Devon & Cornwall notes & queries . he hunting of lions and antelopes; the Crusaderskilled rabbits on the island of Lampedosa. And let itbe noted that except the lion, not one of these animals,is found on the misericords. But there is no mentionof elephants, and there are none in the north of Africa,,nor in the varous countries where the Crusaders touchedon their way. It is true that Tasso in his Jerusalem Delivered speaksof elephants in the same line as camels; perhaps byassociation of ideas, perhaps the statement is due tohis poetic imagination. Anyhow, he wrote two hundredyears later. But ev
Devon & Cornwall notes & queries . he hunting of lions and antelopes; the Crusaderskilled rabbits on the island of Lampedosa. And let itbe noted that except the lion, not one of these animals,is found on the misericords. But there is no mentionof elephants, and there are none in the north of Africa,,nor in the varous countries where the Crusaders touchedon their way. It is true that Tasso in his Jerusalem Delivered speaksof elephants in the same line as camels; perhaps byassociation of ideas, perhaps the statement is due tohis poetic imagination. Anyhow, he wrote two hundredyears later. But even if Tasso were correct, and the Egyptianarmy possessed elephants, as he states, they would bewar-elephants, and if our misericord had been copied fromthem it would have borne a howdah, and have been fullycaparisoned, as elephants appear in the cathedrals ofRipon and Gloucester, Beverley Minster, Beverley and elsewhere. Ours is simply an elephant, withno trappings of any kind. Cheap fun has been poked 12 Elephant. No. Elephant, from Drawing by Matthew Paris. Plate III. THE MISERICORDS OF EXETER CATHEDRAL. at it on account of alleged inaccuracies in representation;after reading certain printed descriptions one would expectto see a grotesque beast indeed. On this point also a protestmust be entered against the journalistic touch. True,the elephant is not perfect, but if the artist had not givenit the hind legs of an horse, and if the tusks did notstick upwards quite so much, there would not be muchfault to find. Mediaeval workmen often copied the subjects of theircarvings from the bestiaries, and several of the Exetermisericords were derived from the illustrations in thesebooks, as will be shewn presently, but the elephant wasnot one of them. I have examined several bestiaries,and not in a single one is there an elephant thatin point of accuracy approaches the Exeter carving,but it is noticeable that the thirteenth century drawingsare more nearly correct than those
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