Stall
The stalls are the seats in wood that are on both sides of the choir of a church and are reserved for members of the clergy.
Summary |
The stalls are arranged on two levels to meet the two grades of the clergy: those at the top are for the canons and the bottom ones to benefit (people enjoying an ecclesiastical title).
The stalls consist of folding and removable seats, beneath which is a small device called "mercy", which serves as a support when standing quiet. Each seat is separated from the next door with glass beads topped with armrests. The ends of the stalls are played, which are ornamented plates. Finally, the stalls are topped by either a high back ( canopy ) or by a canopy.
One always finds one or two stalls larger, more ornate. These are the ones that were reserved to the abbot or bishop.
The "mercy"
Whereas before the eleventh century , we find mention of a stick rather than the canons or monks placed discreetly behind them, are emerging, in the eleventh century , for the first time in the texts, the notion of "mercy. The mercies come in the form of small folding chairs. All the canons did not own and it is possible they were reserved for older among them. Some mercies are extremely ornate and extremely diverse, representing human weaknesses and different types of fools.
Mercy carved (Belgium)
 satire of greed - Hastings-across. |  Satire gossip - Hastings-across. |  Satire of feudal lord - Hastings-across. |  Satire of marriage - Hastings-across. |
 Satire of lust - Walcot. |  Flemish proverb - Walcot. |  The monk and the lamb - Walcot. |  Subject satirical - Walcot. |
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Mercy carved (Bourg-en-Bresse)
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Bibliography
- in French
- Corinne Charles, carved stalls of the fifteenth century Geneva and the duchy of Savoy , Picard, Paris , 1999, 285 p. ( ISBN 2-7084-0574-8 )
- Sylvie Bethmont-Gallerand, "The images of the world in the stalls in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries," in The Sacred Art, No. 12, Proceedings of the conference of the Association Meeting with the Religious Heritage, Vendme , 1999, p . 31-46
- Kristiane Leme-Hebuterne, Sources of the iconography of Mercy or some interpretation problems, around the stalls in Picardy and Normandy , Proceedings of a symposium held in 1999, Inks Publisher, Amiens , 2001, p. 167-182
- Kristiane Hebuterne-Leme, "A few sets of stalls to religious representations. Stalls and mercies, and the liveliness of spirituality, "in The Sacred Art Papers Meeting with the Religious Heritage, No. 12, October 2000, p. 67-82.
- English
- (En) EC Block, Mercy: Hidden Mirrors of Medieval Life, series of 5 videotapes, 30 minutes each, 1992, Museum of Modern Art in New York
- I: Introduction
- II: The Mirror of Nature
- III: The Mirror of Instruction
- V: The Mirror of Morality
- V: The Mirror of History
- (In) and Anti-Liturgical Liturgical Elements on Medieval Choir Stall Carvings, in C. Horihan (ed), The Word, the Image, the Object: Art in the Service of the Liturgy. The Index of Christian Art, Princeton University Press , 2002
- (In) Kenneth Varty, "Dance Macabre was mercy," in The Profane Art - V: 2, Fall 1993
External Links
- Representations carved stalls, accessible on the database Musicastallis University Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV).
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