The personifications of vices or of the vicious themselves are very recurrent images of the imagination in Romanesque churches. One of these scenes is carved on a capital in Saint Pierre de Blesle (France), in which three naked characters show all the signs of indulging in bad tendencies. The central woman, for example, is labeled by symbol scholars as the figuration of lust.
Lust, within the framework of sexual morality, is understood as an excessive appetite for sexual pleasure, a disordered and uncontrollable sexual desire. There is, however, a non-sexual sense of lust, which refers to an excess or excess of something, whatever that other thing is. (Lust, from the Latin luxus: ‘abundance’, ‘exuberance’) (1)
This last meaning does not necessarily have to be a sin, since it will depend on the abundance of what is proposed. If, for example, we talk about abundance or exuberance of beauty, it could even be a divine vision. On the other hand, if we talked about exuberance or abundance of ignorance, that would no longer be good.
So what kind of lust is the capital referring to, sexual lust or exuberant lust for something else?
It strikes us that this lady does not look like a sexual lecher. Although squatting, she does not show her genitals as they are hidden behind a plant ornament. There is no trace of copulation or fornication. Her only action is to nurse and it seems quite serene indeed, a reptile and an amphibian, which she grabs with her hands keeping them firm in place.
Known is the poisonous value that is given to both the snake and the toad for spitting a stinging substance, when not deadly. In this case, both one animal and the other take their food from the woman’s breasts. She is her nurse. So, we do not believe that we are facing the sin of lust understood as sexual depravity but of another type, that of the exuberance and abundance of something else. But what?
Perhaps we should observe their companions to be able to intuit something or see what specific bad tendencies they represent:
The reading of the first character is quite obvious, since he is carrying a bag that alludes, most likely, to the bags that lenders and money changers always wore around their necks during their business and that, together with the account book, was characteristic of them. . So he personifies usury, something that in the times of Charlemagne (Admonitio generalis, 8th century) was declared a crime and that, later in 1311, Pope Clement V totally prohibited, declaring null and void all secular legislation in its favor. (2)
Usury, currently considered as the excessive charging of interest on a loan, has always been linked to profit, abuse, speculation and the bleeding of others for their own benefit.
The poet Dante in his Divine Comedy describes usurers in this way:
“You will see hanging like bugs, their bags on their chests, it is their treasure! They have always been the scum and dishonor of Humanity. For them, the progress of the world is measured according to the weight of their profits” (3)
On the opposite side, another figure with a large open mouth shows us the instrument that characterizes it: a bowl or plate. Generally speaking, any container that serves to contain or cook food. It is emblem of gluttony or gluttony, that selfish desire that seeks personal satisfaction through the exaggerated intake of food.
From the Latin gluttiere (to swallow), gluttony is currently identified with excessive consumption of food and drink, but in the past, any form of excess could fall under the definition of this sin. The irrational or unnecessary consumption of things, whatever they were, would also be a type of gluttony that leads to other forms of destructive behavior (4)
Exemplified by the pig that eats the acorn on the ground and has its sights set on the one hanging from a branch, it does not enjoy what it eats and is unable to control its craving by indulging in animal voracity.
Dante gives us a poetic description of it in his Divine Comedy, canto IV: “Ciacco (pig) is my name, I fell into the perfidy of eating and drinking, without another guide, my reason was left empty and I sank into blackness and laziness”
In it, the gluttons live knocked down in a mud from which they cannot get out; an exaggerated rain falls on them hitting them and at the same time creating more mud in their surroundings. It is an allegory of the one who has buried his body while alive, confusing and forgetting the true fullness that is spiritual. In the same poem and referring to the same sinner, Virgilio sentences: “-It has gone out completely. Now it is mud that has forgotten its faith, its love, its cause and its attachments.” (5)
Since they are not tormented and there is no devil typical of infernal scenes with them, these figures embody the sense of vice or sin more than the sinner himself. Each of them identifies with the fatal animal that comes out of his mouth and whose appetite is always hungry.
So we see that gluttony, considered by the fathers of the Church as a carnal sin, expels a toxic toad from its mouth, a symbol of the excessive desire of the body, which despite being satisfied, proceeds to dull its senses by insisting on swallowing and swallow until satiety.
On the other hand, usury is a sin that concerns the spirit, which is why the poisonous snake corresponds to it, which here symbolizes the greed of the soul. Do not have scruples of your own benefit because of the suffering of others. It is never enough for usury. And the more one grows in this sin, the more inhuman one becomes.
The woman is his nutrient. Abundance or exuberance is a quality that in itself is neither good nor bad, but quite the opposite since, as we said before, everything will depend on what it abounds with.
It would be equated to the liquid element of our planet which, depending on its quantity or its salinity, can benefit or harm. If the right dose and flow of it brings us prosperity and life, the lack or its excess leads to destruction, either languishing by its deprivation or drowning by its overflow.
And that overflow is what the woman personifies in this capital, the excessive exuberance of desire, known in Christian morality also as “concupiscence”.
She is the uncontrolled desire for everything imaginable, whether it be the earthly ingredients to satisfy the cravings of the body or the obtuse, self-centered qualities on which the impropriety of the soul feeds.
On the other hand, and as a curiosity, we have come across a very old jurisdictional law where history has brought together the two sinful concepts that we are dealing with here, charging the most disadvantaged people and food. We believe that it could be a funny name for the mother of these on the capital: FREEDOM.
As soon as the concupiscence or that lady from yantar mall be cataloged with the word lust with all the erotic connotations that come today, that is already something of the booklets of other masters.
Health and Romanesque