The
Misericords of Ripon Minster
by Eric Webb
This monograph was originally
written to introduce and accompany a CD-ROM I produced privately in November
2003, containing high-definition scans of my original 35mm colour slides of the
Ripon Minster misericords taken over 20 years previously and a slide-show. It
would be impractical to post up the original scans or the slide-show on a
domestic web-site, however I have managed to include thumbnails.
Illustrated Table of Misericords
Illustrated Table of Comparisons
Misericord seats are found in the
choir stalls in churches, cathedrals and monastic foundations all over Europe.
They are made to lift and tip back, like modern theatre seats but without the
counterbalance. On the underside is a shallow shelf, supported by a wooden
bracket on which the occupant can then take some weight, thus appearing to
remain standing upright whilst in reality partially seated. The posture is
broadly similar to that taken on a shooting stick, but with greater stability
and often with additional support from high armrests.
Used in this way, the misericord
provides relief [Latin misericordia = act of mercy]
for those who must spend long hours on their feet in the course of worship. In
mediæval times there were 8 services in 24 hours: matins, lauds,
prime terce, sext, none,
vespers and compline, and properly speaking, those
services were to be said and sung standing.
In Britain most misericords, and
certainly those of greatest interest, are pre-Reformation, at least
450 years old. The oldest set, at Exeter cathedral, dates back
650 years to the 14th century. The oldest individual seat, at Ripon
Minster, is 13th century. Many are still remarkably well
preserved, perhaps in part because of their concealed location. They represent
a unique survival and treasure house of mediæval art and craftsmanship, despite
which they are generally undervalued and in places at risk through neglect.
The shape of the underside of the
seat, with the central bracket and a flat area to either side, lends itself to
carved decoration and almost all surviving mediæval misericords are decorated,
however simply. Typically there is a main, central subject using the bracket,
well modelled in 3 dimensions in many of the better examples, with flatter
carvings, the supporters, to either side. All British misericords follow this
pattern, some continental examples have no supporters.
Perhaps because they were mostly
out of sight and certainly out of public sight, perhaps because of the
misericords' purpose, to give an appearance of virtuous adherence to proper
practice whilst permitting something less, perhaps also because they would
obviously be in frequent, close contact with the hinder parts, the subjects chosen
for misericord carvings are wide ranging and vigorous, even by the broad tastes
of mediæval church decoration. A few are carved only with abstract foliate
designs but most portray men and women, birds and beasts, in great variety. For
supporters, formal designs are more common and quite often the design is
standard throughout a set. Sometimes the subjects of the central carving and
its supporters are related and occasionally they comprise a single, coherent
picture or tell a story but usually there is no discernible relationship.
Many stock subjects recur with some
frequency, sometimes, as appears, because they are well suited to the physical
and artistic constraints of the location; but often there is no such
straightforward explanation. Biblical scenes, and overtly religious topics of
any description, are in a minority, although the educated mediæval mind, alert
to Platonic ideals, was apt to find religious parallels in unlikely places. It
is always tempting to seek an interpretation but it is probably a mistake to
look too hard. A carving of a cat catching a mouse may represent the devil
trapping a human soul, or it may just represent a cat catching a mouse. Even
where some deeper symbolism can be strongly suspected, it is often obscure. It
may have been equally obscure to the carver who was merely following his fancy
against the background of his times, or recreating something he had seen
elsewhere and liked the look of.
Some carvings depict scenes from
the popular mediæval romances, such as Reynard the Fox and the Arthurian cycle,
or classic mythology. Country and domestic scenes are also common. There are
many birds and animals, real and fantastic. Stock jokes are popular: the fox
friar preaching to the geese, the wife beating her husband, the imp Tutivillus eavesdropping on the two ladies chattering in
church. Overall there is a rich vein of humour, mostly low and occasionally
descending to outright obscenity. At Chester, a Victorian Dean had
5 misericords destroyed because they were 'very improper'. The atmosphere
is that of the tales of Chaucer and Boccaccio. To
describe it as secular would be mistaken, the mediæval mind understood no such
distinction between sacred and secular as we now imagine, but it was certainly
worldly, in a world whose metaphysical boundaries were less constrained than
ours.
Sets of misericords contrast with
other, more visible decoration: roof bosses, stained glass and wall paintings,
and the great west fronts of some cathedrals with their elaborate series of
sculptures. These are tightly organised, with a clear didactic or monitory
purpose, and wholly or largely given over to biblical characters and scenes.
Misericords seldom follow a tidy scheme, or any scheme at all, often they seem
a complete mish-mash, and this cannot usually be
explained by accumulation and addition over a long period nor by later loss or
destruction. Most of the major sets were created all of a piece and many are
still largely complete. It may be that what has been preserved gives us a
somewhat distorted view of the whole, and perhaps coherences which were once
obvious are lost on us now, nonetheless there is a prevailing sense of joyous
anarchy: a foil perhaps to the formal splendour and spectacle of the mediæval
church.
Early misericords have nicely rounded,
ergonomic under-seats; they would be truly comfortable to sit on. Later
examples are more angular, more architectural; this development is consistent
and along with other stylistic features it can be used in dating. Some of these
later seats seem to be designed rather more for the sake of the carved
decoration than of the sitter. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that they were
commissioned more for show than for use; perhaps local pride in a nice set for
display, to an appropriate audience, came to outweigh the practicalities.
Experiment quickly demonstrates
that most British misericord seats are now unusable as such. They are set so
low that perched on the under-seat one's legs splay forwards bearing little
weight, an excruciatingly uncomfortable position and certainly no improvement
on standing upright. Perhaps in the course of repair and refurbishment over the
centuries either the stalls have been cut down or the floors raised; in some
instances the seats themselves have been reset in newer stalls. Returning to
the suspicion that some later sets may have been made largely for display,
perhaps they have always been this height, but I have no evidence for this
supposition.
Without doubt though, misericords
were originally developed for an entirely practical purpose and in some places
they are still used. On a recent holiday in Greece, I found a set in an
Orthodox nunnery near Delphi, plain without ornament, new and lightly
constructed. Confirming my British experiments, the seats proper were set high,
perhaps 70 cm from the floor; with Mother Superior shepherding us
purposefully onwards it was impossible to inspect very closely. The under-seats
must then have turned up at about 80 cm. There were also high armrests
about elbow level. If that was comfortable for a modern Greek nun, a mediæval
English choirman or monk may have needed something a
little higher again. With a main seat so high, so that the feet rest only
lightly on the floor when seated, it is a long way down to worship kneeling and
a long way back up again afterwards. Perhaps a change in the fashion of address
to God, from standing to kneeling, explains latter day alterations.
G.L. Remnant in A Catalogue of British
Misericords [OUP 1969] dates the Ripon misericords 1489-94, although one of
the carvings itself bears the date 1484. [It is most unusual for misericord or
other mediæval church woodcarvings to be dated in this way.] Other sources
identify the chief craftsman as William Bromflet, or
William Carver as he is named in the Minster accounts. He was paid 6d/day.
There are 34 misericord seats
in the choirstalls, 17 either side, one of which
is a modern copy of the original. Another much older is displayed elsewhere;
this probably dates from the 13th century and as such it is the
oldest British misericord. It was given to the Minster in 1958 and is said to
be one of the set removed when the present seats were installed.
The choir seats are of high
quality: they are robustly designed and executed and well-preserved. As with
most sets of misericord seats, although the subjects and/or designs of some of
the individual carvings are similar or related and there is a general unity of
style and pattern, there is no obvious overarching programme or theme.
Some of the Ripon craftsmen, and
others trained or influenced by them, later worked elsewhere in the North of
England, including Manchester Cathedral and Beverley Minster. I append
some selected examples illustrating similarities and differences of style. At
Manchester it is possible to trace, or at least easily to imagine, an
evolutionary link; at Beverley this is not so easy, nor is the craftsmanship
uniformly to such a high standard. However at Beverley as at Ripon there are
particularly striking choir bench ends, similarly decorated with substantial
figurative carvings.
The original colour slides were
taken, with the leave of the Minster authorities, on 17/02/77, in the course of
a visit to Yorkshire during which I also took pictures at Beverley Minster
and St. Mary's Beverley. The cameras used were Minolta 35mm SLR's, with a single electronic flash on a bracket and
lenses of 35mm & 50mm focal length. The film was Kodak Ektachrome.
I took at least one slide of all the seats, with duplicates and/or details
of some, together with a few of other features of the stallwork.
I concentrated on the central
subjects and the supporters to either side are seldom completely included, if
at all. In a few cases of particular interest I took separate pictures of
these.
Judging the correct photographic
exposure for old, dark, polished woodwork is difficult. Although I had
some previous experience I was still learning and the slides are somewhat
underexposed, but consistently so, so that correction does not present undue
difficulties.
After initial inspection and use,
the slides were stored in archival conditions and they appear to have survived
well.
The original scans were made with a
Nikon Coolscan III slide scanner, working with a
PC running Windows 98. The scanner was driven with the Nikon Scan
2.1 program. It was used at maximum resolution and basic factory settings,
with a correction routine for minor dust marks and scratches switched in but
with no colour, contrast or density corrections.
The scans were initially saved, as.
jpg files at maximum quality, producing a file size about 4 Mb. Using JASC's Paint Shop Pro 7.0 program, this original
scan series was processed and edited in various ways, to improve image quality
and for convenience, to produce other series. The CD-ROM contains all these
series, in separate directories.
Illustrated
Table of Misericords
The images in the table below are
arranged and numbered according to file no. hence according to actual seat position
and G.L. Remnant's scheme.
The descriptions follow Remnant,
with amendments where he is mistaken and a few other additions of my own.
|
Description |
Image |
|
|
N.01 |
Lion attacked by 2 dogs, who stand one on each of 2 large leaves which form the supporters. |
|
|
N.01r |
|
|
|
Wyvern attacked by 2 dogs, who stand one on each of 2 large leaves which form the supporters. [Compare N.04.] |
|
|
|
Demi-angel holding a blank shield. Supporters:
Left & Right, rose. |
|
|
|
The Tree of Life, represented
only by large leaves which form the supporters, on each of which stands a
bird. A wyvern in the centre. [If the birds remain in the shelter of the Tree they are safe from attack by the wyvern; symbolising the safety of souls in the shadow of the Almighty]. [Compare N.02.] |
|
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|
N04l |
|
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N.05 |
Hart's-tongue ferns. Supporters: Left & Right, vine-leaf. |
|
|
N.06 |
Conventional flowers. Supporters: Left & Right, conventional flower. |
|
|
N.07 |
Ape attacked by lion. Supporters: Left & Right, conventional flower. |
|
|
N.08 |
Vine with grapes. Supporters: Left & Right, vine-leaf. |
|
|
N.09 |
Birds pecking fruit. Supporters: Left & Right, cluster of fruit. |
|
|
N.10 |
2 antelopes. Supporters: Left & Right, elaborate flower foliage. |
|
|
N.11I |
Fox in pulpit, preaching to goose & cock. Supporters: Left & Right, sycamore leaf. |
|
|
N11ii |
|
|
|
N11c |
|
|
|
N.12 |
Fox running off with 2 geese. Supporters: Left & Right, triple sycamore leaves. |
|
|
N.12c |
|
|
|
N.13 |
Fox caught by dogs. Supporters: Left & Right, 5-petalled rose. |
|
|
N.13c |
|
|
|
N.14 |
Dragons fighting. Supporters: Left & Right, rose. |
|
|
N.15i |
Grotesque mask with head inverted and fruit & flowers issuing from the mouth. Supporters: Left & Right, fruit. |
|
|
N.15ii |
|
|
|
Man holding a club & wearing
a chaplet of oak-leaves & acorns. Remnant suggests he is intended to
represent Orson. [Valentine & Orson were twin
brothers, abandoned in the woods in infancy. Valentine was discovered and
brought up as a knight, while Orson remained in the woods to be raised by a
bear. He lived as a wild man until he was eventually overcome and tamed by Valentine,
whose servant and comrade he became.] However wild men are fairly common on misericords and images often became separated from their original inspirations. Supporters: Left & Right, triple fruit design. |
|
|
|
N.17 |
Remnant has 'hawk' catching a rabbit but the predator is in fact a griffin. Supporters: Left & Right, fruit. |
|
|
Angel with book. Supporters: Left
unicorn, Right, rose. |
|
|
|
Demi-angel with label bearing the date 1489.
[NB that the archaic form of figure '4' is simply the top portion of figure
'8'] Supporters: Left & Right, leaf. |
|
|
|
S.03 |
Lion fighting dragon. Supporters: Left & Right, leaf. |
|
|
S.04 |
Griffin eating a human leg. Supporters: Left & Right, leaf. |
|
|
S.05i |
Owl with outspread wings. Supporters: Left & Right, rose. |
|
|
S.05ii |
|
|
|
S.06 |
Mermaid with mirror & brush. Supporters: Left & Right, fruit. |
|
|
2 piglets dancing to bagpipe played by sow. Supporters: Left, rose, Right, rose reversed. |
|
|
|
S.08 |
Jonah cast overboard [Jonah Ch.1]. Supporters: Left & Right, flower in profile. |
|
|
Man wheeling a 3-wheeled wheelbarrow, containing a woman holding in her right hand a short staff [Remnant identifies this as a reed.] & in her left a bag. According to Remnant, this may represent either a scold being taken to the ducking stool, the man resisting the temptation of a bribe held out to him, or a man wheeling his bride to church. Supporters: Left & Right, formal foliage. |
|
|
|
S.09c |
|
|
|
Fox carrying off a goose, chased by a dog, on right supporter, and a woman with a distaff, on left supporter. |
|
|
|
S.10c |
|
|
|
S.10l |
|
|
|
S.10r |
|
|
|
Griffin in profile. Supporters: Left & Right, leaf. |
|
|
|
S.12 |
Hart gorged and chained. Supporters: Left & Right, leaf. |
|
|
Pelican in her piety [wounding her own breast to feed her young]. Supporters: Left & Right, grotesque head with protruding tongue. |
|
|
|
S.14 |
Jonah coming out of the whale. [Jonah Ch.2:10] Supporters: Left, fruit. Right, a small animal with a long tail. |
|
|
S.14c |
|
|
|
S.15 |
Samson carrying the gates of Gaza [Judges Ch.16:2-3]. Supporters: Left & Right, leaf. |
|
|
S.16 |
Head with flowing hair & beard. Supporters: Left & Right, rose. [Remnant believes this may be modern. I am inclined to agree as the grain of the timber is rather coarse and the finish of the seat edge rather plain compared with the rest, but otherwise it is an excellent match.] |
|
|
Caleb & Joshua carrying
grapes on their return from the promised land [Numbers: Ch.13:23].
Supporters: Left & Right, blemya. [Creatures
with their faces on their bellies, described by Pliny and perhaps,
originally, African bushmen in body-paint.] Remnant suggests that they may be intended to represent Anakim. These were probably a remnant of the original inhabitants of Palestine before the Canaanites. Their formidable warlike appearance, as described by the spies sent to search the land, filled the Israelites with terror. |
|
|
|
S.17l |
|
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S.17r |
|
|
|
Old.i |
2 armed men in combat, with a tree in the centre background. There are no supporters, |
|
|
Old.ii |
|
|
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Old.iii |
|
|
|
Stall.01 |
Unidentified male animal, perhaps a beaver? |
|
|
Elephant |
|
|
|
Stall.02ii |
|
|
|
Stall.02iii |
|
I have taken Ripon Minster as the
benchmark, ignoring examples where there are comparable designs at Beverley and
Manchester, but none at Ripon. To return from this table to the corresponding
image in the Ripon Minster table, click the appropriate Return hyperlink. The
Full and Mono hyperlinks can be used to view full-size colour and monochrome
versions of the thumbnails.
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Ripon Minster |
Beverley Minster |
Manchester Cathedral |
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No comparison |
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No comparison |
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No
comparison [Example
at Manchester is badly damaged.] |
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No comparison |
Copyright in the pictures is the
property of the Ripon Minster, Beverley Minster and Manchester Cathedral
authorities, as appropriate, whose permission must be sought for any
publication for profit. I shall be grateful for suitable acknowledgement in the
event of any further reproduction, whether for profit or not, including
reproduction in electronic form.
Copyright in the text of this
document remains with myself as author. Subject to acknowledgement of
authorship it may be freely reproduced in whole or in part, quoted from or
cited for the purpose of personal research or study and all other
non-profit-making purposes. Reproduction or quotation with a view to profit
requires my leave, which is unlikely to be withheld but may be made contingent
on a suitable charitable contribution.
29 November 2003