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Gargoyles

17:25 / 19.09.04

whats the thinking behind putting gargoyles on churches in order to protect from evil spirits?
gargoyles certainly seem to have a lot of "dark" symbolism themselves- as far as i know Christian mythology doesn't have a lot to say about "evil" supernatural beings, and on the good side there is basically just God and the angels. and the gargoyles don't look like angels to me. why would they want to protect Christian churches? particularly during the middle ages, when any dealings with dark creatures would be seen as satanic?

21:43 / 19.09.04

I love this type of thing myself. I can't remember how much info on Gargoyles it has in it but Fulcanelli's book called Les Mysteres De Cathedrales is all about the symbolism of the Gothic Churces, so i'm sure it has Gargoyles in it, and information about the hidden meanings of them. It's an amazing book. Fulcanelli (who was a total mystery himself and reputed to possibly be Nicholas Flamel by some people if i remember correctly. He was also supposed to have found the Philosophers Stone and to have prolonged his own life.) thought that the highest secrets of Alchemy had been displayed in the stonework of the Gothic Churches for all to see. I think the country that has the most Gothic Churches, and the country that the book focuses on most, possibly all the way through, is France. I'd love to visit some of them one day, i'd see Chartres first, not sure if it has Gargoyles though.

I found a copy in the library in town, you'd probably have to either do this yourself or order it somewhere, but if your really into this subject i'm sure it would be worth it.

Here's a couple of links :

http://www.sangraal.com/AMET/

http://vincentbridges.com/FulMotCath.html

I'd love to know what the Priests of the Churches would say when asked about them!

07:52 / 20.09.04

Technically only the waterspouts are gargoyles.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:35 / 20.09.04

Indeed. Carvings on churches which are not designed to carry water away from the body of the church are more generally known as grotesques.

Which, incidentally, is the answer to the question "why do churches have gargoyles" - to channel rainwater away from the church walls. Old French, gargouille - throat - as in gargle.

More generally, I'm not sure where you've got the idea that Christian mythology doesn't go into evil supernatural creatures. The *Bible* doesn't offer much in the way of taxonomy, but that's hardly the same thing. Have a look at Hieronymus Bosch, the Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost, the Malleus Maleficatrum... and beyond that the British countryside at least was crawling with flibbertigibbets that get integrated into Christian thought. To the best of my knowledge the same thing happens all over...

12:17 / 20.09.04

I think The idea was to keep the peasantry good and scared. Hee, in one church, haha, in one church they had, I swear, this, this, WOODEN DEVIL PUPPET, I'm not making this up, and during confession the puppet would go BLAH! and the fucking primates would shit themselves.

Unconditional Love

13:41 / 20.09.04

the ministry of fear. ( and highly inventive and creative paranoia ). welcomes you.

wooden devil puppets, lol.

13:59 / 20.09.04

That's interesting, LM - where was it, do you know?

I think there's a whole lot more to church decorations than simply scaring the congregation, but am hard put to it to explain myself at this juncture - it's not something I've really studied in any depth, and certainly not something I've studied recently. But I do think it is very interesting (I am becoming increasingly interested in the history of religion and especially popular religion).

14:49 / 20.09.04

More generally, I'm not sure where you've got the idea that Christian mythology doesn't go into evil supernatural creatures. The *Bible* doesn't offer much in the way of taxonomy, but that's hardly the same thing.

what i am interested in, is why it seems the practice of putting gargoyles (..i mean grotesques..) carried on, well after most of the other "dark" supernatural stuff, apart from satan himself, was written out of the bible. of course there would be a lot of stories around, especially amongst isolated villages in the British countryside, well out of the way of church officials, but to be seen entering into a pact with them would have been heretical?
i'm just curious as to why they seem to have been given a susprising amount of trust by the people who would drown women as witches, for talking to their cats.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:54 / 20.09.04

what i am interested in, is why it seems the practice of putting gargoyles (..i mean grotesques..) carried on, well after most of the other "dark" supernatural stuff, apart from satan himself, was written out of the bible.

Dude, what? The content of the Bible was pretty much nailed down long before the Gothic style developed. I just don't understand what your question is here....

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:08 / 20.09.04

Much less, for that matter, why you think one made a "pact" with gargoyles - they are big lumps of stone. There was apparently a feeling that they had an apotropaic function, but that was presumably by scaring away evil spirits by being ugly rather than by taking to the air and battling them - I don't think a "pact" has to be entered into, unless you have evidence to the contrary, any more than a shaman wearing a scary mask to frighten off the spirits of sickness is necessarily making a pact with big eyes and pointy teeth.

So, gargoyles. Pagan holdover, useful feature to avoid water corrosion, method of illustrating the horrors of Hell (and virtues of Heaven - lots of church statuary is of saints and angels) to a largely illiterate populace - all of the above, really.

So why burn witches and not priests, even though the priests have got big scary stone demons? Because they're priests.

15:17 / 20.09.04

Brokenbiscuits - where are you getting your info from? Am genuinely curious...

17:33 / 20.09.04

i'm not talking literaly, or suggesting someone sat down and drew up a contract with some statues which says they had to protect them.
i'm just interested in stories or legends or whatever about the things.
someone else has posted some links on the subject, looks like the kind of thing i was after, although i havent had a chance to look at it properly yet. thanks.

17:38 / 20.09.04

kit-kat.. i haven't got any info, i was hoping some people here would have.

18:06 / 20.09.04

rather than by taking to the air

Didn't you see Gremlins 2?

07:49 / 21.09.04

The wooden devil puppet was in a documentary I saw years ago... My brain forgot the rest.

14:57 / 21.09.04

brokenbiscuits: in that case, you might find this page interesting: Gargoyles. It has some useful links (hyperlinked for your convenience) and looks v. interesting.

14:12 / 22.09.04

yes, thanks, that was just the sort of thing I was after.

15:58 / 22.09.04

a lot of 'gargoyles' were also the work of the masons (no, not those ones) who built the churches. they would often have trademark images that they put on their work, and a lot of gargoyles are simply jokes and visual puns that make no sense now out of context.

20:56 / 27.09.04

Interesting. We're just about to move into a flat next door to a gargoyle-protected building; you can see one from the bathroom skylight. It's jutting out from the corner of the roof, so it could conceivably be a gargoyle proper or a grotesque. Have to check it out when it rains...

16:48 / 28.09.04

Have some fun with the Sheela Na Gig.

11:43 / 29.09.04

Are hunkypunks the same as grotesques? I seem to recall from reading a tourist information leaflet about Taunton Deane, Somerset, that hunkypunks are like gargoyles but do not have the same function.