Meaning(S) and Medieval Misericords 7

Meaning(s) and Medieval Misericords 7 Chapter 1 Meaning(s) and Medieval Misericords Misericords are but one strand of Gothic art historical inquiry to be considered under the purview of what has often been deemed “marginal” art. Myriad texts and essays have begun to unpack the subject of the Gothic artistic margin, but over twenty years after Michael Camille popularized it for both scholars and students of the later Middle Ages, few have done so in the form of a concen- trated examination of regional misericord iconography. The present book attempts to both reintegrate the study of misericords into the study of Gothic art in general, and to recenter them in relation to our understanding of late-medieval culture. But why misericords? To many, if not most people, they are obscure and (largely) inaccessible. Yet, I target them for a book-length project because I believe they are an integral means of approach- ing the complicated dynamics of medieval patrons and the artists they employed. Further, misericords deserve a new study in order to make the case that they functioned as artwork in a particular way. Rarely have past studies acknowledged that misericords are both furniture and art objects occupying liturgical space, with many examples displaying unique iconographies not found in other forms of late-medieval marginal media. As carvings often, if not always intended for clerical viewers, they are, unlike manuscript marginalia, completely divorced from the kinds of texts that might have a bearing on their meaning.1 Once a manuscript is open to a given folio, the margin can be clearly seen; by contrast, misericords are invisible when the stalls are folded down. Misericords are also invisible when they are in use, as the user’s body obstructs them from view. Still, clerical viewers would have seen misericord imagery on a daily basis during their entry to and exit from the 1 As church furnishings, misericords were developed to alleviate the physical demands of the liturgy for monks and clerics. The liturgical duties of that day were substantial, requiring services to be performed for Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Compline. These, as well as a High Mass, were to be attended every day. For a concise account of the development of liturgical practices and the related architectural spaces, see Paulette E. Barton, Mercy and the Misericord in Late Medieval England: Cathedral Theology and Architecture (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009), 89–170. See also Christa Grössinger, The World Upside-Down: English Misericords (London: Harvey Miller, 1997), 174; Sidney Leslie Ollard, ed., A Dictionary of English Church History (London: Mowbray, 1919), 553; and Francis Bond, Wood Carvings in English Churches, vol. 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1910), 26. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/9789004341203_003 8 Chapter 1 choir and developed thoughtful familiarity with their iconography over time.2 The tiered arrangements of the stalls in larger establishments would have further aided viewing of the collection. Such issues must have proven considerable factors in facilitating individual engagement with misericord iconography via a daily repetitive process, carried forward for, in many instances, years at a time. Of the approximately 3,600 surviving English misericord scenes considered in total, perhaps half evince figural carvings, the rest being merely decorative or vegetal in design, and only a very small number are overtly religious.3 Most seem to display an emphatic freedom in their design and choice of subject matter, as, with the exception of Ripple parish church, individual examples within single collections rarely relate to one another to tell a coherent story or narrative.4 Despite their profuseness and the iconographic richness they present, misericords were originally carved for a relatively restricted audience and would seldom, if ever, have been seen by the laity once in situ.5 This is not asserted to oversimplify issues regarding their early accessibility to anyone other than monks and clergy throughout the later Middle Ages; choir stalls are usually situated in the chancel, but this is not invariably the case.6 Likewise, 2 As Charles Tracy has discussed at length, the seats of the medieval stalls would have been in the upright position most of the time, even when not in use, facilitating their view during entrance and exit from the choir. He also notes that in the great secular cathedrals, seating assignments mirrored the hierarchy of the chapter, whereas monastic seating arrangements were simpler. See Tracy, Choir-Stalls, 1200–1400, xx. 3 English misericord production occurred from the mid-thirteenth century to the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, distributed with concentrations in the West Country, East Anglia, and Yorkshire. It is difficult, if not impossible, to state just how many medieval examples were originally produced, but the present number may represent approximately 10 percent of the total. See Grössinger, The World Upside-Down, 126–30 for a brief dis- cussion of surviving examples of religious scenes on English misericords. 4 Anthony Weir and James Jerman, in Images of Lust: Sexual Carvings on Medieval Churches (London: B. T. Batsford, 1986), 38, compare corbels (which do tend to be religiously program- matic) to misericords, observing that the latter “are discrete and random … Corbels, on the other hand, although they too may be scattered in random order along a corbel table, are very often part and parcel of a scheme of didactic decoration.” Note that some English misericord collections contain scenes that refer to the same cycle, as with the Reynard imagery in the choir at Bristol Cathedral. See also Paul Hardwick, English Medieval Misericords, as well as Elaine Block and Kenneth Varty, “Choir-Stall Carvings of Reynard and Other Foxes,” in Reynard the Fox: Social Engagement and Cultural Metamorphoses in the Beast Epic from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. K. Varty (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000), 125–62. 5 See Tracy, Choir-Stalls, 1200–1400, 37. 6 For example, the stalls at Ely have probably been moved twice; they were originally located under William Hurley’s Octagon tower. It is possible the Ely stalls would have been visible to .

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