File:BLW Stained Glass - The Planet Saturn Driving Out a Monk with a Pig's Head.jpg

The Planet Saturn Driving Out a Monk with a Pig's Head, or Time Banishing Melancholy
About 1530;
Southern Netherlands (Belgium or France)
Clear glass with painted details and yellow (silver) stain
Inscribed in French, 'Melancholy' and 'Saturn'

The imagery on this roundel is quite complex and the original design source has yet to be identified. The roundel is composed of a single piece of clear glass which is painted on the front with a dark pigment and then highlighted with silver (yellow) stain on the back. This construction and the style of painting points to a glass painting workshop in the Netherlands in the early decades of the 16th century. However, the design source for this image may be French as the words for 'Saturn' and for 'Melancholy' are in French rather than in Latin.

Saturn is depicted as an elderly man wearing a classical Roman armoured uniform and carrying a scythe. Melancholy is seen here, rather humorously, as a pig dressed as a monk. Throughout the Middle Ages, monks were often the brunt of jokes and in the late 15th and early 16th centuries these jokes often manifested themselves in violent attacks against monastic properties and monks themselves.

Since the time of the Roman physician, Galen, it was believed that the human body was governed by what was known as 'humours'. There are four humours and a healthy body is one that has an equal balance of these. Disease and disability were caused by an imbalance in the humours. An overabundance of the humour 'black bile' resulted in the condition of melancholy. It was also believed that the planets had an effect on the balance of humours. Saturn was linked with the melancholic state.

Saturn was also associated with undesirable elements in human society. In the 16th century, numerous woodcuts were produced depicting 'Saturn's Children'. These children of Saturn were portrayed as agricultural labourers, criminals, the poor and the sick. Additionally, the slaughtering of pigs accompany these scenes as the pig was considered an unclean and odorous animal. The pig was also often, but not exclusively, coupled with the melancholic state.

At the time this roundel was produced, Europe was undergoing religious and political turmoils which became known as the Protestant Reformation. It is possible to see the imagery here as being 'protestant' propaganda directed against monasticism but it is not conclusive.