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Medieval Christians often used bloodstone to carve scenes of the crucifixion and martyrs, for which reason it was also dubbed the martyr's stone. According to the legend about the origin of bloodstone, it was first formed when drops of Christ's blood fell and stained some jasper at the foot of the cross.
The deposito (discontinuance) of the Alleluia on the eve of Septuagesima assumed in mediaeval times a solemn and emotional note of saying farewell to the beloved song...[Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs by Rev. Francis X. Weiser, SJ. Harcourt, Brace & World: New York, 1958]
The liturgical office on the eve of Septuagesima was performed in many churches with special solemnity, and alleluias were freely inserted in the sacred text, even to the number of 28 final alleluias in the church of Auxerre in France. This custom also inspired some tender poems which were sung or recited during Vespers in honor of the sacred word. The best-known of these hymns is Alleluia, dulce carmen, composed by an unknown author of the 10th century. It was translated into English by John Mason Neale...
In some French churches the custom developed in ancient times of allowing the congregation to take part in the celebration of a quasi-liturgical farewell ceremony. The clergy abstained from any role in this popular service. Choirboys officiated in their stead at what was called burial of the Alleluia performed the Saturday afternoon before Septuagesima Sunday. We find a description of it in the 15th century statute book of the church of Toul:On Saturday before Septuagesima Sunday all choir boys gather in the sacristy during the prayer of the None, to prepare for the burial of the Alleluia. After the last Benedicamus they march in procession, with crosses, tapers, holy water and censers; and they carry a coffin, as in a funeral. Thus they process through the aisle, moaning and mourning, until they reach the cloister. There they bury the coffin; they sprinkle it with holy water and incense it; whereupon they return to the sacristy by the same way.In Paris, a straw figure bearing in golden letters the inscription Alleluia was carried out of the choir at the end of the service and burned in the church yard.
In the year of our Lord five hundred and thirty-seven, there was a man named Theophilus which was vicar of a bishop, as Fulbert saith, that was bishop of Chartres. And this Theophilus dispended all wisely the goods of the church under the bishop; and when the bishop was dead, all the people said that this vicar should be bishop. But he said the office of vicar sufficed him, and had liefer that than to be made bishop, so there was there another bishop made, and Theophilus was against his will put out of his office. Then he fell in despair, in such wise that he counselled with a Jew how he should have his oflice again, which Jew was a magician, and called the devil, and he came anon. Then Theophilus, by commandment of the devil, denied God and his Mother, and renounced his Christian profession, and wrote an obligation with his blood and sealed it with his ring, and delivered it to the devil, and thus he was brought into his office again. And on the morn Theophilus was received into the grace of the bishop by the procuration of the devil, and was re-established in the dignity of his office. And afterwards, when he advised himself, he repented and sorrowed sore of this that he had done, and ran with great devotion unto the Virgin Mary, with all devotion of his thought, praying her to be his aid and help. And then on a time our blessed Lady appeared to him in vision, and rebuked him of his felony, and commanded him to forsake the devil, and made him to confess Jesu Christ to be son of God, and to knowledge himself to be in purpose to be a christian man, and thus he recovered the grace of her and of her son. And in sign of pardon that she had gotten him, she delivered to him again his obligation that he had given to the devil, and laid it upon his breast so that he should never doubt to be servant of the devil, but he enjoyed that he was so delivered by our blessed Lady. And when Theophilus had heard all this he was much joyful, and told it to the bishop and tofore all the people that was befallen him, and all marvelled greatly, and gave laud and praising unto the glorious Virgin, our Lady, Saint Mary. And three days after he rested in peace.
Emile Mâle:
What can be the meaning of the long-necked gargoyles which howl there in the heights, and which if not held by their massive stone wings would swoop down, making in their flight an appalling outline against the sky? No age or race has conceived more terrible spectres, partly wolf, partly caterpillar, partly bat, yet with a strange and horrible appearance of reality. Some of them lie forgotten in a garden behind Notre Dame at Paris where time is rapidly completing their destruction. They might as well be some inchoate monsters of the tertiary age which growing less and less are about to disappear.
The fact is that conceptions of this kind are of essentially popular origin. The gargoyles, like churchyard vampires, or like the dragons subdued by ancient bishops, came from the depths of the people's consciousness, and had grown out of their ancient fireside tales. The powerful and sombre side of mediaeval genius found expression in these memories of their forefathers, echoes of a vanished world.
[The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the 13th Century by Emile Mâle, translated by Dora Nussey. Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1958]
The photographs are of gargoyles on the Cathedral at Amiens.
The Golden Madonna, so called because it is draped with a [1/100 inch] thick layer of gold, is the oldest known sculpture of the Virgin Mary in Western Europe. It was commissioned by Abbess Mathilde of Essen in 990, when the city consisted of little more than a cloister for unmarried noblewomen and the craftspeople they helped support. The Golden Madonna is the centrepiece of the Essen cathedral’s extensive collection of medieval art, much of which was acquired through the cloister’s close connections with the German imperial families.
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