Beasts in the Lady Chapel

Summary.  Within the arches of the Lady Chapel are sculpted animals, plants, mythical beasts, grotesque hybrids and chimeras. This bestiary reflected the 14th century idea of what creatures were in the world, but why sculpt them and place in a Lady Chapel is lost to us.

Bishop Walter de Langton’s Lady Chapel finished c. 1336,[1] has numerous blind arcades along the wall above the low bench. Each arcade has a decorated canopy, supported by shafts with carved capitals. The canopies, which bow forward, have trefoil ogee arches,[2] surmounted with finials edged with crockets.[3] Within the arches are sculpted animals and a small number of plants. Also, mythical beasts, grotesque hybrids and chimeras. These fabula and curiositates, names used in the medieval period,[4] must have reflected the thinking of the visiting Parisian stonemasons but precisely what was their purpose has been deliberated with no agreed conclusion.

Two arcades in the Lady Chapel

Four examples of beasts. Appear to be from the left, a human head on a fish body, a cat’s head on a segmented body like an insect, possible panther and a human in a strange monkey-like pose.

 

Did these beasts have a religious significance? Did they have something to say? The following is a list of possible explanations for these beasts.

1.     Like grotesques they were meant to ward off evil. This is weak since they are small, almost hidden and not too frightening. Furthermore, they are within a metre of delicately sculptured heads of nobles and angels. They are more curious than scary. It also does not explain why many are repeated. Perhaps, they reminded onlookers of favoured stories known in the 14th-century. If the stained glass reminds onlookers of the bible, this stonework reminds visitors of their oral traditions.

2.     The visiting masons believed in the folk-lore, now lost, which they freely voiced and depicted? “The truth of the stories was just what they did not trouble about.”[5] They were sculpting what they like to sculpt or could easily sculpt. They were simply the result of musing by the masons, a kind of medieval graffiti.

3.     The images were used as an aid in converting illiterate people who were following pagan religions. Many reference pagan traditions, particularly the anthropomorphized animals, and displaying these well-known beasts in church was a nudge towards Christianity. They marked out the arcades as they led the doubting pilgrim to the high altar at the east end of the chapel. This presupposes Christians cared about pagans sufficiently to contain some of their tropes in a church; a supposition without any evidence.

4.     Perhaps, their purpose was to emphasise they did not have a point at all, so the onlooker was driven to search for one of their own. They were ornamental art. Woodcock called them ‘liminal images’;[6] that is on a boundary where there is ambivalence and maybe confusion.

They were to remind worshippers that all creatures were part of the Kingdom of God. Why then show idealised beasts and not known animals? Why do many have a humanoid aspect?

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you, and the fish of the sea will declare to you.”    JOB, 12 v7–8.

5.     Trubshaw[7] theorised the medieval mind had a very different, paradoxical, view of what was sacred. The church could include both the dangerous and impure as well as the benevolent and blessed. Both the sanctified and the abject are considered indefinable.  Holier-than-thou icons could accompany horrible-than-thou grotesques. They are not to be explained by modern mores.

 

There are 9 figures of a bird with its beak pointing upwards. Sometimes the body is fish-like. The bird is close to being a Corvid.

There are 9 figures cat-like having round faces and small pointed ears. The bodies vary.

 

There are 11 figures dog-like and the one shown appears to be scratching with its back leg.

There are 6 figures appearing to be hooded men, like monks, with a cape and strange body

 

There are 3 figures appearing much like an owl with a long beak.

Is this an image of a stoneworker, perhaps the one overseeing the work in the Lady Chapel?

 

One image is a Sheela na gig, which is a figurative naked woman displaying an exaggerated vulva. It is thought they were first carved in France and Spain during the 11th century. Some believe they show fertility others suggest lust, but it is all conjecture.

                                                 An animal with a twisted horn which might be a unicorn.

 

Is this a green man or a hobgoblin? Looking down from a centre boss of a roof vault gives it added significance. If a Green-Man then it alludes to nature and creativity and might connect with the arcade figures.

The only conclusion can be they are an eclectic mix of simple chimeras whose purpose, if they had a purpose, has long been forgotten. They should not be dismissed as folly or given a purpose beyond our understanding of the medieval world.

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[1] In 1336, William de Heywood and Robert Aylbrick were admitted as custodians of the fabric of the chapel of the Blessed Mary. This is taken to indicate the Chapel was now being used.

[2] Ogee means an S-shaped curve. An ogee arch has a pointed apex, formed by the intersection of two S curves usually decorated.

[3] A. B. Clifton, The Cathedral church of Lichfield. (London: 1900)

[4] M. Camille, Image on the edge: The margins of medieval art. (London: 1992)

[5] A. H. Collins, Symbolism of animals and birds represented in English Church Architecture, (New York: 1913), 4.

[6] A. Woodcock, Liminal images: Aspects of Medieval Architectural Sculpture in the South of England from the Eleventh to the Sixteenth Centuries. British Archaeological Report 31 (2005).  

[7] B. Trubshaw, Mawning and mooning: Towards an understanding of medieval carvings and their carer’s.  (Marlborough: 1012), 121