Even in the most hidden and sacred
places of the medieval cathedral we still find representations of
Satanic power in which profanity and obscenity run riot. In these
representations the painter and the glass-stainer vied with the
sculptor. Among the early paintings on canvas a well-known
example represents the devil in the shape of a dragon, perched
near the head of a dying man, eager to seize his soul as it
issues from his mouth, and only kept off by the efforts of the
attendant priest. Typical are the colossal portrait of Satan, and
the vivid picture of the devils cast out of the possessed and
entering into the swine, as shown in the cathedral-windows of
Strasburg. So, too, in the windows of Chartres Cathedral we see a
saint healing a lunatic: the saint, with a long devil-scaring
formula in Latin issuing from his mouth; and the lunatic, with a
little detestable hobgoblin, horned, hoofed, and tailed, issuing
from _his_ mouth. These examples are but typical of myriads in
cathedrals and abbeys and parish churches throughout Europe; and
all served to impress upon the popular mind a horror of
everything called diabolic, and a hatred of those charged with
it.
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