[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Maze in Lucca Cathedral.]
The maze in Chartres Cathedral, of which I give an illustration (Fig.
2), is 40 feet across, and was used by penitents following the
procession of Calvary. A labyrinth in Amiens Cathedral was octagonal,
similar to that at St. Quentin, measuring 42 feet across. It bore the
date 1288, but was destroyed in 1708. In the chapter-house at Bayeux is
a labyrinth formed of tiles, red, black, and encaustic, with a pattern
of brown and yellow. Dr. Ducarel, in his "_Tour through Part of
Normandy_" (printed in 1767), mentions the floor of the great
guard-chamber in the abbey of St. Stephen, at Caen, "the middle whereof
represents a maze or labyrinth about 10 feet diameter, and so artfully
contrived that, were we to suppose a man following all the intricate
meanders of its volutes, he could not travel less than a mile before he
got from one end to the other."
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Maze at Saffron Walden, Essex.]
Then these mazes were sometimes reduced in size and represented on a
single tile (Fig. 3). I give an example from Lucca Cathedral. It is on
one of the porch piers, and is 191/2 inches in diameter. A writer in
1858 says that, "from the continual attrition it has received from
thousands of tracing fingers, a central group of Theseus and the
Minotaur has now been very nearly effaced." Other examples were, and
perhaps still are, to be found in the Abbey of Toussarts, at
Chalons-sur-Marne, in the very ancient church of St. Michele at Pavia,
at Aix in Provence, in the cathedrals of Poitiers, Rheims, and Arras, in
the church of Santa Maria in Aquiro in Rome, in San Vitale at Ravenna,
in the Roman mosaic pavement found at Salzburg, and elsewhere. These
mazes were sometimes called "Chemins de Jerusalem," as being
emblematical of the difficulties attending a journey to the earthly
Jerusalem and of those encountered by the Christian before he can reach
the heavenly Jerusalem--where the centre was frequently called "Ciel."
Common as these mazes were upon the Continent, it is probable that no
example is to be found in any English church; at least I am not aware of
the existence of any. But almost every county has, or has had, its
specimens of mazes cut in the turf. Though these are frequently known as
"miz-mazes" or "mize-mazes," it is not uncommon to find them locally
called "Troy-towns," "shepherds' races," or "Julian's Bowers"--names
that are misleading, as suggesting a false origin. From the facts alone
that many of these English turf mazes are clearly copied from those in
the Continental churches, and practically all are found close to some
ecclesiastical building or near the site of an ancient one, we may
regard it as certain that they were of church origin and not invented by
the shepherds or other rustics. And curiously enough, these turf mazes
are apparently unknown on the Continent. They are distinctly mentioned
by Shakespeare:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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