Misericords G

Great Malvern Priory, Worcestershire has thirty-six stalls of which all but two have carved misericords. Twenty-two are medieval and they are much wider than the twelve nineteenth-century stalls which were added to the east-end of each row in Victorian times. The medieval stalls were moved around the building in the centuries following the dissolution of the monastery in 1539 and their original order is unknown.

There were originally two sets of misericords here; twelve of the months and twelve on miscellaneous subjects. The latter are still complete but the Kalendar is now incomplete, having been moved out of order within the church. As a consequence, it is difficult to be clear which months the individual misericords represent. While the miscellaneous carvings date from the latter part of the fourteenth century, the Kalendar ones are a hundred years more recent.

Labours of the Months calendars were popular across western Europe in the middle ages and were found in books, stained glass and stone carvings. Worcestershire seems to be a hotspot for this concept – they are also found in Worcester and St Mary’s, Ripple which is complete. Perhaps this is an indication that they were all carved by the same hand? At Worcester and Great Malvern there are similar fourteenth-century carvings of a butcher felling an ox and there’s a butcher at Ripple killing pigs.

Medieval Misericords of Great Malvern Priory The Labours of the Months Katherine Wells

Ancient Misericords in The Priory Church Great Malvern Vera L Edminson