162 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 61., Feb. 28. '67. 



as he does not quote his authority he must stand 

 responsible. Lysons, in his History of Berkshire, 

 tells us, in almost the same words, that there are 

 many monuments in the church to the Perkins 

 family, — amongst the most remarkable that of 

 Francis Perkins, who died in 1635, '■ which ex- 

 hibits the figures of Mr. Perkins and his lady 

 under an arch supported by Corinthian columns, is 

 of chalk." P. B.A. 



LONGFEIiliOW's " GOLDEN LEGEND." 



It is strange that amongst the interesting notes 

 which Mr. Longfellow has appended to the last 

 edition of his Golden Legend, he has none on the 

 very subject-matter of the legend itself, though it 

 much requires elucidation, and Mailath makes 

 special reference to it in his preface. 



A belief in the purifying and atoning virtues of 

 human blood, especially with regard to lepers, ap- 

 pears to have obtained amongst mankind since the 

 Fall. Even amongst the heathen, sacrifices of ani- 

 mals were considered to derive their efficacy from 

 some mysterious connexion with, and prefiguration 

 of, human death and human blood. Thus the sa- 

 cred seal of Egypt on the animal set apart for sa- 

 crifice had the figure of a Man bound as a victim, 

 indicating that such sacrifice was considered as 

 vicarious. Caiapbas gave expression to the uni- 

 versal feeling of mankind from the remotest ages, 

 when he declared " that it is expedient for us that 

 one Man should die for the people, and that the 

 whole nation perish not." " And this spake he 

 not of himself," but from the spirit of wisdom and 

 prophecy inspiring him as high-priest. It has 

 been from the most ancient times the opinion of 

 mankind that the voluntary death of an innocent 

 and noble person might be an atonement to the 

 Supreme Being for national sins, and might pre- 

 vent national calamities*; and, a fortiori, that one 

 man might thus die for a friend. Both in the 

 early times before Christianity, and even in the 

 Middle Ages, human blood was considered as a 

 medicine of universal application, a remedy alike 

 for sin and sickness. These beliefs had a germ of 

 truth in them, and were founded on that mystery 

 connected with blood, especially human blood, 

 which God Himself has declared, but which has 

 never been fully unfolded : " The life of the flesh 

 is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon 

 the altar to make an atonement for your souls : 

 for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for 

 the soul." — Levit. xvil. 11. "Almost all things 

 are by the law purged with blood; and, without 



* Cf. Barton's Analogy, pt. vi., " The Analogy of Di- 

 vine W'isdom between the disposition in Men to believe in 

 the Saviours of Natioas, and the Saviour of Mankind." 

 Dublin, 1750. 



shedding of blood, is no remission." — Heb. ix. 

 22. 



We need not be surprised, then, that the an- 

 cients regarded human blood as the special and 

 only cure for that most dreadful of all disorders, 

 leprosy. The leprosy was selected by God Him- 

 self, from all other diseases, as the especial type 

 and symbol of sin, the very sacrament of death, 

 and as such He treats it all through the Mosaic 

 law. 



Pliny, after describing " the white Leprosie, 

 called Elephantiasis," observes : 



" iEgypti peculiare malum ; et quum in reges incidisset, 

 populis funebre. Quippe in balneis solia temperebantur 

 humana sanguine ad medicinam," — Hist. Nat,, lib. 

 xxviii. cap. v. ; cf, cap. x. 



Thus rendered by Philemon Holland : 



"A peculiar malady is this and natural to the Egyp- 

 tians ; but looke when any of their Kings fell into it, woe 

 worth the subjects and poor people; for then were the 

 tubs and bathing vessels, wherein they sate in the baine 

 (i. e. bath), filled with men's blood for their cure." 



This passage is quoted by Mr. Soane in an In- 

 teresting article on " Blood Baths in the Early and 

 Middle Ages." * After expressing his surprise 

 " that the Christians In the Middle Ages adopted 

 the Pagan rather than the Jewish belief," and 

 stating that the Emperor Constantino was only 

 restrained from using this revolting remedy In 

 consequence of a vision, this writer proceeds : 



"The use of the blood-bath seems to have been by far 

 too common both in ancient times and in the Middle 

 Ages. In the time of the great leprosy this belief must 

 have given occasion to numberless cruelties, more espe- 

 cialljf as children and maidens were the objects of it, a 

 class the least likely to be able to escape from the sacri- 

 fice demanded of them. After a time, however, it re- 

 ceived a check fron\ an opinion gradually gaining ground 

 that only the blood of those would be efficacious who 

 offered themselves freely and voluntarily for a beloved 

 sufferer." 



Mr. Soane then gives the outlines of the old 

 German ballad of Armer Heinrich, or " Poor 

 Henry," which forms the basis of the American 

 poet's " Golden Legend," and then continues : 



" The story of Amicus and Amelius is another fable of 

 the same kind ; and there is a similar tale related of 

 Louis XI. thinking to avoid his approaching death by 

 drinking the blood of young children. The historian 

 Gaguin (^Croniques de France, 1516, feuillet ccij.) testifies 

 to the fact : ' Every day he grew worse and worse, and 

 the medicines profited him nothing, though of a strange 

 character, for he vehemently hoped to recover by the 

 human blood which he drank and swallowed from certain 

 children. But he died at Tours.' Klinger has employed 

 the blood-bath to heighten the horrors of his Faust." ' 



In my Note on "France: Legends" (1" S. x, 

 p. 457.) I referred to the legend of " Monk Felix," 

 which forms an episode in Mr. Longfellow's book : 



* New Curiosities of Literature, Lond. 1849, vol. i. 

 p. 72. 



