“Glossing The Pecking Order”

Skip the B.S.

by Skip Eisiminger

“The American commitment to equality keeps bumping into the natural order of things, which is hierarchical.”

—Paraphrase of Judge Robert Bork

“The flatter the hierarchy the better.”

—Anonymous

Clemson, SC—(Weekly Hubris)—5/3/10—I was preparing to teach Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man (1734) in a Humanities class recently when I realized I had no illustration of his “vast chain of being.” Since the “Humanities” at Clemson comprise interdisciplinary classes, I always introduce a little music, or something from the visual arts, when I teach a literary text. Turning to Google Image, I quickly realized that the illustration by Brother Diego “Didacus” Valadés (1579) was one I’d never seen before.

I e-mailed the link to my class, and it worked fine for the five minutes I spent on it, but there were several details in the engraving that no one from Valadés to Arthur O. Lovejoy, who did a famous study of “the Great Chain,” has explained. Though no student asked about them, I knew one day they might. So I went to work, and what follows is my gloss as it now stands. If you’d like to see the illustration, click on this link <http://www.ngca.co.uk/imagelib/Fra_Didacus_Valadés_ web.jpg>.

Framing God at the top is a banner translated: “I am the beginning and end [in Greek], the beginning and end [in Latin], and except for me, there is no God, and all the ‘gods’ of the other people are devils.” Further to emphasize this jealous point, along the right margin are the rebel angels, falling headlong into the abyss. Perhaps the most interesting features of these five are the wings, which morph from the feathery angelic variety to the taut-skinned wings of a bat.

Along the left margin are five Spanish reales, or coins, that parallel the angels’ fall. The coins, inscribed “Spain and the [West] Indies,” variously show a Jerusalem cross, a stylized Atlantic Ocean, the pillars of Hercules, and the Spanish national motto: “Plus ultra (More beyond).”  Freely interpreted, this marginal section states that beyond Gibraltar there is a vast New World open to Christian “conquest.” Also implicit in the coins is the suggestion that the natives of the Indies should accept the new gold and silver standard and abandon their barter system. The small marks in the middle of the coins simply indicate the coins’ denomination.

Back at the top sits God, wearing a Pope’s miter and holding His nearly naked son on His lap. The Holy Ghost flutters at His breast, and the Virgin Mary kneels at His favored side. In God’s left hand is an orb, symbol of His universal authority; in the right is the first link in the “Great Chain of Being.”

Beyond this inner circle are six Seraphim swinging censers filling the aether with incense. Below the Trinity, the Archangel Michael kneels, holding an oval monstrance on which the “body” of Jesus will be displayed after his resurrection. Behind Michael, the chain makes two right-angled turns, which are more structural than theological. Below the Seraphim are representatives of the angelic hierarchy—Cherubim, Thrones, and Dominions.

Below them is the human level, featuring the emergence of Eve from Adam’s flank, and Franciscan monks such as Valadés converting the Mexicans, as Muslims, Tibetans, and Chinese observe. Below the humans are representatives of the avifauna including the turkey and the quetzal. Below the birds are creatures of the rivers and seas including a few fanciful monsters the likes of which still populated the margins of 16th-century maps. Land animals are relegated to the next level, where a monkey rides on the back of an elephant. Horses, goats, and llamas share the peaceable kingdom with a unicorn from European folklore. Next to last is the plant level, dominated by trees including the cacao and banana palm. One aspiring Lombardy poplar has grown so tall that its topmost branches have been forcibly turned back to its proper level by the “link” above.

Subtly conveyed, the bent tree carries the underlying lesson of this engraving that Valadés, son of a conquistador, used in converting the Aztec to Catholicism. We all have our proper places in the status quo, the self-designated “Teacher” implies, like lepers in a “colony.”

“Kings have a ‘divine right’ to their link,” he seems to say, “and you have a right to your own. Don’t tamper with the system!”

Below the plant level are five more circles, but these are not the reales from “heaven” one sees on the left. Each illustrated circle is different and offers a fresh sermon topic for Valadés. On the far left is a representation of air, water, and earth, three of Earth’s four elements, divided like a medieval Tau-Omega map. Why the Tau is upside down is unknown.

The fourth element, fire, Valadés would have explained, lies beyond this circle, between Earth and its moon. Only within the circle of fire is imperfection possible; beyond the moon lies the perfection of heaven.

The second circle represents the Bible’s four-cornered earth inside the perfect circle of heaven. The third shows the sun at sunrise and sunset circling the Earth to imply God’s temporal range. The fourth shows the Pope blessing a supplicant representing all people who would join the church. And the last shows the seven concentric orbits of the geocentric universe that imply God’s spatial range. Meandering among the five circles is another banner, this one proclaiming that “Brother ‘The Teacher’ Valadés made this.”

As a student and occasional victim of academic and military hierarchies, I can attest that it’s easier to descend in one than rise because they are “chains,” not “ladders.” When conceived of as pyramids, hierarchies are difficult to overturn, especially if the topmost person has a bodyguard. Snobs, racists, and sexists love the devilish devices and have a vested interest in strengthening the topmost links or tiers. Proponents of hierarchies often point out that the upper levels feed on the levels below. If so, do the angels dine on us as we dine on plants and animals?

On the other hand, if you have a Versailles to build, an invader to expel, or a neighbor to subdue, a hierarchy is an indispensible adjunct to full employment.

The Great Chain effectively rusted and broke when paleontologists in the 19th and 20th centuries unearthed much of the fossil record, proving once and for all that there are more broken links in the “inviolable chain” than wholes.