At the top end of Manhattan Island lies that great
Museum of mediaeval Europe, The Cloisters, and in it a tapestry, remarkably well preserved, which is a monument to belief. Not only to Christian belief, but to the fossilised beliefs of much more ancient religions and the
customs to which they gave rise. Many years ago I spent some hours in front of it and puzzled hours they were. A new book, by John Williamson, The Oak King the Holly King and the Unicorn,
has renewed my interest in the Unicorn Tapestry, particularly in the extraordinary symbolism it seethes with.
I am a plain man, but a man who can read. I prefer to call a spade a spade. But four hundred
years ago most people couldn't read. Instead , they had great powers of remembering and these were enhanced by symbols, of which the Christian Cross was the strongest. The Cross appears nowhere in the Unicorn
Tapestry but other symbols run riot.
Only the super-rich could afford tapestries, and in the fifteenth century Dukes and Princes lived in gloomy castles with tiny windows and dark walls. Tapestries were the equivalent of
colour T.V.'s showing a favourite soap opera. And, unlike a T.V. set, tapestries could be rolled up and slung across the back of a mule as the Duke set out upon a war or a Crusade, providing a memento of home, as well as a
subject for conversation after the fiddlers and drummers had rattled through their repertoire after supper.
Perhaps we should begin with the unicorn, and straightaway get over the elementary image of the virgin with a single
erect horn in her lap being able to manage him as he surrenders to her charms, whatever those charms might have been. Far, far too simple. First of all we do have incontrovertible evidence of unicorns. I regret they are
not a corrupt species of deer. They're the most durable remains of the Narwhal, that whale whose single left-hand tusk enlarges itself with an inbuilt spiral. When these tusks were found on the beaches of Northern
Europe , they looked more like an appurtenance of a great deer than, unimaginably, of a fish. So, clearly they existed. For them a role had to be found. And it was.
Virgins, mind you, have always been popular figures in
mythology. Young, slim,often pretty, we know they'll change eventually into fat, gross Mother Figures if Johnny and I have anything to do with it. Virgins, if
sacrificed in winter, have the power to ensure that spring and summer will come and that the cold and hungry tribe will live through another year.
However the virgin , holding the unicorn in her lap holds another hidden meaning
as well. Tertullian, an early Roman Christian, explained a passage in Deuteronomy about unicorns as meaning that "the unicorn is Christ, and his horn is Christ's Cross
The word 'is' crops up repeatedly in symbology
with a meaning rather different from "my name is John." I will continue to use it to mean "symbolises."
The seven Unicorn tapestries were woven in Brussels in about.1500. They can be dated by the shoes of the
huntsmen; long, pointed toes were replaced by fashionable broad toes at the end of the fifteenth century. About 180 years later the tapestries were recorded among the possessions of the family of la Rochefoucauld in their
chateau at Verteuil. During the Reign of Terror in 1793 the tapestries were pillaged from the chateau, and disappeared. In the 1850's they were found in a farmyard barn where they were being used to cover vegetables. After
returning to the Verteuil chateau they were bought by an American art dealer and then by John D. Rockefeller who gave them to the N.Y. Metropolitan Museum.
The unicorn has many other properties. He was first mentioned in 400 B.C.
by Ctesias , a Greeek physician at the Persian court, who claimed that a cup made from its horn would always protect the drinker from poison, and that the animal was so swift that no other animal could catch it.In
one of the tapestries the unicorn gracefully dips his horn into a stream thereby purifying the water, which, if poisoned, in turn symbolised the sins of the world.
In the background of the tapestries are
various European trees and in the foreground shrubs and plants, all of them with magical or religious significance. The oak was the sacred tree of Zeus and Thor, and in some symbologies associated with Christ The holly,
obviously was a holy tree. But the small white-flowering campion plant had a terrible reputation: other names for it were snakes' flower, devil's flower, Mother Dee (because picking it brought death to your mother) and
death-blossom. Cornflowers, on the other hand, repelled snakes and were good for eyesight.
Animals in the tapestries are full of symbolism, good and bad. Serpents are notoriously evil, but the weasel (a cousin of the mongoose)
was a snake-killer, also having the unusual ability to bring to life its own dead babies with the aid of the herb, rue. The stag was another serpent-killer who identified the serpent's home burrow, took a mouthful of water from a
convenient brook and spat it into the hole, thereby drowning his enemy. The splendid panther symbolises Christ, for an uncommon reason. The panther's breath is so sweet that it "is Christ's voice calling out after His
resurrection." and from this breath the dragon must hide in a cave.
On the other hand the lion is an ambiguous animal. Bishop Theobold, in his bestiary, tells us that the lion produces his offspring without life "until
the third day of its birth and then the father of the young thing sends forth a great roar about it and thus arouses it as if from sleep." You can understand immediately that this habit symbolises the Resurrection.
The wolf,
with his fondness for the taste of Christian sheep, is always unpopular, indeed the Devil often takes his shape. But in the tapestries a marigold and an orange appear next his head, both, by their shape and colour, standing for the
sun and goodness.
Birds play their part. On the rim of a fountain are two goldfinches, a bird which is fond of thistles . Perhaps you have forgotten that when Christ was on his way to Calvary a goldfinch picked out the sharpest
thorn from His Crown. The red spot on the bird's head is to remind us of its kindness. In addition this holy bird always manages to lay twelve eggs, to symbolise the dozen disciples.
In the end the Unicorn, having been tamed by
the virgin, arouses himself but is killed and brought to the castle, wearing around its neck a wreath of oak leaves. These symbolise immortality, a circumstance apparently being discussed with interest if not approval by the
three gossipy women nearby. Sure enough, in the last tapestry, the unicorn is reborn, living in comfortable captivity in the castle grounds under another symbol of immortality, a palm tree.
During those long Mediaeval
winter evenings you will appreciate how the Duke and Duchess, their children and their friends would have found in these tapestries just as much to talk about as do your friends and mine in "Days of Our Lives."
