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Amnon and Thamar on a Misericord in Hereford Cathedral

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

R. E. Kaske
R. E. Kaske*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

It is of course generally recognized that the carvings on medieval misericords, in England as elsewhere, are preponderantly secular in subject, including only a slight sprinkling of biblical and other religious motifs; according to a recent study, ‘only about 4.5 per cent of Britain's almost 8,600 surviving centrepieces and supporters have primarily religious significance, and 1.5 per cent are Scriptural, as compared with over twice that in France.’ To this basic situation we must add that of all medieval art forms, misericords are among those most completely lacking in context, and so are likely to be among the most mute about their own intended meanings. As M. D. Anderson remarks on another of their enigmatic aspects, ‘Between the clearly identifiable subjects and those as clearly not intended to convey any particular meaning lies a mass of work presenting a wide variety of iconographical puzzles’; and while she is referring to the difference between the purely decorative and the iconographically significant in any way, a similar no-man's land must surely be allowed to exist between the clearly non-biblical and the biblical or possibly biblical. An instructive example can be found in a fifteenth-century French misericord now in the church of St.-Cernin, which shows a ‘handsome dancing man with … oriental turban and earrings’ and is identified by its editors — attractively though by no means conclusively — as David dancing before the Lord in 2 Kings (Vulgate) 6.14–16.

Type
Articles
Information
Traditio , Volume 45 , 1990 , pp. 1 - 6
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Laird, Marshall, English Misericords (London 1986) 10. Remnant, G. L., A Catalogue of Misericords in Great Britain (Oxford 1969) 209, lists 36 misericords containing a total of about 21 Old Testament subjects, and 18 containing a total of about 9 New Testament subjects.Google Scholar

2 The Iconography of British Misericords,’ in Remnant, Catalogue xxvi.Google Scholar

3 Dorothy, and Kraus, Henry, The Hidden World of Misericords (New York 1975) fig. 53 and pp. 65, 186.Google Scholar

4 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, England, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Herefordshire I (London 1931) 114 (25), with a small reproduction in pl. 68 (25).Google Scholar

5 Morgan, F. C., ‘Hereford Cathedral Church: Misericords’ (Hereford 1966) [p. 2], with a tiny reproduction on the cover.Google Scholar

6 Remnant, , Catalogue 62, south upper row, 9.Google Scholar

7 Repr. from Kraus, , Hidden World, fig. 164, where it is entitled The Lovers.’Google Scholar

8 Carmina Burana, edd. Alfons Hilka and Otto Schumann, I, 1 (Heidelberg 1930) Tafel 5b.Google Scholar

9 Note for example Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob 31.45.89 ed. Adriaen, M. CCL 143B (Turnhout 1985) 1611, on the ‘duo carnalia uitia, id est uentris ingluuies et luxuria.’Google Scholar

10 Hidden World xiv.Google Scholar

11 Remnant, , Catalogue 61–62. A statement by Bond, Francis, Wood Carvings in English Churches: I. — Misericords (London 1910) 137, that ‘The blinding of Samson is shewn on a misericord in Hereford cathedral’ (twice repeated by Anderson, M. D., The Medieval Carver [Cambridge 1935] 58, and The Imagery of British Churches [London 1955] 98) is misleading, since no such medieval misericord exists there.Google Scholar

12 Bond, , Wood Carvings 128, remarks that ‘in many [large sets of misericords] room was found for but one scriptural subject.’ Witness for example the group of 15 in Henry VIII's Grammar School at Coventry, Warwicks., including only one biblical subject (15, David, playing the harp; Remnant, Catalogue 162); the group of 68 in the minster at Beverley, Yorks., including one biblical subject (south side, lower row, 11, Josue and Caleb returning from Canaan) and four others that might be called ‘religious’ (Remnant 172–77); the group of 96 in St. George's Chapel at Windsor, Berks., including one biblical subject (north side, upper row, 5, Samson and the lion) and two saints’ legends (Remnant 5–10); the group of 30 in the cathedral at Manchester, Lanes., including one biblical subject (north side, 4, Josue and Caleb returning from Canaan) and two other ‘religious’ motifs (Remnant 81–84); and the group of 20 in the church of St. Mary at Nantwich, Ches., including one biblical subject (north side, 10, Samson and the lion) and two other ‘religious’ motifs (Remnant 26–27).Google Scholar

13 Fig. 3 is repr. from La Bible moralisée illustrée, conservée à Oxford, Paris et Londres, ed. A. de Laborde, I (Paris 1911) pl. 155, top left medallion (MS Oxford, Bodl. 270b, fol. 155v). Fig. 4 is from Queen Mary's Psalter, MS London, BL Royal 2.B.VII, fol. 58r. The Princeton Index of Christian Art lists 17 illustrations of ‘Amnon defiling Tamar’ and 7 of ‘Amnon sending Tamar away’ (13.15–18).Google Scholar

14 South side, 12 and 14. Remnant, , Catalogue 172; and for the latter, pl. 4d. Google Scholar

15 Queen Mary's Psalter: Miniatures and Drawings by an English Artist of the 14th Century …, ed. George Warner (London 1912) 87 and pl. 101: ‘… il la prist e la enforca encountre sa uoluntate en comencement de la persecucion dauid pur son pecche.’Google Scholar

16 Biblia sacra cum glossa interlineari, ordinaria …, II (Venice 1588) fol. 110r: ‘Incestus Amnon maioris filij Dauid in sorore sua Thamar, & parricidium Absalom in Amnon fratre, monet nos vt semper caute agamus, ne vitia in nobis dominentur: & princeps peccati (qui falsam pacem periclitantibus spondet) nos imparatos inueniens de improuiso trucidet. Absalom enim pater pacis vel patris pax interpretatur. Amnon donans. Thamar amaritudo. Qui enim membra sua donat libidini, & seruit iniquitati ad iniquitatem [cf. Rom. 6.19], in peccati amaritudinem cadit, licet inimicus se quasi patrem pacis ostendat & prospera pro talibus factis promittat.’ Rabanus, , Commentaria in libros quatuor Regum (PL 109.103).Google Scholar

17 Printed with Glossa, loc. cit.: ‘Per Thamar … significatur quaecunque virgo, vel mulier continere proponens, sed de sua securitate nimis confidens. Nam frequenter in tali confidentia diabolus, cuius halitus prunas ardere facit, vt dicit Iob [41.12], quando sola[m] cum solo etiam valde propinquo reperit, ignem concupiscentiae carnalis accendit, propter quod talis solitudo caueri debet solicite.’ The thirteenth-century commentary of Hugh of Cher, St., Opera omnia in universum Vetus et Novum Testamentum, I (Lyon 1669) fol. 251r, presents a more elaborate moralization on the evils of ambition.Google Scholar

18 English Misericords 9.Google Scholar

19 I am grateful to my old friend the late Dennis Wickett, F., then director of Norman May's Studio at Malvern Link, Worcs., for taking the difficult photograph reproduced as Fig. 1; to the American Council of Learned Societies for a Grant-in-Aid in 1968, supporting a project of which this study is a belated by-product; and to the British Library for permission to reproduce Fig. 4.Google Scholar