English Gothic Misericord Carvings: History from the Bottom Up (Art and Material Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, 9)

English 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 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 10 List of Illustrations 11 Notes on Permissions 14 List of Abbreviations 15 Introduction 16 History from the “Bottom Up” 16 Chapter 1 22 Meaning(s) and Medieval Misericords 22 Literacy and the Viewer 24 An Iconographic Dilemma 28 Signa and Res 36 The Case for Hybridity 45 Chapter 2 48 Violent Women and the Clerical Gaze 48 Touch and Trope 53 “Wykked Wyves” 60 The Clerical Gaze 66 Chapter 3 70 The Abject and Uncanny Human Form 70 Illness and Abjection 72 Scatology and Obscaena 80 Ungodly Peoples 86 Conflated Realities 91 Chapter 4 100 The Subject as Sign: Iconography of the Lay Classes 100 Images and Fiction 103 At Home and in the Fields 109 “Folk” Iconography 120 Peasants Behaving Badly 126 Chapter 5 136 Image and Anxiety: Iconography of Hell and Damnation 136 To Partake with Devils 138 Dark Visions, Corporeal Fears 143 Doleful Realities 151 Afterword 158 The Vanishing Mediator 158 Appendix 164 Dating the Misericords of Fairford 164 Bibliography 175 Index 197 English 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. 0Beyond 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