Choir Stalls
During church services, clerics and monks sat facing one another in choir stalls, or benches, set perpendicular to the altar, behind a screen. Their hinged seats could be turned up, leaving small supports known as misericords (from the Latin misericordia, or mercy) upon which to rest during long periods of standing. Misericords commonly feature grotesque, imaginative, and even obscene figures. Some believe that such figures embodied the perils of the world, others that they reflect commentary on scripture and theology, yet others that they reflect the medieval sense of humor and love of the imaginary.
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