Profane Imagery in Marginal Arts of the Middle Ages

442 Pages·2009·19.525 MB·English

by  Elaine C. Block, Malcolm Jones (ed.)

PROFANE IMAGES
IN MARGINAL ARTS
OF THE MIDDLE AGES
PROFANE ARTS
OF THE MIDDLE AGES
Series editors:
Elaine C. BLOCK
Frédéric BILLIET
Paul HARDWICK
PROFANE IMAGES
IN MARGINAL ARTS
OF THE MIDDLE AGES
edited by
Elaine C. Block
with the assistance of Frédéric Billiet,
Sylvie Bethmont-Gallerand and Paul Hardwick
Proceedings of the VI biennial colloquium
Misericordia International
organized by and presided over by
Malcolm Jones
University of Sheffield
18–21 July 2003
(cid:2)
Two Fox-preachers Sing the Magnificat
BEVERLEY – Saint-Mary (North Yorkshire, Great Britain) XVth century
© 2009, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
D/2009/0095/28
ISBN 2-503-51599-1
Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper
For Brian J. Levy
1938–2004
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Preface .......................................................................................................... XI
MALCOLM JONES
Editorial ........................................................................................................ XV
ELAINE C. BLOCK
Technical Aspects of the Misericord ............................................................XIX
HUGH HARRISON
PROFANE IMAGERY ON MISERICORDS AND LEAD BADGES 1
1 Misericords as an Interpretative Tool in the Study of Choir Stalls ........ 3
CHARLES TRACY
2 Misericords and the World of Bruegel .................................................... 21
ELAINE C. BLOCK
3 Tutivillus
CHRISTA GRÖSSINGER ...................................................................... 47
4 Where the Abbot Carries Dice: Gaming-Board Misericords in Context 63
M. A. HALL
5 Flying Low Down Under: Representations of Winged Mammals .......... 83
Fowl, and Birds on English Misericords
S. J. F. S. PHILIPS
6 The Mermaid in the Church .................................................................... 105
TERRY PEARSON
7 Romance among the Choir Stalls: Middle English Romance Motifs .... 123
on English Misericords
JENNIFER FELLOWS
8 Misinterpretations in the Margins .......................................................... 143
PAUL HARDWICK
9 Passionate Pilgrims: Secular Lead Badges as Precursors ...................... 157
of Emblemata Amatoria
STEFANIE STOCKHORST
PROFANE IMAGES IN OTHER MARGINAL MEDIA 183
10 Obscenity as the Woodworker’s Last Laugh ............................................ 185
NAOMI REED KLINE
11 Looking for Fun in All the Wrong Places: Humour and Comedy .......... 199
in Moralizing Prints
DIANE G. SCILLIA
12 A Sacred Text Profaned: Seven Women Fight for the Breeches ............ 221
WALTER S. GIBSON
13 Iconographie des charniers, des ossuaires et des aîtres .......................... 239
à travers la France médiévale
SYLVIE BETHMONT-GALLERAND
14 An Iconography of Shame: German Defamatory Pictures .................... 263
of the Early Modern Era
SILKE MEYER
15 The Lost Print Collection of Ferdinand Columbus (1488–1539) .......... 285
MARK P. McDONALD
THE MARGINAL ARTS IN THE MAINSTREAM 301
16 Screening the Middle Ages: Costumes and Objects as Medieval .......... 303
Signifiers in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
BRIAN J. LEVY
17 Diabolus in musicadans les stalles médiévales: .................................... 315
significations du désordre musical
FRÉDÉRIC BILLIET
18 Review of Averting Demonsby Ruth Mellinkoff .................................. 339
MALCOLM JONES
19 Resumés in French and English .............................................................. 363
SYLVIE BETHMONT-GALLERAND
ELAINE C. BLOCK
Appendix / List of photographs by site ........................................................ 413
The Authors .................................................................................................. 415
Preface
MALCOLM JONES
It was my pleasure to organize the sixth biennial colloquium of Misericordia
International, held at Sheffield University’s Tapton Hall in July 2003, and I
am very pleased to introduce this collection of the majority of the papers
given over those four days.
Misericords are happily – perhaps that is part of their particular attraction – a
somewhat liminal class of artefact that stubbornly resists the neat categorizations
beloved of taxonomists, their very function, as the late Michael Camille and oth-
ers have noted, a reminder of our ‘fundamental’ human frailties, both physical
and psychical, their at times almost anarchic imagery thumbing the nose at our
preconceived modern notions of what is appropriate in a church setting.
In seeking to elucidate the often puzzling nature of the misericord corpus, it
seems to me that the approaches of a wide variety of researchers from different
areas of expertise, all pooling their individual ‘beams of light’ is likely to prove
most illuminating – for no single one of us can presume to have the key that will
‘pluck out the heart of [this] mystery’. It was in this spirit that I was delighted to
be able to welcome to Sheffield a happily heterogeneous band of art historians,
woodworkers and woodwork historians, students of earlier material culture, liter-
ary historians, and downright enthusiasts – the majority hailing from Britain, of
course, though it was particularly pleasing to note the truly international nature of
our common enthusiasm as represented by the participants from France,
Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States.
As for our proceedings themselves, a brief introductory session placed miseri-
cords firmly in a woodworking context, exploring both the technicalities of the
XII MALCOLMJONES
carving of an individual motif, via a fascinating video of a modern carver in
action with an illuminating commentary, followed by a paper detailing how
misericords may be used as an interpretative tool in the study of choir-stalls in
general.
Although we are a society whose primary interest is misericords, of course, we nev-
ertheless recognize that misericords did not exist in a vacuum, and that the wealth
of subject matter represented on European misericords was but one corpus of late
medieval iconography, and we are thus also interested in comparable bodies of
imagery. Accordingly, the conference contributions divided broadly into two
strands dealing with comparative corpora and misericord iconography. Speakers in
the former strand drew attention to similarities between, for example, the repertoire
of misericord imagery and that of the (non-religious) lead badges which have
emerged from riverine deposits throughout Europe in significant numbers in recent
years, and the understanding of which requires something of a rethink of our tradi-
tional understanding of the proper province of late medieval iconography, of
engraved prints (more and more of which are being recognized as the design
sources for late misericords), and of paintings, whether as well known as Bruegel’s
Netherlandish Proverbs, or as strangely neglected as the extraordinary German
defamatory cartoons known as Schandbilder. The closely related theme of the
apotropaic power of sexual and scatological display, for which our corpus provides
such invaluable evidence, was also pursued in a variety of other media.
Particular iconographic subjects in the misericord corpus discussed by speakers
included climactic episodes from English medieval romances, the Dance of
Death, and the mermaid, as well as an exciting new theory with regard to the true
meaning and origin of the infamous ‘Green Man’. On a more down-to-earth level,
the perennial (and still unresolved) battle of the sexes was illustrated in the motif
of the literal struggle over possession of the trousers that symbolize the male, and
evidence for the traditional sexist allegation of the garrulity of women was seen
in the form of representations of the devil Tutivillus. The detailed ‘archaeologi-
cal’ evidence our carvings provide for the more mundane realia of gaming-
boards and musical instruments, and of the natural- (and unnatural-) historical
observation of birds and other winged creatures, was also presented.
The value of photography was illustrated both for misericords, specifically, in a
tribute to the Dutch student of misericords, the late J. A. J. M. Verspaandonk, and
for the Middle Ages more generally, in a less reverend and, indeed, highly amus-
ing look at the way the Middle Ages have been portrayed in cinema.
It is fitting that I should single out for special thanks here our society’s founder
and president, the indefatigable Elaine Block, and it was particularly pleasing that