Stephen Miller Green Man in Medieval England

Annotation

This beautifully illustrated landmark book (with more than five dozen specially commissioned original colour photographs) compellingly connects the Green Man phenomenon in medieval England to a specific Christian meaning and understanding rather than a mysterious and undefined pagan one. The meaning and significance attached to such Green Man depictions would have been apparent to almost all churchgoing medieval folk, from the patrons who commissioned them and the stonemasons and woodcarvers who created them, to the monks, clergy and worshipping community well-versed in biblical stories and associated Christian lore and legend that helped to flesh out and illuminate Scripture-stories and legends long-since forgotten by the majority today. The visual narrative contained in the art and craft of medieval churches brought such stories to life in a meaningful way for everyone, the literate and illiterate alike.Drawing on a wealth of extant examples, the book connects Green Man iconography with the Christian legends and hagiographies of Adam, the Garden of Eden, the Quest of Seth, and the various legends of the cross, contained in such medieval writings as Jacobus Voragine's, The Golden Legend and Honorius of Autun's Imago mundi. The author has visited a large sample of medieval cathedrals and parish churches throughout the length and breadth of England in his search of such illustrative evidence and offers a selection of those findings and conclusions here.