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Jan 4, 2019 · Alastair Sooke discovers the origins of the eerie, foliage-covered faces found in churches throughout Britain.
- Summary
- Acting ‘Origen Secundus’: Gelding in The Cultural Imaginary
- Cuckolds and Jilts: Self-Castration as Psychodrama
- Conclusion
In 1676, the surgeon James Yonge was called to an unusual kind of accident. A young man of about twenty, the nephew of ‘alderman W.’, was bleeding dangerously from the groin. This in itself was fairly uncommon, and potentially fatal. When Yonge arrived at the scene, he was surprised to discover that the injury was self-inflicted: Yonge’s patient ha...
Could the alderman’s nephew really have acted on a ‘religious account’ when he decided to geld himself? Yonge himself was dubious about this purported motive, but his patient’s claim was not entirely baseless. The Bible mentions eunuchism in several places, and its most famous statement on the matter seemed positive about the spiritual advantages o...
When the alderman’s nephew made the fateful decision to castrate himself, he followed the dubious example of a Church father in rejecting his capacity for sexual sin. It is clear, however, that the life of this young man thereafter cannot have been an easy one. As the ballads above demonstrate, gelded men were often the butt of jokes. Moreover, the...
The history of self-gelding in the early modern period is a series of graphic, surprising and often blackly humorous anecdotes. As with many such histories, it is difficult to build a comprehensive picture from only a handful of incidents. To compound matters, those incidents are related in forms which clearly have a vested interest in emphasising ...
- Alanna Skuse
- 2020
Apr 19, 2023 · Is the Green Man an ancient Pagan woodland god, or is he something far more recent and with a different message? The term Green Man was first used by Lady Raglan (Julia Somerset, née Hamilton) in a 1939 article The Green Man in Church Architecture, published in The Folklore Journal.
Mar 1, 2024 · This article will discuss the profusion of occurrences of the ‘Green Man’ motif (more correctly known as the foliate head motif), in its various particular forms, in the medieval cathedrals and churches of England, prevalent in the centuries following the Norman Conquest of 1066.
May 7, 2024 · On medieval buildings in England, a strange face can be seen carved on walls. We call him the Green Man. But who was he originally, and why is he everywhere?
3 min read. Glance upwards as you approach or enter many of Britain’s great cathedrals and churches, and it is more than likely you will catch sight of the Green Man gazing looking down at you. But who is this strange green figure, surrounded by foliage, often with leaves spilling forth from his mouth?
Feb 8, 2022 · Who or what is the Green Man whose image is to be found carved in churches and cathedrals all over Britain and Europe? Is he simply an historical pagan god of the woods or is there a deeper significance behind this symbolism?
