Printing was not yet invented, at least not in Europe,
and as every book had to be written out by hand, copies of books were
rare and only owned by the few who could read them, so that stories
were mostly handed down by word of mouth, the same being told by mother
to child for many generations.
The favourites were stories of the saints and martyrs of the Catholic
Church, for of course we are speaking now of times long before the
Reformation. The Old Testament stories and all the stories of the life
of Christ and His Apostles were well known too, and just as we never
tire of reading our favourite books over and over again, our
forefathers of 1200 wanted to see on the walls of their churches
representations of the stories which they could not read. Their daily
thoughts were more occupied with the Infant Christ, the saints, and
the angels, than ours generally are. They thought of themselves as
under the protection of some saint, who would plead with God the Father
for them if they asked him, for God Himself seemed too high or remote
to be appealed to always directly. He was approached with awe; the
saints, the Virgin, and the Infant Christ, with love.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30