Identifier: devoncornwallnot112amer_0 (find matches)
Title: Devon & Cornwall notes & queries
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Amery, John S
Subjects:
Publisher: Exeter, England : J.G. Commin
Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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idea of an asp, but that isnothing if it stood for one, and there is a medieval descriptionof the creature with which it corresponds very well. In the twelfth century Honorius dAutun produced a collec-tion of sermons for the principal festivals of the year, called theSpeculum Ecclesioe : it is in a sort of rude verse, which made itvery popular, so that its use was continued in the thirteenthcentury. All these sermons dealt with the truths ofthe Christian faith by means of symbolism, and referredrepeatedly to the animals of the bestiaries. The sermon for Palm Sunday is on the verse taken fromPsalm xci., Thou shalt walk upon the adder and the basilisk,thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.Honorius explains that this refers to our Lord, triumphantover His enemies ; the lion, he says, is antichrist, the dragon thedevil, the adder is sin, the basilisk death. He has a good dealto say about the adder; it is a kind of dragon which may be 25 THE MISERICORDS OF EXETER CATHEDRAL.
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charmed by songs, so to protect itself against the voice of thecharmer it lays one ear against the ground and stops the otherwith its tail. In the centraldoorway of Am-iens Cathedral*is the figure ofour Lord whichgoes by the nameof le beau DieudAmiens. Hestands on a lionand a dragon, anda little below, oneach side appearthe basilisk andthe adder, thusamply illustra-ting the passage from Psalm xci. quoted above. The adder is stopping its ears in the way mentioned in thesermon. The creature on our misericord has stopped its leftear by pressing it against the under side of the shelf; the right ear, however, is open.In other respects it isvery similar to theAmiens example, akind of dragon ; andthe Amiens basilisk—or cockatrice, theterms are interchange-able—is not unlikeour cock, though ithas a definite ser-pents tail. I append drawingsof these creaturesfrom Amiens for com-

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