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16
BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON
HISTORIC CHURCHES
22
ND ANNUAL EDITION
HEAVENLY MUSICIANS
or JOLLY TROUBADOURS?
Interpreting medieval corbel sculpture
Richard Halsey
I
T IS one of the many joys of visiting
older churches to discover the myriad
details tucked away in odd places,
such as the small-scale figures and
creatures which enhance the ends of
stone hood mouldings beside a doorway,
or adorn the corbel supporting a beam,
or are hidden within wooden roofs or
carved on furniture.
The iconoclasts of the 16th and 17th
centuries have ensured that hardly any
large scale medieval figure sculpture
survives in Britain’s churches and while
Victorian sculpture can show marvellous
craftsmanship and great beauty, restored
architectural details can lack conviction
to an eye trained on medieval work. Of
course, that is partly because later work
lacks that ‘patina of age’ which older
survivals retain, an antiquity that can lend
greater interest even when the original
sculptural quality is not high. Centuries of
built up limewash can make identification
of some stone sculptures quite difficult
and modern interventions do not always
respect the character and setting of such
antiquities either.
Church visitors today are often keen
to track down a ‘green man’, a human head
shrouded in foliage or with its features
created from leaves and branches. The
term was probably coined by Lady Raglan
in 1939 in an article which she contributed
to the journal of the Folklore Society.
Previously, the medieval scholar CJP Cave
had written in 1932 about the hidden faces
in the foliage bosses of Ely Cathedral Lady
Chapel. The faces reminded him of the
Jack-in-the-Green figure that could then
still be seen in rural May Day celebrations.
Both authors explored the possibility
that such sculptures were evidence of
continuing pre-Christian myths (if not
practices) in the Middle Ages, so that now
the green man is often explained away as a
pagan hangover.
Heads created from leaves, usually
called ‘foliate heads’, are seen continuously
on buildings and monuments across
Europe from at least the second century.
Some fine examples are illustrated in the
sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt
(c1230), unfortunately without any
accompanying explanation. Like the rest
of his drawings, they are intended to be
aides-mémoires.
Other green man variations include
heads buried in vine scrolls or with
leaves sprouting from their mouths.
These too have a very long provenance in
architectural stone decoration, especially
on capitals. Rather than demonstrating
the survival of paganism, the many
English medieval examples can be seen
as belonging to a long-standing tradition
of depicting danger and evil. Woods were
dangerous places in medieval England,
easily associated with the devil’s work, and
masons of each generation re-interpreted
the tradition in their own style.
But to what extent was the mason
responsible for the subject he was
carving? Influenced by Victorian ideals,
Corbel at the Bishop’s House, Ely