In medieval literature likewise the modern student encounters much which
seems at first sight grotesque. One of the most conspicuous examples is the
pervasive use of allegory. The men of the Middle Ages often wrote, as we
do, in direct terms and of simple things, but when they wished to rise
above the commonplace they turned with a frequency which to-day appears
astonishing to the devices of abstract personification and veiled meanings.
No doubt this tendency was due in part to an idealizing dissatisfaction
with the crudeness of their actual life (as well as to frequent inability
to enter into the realm of deeper and finer thought without the aid of
somewhat mechanical imagery); and no doubt it was greatly furthered also by
the medieval passion for translating into elaborate and fantastic symbolism
all the details of the Bible narratives. But from whatever cause, the
tendency hardened into a ruling convention; thousands upon thousands of
medieval manuscripts seem to declare that the world is a mirage of shadowy
forms, or that it exists merely to body forth remote and highly surprising
ideas.

Of all these countless allegories none was reiterated with more unwearied
persistence than that of the Seven Deadly Sins (those sins which in the
doctrine of the Church lead to spiritual death because they are wilfully
committed). These sins are: Covetousness, Unchastity, Anger, Gluttony,
Envy, Sloth, and, chief of all, Pride, the earliest of all, through which
Lucifer was moved to his fatal rebellion against God, whence spring all
human ills. Each of the seven, however, was interpreted as including so
many related offences that among them they embraced nearly the whole range
of possible wickedness. Personified, the Seven Sins in themselves almost
dominate medieval literature, a sort of shadowy evil pantheon. Moral and
religious questions could scarcely be discussed without regard to them; and
they maintain their commanding place even as late as in Spenser's 'Faerie