A gargoyle is a carved stone grotesquely of a human or animal with an open mouth so that it can keep rain off the building walls. They are also supposed to protect from and scare off any evil harmful spirits. Some animals that were commonly used as gargoyles were: Lions, Dogs, Eagles, Wolf, Monkey, Chimeras, Goat and Snakes.
Gargoyles were seen in two ways by the church;
1) They were used to promote that church by carrying messages to the common people. They best way to catch the eye of the common people was to have images that carried a lot of ideas.
2) They were used to represent evil, scaring people into coming to church to remind them that the end of days was much sooner than they thought. They also showed a way to inform the religious people that evil was kept outside of the church.
It was very popular during the medieval times.
Here's some pictures :]
Gargoyles were seen in two ways by the church;
1) They were used to promote that church by carrying messages to the common people. They best way to catch the eye of the common people was to have images that carried a lot of ideas.
2) They were used to represent evil, scaring people into coming to church to remind them that the end of days was much sooner than they thought. They also showed a way to inform the religious people that evil was kept outside of the church.
It was very popular during the medieval times.
Here's some pictures :]
You wrote:
ReplyDeleteThey were used to represent evil, scaring people into coming to church to remind them that the end of days was much sooner than they thought. They also showed a way to inform the religious people that evil was kept outside of the church.
I think that this is an important observation about the setting of The Spence Academy. They attend mass regularly and are constantly reminded to be well mannered young ladies. However, the school is very mysterious. Why would such a religious school have such evil statues outside of it. Although some say that these are used to ward off evil spirits, I believe most people find them creepy and possibly doing more harm than good.
Yeah in a way I agree with you because remember the part where they brought the magic into the real world and then all the creatures came to life and almost took control until Gemma had to say that spell to make them back to being statues again.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Danielle, but I don't think that these statues should have been kept outisde of the church because even though they say it represents a way of leaving evil outside of the church, i disagree on having it there because evil and the church shouldn't be together.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Johanna... why would they place signs of evil infront of the church? When I think of church, I think of it as a place to go to pray and to let go of sins for something bad you did. This made me realize that its the complete opposite. I think its bad that they placed it there because evil and church are two different things that dont go together at all, just like Johanna said.
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