The Misericords of
Wells Cathedral
by Dr. Eric Webb
Misericord Seats - an Introduction
Illustrated Table of Misericords & Subjects
This monograph was originally written to
introduce and accompany a CD-ROM I produced privately in March 2000, containing
high-definition scans of my original 35mm colour slides of the Wells Cathedral
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.
I offered a copy of the CD-ROM to the Wells
Cathedral authorities of course, but they never replied to my letter. Such is
life and such also I fear is the state of the Church of England: too busy
mangling the liturgy to pay much attention to heritage, or to doctrine come to
that. No doubt those immense collections of historic art and artifacts,
including misericord seats, of which the Church is still the custodian are
capable of withstanding a period of institutional decline, but it would be a
sadness if the decline proved terminal so that they became no more than
exhibits in so many ecclesiastical museums. [And that is to leave aside
entirely the value of preserving the C of E for its own sake, despite its
occasional absurdity and its origin, as the old Irish rhyme has it, in 'the
ballocks of Henry VIII'!] Their true place is as part of the temporal and spiritual
fabric of living places of Christian worship. To be properly appreciated and
understood they need to be viewed in that context.
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 cathedrals such as Wells. These are tightly organised,
with a clear didactic or monitory purpose, and 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, as at
Wells, 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 such as those at Wells
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, such as those at Wells, 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, as at Wells, 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.
The Wells
Cathedral Misericords
G.L. Remnant in A Catalogue of
British Misericords [OUP 1969] dates the Wells misericords about 1330-40.
This date is repeated in A Picture Book of the Misericords of Wells
Cathedral [Friends of Wells Cathedral 1975] with supporting evidence. It
appears that new stalls were ordered as part of an extension of the quire in
1325 and that each prebendary was instructed to meet the cost of making his
own. There was some reluctance to pay up and it may be that the misericords were
produced in rather a hurry 1337-39; certainly a few were never completed.
Unusually records of 2 of the men responsible for the work survive: John
Strode the master carpenter and his assistant Bartholomew Quarter.
Originally there may have been as many as
90 misericords, 50 of them in the prebendal stalls at the rear.
64 now remain, most in good condition, but in the course of Victorian
refurbishment in 1848-54 they were moved and reset so that there are now
4 rows, north and south. Remnant numbers them: South side first row
1 - 14, South side second row 15 - 28, North side first row
29 - 43, North side second row 44 - 64, and I follow
his scheme.
One seat, no. 62, was added in the 17th
century. One of the original seats was given to the Victoria and Albert Museum
and is now in the Museum's store at Osterley House in West London.
The original colour slides of the
misericords still in place in the stalls were taken, with the leave of the
Cathedral authorities, during a visit on 18/06/77, those of the seats on
display on an earlier exploratory visit on 01/06/77. I include also
pictures of the Wells misericords in the Victoria & Albert Museum's
storeroom at Osterley House which I photographed on 22/02/75. 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 which at
that time, as I recall, had an ISO of 64, not very fast, and a slightly
bluish caste, more pronounced if it was under-exposed. That was not a problem
here.
Of my visit to the cathedral I have
recorded: 'Some misguided soul has covered the seats with embroidered cushions
which are difficult to remove and have sharp metal protuberances. Some are
screwed in place.' I was younger and less compromising then and perhaps
the comfort of the choir is worth more than easy visibility of the carvings. At
Osterley House, the Wells misericord, and others, were stacked on the floor in
a rather grand junk room, one of several, along with a great many other
artefacts, presumably valuable; there was no particular sense of order, or
care. 25 years on, I hope it may now be on display; if not it ought
to be returned to the Cathedral where it belongs and where it will be
treasured, not abandoned in a dark corner, at risk of damage and decay.
For reasons I did not record, I took no
pictures of some of the seats. Perhaps the carvings seemed insufficiently
interesting, or perhaps I was defeated by those cushions.
Photographing misericords and stallwork
generally is not particularly difficult but it requires some attention to
detail, and experiment with the equipment to be used. It also requires personal
flexibility; taking up a suitable position to photograph a seat, at low level
and with the stall in front impeding access, can require a good deal of
wriggling. It is usually best to sit on the floor with knees splayed, or the
legs folded tailor fashion, so as not to appear in frame. Old clothes are
essential; choir stall floors are rarely dust free. The worst hazard is
choirboys' discarded chewing gum, encountered on several occasions. Protruding
nails and screws need to be watched for and hassock hooks can be a quite
literal pain in the neck. Sometimes seats will not stay propped up; an old hymn
sheet folded into a wedge usually solves the problem. Occasionally they are
solidly jammed down and must be left unphotographed. Often the light is
extremely poor, even with the church lights on, although this is not a problem
at Wells, and to permit accurate focus on woodwork darkened by the centuries,
or by centuries of varnish, a powerful hand lamp with a stand is essential.
Given the option, autofocus should be disengaged. Left to itself, the camera
may not select the most appropriate focal plane and at the low light levels
typically encountered it may be unable to focus at all.
In the cramped conditions imposed by
choirstalls it is usually essential to use a wide angle lens to achieve a
picture of the complete seat: central subject and supporters. Even 35mm may be
insufficient and 24mm or a wide angle zoom is probably ideal, but a 24mm lens
demands a very close approach for detail pictures which may create difficulties
in positioning the flash so that for these a 50mm lens with or without a
close-up attachment, or a macro lens, may be preferable. Where necessary
I use an N2 close up attachment on a 50mm standard lens. It is always
wise to use a lens hood to minimise glare and a clear u/v filter to prevent
accidental finger marks, or worse damage, to the front element proper.
Using the flash on camera risks
unsatisfactory results: a flat effect with glare from polished surfaces; and at
close range, flash on camera may not point very accurately at the subject.
Conversely, too much lateral displacement on a bracket risks excessive
shadowing and uneven coverage. Ideally a flash diffuser should be used, so long
as the guide number is sufficient. A reflector might help fill deep shadows but
this would be difficult to manage without an assistant and I never use
one. Working so close to the subject, a white shirt sometimes seems to help.
For consistency and maximum power I always use the flash, at full power,
never automatic exposure. Importantly, when taking pictures of misericord seats
and other dark stallwork the somewhat generous guide numbers quoted by flash
manufacturers need to be divided by a factor of about 2.5; experiment with the
individual flash is essential and ideally test pictures should be taken on
location before proceeding to the full set. I seldom achieve this and in
consequence not all my pictures are ideally exposed. Depth of field needs to be
watched, but the combination of a reasonably powerful flash, the short flash to
subject distance and a wide angle lens usually permits an aperture around
f/8 - f/11, producing sufficient depth, despite that same short
subject distance, the reduced guide number and a relatively slow film.
The scans were made with a Nikon
Coolscan III slide scanner, working with a PC running Windows 98. The
scanner was driven using 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. No other processing was applied later, nor cropping, so that the
slide edges still appear in the final pictures.
The scans were saved as. jpg files at
maximum quality producing a file size about 4 Mb. Using JASC's Paint Shop
Pro 6.0 program, these full-size scans were later resized, for user
convenience, to derive smaller files, also in JPEG format. All these file
series appeared on the original CD-ROM. The smallest appears here as the
thumbnails in the table. The slide show was derived from resized files of about
1Mb, JPEG compressed by 75% and further compressed within the slide program
itself.
Illustrated Table of
Misericords
The numbering of the picture files in the
table below refers to the filenames I gave the original scans, which have not
been uploaded individually although they are used in the slide show where the
numbers appear as captions. I follow Remnant's scheme, hence the names of all
pictures of Remnant's 14th misericord commence we14. Close
views of the main subject have the suffix 'm'. Following heraldic
practice, supporters are designated sinister and dexter, left and right, but as
viewed from the central carving looking outwards so that for the observer,
sinister is to the right, dexter to the left. Accordingly, pictures of
supporters are numbered for the seat with the suffix 's' or 'd'. Where there is
more than one view of anything the alternative views are designated 'a', 'b'
etc. Hence a general view of the 14th seat is we14, a second,
detail view of the sinister supporter of the 14th seat is
we14sb.
The table gives Remnant's number, my
corresponding picture number, if any, or numbers where there is more than one
picture of the seat concerned, a brief description of the carving depicted,
usually Remnant's, although he is not infallible, and in the illustrated
version of this document, a thumbnail of the picture.
|
Remnant no. |
Picture no. |
Description |
Thumbnail |
|
1 |
we01 |
Goat [broken] |
|
|
2 |
we02 |
Griffin fighting a lion |
|
|
3 |
we03 |
Man in hood and drawers riding a horse bare-back and back to front |
|
|
we03m |
|
||
|
4 |
we04 |
Hawk preying on a rabbit |
|
|
We04m |
|
||
|
5 |
we05 |
Mermaid [unfinished] |
|
|
6 |
we06 |
Two popinjays [parrots] on a fruit tree |
|
|
7 |
we07 |
Ape with a basket of fruit on his back [broken] |
|
|
8 |
|
Monster with two bodies |
|
|
9 |
|
Dog-headed griffin |
|
|
10 |
|
Two goats butting each other [unfinished] |
|
|
11 |
we11 |
Monkey holding an owl [unfinished] |
|
|
12 |
|
Two dragons biting each others' tails |
|
|
13 |
we13a |
Ewe suckling lamb [unfinished] |
|
|
we13b |
|
||
|
14 |
|
Wyvern fighting horse |
|
|
15 |
we15 |
Mermaid suckling lion |
|
|
16 |
we16 |
Two men sitting on the ground disputing, the man to dexter holds a cup [broken], the other, to sinister, a pouch |
|
|
17 |
we17 |
Cat preying on a mouse [unfinished] |
|
|
we17m |
|
||
|
18 |
|
Bat-winged monster |
|
|
19 |
we19 |
Griffin eating a lamb |
|
|
20 |
we20 |
Puppy biting a cat |
|
|
we20m |
|
||
|
21 |
we21 |
Man in a contorted posture supporting the seat |
|
|
22 |
we22 |
Dog |
|
|
23 |
we23 |
Cat playing a fiddle [cf. old nursery rhyme: 'Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle'] |
|
|
24 |
we24 |
Man seated on the ground thrusting a dagger through the head of a dragon with feathered wings |
|
|
25 |
we25 |
Head of bishop in amice, chasuble and mitre [unfinished] |
|
|
26 |
we26 |
Peacock |
|
|
27 |
we27 |
Fox preaching to four geese, one of which has fallen asleep [broken] |
|
|
28 |
we28 |
Cock crowing |
|
|
29 |
we29 |
Sleeping lion |
|
|
30 |
we30 |
Dragon with wings spread, asleep |
|
|
31 |
we31 |
Man squatting on the ground with his hands on his knees |
|
|
32 |
we32 |
Fox running with a goose in its mouth |
|
|
33 |
we33 |
Remnant describes this as 'Man's head with ass's ears', I wonder whether it represents the face of a bat |
|
|
34 |
|
Two monsters, male and female, caressing |
|
|
35 |
we35 |
Man on his back, supporting the seat with his right hand and foot |
|
|
36 |
we36 |
Lion with ass's ears |
|
|
37 |
|
Hawk scratching its head |
|
|
38 |
|
Cat sleeping |
|
|
39 |
we39 |
Woman crouching on the ground with her right hand on her right shoulder and her left extended |
|
|
40 |
we40 |
Dragon with hairy belly biting its back |
|
|
41 |
we41 |
Two ducks |
|
|
42 |
we42 |
Two dragons [unfinished] |
|
|
43 |
|
Bat's head [unfinished] |
|
|
44 |
we44 |
Man's head with bushy hair and beard and with a lion's leg growing out of each side |
|
|
45 |
we45 |
Man in tunic and hood, lying on his right side and clasping his hands |
|
|
46 |
we46 |
Man wearing girdled tunic and holding his head downwards, supporting the seat with his back and left hand |
|
|
46 |
we46m |
|
|
|
47 |
we47 |
Lady's head with hair in a curl on each side, wearing an ornate fillet |
|
|
48 |
we48 |
Lion sleeping |
|
|
49 |
we49 |
Bat with wings extended |
|
|
50 |
|
Angel's head with amice around neck and extended wings |
|
|
51 |
we51 |
Lion |
|
|
52 |
we52 |
Two doves, or parrots, drinking from a ewer standing in a basin |
|
|
53 |
we53 |
Squirrel in a collar and lead, held by a monkey |
|
|
54 |
we54 |
Wood-pigeon feeding |
|
|
55 |
we55 |
Man riding and whipping a lion |
|
|
56 |
we56 |
Remnant describes this as 'Boar and a cat with cloven feet walking away from each other', I think it is more likely a boar and sow, the sow broken |
|
|
57 |
we57 |
Eagle with wings spread [unfinished] |
|
|
58 |
we58 |
Head and shoulders of a man who supports the seat with his hands |
|
|
59 |
we59 |
Rabbit |
|
|
60 |
we60 |
Two-legged beast looking back at its tail, which is formed of 3 oak leaves on one stem |
|
|
61 |
we61 displayed in choir aisle |
Man in hood and loose tunic thrusting a spear down the throat of a dragon |
|
|
62 |
we62 displayed in choir aisle |
[17th century] Boy with long wavy hair and wearing a gown, lying on his side and drawing a thorn out of his foot |
|
|
63 |
we63 |
Pelican in her piety [wounding her own breast to feed her young, a symbol of Man's redemption through the blood of Christ] |
|
|
64 |
we64 displayed in choir aisle |
The flight of Alexander [Alexander was supposed to have harnessed two Griffins, which he then tempted to fly with meat impaled on two spears so as to carry him up into the sky] |
|
|
V&A 1 |
we-va |
Crouching man with his feet curled up beneath him, supporting the seat with his elbows |
|
|
we-vama |
|
||
|
we-vamb |
|
||
|
Supporters |
|
All the original misericords have as supporters bosses of naturalistic foliage. Remnant identifies specimens of oak, maple, vine, rose, marshmallow, ivy and beech, with other plants and trees. |
|
Copyright in the pictures is the property of
the Wells Cathedral authorities, 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.
01 March 2000