How we cite our quotes: Book, canto, stanza
Quote #10
From thence into the sacred Church [the Blatant Beast] broke,/ And robd the Chancell, and the deskes downe threw,/ And Altars fouled, and blasphemy spoke,/ And th'Images for all their goodly hew,/ Did cast to ground, whilest none was them to rew. (VI.xii.25)
This image of the Blatant Beast destroying the objects in a church represents the fear of iconoclasm present during Spenser's time. Iconoclasts, who were extreme Protestants, believed that visual images and objects obscured rather than contributed to genuine religious experience.