Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction: History from the “Bottom Up” -- 1 Meaning(s) and Medieval Misericords -- 2 Violent Women and the Clerical Gaze -- 3 The Abject and Uncanny Human Form -- 4 The Subject as Sign: Iconography of the Lay Classes -- 5 Image and Anxiety: Iconography of Hell and Damnation -- Afterword: The Vanishing Mediator -- Appendix: Dating the Misericords of Fairford -- Bibliography -- Index.

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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.