Gone Medieval - The Green Man

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Dr. Eleanor Janega delves into the enigmatic figure of the Green Man, tracing his origins and uncovering the myths and realities behind this medieval character. Eleanor is joined on location in Kent - at St. Mary's, Minster-in-Thanet, and St. Nicholas at Wade - by Imogen Corrigan to explore the symbolism and significance of the medieval Green Man carvings, a detail often misunderstood as a pagan symbol but here reinterpreted within a Christian context of rebirth and eternal life. Along the way, they discuss the influence of historical periods including the Black Death, the role of craftsmen, and the blending of pagan and Christian elements in religious art.MOREA Guide to Medieval Churcheshttps://open.spotify.com/episode/6uL2WMaHruAxVlwSNV8elPA Stonemason's Secretshttps://open.spotify.com/episode/0QGLLrkD8KV44EfTGsOK3LGone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. It was edited by Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world. to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanorianica and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades.

We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were. And how we got here. Today, I've finally been let out once again on day of release from the Gone Medieval Dungeon by order of the Lord of History Hit Towers. Thanks, Dan Snow. And I've been sent here to the quiet, leafy churchyard of St. Mary's Minster and Thanet. on the northern edge of the original Wantsome Channel, and it's known as the Cathedral of the Marshes

because of the size of the church. And it is quite unusually large, I have to say. It has beautiful and very typically Norman features. It's quite squat to the ground and has a wonderful Norman square tower. Now, it looks as though the Victorians have come along and giving us a little bit of a spire on top of that, which I can't blame them for. But you can see little windows punched all the way along.

Some are very clearly, later incursions, they're rectangular, and so that's always a hint. But you can just see the gorgeous Kentish flint work. And as I come around right up to the actual doors of the church, there's this beautiful Norman arch. and it's got the typical Norman, what we call toothwork, so it looks like jagged edges over it, leading to two huge wooden barred doors. I can't wait to get inside and have a look. But the ground upon which I am standing

has long been hollowed as a place of worship. A small monastic parish church made of mud and wood was founded here in 670 common era before the peasant church was started by the Saxons. And it was then enlarged and absorbed by these Normans who are ready to build in stone. But the reason I'm here is that I have been sent on a mission to take a closer look at St. Mary's set of 18

superbly preserved misericords or choir stalls. And there's one little carved guy with a face that is made of leaves. No explanation, no plaque. It's just there, watching and probably judging. This leafy fellow has come to be known as the green man, and that name makes me. Makes him sound like an echo-friendly Marvel villain, but don't be fooled. He's older, weirder, and probably more judgmental.

My mission has been given to me by gone medieval listener Jill Roselle from the United States who sent me this message. Hi, Dr. Yonaga. My name is Jill Roselle, and I'm an avid gone medieval listener living in Saratoga Springs, New York. I really enjoy all the topics that you discuss. A few months back, I attended a winter solstice theme party and took along some green man cookies that my family made. Not knowing a lot about the Green Man, I found myself referencing the Green Night movie when people asked about the cookies. But I'm realizing that the Green Man's origins are quite different and I'd love to know more about them. Thanks so much. Well, Jill, it is not every day that I get to delve into the origins of the inspiration for cookies.

So today, I am under instruction to investigate the myths, realities, and wild misunderstandings surrounding this mysterious medieval figure who pops up in, literally hundreds of churches around Europe and the UK. Is he a pagan fertility god in disguise? A Christian symbol of her birth, or just a very elaborate way for craftsmen to say, hey, look what I can do with my chisel. And just over here is my guide, Imogen Corrigan,

the author of The Green Man, Myth and Reality, who's traveled through over a thousand churches and somehow managed to not go completely mad. Together, we're going to trace the roots, see what I did there, of this leafy legend from Roman gods and Celtic spirals to Miseracords and perhaps drunken merman. So grab your metaphorical gardening gloves and prepare for a journey through church architecture, folklore, and facial foliage. Because today on Gaughan medieval, we're asking the age-old question.

Why is that man's face vomiting leaves? Imogen. Thank you so much for meeting me here. It's a pleasure. What a real beauty of a church. I mean, it's absolutely enormous for something that I would expect to see from the Normans. It is absolutely huge, isn't it? But some of that is to do with its status, of course, because this is Minster and Sanit.

It's an abbey. And it was built pretty much to house not just the local community, but the local religious community as well. So that all adds to the size. And we've got a very large chancel at the end because of the number of monks and clergy up there. It's absolutely stunning. You come in and you see these perfect Norman Romanesque arches going along in a line. A beautiful old wooden roof as well with gorgeous beams. It's just a really beautiful monument. And I also think a testament to how important this area of the world was religiously in the medieval period. Oh, most certainly. I mean, it goes way back because here, Thannich area, this is where St. Augustine, but he wasn't a saint when he arrived,

but St. Augustine, sent by Gregory the Great in the year 597, this is roughly the area, not precisely here, where he arrived. And he arrived with his entourage, and he was sent by the Pope, Gregory the Great, to impose the Roman way of practicing Christianity on us.

Some people say, well, he was sent to convert, well, yes, because there were still, pagan practices happening, but in fact to impose the Roman way of practicing Christianity. And that is really important in the development of our history here. And in fact, I always say to people, the Pope, Gregory the Great, in this instance, but he wasn't alone in this, they were concerned, it sounds a bit strange to us perhaps, that if you weren't practicing Christianity in the right way, you can't get into heaven. So you can be as Christian as you like, but if you're not doing it like, which means his way, let's face it, then that's it. So he sent people like

Augustine to save our souls. That's what it was about. And so you have these multiple accesses in the medieval period of pilgrimage and importance because you have everything that's associated with St. Augustine and you have everything eventually that is associated with Canterbury as well. So I imagine that, especially after Henry II, as his ways with the Yardustin, and you have, Bishop, you know, this would be this sort of place where people might very well be passing through if they're coming up from the continent. I mean... Oh, yes. Yes, completely. You wanted to clock up as many shrines as you could, you know, as they say, every little helps. But places like this, substantial places, and all inspiring

and beautiful places. It would all have been brightly painted and all that sort of thing. You know, yeah. And they would probably, the most likely entry route would, in fact, be Dover. that was the main port for passengers. I suppose it still is, really. And otherwise, they would come through sand ridge. But that was much more freight and so on, but not exclusively. So, yeah, if you're heading up to Canterbury, you're very likely to come via some of these enormous churches.

And you're not just passing through. I mean, I'm guilty. I have to say, I've said, oh, look, let's go in. Oh, lovely. Here we are. And maybe a couple of hours at the most. but they would be up here for several days, really getting into the atmosphere,

lighting candles, praying, just making the whole place redolent with prayer in the end. And some churches you can feel it to this day. Absolutely. I mean, this one has just an absolutely gorgeous air of sanctity still, you know, upon it. And I think as you look through on a beautiful day like today with the sun streaming in through the windows, you are really drawn up to the altar.

Without doubt, this building is designed so that everything you see is focused there. But don't let's forget, there would have been a rude screen. So if you and I was standing here, two things. Firstly, we're not going to go up there. We're not going to get, as I would say, across the chance or step. So that's where the rude screen would have been. And that's where, as Philip Larkin always said, you enter the holy end of the church. And that was for the priests, for the monks, for those helping with the working of

mass. Well, what we are really lucky to have in this particular church and what we've really come here to see today is there's some beautiful original misericords up near the altar. Should we go have a look? Yeah, let's do that. They are lovely and in very good condition. So up on either side of the altar in the transept, we have some beautiful misericordia. Can you explain what those are in? Yeah, so the stalls, as we would say, so choir stalls, if you think choir stalls, it's, and we find them up in the chancel, so we've crossed out of the nave, out at the people's end,

and there is a distinct step here, and here we are in the chancel, and we see these lovely carvings. So the idea was, people had to stand, monks and priests had to stand for very long services, and at times their knees were giving out.

Okay, so these are theatre-style tip-up seats, and some of them have the original hinge, so you have to use two hands and be a bit careful with them. But if it's in the down position as a seat, on the underside we've got these extraordinary images and they were trying just to find a way so that they could balance and take the weight off. And not very comfortable, to be honest.

Some of them are weighted deliberately so that they won't stay up. So if you lift them up and think, I'll do a photograph, bang, down they go. So the idea there was that if the monk or the priest fell asleep. Yeah, right, you've got it, yeah. So they end up being sort of thrown forwards and highly embarrassed and all of that. But they started with having little separate stool that they could just put in there and sit down.

But that's a bit noisy and, you know, they want something a bit more streamlined than that. So they tried all sorts of things. And somebody came up with this idea of a hinged seat, which absolutely caught on. And then the designs change because the early ones, this corball were at the seat bit, the really early ones. So I say really early, I'm talking about maybe 12th century. So they would be very smooth and shallow. This is much more designer than comfortable, must be said. And they start having these very lovely curved edges and that sort of thing, quite lacy.

Sometimes you get things on the carvings that might just be a family shield. we've no idea there's no record that tells us who ordered what but somebody has because somebody's paid and sometimes you get at Ludlow there's a whole series of novel ones

a moral theme you know sort of if you're bad in this life it won't do you in a good long term in the end we're mortal that sort of idea and other ones there's a wonderful archive of medieval daily life

I mean there's 20 I think I've seen in England of domestic violence. That's not great, but look again. It's always the woman who's winning. Ah, I love that. It's quite hilarious, actually, in a way. And there's a poor old man sometimes being lifted up by his hair

while the woman waxes him with the butter battle. Dear, oh dear. You think, what? Some of them can be quite profane, but I won't go into that one. There's all sorts of things, and possibly Beverly, I think there's the cart before the horse. I mean, we, you know, that's... Oh, amazing.

I hope I've got the right place for that, but I think it's Beverly. There's things, legends, local tales, people fighting, children playing, as in Gloucester Cathedral. They're playing a sort of football game, you know, that sort of thing. It's just wonderful. You know, this is something that I love about medieval people. They'll come up with something that is so deeply practical, but they never leave it at that. I always like to just put a little bit of embellishment on everything. There's some harpies across the way here.

Oh, gosh, no. And the harpies of these women who were so beautiful, and they were there just to dupe these poor innocent men, lead them astray. It's cruel, absolutely cruel, isn't it? But there we are. But what intrigues me is that they are here in the holy bit, and you and I are not going to see them.

So that, again, there's always more questions than answers in this world. That's why I love it, I think. I'm really a big fan of the tile work on. the floor here. I would imagine it's Victorians playing at being medieval, but I still can't fault them for that. I agree with the Victorians. I think that you should try to make things look medieval. Yeah, and the Victorians did so much work on the churches. People like George Gilbert Scott and Puritan, you know, all sorts of people are working on these churches, restoring them when otherwise, goodness knows what would have happened. And people have said to me,

because I take people around churches, you know, and they say, oh, but, you know, what the Victorians did and, oh, what a shame. And I said, well, yeah, hang on, because occasionally the Victorians slightly did cause damage, but let's not be too judgmental on our own conservation efforts for another hundred years. Absolutely. So here we are, and there are absolutely gorgeous,

these beautiful miserable courts. And, you know, the wood is so old as to be silky to the touch when you put your hands down. and I'm noticing on the Miserichords at the back, we have, you know, classic what I would expect to see a kind of teeny little stool that you can sort of lean against. And most of them have a main figure in the middle

flanked by two others. Yes, that's where. And this is peculiarly English. Misericors, Misericord, both pronunciations are absolutely correct. I say Misericord because I'm pretentious. I can't help. A woman after my own heart.

But here we have, so we've got the main. the central image under the seat, as it were, the corbel. And then we've got the supporting images on each side, known as the supporters, and they very often have nothing whatsoever to do with that central image. But it's only in England that you get the supporting image. If you're in the church in France, for example, you would have a really deeply cut, bulky, bulky, central image, and maybe spreading much further over to each side, so not much room for a supporting image, and it would be blank. So it's completely different. And occasionally, I can think of six churches in England that have got that, and I would suggest that they were journeymen from fun, something like that,

because up to all, most of them on the south coast, so that's a bit of a clue. But, you know, I always say if you go out on the vassal-dazzle, which I hope you do, and wake up on the floor of a church, and you've no idea which country you're in, just have a look at it. Just have a look. at the misery cords. And you'll start with saying, well, I'm not in England. Perhaps I am. Now, in particular, we have come to look at this one, which is the third along from the altar. And it stars in the middle underneath the seat what you and I, I think, would describe as the green man. Yeah. And now, I want to pick your brain about this, because I think, you know, the common understanding of green men, the thing that people always say, it's a rather like she'll in a gig,

people will say, oh, well, certainly this is pagan in character. And I'm not sure I agree with that. And I'm wondering what you tend to think about it. Well, let's start with pagan in origin. Because funnily enough, an awful lot of images, including the, what I will now start ranting is a misnamed, misunderstood, misinterpreted green man. They start off being pagan. So let's go back to Gregory the Great again, the Pope.

and he said to people who are evangelising, if you come across pagans, just watch what they do, don't trash what they're doing, don't scorn it, if that's the right word, but just look to see, is there a way that I can use that practice,

that image, to tell the Christian story and to bring them into church. So we've got dragons and we've got labyrinths and we've got all sorts, Sheila Negigs you've mentioned, pagan in origin,

but they're there being interpreted, in a different way to tell the Christian story. So, yeah, pagan in origin, but not this one, because he is, there he is, in a church. The other thing I have to say early, to explain my ranting, is that they were never called green men till 1939. Ah. And that is what has skewed the interpretation.

It's just about the most important thing that's happened actually in their history. Because 1939, Lady Raglan was standing in a church in Wales with the, the rector and she said and so I named them green men okay why it took on so popular I have no idea but it did and the problem then was that of course we've got some really good green men in folklore history when you you get people folklore being acted out at clon in shropshire and a man dressed in green he has a fight with winter you know and of course he represents spring it's not a to do with these. And the jack in the green, that's sort of a May Day junketing, but nothing to do with these. These have been, in our churches, carved in wood, stone for centuries, sometimes

in stained glass, that sort of thing. And when Lady Ragland called them green men in 1939, everything changed, but only in Britain. It didn't happen in France. I've been in French churches and said, could I see the enverre? And they just say, oh, what? And when I say, well, it's that, oh, they say the tetrafile, okay, the leafy head, why are you interested? Exactly. It doesn't grab their imagination as much as we have it here talking about the green man, which I find absolutely intriguing. So it's almost as though we have retrofitted this particular piece of religious imagery to coalesce around the folkloric traditions that we have specifically here in England.

Absolutely. So we've given it a backstory, which it really never, never had and shouldn't have had. But there we are. I'll calm down. Now, please never calm down. So what made you want to start looking into the origins of Green Men? Oh, well, to be honest, when I was at university about, oh, golly, a lot a long time ago, I was very interested in carvings to do with monsters in churches and why they are, where they are. I mean, what's it doing here in the the holy part of the church, for example. And I thought I'd write this wonderful dissertation on it. And my tutor sort of looked slightly pale and said, well, just bring it down to one monster, as it were. Because you might say they're not necessarily monsters.

But the reason I picked on the green man was because I wanted to rescue it from this hippie interpretation. It's come the 60s, everybody said, oh, green man, right. Green, that's fertility. men are shocking characters. There you are, pagan for tertiary rights, job done. And that just isn't it. It really isn't. So how can I, how can I work it out? And I just started by looking at thousands. I have a database and as a coincidence, very few friends actually. I have noticed that.

But, and I just found them completely fascinating because they're so varied. You know, they're not all men, where colour remains, which on a Missouri court there isn't going to be colour, but where it does remain, it's never green, it's gold or maybe red, which are all topinal colours actually, aren't they? So forget the green, the man bit, well, a third of these images on my database, and I've been right across the country looking, a third are human, sometimes impossible to say male or female, but, so let's say human. A third. A third. are abstract perhaps monsters. And so if I say abstract monsters

and then another third are identifiable animals and identifiable monsters. So when we say green man, well we should say foliate heads but it doesn't run off the tongue so well, does it? But when we say that, we're actually limiting this art form

and not necessarily understanding what's happening. So this one in particular looks as though we've got a face and it is surrounded by leaves that almost look as though someone is wearing a hood or a veil or something like that. And two of them seem to just be hooking into the corners of its mouth. So this we should understand as a religious image. What are we meant to take from this here? Right. You get two sorts.

This is what they call a disgorger, lovely, because the foliage, it's usually a disembodied head, foliage coming out of the mouth, nose, eyes, ears or combination. And then you get the transformers, so they're the ones where the face transforms into foliage. So I started by thinking, does it matter where they are in the church? And the answer is no. I just couldn't find anything on that. I can tell you that two thirds are inside the church, obviously third outside. I couldn't decide if it mattered if they were the top of corbels or.

It just didn't seem to have any bearing on that. So then what else can we do? Can we analyze the foliage type, which I did obsessively? And actually the truth is that 75% the foliage is stylized. So obviously the foliage type doesn't matter. It might be stylized vine, stylized acanthus, something like that. And we can interpret that. The vine's obvious.

Acanthus is a... symbol of eternal life. I'm told if you get it in the garden, you can't get rid of it. But there might be maple, buttercup, sink foil. You name it, hawthorn. They're always lobed leaves, so they're arty leaves, you could say. But, okay, so you could make something of that, I suppose. Doesn't really take as much further.

Mostly, this is the most popular type, the foliage coming out of the mouth. that by far, but you know, you get it coming out of the nose and so on. So I started analyzing it like that. And then I started thinking, hang on a minute, I'm missing the point here. What surrounds them? And if there's something around them which we can analyze and it's obviously connected, what can we make of that? So, for example, on fonts, well, your baptism is one of the seven sacraments.

What are the other images? if you get one of these, which is not unknown, on a font, other images made at the same time, how can we interpret them? And it went on and on and on with tombs, even in Easter sepulchre, all sorts of things. And the answer came back again and again and again, they're supporting images,

where they have a meaning, because very often on a reserve record, it's just foliage. But if they can be interpreted, they are all to do with resurrection, to do with the next life, to do with eternity, and to do with Christ, and occasionally to do with Mary. And I thought, that's it. It's not pagan fertility rights. It's to do with eternal life.

And this is as holy as you can get, almost. And then I noticed something else, because it's very difficult to date them exactly. But they go sort of in and out of fashion. but in the middle of the 14th century there is a proliferation of them you would not believe like sort of bomb burst of these things and roof bosses everywhere

so what happens in the middle of the 14th century Black Death? Black Death, absolutely. So what about that? Are there any other key points where you get a proliferation of them? Yes and no, nothing like the Black Death

but occasional a burst of famine oh hang on a minute what are we getting there and I thought like so it's something to do with something bad happening on a large scale maybe I'm just saying maybe I've just put it in my books I hope it's right so why and I think it could be I know this sounds far-fetched and I'm willing for you to say that's ridiculous because I think you'll be kind about it but I think it's the church in a way and the priests say, okay, old chum, this time next week, we could all be dead. Out of you will come life in the sense of this foliage. And the life of your eternal life, the life of your children,

we're very much an agricultural community. So foliage makes sense, you know, and that sort of idea. So I think it's much more important than being dismissed as, you know, pagan fertility rights. I think there's something really profound and inspirational happening. And I should say to back up that theory, I have seen thousands. I'm not kidding. And I've never seen one where the foliage isn't living, not one. And sometimes there's little buds, you know, new growth as well.

Well, I think that, you know, I have to agree with you. Because I think one of the things that I find incredibly frustrating, you know, this beautiful example that we're looking at right now, what do we think this is probably 15, century, something like this? Early 15th century. It's a rather long bow to draw back

to the pre-Christian past at that point in time. So, you know, you're what I'm expected to understand then is that for a thousand years this particular thing has been coming through and we need to understand it in a pre-Christian way.

To me, that is simply too long. And I think also there is this tendency where any time something doesn't accord to our modern understandings of religion, will just say, oh, well, that's pagan. And, you know, so for example, with Sheila Niggis, people just say, oh, well, this is hugely sexual, so it can't possibly be Christian. Well, medieval people just think differently than we do. Oh, yes. It's a different society. They have different symbology, and that doesn't mean that something is pagan. It just means that they live in a

different culture than we do. I completely agree with you. And there's sort of pagan ideas being brought forward. And of course we don't know, just head with foliage coming out, the root is not known. There's a very strong chance it could be Scandinavian. If you look at Viking art, you know, they went for very beautiful tendrils and things like that.

That's a possibility. It's too late for these, but around the 1300s, Jakubus de Vorozim, wrote the golden legend and one of them he has Seth go to the gate of the Garden of Eden, ask for a seed from the tree

from the angels who actually tell him to go away. They would. They would. But third time of asking, he's given a seed not from the tree of knowledge of good and evil by a different one. He puts it in his father's mouth. The tree grows and that tree is later cut down to make

the cross on which Christ is crucified. That's far too neat and tripe. So that's again imposing a backstory. But you can see how it fed in and added to the myth of it all. You could, I know it will sound slightly far-fetched, but you could say that this image of head with foliage or something coming out of the mouth could even come to us from India. And if you think, really?

Well, if you look at Sutton Who, that ship buried in the Earth 615 or thereabouts, thousands of garnets, British Museum have analysed, of them, every single one came from India. So that's trade routes being kept going. So an image has been seen, not necessarily ahead with leaves, that may be. And whatever that means in India, then doesn't in a way matter with the grace of respect to them. The image has been brought here and given another meaning. And I spent some time in the British Museum looking at Jane images. And a lot of them are quite close. clunky, quite solid, and with bulbous eyes.

And I thought, hang on a minute. I think I've seen that on the Southdorf, Sutherminster. And I think I've seen that in Sandwich Church. And things like that. So ideas traveling, but who knows when, who knows why, you know. So do we think that this becomes a particularized English art form art? But no, you say that you've seen them as well in France. How is it, do you think that this idea, this particular motif is traveling around Europe?

Well, good question. I've seen them all over what I'll call the Catholic West. So anywhere where Catholicism is practiced, so largely Europe, you could say, I have seen them. So the idea is traveling. Well, the building trades are the most itinerant. So ideas are traveling with carvers who bring new ideas or somebody's heard of this image. Can you do one? I don't know. That's something. Templates, none of which really seem to survive. It's really difficult to answer that question. But it happened because we see it. And I can also say that they are in 5% roughly speaking of English churches. But in every cathedral that was a cathedral before

the Reformation, there's at least one. And that applies from Gerdansk, down to Avignon, right across to And Montenegro, yeah, I hunt them out. I can have shown you. I'm quite obsessive. I love that. There's something to do with status as well. And that I haven't pinned down. I think, well, I've pinned down the link to catastrophe,

but why one in every cathedral that was a cathedral before the Reformation? Don't know. Well, it's good to have some mysteries or we don't have anything to work on, would have one thing that I'm also noticing, too, from your descriptions, these. At the ends of Miseracords, we have these little bosses that come up and they seem to be draped in leaves as well. And now that you say it, these look a bit like stylized a canvas leaves that we get at the end of the Miseracords. And so it does seem as though we were building some form of motif then, no? Yeah, this is a poppy head from the French. It's a corruption of

pupae for, I suppose, a puppet or doll, something like that. And these ones all have and to be stylized foliage. They're rather lovely, actually. They're gorgeous. But very often you might get a little image of saint or all sorts, or even local myths. And sometimes you get sort of faces looking one way and the other way. And it goes on to the Victorian period.

I mean, round here in Kent at Dior, St. Andrews, there's Victorian poppy heads. And there's, I think, two or three where there's a little face within it with guess what? foliage coming out. It's just so cute. But it doesn't stand out because, you know, you think, oh, now, where is it? Where is it? And you're looking around it. There it is. I've been leaning on it. They're just stunning. And I mean, you can really actually see through them. The carving is so fine. You have these little kind of lace bits that come through the various foliage. It's really

testament to how skilled these particular carvers were. Yeah. And these ones, I think these are the same time as these carvings. I would go early 15th century. But because inevitably people lean on them and they haul on them, quite often in churches, they might look suspiciously new, you know, because they've had to do something because they get so worn away and eroded. But nobody would be pleased to hear me to say, oh, that's great. But it is because the usage of the church is so important. And visitors, even if they're not here to pray, but just, you know, having a look at it. I like it when my churches are still in use, frankly. Well, now one more thing I want to ask about them is so, you know, we've got a disgorger here,

so we have some leaves coming out of his mouth. Do we think that the leaves coming out of the mouth are specifically symbolic of something like, for example, preaching or spreading the word of God? Oh, golly. Now, that's another argument. That's a very strong argument. I am not sure about that, but I can't dismiss it from my mind. The reason I say I'm not sure about it is because when these were made, it was only the job of the priests to spread the word of God,

word capital W, so on. And the word was as much of a relic of Christ, you know, as a fingernail of a saint, something like that. So exegesis, explanation of the gospels, it's only for the priests to do it. And they're the ones with the trained mind. And by which they meant,

had studied theology specifically. And they were really concerned that if other people started doing that, It would all get, I don't know, misinterpreted, diluted. And believe it or not, it sounds crazy, it was a heavity, extraordinary. So I think, and I am very attracted by that idea because it makes sense, doesn't it? But then how does it explain coming out of the nose, for example, or the eyes, which is slightly unpleasant, or the ears, that sort of thing. It doesn't work for those images.

But when I look at them, I sometimes think, yeah. It's the word of God, isn't you? That makes sense. And now some of them, as well, I'm given to understand, have a really interesting teeth in their mouths. They have, medieval monsters have very good teeth that cannot necessarily have reflected life. But does this chap here have, can we see his teeth?

I think he's got his mouth clean. He does, yes. But they frequently have not just teeth, but sort of slabs teeth. And they're not aggressive teeth. They're not pointed. They're not that sort of scary monster teeth, but they are a big row of almost grinning teeth. Perfect.

So I think that's wishful thinking. Well, I suppose that we have that in common with our medieval friends. You know, a modern audience simply longs for perfect teeth, don't we? So here we are with the green man in the church. You've mentioned that you find about a third of them outside of churches. What's the oddest place you've ever found a green man? Oh, wow. Oh, oddest plays. What a great question. Hmm. I can't think of a really odd place. I found them just everywhere. You even find them on tombs occasionally, that sort of thing.

I guess, well, see, that really goes along with your idea of this is a symbol of eternal life, right? Because that's what we do tend to find on tombs is very specifically these references to, you know, the resurrection to eternal life and that sort of thing. So, hmm. Yeah, well, I think that would be it because you find them on, uh, great graves, I don't mean that, effigies, you know, and sometimes you find them, and there's one in Leicestershire, and it's a rector, and at his feet, it's this great big, rather clunky folio head. There's one in Poitiers of a saint,

and she's got these on her feet, at the base, is what I'm trying to say, so at the base she's got very stylized heads, rather beautiful, very smooth skin, with very stylized acanthus, and you can see, you know, it's sort of not where a plant has a burst of life.

You can see that happening on it and you can see other things because they're coming out of an urn. So, you know, because you can analyze things into the ground. That is what I do, by the way. So, you know, they might not have a meaning at all, but let's not say that out loud.

But, you know, an urn which perhaps might represent somewhere where ashes went. I mean, if one can go on and on. But on the head of her tomb, she's got dolphins. And dolphins are psychopaths. Psychopomp, they're there to go with you to the next life. Now, there's a lovely classical pagan crossing of ideas into Christianity.

It's on a saint's tomb dating to the 4th century. And there she is. And so some people have said, oh, well, yeah, but she died. They did that. But some of them designed their own tombs. Bishop Hamer in Rochester, he probably designed his own tomb. He's got some nice ones. And nobody at that time is going to do anything.

that is going to anger God. Sometimes you might hear people say, well, you know, medieval man, he's a pagan, he's thinking about the old ways because there's awful disease, you know, the church has let them down. So he's going back to the old ways, but he's Christian at mass. And I would say no, I think he's not going to do anything that's going to upset God. So if he's designed his own tomb, and do you have these on there? Wow, there's got to be a very positive interpretation.

And I found one on an Easter sepulchre. which is the tomb for Christ. Wow. So you're not going to... Yeah, I'm sorry. I have a really hard time believing that anyone is saying I'm being pre-Christian. Yeah, exactly. Oh, wow, okay.

Yeah, yeah. Now, I'm given to understand that not very far from here, we have another example of agreement. And this is at St. Nicholas at Wade. So shall we make our way there? Let's do that. They're different. They're lovely.

Fantastic. Two. Two. No. Exciting. So we have arrived at St. Nicholas at Wade, and this is just such a... picturesque Kentish village. It looks like the kind of place it only appears out of the mist once every thousand years or so. Here the church's southwest tower was constructed in two phases.

First, we have a bit from around 1310, and the lower section is kind of like the highest quality flint, exactly what you would expect in Kent. But the upper sections, which rise up to 74 feet, were added in rubble construction. It's possible that this was used as a navigation market, And that's appropriate for St. Nicholas, who is the patron of seafarers. The present building probably dates from the early 12th century. Mid-12th century Romanesque features survive in the Bridges Chapel, in the west end of the nave. The most important 12th century work to survive in the South Isle Arcade probably dates to the early 1160s or early 1170s. These arches and their capitals include carved work of the absolute highest quality,

and they're stylistically really similar to work that we see at Canterbury Cathedral, which isn't particularly far away here. Fantastically also, we are visiting while the local parishioners are setting up for a flower festival. So there's going to be some really beautiful things to see inside. Clearly, this is still really a hub of the community. Imogen, we are here because I am told that there is another green man carved at the top of one of these pillars. So shall we go and take a look? Let's do that.

These green men are really different. You know, the last one that we saw at St. Mary's, it was as though it was wearing a hood of leaves. These ones, you can really see, their complexion. This one is wearing a crown on the right, so quite kingly. Although, you know, for a king to be spewing leaves is a bit odd. What are we seeing here? Right. Well, they're, as you say, very different.

And a lot older, first starts. So these are going to be end of time. 12th century, I would say. And they've got that fantastic, little smooth face. It's really strange, isn't it? And very pronounced mouths with an open, almost as a square,

with this distinct foliage coming out. But, yeah, one of them has this crown. I can never decide if that's, has it actually got foliage on it? Is it a crown of leaves? I think it's definitely a metal carbonate. Let's start there. But I think that's, it is a crown.

And one of the first, things I discovered when I started looking at all these beasties was that a number of them, headgear, whether it was a kind of foliage hood, but as we've just seen really, but sometimes an actual, like a cowl, something like that, or sometimes the bishop mitre, something like that. And then it turned out, when I started looking around at other images made at the same time, maybe not part of that, but maybe made at the same time and just very close by it. I thought, hang on a minute, there's an awful lot of these with crowns or commonettes. So that has to mean something.

When I say an awful lot, I'm talking about very nearly half of the accompanying images, not the actual foliate head or green man, but the ones very close by. So I thought, oh, okay. So what, you're going there, standing there thinking, every time you think, oh, I solved this, then you turn out, you really haven't. So actual green men wearing headgear, whatever, let's go with maybe, I'll say 5 to 10%. That's probably high, actually. But crowns around the image.

So Christ is king of heaven. Of course. Could do that. That's an easy one. You get a lot of kings and queens, quite often each side of the main door, you're. you get a statue ahead of a king and a head of an abbot, you know, so church and state together that maybe, but that doesn't apply here. And then I thought, well, what is the, what are the big influences on the way Christianity developed in this country? And one of them has to be

the rule of St. Benedict. Of course. Yeah. And that was written about the 500 at Montecasina area. and it's, well, what I would call standing orders for how you behave in a monastery. And so rules for people living together. And there's numerous of these. You know, there's St. Augustans. There's so many of them. But what St. Benedict did was come up with what he called

the eclectic rule, and that actually is highly flexible. So you don't have to be, oh, the average penitentials. If you think a bad thought, you've got to jump into a pond up to your neck of freezing water. I mean, honestly, come on. But his is very workable. And what does St. Benedict say, in the rule of St. Benedict, endurance shall bring forth a crown. And that brought me right back to the idea of, okay, the crown of eternal life.

That's why I would see it. Having endured this life, you get the crown of the next life. And that takes me right back to things we were talking about earlier, you know, with things to do with eternity and resurrection. thought maybe it's just another eternal life reference. And I think I'm going with that for the time being because I can't think of anything else. But I have seen it all over the country, to be honest, just ones and twos popping out with little crowns. And it's so interesting because here we have one with a little crown and then one on the opposite end that doesn't have a crown at all.

But they do have the leaves coming out of their mouths. And it's got some interesting kind of little dots on some of the leaves. Yeah. And in fact, if you look at the chap with the crown as well, just underneath, you can see the top of his robe or something. Oh, yeah. Under his chin, he's got that. Right. So this is called granulation.

So you have to think of a parallel line with dots down the middle. It's not the most imaginative design. I know. But this is a Scandinavian note. Oh. So this is Vikings setting down, bringing their art. and we referred to them a little while ago. So this is what we're looking at here.

I'm absolutely convinced. But I think whoever did that, I don't think they're thinking, oh, Scandinavian influence. I don't think they're doing that. I think they've seen this idea such a lot that they think, well, that would look nice. I see it often in the churches.

It impacts on our church art up to about the year 1200. So this is at the later end of it. And sometimes it's very fine. teeny weenie dots and sometimes it's what I call normal like here but on this stylized foliage curling round

definitely living foliage the chap with the crown is quite vigorous his foliage the other chap I was going to say he looks a bit down in the mouth but down in the foliage or something

but he hasn't got a crown maybe he's upset I don't know he's still working towards that ground in the middle there are these there are more leaves sort of in between them. Yeah.

And they look at us at the top to something maybe like a flirtily, maybe like a cross. It's sort of like the puppet heads that we saw on the other church. Yeah, that's right. I think they are stylized fleur d'li. I do, I think that. And of course the fleurderly symbol of Mary, of Our Lady, and that's something that becomes part of the French monarchies, symbolism and so on. But the lily, the lilies, they stylized lily.

I think that's what it is. Yeah. And I think it's referring to her. So on these faces in particular, they're really expressive. Do you think that we're meant to take anything away specifically from the images that we see of the faces themselves? Well, I think there must be a thing. Some of them are portraits. I don't think these are portraits, but sometimes you see one.

There's one at Sutton Benjah near Swindon. That is definitely a portrait. There's no question. And so why him? Why did they pick on him? Did he pay, you know, to get a mention, don't know. But, yeah, and so the expression, they look both very detached and also critical in a way. It's weird, isn't it?

And, you know, sometimes I look at these images and I think, oh, he looks cheerful or he looks upset, but it's subjective, isn't it? You can't really come up with anything for that. And I haven't found a consistency going through all of them, which I really hoped I would. but fail. Sorry. Oh, medieval people, they never do exactly what you want them to. I know. I know. Soon as they invent time travel, I'm going back to sort it out. Exactly.

So these here, our last Green Man was on a Miseracord. These are underneath the pillars of an arch here. And this is, as opposed to our lovely Norman arches that we saw in the last one, these are peaked and they're a little bit more gothic in style. And where else would we expect to see a green archers that? men? Well, the most popular time, when we get this bomb burst of them in the middle of the 14th century, the most popular place by far is roofbosses. Oh. So up to, say, 1,200-ish, then these on the top of a column, you know, this is really popular, they're very visible, they're quite often on each side of the

chancel arch, they might be at a doorway, very visible. So I thought maybe a place of guarding, but then that changes, and they are up there in the roof boss. And the only reason I'm intrigued by these is I've heard people say, oh well, brown green men images in a brown roof, they are hidden, but they're not. Because when you go to a church always take a very long ladder with you, they won't mind, honestly, and a strong torch. And I have once had a vicar, hold the ladder for me on. I'm not entirely kidding here.

And if you get up really close, you might find almost certainly teeny flecks of gold paint or gold leaf, up there. So suddenly they're not wooden images hidden in a wooden ceiling and they're not secret. They are, if you imagine them being gold and you imagine the candlelight and so on, suddenly they are right there as part of the medieval liturgy and the drama of the liturgy. And that gives them a completely different aspect. I mean, in these ones here, you know, they're looking very smooth, they're looking very white, but I wouldn't expect that medieval people would have kept them in such a condition themselves, would they?

No, I'm having made them. And they would have been painted, I would assume, but there's nothing that remains of that. But you do often get that. But no, I don't think they would do that. I think they would just get left there, get filthy with incense, that sort of thing, candles. And then, you know, over the years, somebody restores them. Very often the Victorians, actually. And this is so interesting because it shows us once again, we have these expectations about what medieval people must have been experienced. based on what we experience. You know, we go into a church painting, things has gone completely out of fashion, we expect them to usually be whitewashed. You know, if you have a wooden carving, we expect it to be wooden.

And that's not what medieval people are seeing at all. No, no, not at all. And I think they must be astounded. I sometimes imagine them sort of sitting on a low wall thinking, what are they thinking of, what are they doing? But, yeah, and it is frustrating. To me, when I see these images, and there's so many questions.

It's a bit like being at a cocktail party where somebody tells you a fantastic joke but you can't catch the punchline. Yeah, it's like that. You know the answer's there somewhere, but can't get it. Well, speaking of being at a cocktail party, shall we retire to the pub?

What an idea. Abbott Shandy, please. Abbott Shandy. Thank you so much. Hi. Hi. Well, cheers, Imogen. Cheers.

is. Imogen, unfortunately, this isn't a Green Man pub. No. But I'm given to understand the Green Man pubs that we tend to see around Britain aren't necessarily connected with the guys we see in churches. That's absolutely right. Because once he was given that name, the Green Man, 1939, things change. And very often you get a pub called the Green Man, as you say.

And the Green Man originally, the folklore one, was connected to brewing, funnily enough. Ah. Yeah. And so he was not a man necessarily who had any foliage on. He was a green man and he was supposed to act, it had very drunk. Well, you wouldn't get that in Britain, would you? No, no. Oh, no. That's not like us at all. No.

So they were connected to pubs. And so sometimes you get a green man pub called the green man. And if there is one, I usually ask if I can see a photo of the pub sign pre-war if they have one. And if that is so, then it's that old-fashioned Jack and the Green type green man from folklore. But then a lot of them change it, you know, and they change the pub sign and they put up pictures of the sort of green men we've been talking about. So it does cause a little bit of a confusion. They were called Quiflers. And one of their functions was to go ahead.

Do you know when they used to have plays and things on the back of carts going around the city? they're sort of thing, well, somebody had to go ahead to break up the crowds. And so the whifflers or the green men would go with branches and sort of hold people back. Well, they wouldn't be coming out of their mouths, obviously. But this is how that's got tied up, I think. I see. So again, this is this kind of post-1930s amalgamation of every man who vaguely has anything green into one character. Yeah.

On a more personal note, what is it that you get from? chasing these green men down. Oh, goodness. Well, just the satisfaction of trying to put another piece in the jigsaw, which so often doesn't fit anyway. It's hard to say, but anybody who has a kind of passion for visiting churches, I'm a big church visitor anyway, and I'm looking for all sorts of things. But if I see one of these, then I'm really going to try to get into it to see what is it looking at.

Does it see me? Does it, you know, all that sort of thing? think, no, it's just a carving. There we are, along with all the other carvings, it means nothing, maybe. But one these days, you know, probably on my deathbed, it will occur to me what the answer is. I hope so anyway. What do you think that we can learn about medieval people from finding these green men? Oh, I think one of the things that stands out is this really extraordinary.

They would either be, it seems, you know, really high as a kite, really. It's a lovely day and absolutely miserable the next side. So you get this odd juxtaposition of people's being really happy but at the same time

so fearful of not getting into paradise you know big, big anxiety at the time will they actually end up in hell as they show on the last judgment images is that actually going to happen? Does anyone believe that? Well perhaps we should. You know, no, never mind.

Let's all go out and have a party. That sort of idea of it, I find quite intriguing. And I think, you know, I get a bit of obsessed looking for these images. Well, how obsessed must they have been, carving them at times. Absolutely. I think one of the things that we really do see is, at the very least, how workers and their ideas of art travel around. And I think that that in and of itself is special.

Yeah, it is. And the idea of taking ideas. And actually just as today, you know, we would want, oh, you know, oh, I really, we might see someone and think, oh, I really like that coat. Oh, where did you get that, too, that sort of thing? It's the same, I think it's the same idea of, you know,

oh, so-and-so's come into the village and he's been carving on whatever substantive church, you know, but what can he do for our church that's in that really big church? And so will we be the latest fashion because they definitely like the latest fashion? And when they went from largely Romanesque round arches to pointy ones, that was the must-have look.

And they're desperate to get it. They're sort of knocking things down to get chitty. Yeah, I always like that about in churches how you can kind of see on a new style of window. But indeed, we saw that back at St. Mary's, you know, smash a rectangular window in now that we figured out how to do it, that sort of thing. Yeah, I think that's a lot in that. and they're just showing how up-to-date they are, modern ideas, outward-looking, all that sort of thing. We wouldn't think it like that because...

But in the Middle Ages, they dance to a different beat. It was the beat of the church. That was the thing that underlaid everything, where, of course, that's changed now. Absolutely. Well, Imogen, I can't thank you enough for coming out with me. This has been such a pleasure. Oh, it's been fantastic to meet you, and it's just been lovely to find somebody light-minded. Thanks to Imogen Corrigan and to you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. I certainly think I might have a go at carving a green man into my dungeon at History Hit Towers

if I could just get this chisel past the ogre at the gatehouse. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film, Medieval Apocalypse, and add-free podcasts by signing up at HistoryHit.com forward slash subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all your friends and family

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