Misericords
Some of the most fascinating and historically important woodcarvings in the Cathedral are the least obtrusive.
The quire stalls have a hinged seat arrangement known as a 'misericord'. Hidden on the underside of thee seats are carvings of medieval tales and legends.
The misericords are thought to be some of the finest in Europe. Many of them depict a moral, in one of them a woman is scolding a man for breaking a cooking pot, a warning to careless husbands perhaps? In another, men are playing back-gammon, no doubt the carvers had heard the medieval priests denouncing the game as the devil’s own device for hindering church attendance
