Gargoyles, yes… but first a personal anecdote of boyhood tribulation: Any child of the ‘80s will vividly remember the heinous exploits of the villainous Noid as portrayed in Domino’s Pizza advertisements. “Avoid the Noid!” Domino’s told us. “Avoid him – or suffer.” And I listened. I’m sure I had the precautionary mantra sounding in my head the day my father and I made the trip to a local Domino’s restaurant to pick up some pizza. I was hungry, but content. Noid-wary, but innocent. As my father and I approached the windowed storefront, however, I was overtaken by a feeling of near-Lovecraftian dread – The Noid (or some giant, waving facsimile) was in the restaurant! I promptly wrapped my body around a telephone pole and begged my dad to go in without me. Must avoid Noid. My father agreed. A wave of terror-bleached calm washed over me, and for a single moment, as my dad disappeared into the Noid-haunted realm beyond the restaurant’s glass door, I was at peace. And then The Noid came out of the restaurant and tried to entertain me. They say you haven’t really known fear until you’ve crapped tears.

That day, I knew fear.

Can y’all see where I’m going with this? Domino’s created the Noid as an enemy, but then used him interchangeably as a mascot. Avoid the Noid – eat at Domino’s… where the Noid lives. The Catholic Church used gargoyles in much the same way. Around the year 600, Europe was full of pagan cults. If the church was going to successfully convert all the free-roaming bands of Earth-worshipping pantheists they were going to need something more powerful than rhetoric – especially given that a staggering percentage of the population was illiterate. What better reminder of the wages of sin and the power of evil than actual three-dimensional renderings of horrific demons, sculpted in granite and set-up to lean threateningly over local avenues and squares? These creatures were the Noids of the early church – blatant reminders of the hellish torments that exist literally right outside the protective embrace of Christianity. When supplemented with oral folktales, like that of Gargouille, the dragon mounted to the church wall specifically to taunt all the moon-saluting pagans with the Christian god’s ultimate power over even the strongest natural foes, gargoyles represented a compelling argument for conversion to Catholicism.

On the other hand, the looming monsters clinging to cathedral walls offered church goers a sense of security by portraying the physical religious space as something of a fortress, protected from the exterior wages of sin by an army of unearthly sentinels (or perhaps, like in the tale of Gargouille, the mounted corpses of the churches enemies, boastingly displayed as a testament to the raw power of the holy spirit). The church was meant to appear as a well-protected safe haven built outside the sinful influence of the chaotic external world. As such, gargoyles acted almost as mascots for the specific brand of spiritual succor offered by the Catholic Church. In other words, folks were directed first to avoid these leering, winged Noids by accepting Jesus into their lives, but in doing so, were required to flock to a building that’s façade was teeming with demons – demons that stood for guaranteed protection against the very things that gnash and claw in the black corners of a dark, sinful world. And ruin pizzas.

Friday: A look at the specific monsters represented by gargoyles

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