at the Centre international du Vitrail
courtesy of Chartres Sanctuaire du Monde
(Continued and end)
Three illicit trades: Tavern-keepers
Although wine brings joy to the heart and is used in the liturgy, forming with bread the material of the Eucharist, the wine poured in taverns is the very antithesis of Eucharistic wine, transformed by consecration into the precious blood of Christ.
Fig. 15 : Saint Lubin has just consecrated the bread and wine, and the deacon on the right hands him the Eucharistic flashlight, the fistula, a small hollow tube of gold or silver used in the past to receive communion with the Eucharistic wine, detail of stained glass 45.
Fig. 16 : The Eucharistic chalumeau, attested as early as the 6th century, is rarely depicted in medieval iconography. It is sometimes fitted with a small handle (angulus), allowing the communicant to grasp it more easily. The large end, shown below, was dipped into the precious liquid, while the other end was held in the mouth, detail of stained glass 45.
In the Middle Ages, taverns were called hostels, with the name of the ensign or tavernkeeper added to the name. The word tavern is only mentioned in religious sources, which present the tavern as the place of all sins. Since ancient times, the word taberna, with its pejorative connotations, has been opposed to hospitium, which offers free hospitality. All councils since the High Middle Ages have forbidden priests to frequent taverns, which, as Saint Louis complained, divert the faithful from mass. Taverns are par excellence places of perdition: the sins of the tavern, linked above all to drunkenness, fall under the cardinal sin of gluttony. By not mixing wine with water, one goes against the virtue of Temperance. Drinkers squander their earnings and spend their wages, they are accused of gambling, and in order to drink again, they go further and further into debt, to the point of starving their wives and children. Drunkenness also generates the sins of words, ranging from obscene songs and talk, leading to adultery, to angry drunkenness leading to insults, blasphemy, blows and violence, sometimes even homicide. Finally, drunkenness makes tavern-keepers drowsy, unable to move about and go to work, making them guilty of idleness.
Fig. 17 : A tavern-keeper’s wife, dressed in the infamous yellow, holds a large bag of money in both hands. Tavern-keepers, both male and female, are demonized as they encourage consumption and do not hesitate to confiscate the clothes of drinkers, whom they throw naked into the street, detail of stained glass 45.
As for the tavern-keepers, they don’t help matters by urging their customers to consume salted herring, as it always makes you thirsty.
Fig. 18 : A student, pillar of the tavern. A Latin poem attributed to Pierre de Blois (1135-1212), “Quand nous sommes à la taverne” (“When we are at the tavern”), shows the students, accused of having taken up residence in the tavern, opening wide their “greedy mouths” (from gula which gives goliard, the word used to designate them in the 12th century) to swallow wine, rather than study divine science, detail of stained glass 45.
Taverns abounded in the Middle Ages, as some of them were temporary, run by religious orders or private individuals just long enough to sell off their surpluses. For temporary taverns, all you had to do was hang a hoop on a stick above your door, and have one of the town’s many criers announce the wine for sale, its quality and price.
Fig. 19 : The tavern, the blue door (signifying a place of perdition) wide open, with its sign indicating the drinking establishment, the wooden barrel hoop or hoop made of foliage, suspended on a stick, detail of stained glass 45.
Trade associations came to be known as confraternities (confraternitas), as they were above all religiously-based societies for mutual spiritual and temporal aid. On the feast day of the patron saint, a high mass was held, with a sermon, the distribution of blessed bread and a procession in which the association’s banners were carried. An obligatory banquet was held for all associates. Sometimes, orgies accompanied these annual banquets, regularly attracting sanctions.
In Chartres, tavern-keepers were appointed by Thibaud de Blois, fourth Count of Chartres. A most curious deed shows Count Thibaud de Blois, before leaving for the Second Crusade in 1147, asking tavernkeepers to give up their annual “repas de corps”, where temperance laws were scarcely observed, and instead have their chief magister pay 30 sous to the Grand-Beaulieu leprosarium.
Fig. 20 : The magister, master craftsman of the wine criers, wearing a guardrail cloak and magistral cap, detail of stained glass 45.
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The language of gesture in medieval images
“We know a man by his face, and we can discern a man of meaning by the features of his physiognomy. The clothing of the body, the laughter of the teeth and the gait of the man reveal what he is.” (Sir 19,26-27)
In medieval Western society, the expression of the body was of paramount importance, and body control was one of the major concerns of Christian civilization. For the man of the cloth, gestures had to be perfectly controlled; any self-indulgent attitude was a serious sin. A gesture measured to the point of complete immobility is the sign of firm control over the passions. Such must be the gestures of the cleric, who must refrain for a single moment from evoking the juggler whose shameful gesticulation betrays, in its incoherence, the disorder of the soul and a nature corrupted by sin.
All sorts of erratic and disorderly movements are characteristic of representations of the devil and those who act under his influence: distortions of the limbs, moving feet, arms raised above the head, and sometimes the head itself literally thrown backward, all signify the excess and violence of the action. Since silence is considered absolutely indispensable for contemplation and the regularity of religious life, only the wicked, malignants, typically clad in a short tunic, are depicted with their mouths wide open, whether they be executioners, slanderers, traitors, or unbelievers.
The crossing of the arms or legs, which is most often to be interpreted in the wrong way, indicates disorder, contradiction between speech and thought, or cheating.
The position of the head, facing majestically, in three-quarters, or in profile, combined with the movements of the body, short or long clothing, monochrome or multicolored, as well as the attributes, allows for the expression of the inner dispositions or transformations of the characters.
Original article published in the Lettre de Chartres Sanctuaire du Monde (December 2021)