Church Misericords and Bench Ends

By Richard Hayman

With the increasing disappearance of stained glass in medieval churches, the surviving wood carvings on church misericords and bench ends are extremely important in providing an insight into the medieval mind. The carved images were often used to convey the messages of the Christian faith in the Middle Ages but they were not just concerned with religion and religious symbols – they also told stories of mythology, humour and satire, showing illustrations of everyday life and people. This book outlines the history of church seating and discusses the craftsmen and the influences behind their work. Using illustrations, the author then explains the subject matter of these wood carvings, revealing how one can discover so much about medieval life – the spiritualism, moralism and the wit – within the carvings still found in churches today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Nov 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9780747811831

Richard Hayman

Richard Hayman is an archaeologist and architectural historian who writes on the history of the British landscape. His other books include Riddles in Stone: Myths, Archaeology and the Ancient Britons.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

A man kneels at a bench and prays, on the armrest of a bench at Stowlangtoft (Suffolk).

IN LUDLOW CHURCH (Shropshire) is a carving on a fifteenth-century misericord of an owl. Today’s audience would probably misinterpret it by assuming that the owl is intended as a symbol of wisdom, whereas it meant exactly the opposite. The image would have been familiar to those who first saw it, and its meaning well understood. It came from the bestiary, a compendium of animals with their moral attributes, in which the owl stood for ignorance and, more specifically, for the Jew who preferred darkness to the light of Christianity. On either side of the owl are two subsidiary carvings, known as supporters, that depict smaller birds mobbing the owl, the manner in which illustrated books portrayed it. Of the owl the Bestiary notes that ‘if other birds see it, they set up a great clamour, and it is vexed by their fierce onslaughts. So when a sinner is recognised in full daylight he becomes an object of mockery for the righteous.’

The Ludlow owl demonstrates how, in the Middle Ages, images were invested with moral and spiritual meaning. At a time when the populace was illiterate, sermons were few and mass was said in Latin, people lived in a highly visual culture. Images of various forms were integral to medieval Christianity until they were swept away during the Reformation of the mid-sixteenth century, when the word replaced the image as the principal form of expression. One of the ways in which this rich culture can still be appreciated is in the carvings applied to choir stalls and the ends of common pews, usually referred to as bench ends. As works of applied art misericords and bench ends allowed people to express their piety in the Christian faith; they were an opportunity for patrons to display their wealth and status; and they were an outlet for the spirit of tomfoolery and social satire that were as much a part of the Middle Ages as religious devotion.

Misericords were hidden beneath the seats of the choir stalls and were seen only by the priests who used them. They have been likened to the margins of medieval manuscripts, where humorous and pious asides were made to the main subject matter. As conventional subjects occupied the main foci of walls and windows, misericords were sometimes literally a place for toilet humour on the side. Bench ends were marginal in a less satirical sense, when we consider the context of the medieval churches in which they were housed. Sculpture, stained glass and wall painting were the principal means for conveying the faith in churches, including images of saints, narrative scenes such as the life of the Virgin Mary and the Doom, or Day of Judgement, painted on the east wall of the nave. Bench ends and misericords were used to express many images that were not otherwise prevalent on the walls and in the windows.

The sun on a misericord at Ripple (Worcestershire).

Coarse humour is abundant on misericords. At Gresford (Wrexham) an acrobat flaunts his bare backside.

In this mid-fifteenth-century misericord at Ludlow (Shropshire) an owl, representing the Jew, is mobbed by two smaller birds to the left and right.

A man holds up the misericord and its occupant at Kings Lynn St Margaret (Norfolk).

The marginal artistic status of bench ends and misericords has been an important factor in their survival. Our heritage of medieval painting, glass and sculpture was largely destroyed during the Reformation by Act of Parliament, by a Protestant Church that distrusted images and the manner in which they were revered. Misericords and bench ends therefore have an increased importance in giving us a glimpse into a world of saints and demons, and the everyday world of thatchers, windmills and angry wives. Furthermore, their distribution is so widespread that they can be found in all sorts of places