The importance of the choir stalls at Ripon Minster – dated to the closing years of the fifteenth century – has long been acknowledged, in terms of the arrangement of elements, the vigour and variety of misericord carving and, as we saw in the last chapter, their influence upon subsequent work in a number of significant churches in the north of England: Beverley Minster, Manchester Cathedral, All Saints, Wensley, and the stalls now located in Bishop Tunstall's Chapel in Durham Castle.However, when faced with such a bewildering iconographic richness as the Ripon stalls display, it is not uncommon for both the scholar and the more casual visitor to be unsure of where to start to explore the symbolic significance of the carvings. In order to avoid the many tempting distractions offered beneath the choir stalls, then, it is perhaps advisable to begin this chapter by focusing in the first instance upon just one small detail of the Ripon carving which is frequently overlooked by both guides and academics, but which nonetheless provides a useful stimulus to initiate a discussion of the visual demonstration of masculinity and power in the late medieval English Church, a topic which, as we shall see, was of particular concern in the pre-Reformation period. A curious visitor, captivated by the misericords and, indeed, by the fine carving throughout the choir as a whole, is very likely to miss this particular image unless it is pointed out to them by someone ‘in the know’. In my case, this was done by a group of giggling choristers, a circumstance which I suspect may have been repeated on countless occasions throughout the past five centuries. For, partially obscured in one of the spandrels of the elaborate north return stall canopies – very likely one of the earliest sections of the choir woodwork to be carved – the keen eye may spot a relief carving depicting the figure of a standing cleric who gleefully raises his garments in order to expose his private parts to those who sit below (fig. 19). Although he is not the only human figure to be depicted in the canopies, he is nonetheless the only one who confronts the viewer in such a forthright manner.