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A carving on the underside of a hinged choir seat.
Also known as: Carving under a church seat, Ledge under a folding seat, Mercy seat
A ledge under a tipping seat, letting a standing cleric rest during long offices, with a carving on its underside. Because the carvings were rarely seen, they are the least supervised sculpture in a medieval church and carry the most secular subjects.
The carvings are unusually secular and frequently comic — proverbs, domestic scenes, animals behaving as people, occasional obscenity — which is generally attributed to their being out of sight for most of the time.
Among the largest surviving bodies of medieval secular imagery, and a better source for everyday life than the formal iconography above them.
A carved bracket projecting from the underside of a wooden seat, showing a figure or scene in relief, flanked by two smaller carved roundels.