Description
Book SynopsisEnglish Gothic Misericord Carvings: History from the Bottom Up by Betsy Chunko-Dominguez is the first book to move beyond textual dependence and traditional iconographic analysis when examining misericords. It likewise builds the most thorough discussion to date of the relationship between the misericord’s several potential audiences – including patron, craftsman, occupant of the seat, and modern viewer. Beyond the bounds of misericord studies, there are implications here for study of the relationship between center and margin in late medieval art; and, indeed, what constitutes ‘center’ and ‘margin’ as conceptual realms. Ultimately, this book attempts both to re-integrate the study of misericords into the study of Gothic art in general, and to re-center them in relation to our understanding of late medieval culture.
Trade Review"The fabulous panoply of scenes carved into the misericords that once supported the bottoms of medieval monks and canons across England is ripe for an important new treatment, and in Betsy Chunko-Dominguez it has found a suitably erudite and appreciative investigator.[...] a succinct, pithy and broad survey of the medieval interpretive field and a brilliant application of visual analysis, an important historicisation of and corrective to a somewhat neglected subject." Gabriel Byng, Clare Hall, Cambridge, in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 70 (2019), 152-153. ''Betsy Chunko-Dominguez’s volume makes a significant contribution to the study of specifically English misericord iconography, engaging with recent work in ways that build upon current thinking and, appropriately, offer a stimulating challenge to the views of these authors. Her work engages more fully with critical theory than that of the aforementioned authors, and does so in a way that is purposeful, and that illuminates her subject while avoiding the excesses that can all too often cloud the overly theoretical. Indeed, the writing has a clarity that may be easily understood by the keen nonspecialist [...] The field of misericord studies is still underexplored, and this considered—and, crucially, excellently illustrated—volume makes a valuable contribution to our approaches to this fascinating and often perplexing body of carvings and, more broadly, to the complex material articulations of life and belief in the late Middle Ages''. Paul Hardwick, in Speculum 94/3 (2019), 819-821.
Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments vii List of Illustrations viii Notes on Permissions xi List of Abbreviations xii Introduction: History from the “Bottom Up” 1 1 Meaning(s) and Medieval Misericords 7 Literacy and the Viewer 9 An Iconographic Dilemma 13 Signa and Res 21 The Case for Hybridity 30 2 Violent Women and the Clerical Gaze 33 Touch and Trope 38 “Wykked Wyves” 45 The Clerical Gaze 51 3 The Abject and Uncanny Human Form 55 Illness and Abjection 57 Scatology and Obscaena 65 Ungodly Peoples 71 Conflated Realities 76 4 The Subject as Sign: Iconography of the Lay Classes 85 Images and Fiction 88 At Home and in the Fields 94 “Folk” Iconography 105 Peasants Behaving Badly 111 5 Image and Anxiety: Iconography of Hell and Damnation 121 To Partake with Devils 123 Dark Visions, Corporeal Fears 128 Doleful Realities 136 Afterword: The Vanishing Mediator 143 Appendix: Dating the Misericords of Fairford 149 Bibliography 160 Index 182
