THE DARK AGES 49 



cats, all equally unrecognizable, but all alike glutted 

 with prey. Thus they handed down to posterity 

 the disquiet of their souls, without risking the short, 

 stern shrift of an ecclesiastical court. 



The theory, like most theories, is entertaining ; 

 but even heresy can hardly be said to have given 

 the cat her due. She was practically banished 

 from cathedrals, save at Rouen, where we find her 

 bravely chasing a mouse around one of the pillars 

 in the nave. A careful search will also reveal her 

 occasional presence in the beautiful old choir stalls, 

 where the genius of the mediaeval wood-carver 

 resolved itself into an infinite capacity for taking 

 pains. Amid the riotous groups of greyhounds, 

 monkeys, and birds, we may see her — though very 

 rarely — curled up in a recess, or springing with 

 splendid freedom amid a network of oaken leaves. 

 There are two very droll cats in the choir of the 

 old Minster in the Isle of Thanet ; and on one of 

 the stalls of Great Malvern church a pair of rats 

 are engaged in the congenial task of gibbeting a 

 cat, — " le monde bcstome" as this reversal of a 

 natural law was called in ancient France. 



Venice gives us a much finer exception in the 

 superb choir-stalls of San Georgio Maggiore, carved 

 by Albert de Brule at the very close of the sixteenth 

 century, when prejudice and superstition were 

 losing their ancient hold. They represent scenes 



