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A face with foliage growing from it, carved in a church.
Also known as: Face with leaves coming out of it, Leaf face carving
A head sprouting leaves, common in medieval churches across Europe. Everything beyond that description is contested: the name was coined in 1939, and no medieval source explains the motif at all.
The name is modern. It was coined by Lady Raglan in a 1939 article, which also proposed the identification with a pre-Christian vegetation deity that has been repeated ever since.
named 1939
No medieval text explains the motif. Readings proposed since include a symbol of rebirth, a warning against sin, a representation of the fallen natural world, and ornament with no programme at all — and the evidence does not settle between them.
Confidently explained everywhere and documented nowhere. The pre-Christian survival account in particular is a twentieth-century proposal, not a medieval one.
Found overwhelmingly in positions that were hard to see — high bosses, the undersides of misericords — which is a real constraint on any reading that requires it to have been a message to a congregation.
A carved face, often frowning or grimacing, with stems and leaves issuing from its mouth and sometimes from its eyes and nostrils, the foliage spreading to either side.