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Misericords in British Churches
Similarly to British Cathedrals, many misericords were destroyed after the Civil War, and a few in Victorian era. Although I can find no valid defence for the vandalism of the Civil War & Commonwealth eras, I have to say that the 11th or 12th century man in the street was probably horrified by the early Norman / Romanesque architecture, as was the 13th centurion with the introduction of Gothic. The only difference is that these were pushing the boundaries forward, whilst the Victorians were going for an idealized past, without any research into what it really was like. I suspect that the lack of research saved most of the misericords, for if the Victorians had realised that misericords were there to aid the weak, who should have behaved better, I’m sure that the misericords would have been removed as unbecoming to the medieval ideal.
Often you will find that the misericords were not placed for monastic reasons, but as a conceit of the family who was sponsoring the building of the church. Alternately someone would sponsor a “Mass for the dead”, which would run for many years and employ several monks and or canons, in which case they would also pay for the misericords. Very often you will find family coats of arms, either in the main supporter, or the side bosses.
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