THE LOST LANGUAGE OF SYMBOLISM CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION "There can be no question that an enormous number of these watermarks had a religious significance, but we are asked to believe, on the ground that the same symbol was used contemporaneously in various parts of Europe, that these symbols formed a means of intercommunication and spiritual encouragement between all those who had been admitted to the secrets of the sect. The suggestion has many points to recommend it, but it requires a prolonged and scholarly analysis before it can rank as an acceptable hypothesis. . . . "In all justice to Mr Bayley, let us admit that he is not arrogant or dogmatic. He has put forth a theory on somewhat insufficient grounds, and has evidenced some over-anxiety to expand that theory beyond reasonable limits. But he is ready to confess that his own work is one of suggestion rather than of proof, and he has undoubtedly established a claim to further consideration. His hypothesis is ingenious, and up to a point seems tenable; but at present we must regard it as 'not proven.'"-Westminster Gazette, 12th May 1909. THIS book, though not written specially with that end, substantiates the tentative conclusions formulated three years ago in A New Light on the Renaissance. I then said: "The facts now presented tend to prove that "1. From their first appearance in 1282, until the latter half of the eighteenth century, the curious designs inserted into paper in the form of water-marks VOL. I. I constitute a coherent and unbroken chain of emblems. "2. That these emblems are thought-fossils or thoughtcrystals, in which lie enshrined the aspirations and traditions of the numerous mystic and puritanic sects by which Europe was overrun in the Middle Ages. "3. Hence that these paper-marks are historical documents of high importance, throwing light, not only on the evolution of European thought, but also upon many obscure problems of the past. Water-marks denote that paper-making was an art introduced into Europe, and fostered there by the pre-Reformation Protestant sects known in France as the Albigeois and Vaudois, and in Italy as the Cathari or Patarini. "5. That these heresies, though nominally stamped out by the Papacy, existed secretly for several centuries subsequent to their disappearance from the sight of history. "6. The embellishments used by printers in the Middle Ages are emblems similar to those used by papermakers, and explicable by a similar code of interpretation. "7. The awakening known as the Renaissance was the direct result of an influence deliberately and traditionally exercised by paper-makers, printers, cobblers, and other artisans. "8. The nursing mother of the Renaissance, and consequently of the Reformation, was not, as hitherto assumed, Italy, but the Provençal district of France." There is curious and direct proof of Vaudois influence at the end of one of the earliest editions of the Bible (that of 1535, known to collectors as the Olivetan), where the following claim is cunningly concealed in cipher : "Les Vaudois, peuple évangélique, Ont mis ce thrésor en publique." The vehicle in which this interesting cryptogram was concealed from the world at large is the stanza found at the end of the volume. The first letters of each word of these verses, as will be seen, spell out the secret message : "Lecteur entends, si verité addresse Viens donc ouyr instamment sa promesse Noz tendres meurs, ici sans cry estonne In the following studies I have taken all symbolism to be my province, but the subjects illustrated are, as before, hitherto-uninterpreted printers' marks and paper-marks. Most of these signs have entirely lost their primitive significance, and are now used purely for commercial purposes; but there was a time when they were not only trade signs, but were also hieroglyphics, under which the pearl of great price was revered. The extraordinary tenacity with which the Vaudois or Albigeois maintained their traditions will to some extent account for the apparition of their mystic tenets in the form of paper-marks, and it is possible to trace faintly the course of this tradition link by link. The paper-mills of Europe have, in the main, always been situated in heretical districts-in Holland, for instance, which Bayle described as a "great ark of heresy," and Lamartine as "the workshop of innovators" and "the asylum and the arsenal of new ideas." But the technical terms of paper-making — such as "retree," a corruption of the French "retiré "-imply that paper-making was primarily a French art, and, as is well known, the introduction of paper-making into England was due to French refugees. Wherever these sufferers landed they acted as missionaries of skilled labour, and the records of the Patent Office show clearly the activity of the exiles, not only in manufacture, but also in invention. Numerous patents were taken out by them for paper-making, printing, spinning, weaving, and other arts. In 1686 there is reference to a patent granted for making writing- and printing-paper, the patentees having "lately brought out of France excellent workmen, and already set up several newinvented mills and engines for making thereof, not heretofore used in England." At the present day the paper-makers of Scotland enjoy a deserved pre-eminence, and it is interesting to find that their industry likewise owes also its introduction to the same source. "At Glasgow," says Smiles, "one of the refugees succeeded in establishing a paper-mill, the first in that part of Scotland. The Huguenot who erected it escaped from France, accompanied only by his little daughter. For some time after his arrival in Glasgow, he maintained himself by picking up rags in the streets. But, by dint of thrift and diligence, he eventually contrived to accumulate means sufficient to enable him to start his paper-mill, and thus to lay the foundation of an important branch of Scottish industry."" The present makers of the paper used for the Bank of England's notes are descendants of the De Portal family of Provence, many of whose members are recorded as "amongst 1 The Huguenots, p. 338. the most active of the leaders of the Albigeois."1 After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the founder of the present business fled to England, where he died in 1704. In his will, which is written in French, he says: "In the first place, I thank my God without ceasing, for having put it in my heart to escape from persecution, and for having blessed my project in my own person and in that of my children. I regard my English refuge as the best heritage which I can bequeath to them."2 The headquarters of the Huguenots were Auvergne, Angoumois, and the Southern Provinces of France, where, in Angoumois alone, according to Smiles, they owned six hundred paper-mills.3 The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes ostensibly wiped the Huguenots-whom Pope Clement XI. identified with "the execrable race of the ancient Albigenses "-completely out of France; yet it is characteristic of the spirit of the Southern Provinces that one hundred years after that disastrous event it was the progress to Paris of a battalion of Marseillais, marching as they believed to support the tottering statue of Liberty, that turned the scale of the French Revolution.' The historian of paper-making at Arches, in the South of France, states that secret organisations, dating from immemorial antiquity, existed among the paper-making workmen, and that these "solidly organised associations of comradeship" endured for long after the Revolution. "One is struck," says he, "by the general spirit of insubordination which from all time under the ancient regime 1 Library Association Record, iv. p. 129. 2 Ibid., p. 129. 3 The Huguenots, p. 158. There is a graphic presentment of this episode in The Reds of the Midi, by Félix Gras. See also Secret Societies and the French Revolution, Una Birch. |
