misericord

plural misericords · alternative misericorde · alternative miséricorde

1. countableuncountableRelaxation of monastic rules.
2. countableuncountableThe room in a monastery for monks granted such relaxation.
3. countableuncountableA ledge, sometimes ornately carved, attached to a folding church seat to provide support for a person standing for long periods; a subsellium.

   A misericord - a hinged projection on the underside of a choir seat - dates from about 1200 and is possibly the oldest in England.

   1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 223, about Hemingbrough

   3 more examples

   1969, M. D. Anderson, The Iconography of British Misericords, G. L. Remnant, A Catalogue of Misericords in Great Britain, page xxiii, Misericords are a very humble form of medieval art and it is unlikely that the most distinguished carvers of any period were employed in making them, except, perhaps, during their apprentice years.

   In this essay I will focus primarily on the subject of the owl in order to illustrate how bestiary imagery was modified and developed in late medieval public church decoration, primarily in the form of the sculpted choir-seats known as misericords. The owl provides a good case study of this process as it was an especially popular misericord motif and its artistic and literary characterizations are largely informed by—but not limited to—the bestiaries.

   1999, Mariko Miyazaki, “Misericord Owls and Medieval Anti-semitism”, in Debra Hassig, Debra Higgs Strickland, editors, The Mark of the Beast: The Medieval Bestiary in Art, Life, and Literature, page 23

   The construction of a misericord stall is very peculiar. The shaped standards or elbows are cut out of wide planks. They are notched over a deep and massive bottom rail (to which the misericords are hinged in many cases), and are housed into the massive capping, which is very wide and hollowed out with semicircular recesses to form curved backs for the stalls.

   2007, F. E. Howard, F. H. Crossley, English Church Woodwork, page 155

4. countableuncountableA medieval dagger, used for the mercy stroke to a wounded foe.

   1 more example

   The word misericordia implies an act of mercy but despite its amiable name, it refers to coercing or forcing a spirit to pass through the Gates of Death. In the age of medieval chivalry, knights carried a dagger called the misericorde that was used to strike the coup de grâce upon mortally wounded foes so that they did not have to suffer. The term “misericordia” carries a similar import in necromancy.

   2024, Rob Douglas, Nonie Douglas, “Pathways to Resolution” (chapter 12), in Unquiet Voices: The Magical Art of Laying Ghosts, Llewellyn Worldwide, →ISBN, page 223

   Synonyms: subsellium