Last updated 13:36, Thursday, 24 April 2008

Life was never easy for monks in the great abbeys and cathedrals of medieval England. They were required to attend the eight divine offices every day and there may well have been additional services, masses and psalms.

Horror in the cathedral: Under one seat a rigid corpse is being savaged by an hyena. The hyena was thought to live in graves and feed on dead bodies. It was also thought to imitate the human voice in order to lure men to their deaths

Misericords of North West England: Their Nature and Significance by John Dickinson. CNWRS £12.95.

It was physically quite an endurance test and many of the monks would have been quite elderly.

In the 11th century a modest innovation eased their weary load.

This was the misericord, a word that comes from the Latin word for mercy, and is indicative of the relief the monks must have felt.

This wonderful innovation was very simple. It consisted of a piece of wood at right angles to the front of the seat in the choir-stalls such that, when the hinged seats were placed in the upright position for the monks to stand, there was a convenient and blessed ledge which they could rest against to take the weight off their legs without offending divine providence.

As the years passed, the underneath of this ledge offered a suitable and further place for woodcarving in an already richly embellished church.

Elsewhere the decoration was all to the glory of God, but here, hidden away, underneath the seats, was the opportunity for carvings of a less religious nature.

The craftsmen may have exercised their fancy and created pictures of the life around them or of a mythological world of strange beasts and green men.

They would show wives scolding their husbands, a fox stealing a cockerel, a widow reading a book, or a pair of wrestlers. Or they might depict lions and elephants and griffins and dragons and devils.

Alternatively, the craftsmen might have been working under instruction. The stalls and their carving would have been very expensive and, John Dickinson contends, would not be a casual work, but part of the overall significance of the church itself.

In contrast to the world of the divine, hidden beneath the reposing monks, would be the corresponding real world where God was always present.

The North West is particularly fortunate in these hidden galleries of medieval carving. Fine examples are to be found in the cathedrals at Chester, Manchester, Blackburn and Manchester and in the priories at Lancaster and Cartmel.

One of the finest sets is in Carlisle Cathedral. The 46 seats were probably carved in the early 15th century.

Under one seat a rigid corpse is being savaged by an hyena. Under another the demon Bigorne is swallowing a good husband, his legs and his tunic splayed out as his head is drawn ineluctably into the capacious jaws.

A wealthy man, well dressed and carrying a sword by his side, is attacked by a griffin. The griffin, combining the head of a noble eagle and the body of a proud lion, was a symbol of power and respect, and our rich man must have given in to the temptations of the world to be subject to such an attack.

There are three other griffins under the seats, but they find themselves opposed by something like 14 evil dragons and wyverns. One is a splendid representation of the scaly beast turning his head leeringly round and displaying a very fiery, fleshy tongue.

Look under another seat and you will see a dragon attacking a very odd-looking elephant, but then the carver would never have seen an elephant. However, he certainly would have seen the fox and the unfortunate goose that are found elsewhere.

If you turn up all the seats in the cathedral, you might find a pious lion and his evil brother, a pelican, angels and further demons.

Misericords over the years have lent themselves to many varied interpretations. They are often delightful things in themselves, beautifully carved, imaginative and expressive of the medieval understanding.

John Dickinson is a passionate enthusiast, but he is also an informed interpreter who enables us to understand something of the thought behind the carvings.

Time to go down to the cathedral and lift up the seats.

Misericords is available from Bookends, 56 Castle Street, Carlisle, and 66 Main Street, Keswick, and from www.bookscumbria.com