The World Upside-Down
English Misericords
by Christa Grossinger
Paperback (Out of print)
(January 1997)
ISBN: 9781872501642
Price: $45.00
Out of stock
This book describes and illustrates one of the most entertaining ‘popular’ art-forms of the Middle Ages, the misericord – the carved, hinged seat of the choir-stal – found in monastic and parish churches and in cathedrals.
This book describes and illustrates one of the most entertaining ‘popular’ art-forms of the Middle Ages, the misericord – the carved, hinged seat of the choir-stall – found in monastic and parish churches and in cathedrals. These ledges were introduced as a concession to elderly and frail monks who found it difficult to stand through the eight daily Offices. In the course of time they were decorated and eventually extensively carved with narrative scenes. English misericords have their own distinctive style and express a particular sense of humour. Intended as antidotes to the rigorous celibate life of the monks, they depict unrestrained and often bawdy subject-matter and present an explicit and frank expression of the ‘unmentionable’. Most of the surviving misericords are from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though a few earlier ones are to be found; some, in London and Cambridge, are from the sixteenth century and have distinctly Renaissance qualities. Exceptionally fine series are to be found in Exeter, Lincoln, Manchester, Worcester, Ripon and Wells Cathedral, but many excellent examples can be seen in parish churches all over the country. The book is richly illustrated from new, specially taken photographs, with full descriptive captions and a map of the locations of misericords mentioned. It will act as companion to students of medieval art and society, and to all those interested in the ‘popular’ arts, that can still be seen in our own time.
- By (author) Christa Grossinger
Other Titles in this Series
Late Gothic Sculpture in Northern Italy
Andrea da Giona and I Maestri Caronesi: An Addition to the Pantheon of Venetian Sculptors
Architectural Drawings of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and His Circle
Vol. III: Antiquity and Theory
Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela
A Critical Edition: Volume I, The Manuscripts and Volume II, The Text
Volume 14
Making and Meaning of the Liber Floridus
A Study of the Original Manuscript, Ghent, University Library, MS 92
Volume 76
Similar Books
Innovation and Medieval Communities
The Circulation of Ideas and Practices in and out of the Town (1200-1500)
Volume 63
Medieval Yeghegis, Armenia
History, Archaeology, Society. Local Multiplicities and Global Connections of a Rural Centre on the Silk Road(s)
Naples as Laboratory / Laboratorium Neapel
Style Options, Artistic Rivalry and Self Fashioning in Neapolitan Baroque Painting / Plurale Stilbildung, Kunstlerkonkurrenz und Self Fashioning in der neapolitanischen Barockmalerei
Nurturing the Elite
Representations of Drinking, Eating, and Religious Vessels in Palmyrene Funerary Iconography
Volume 13
Power and Women in Southeast and Central Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (1300-1600)
Volume 10
Technical Studies of Asian Art
Proceedings of the Seventh Forbes Symposium at the Freer Gallery of Art
Women in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Studies from Western Europe and North Africa
Volume 44
Los oficios de los diplomas latinos de la Cataluna altomedieval
Estudio de las innovaciones lexicas: XI Premio Internacional de Tesis Doctorales Fundacion Ana Maria Aldama Roy de Estudios Latinos
Volume 106
A Communication Ethic of Dialogic Reformation
Nicholas of Cusa on Care for Communities in Crisis
Volume 106
