a stone version of the fool ?

Rosanne said:

Well given the reason the Church was named, I would expect little grotesques and the like, to carry things like axes, purses, whips, walking sticks etc to convey the search for relics and in particular bits of the cross and nails in a humerous way. Like little ewoks and gnomes that run off and hide the things that are important. There might be a small imp-like fool with a missal or a scroll to indicate he has made off with the sermon or a chalice in some cases.

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not little devils so much as ... borrowers

Aye that is a better term Kwaw Borrowers! Little Tricksters.
You will see sometimes a carved choir with musicians and one figure just standing there- and you look up and see a little borrower with a flute or a lute.

~Rosanne

Rosanne told of a choir group with a rogue flute-player. At the link Kwaw gave earlier there is this excerpt about carvings of the Flute;

Excerpt:
Guzzlers of wine from barrels, acrobats and musicians (for to Christian - as to some Muslim - clerics of the time, all secular music was 'the devil's tunes', and the ubiquitous bagpipe was an obvious - if later - metaphor for male genitals, as, to a lesser extent was the flute.)

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And further down the page, there is this about Hares;

Excerpt:
Amongst the beasts symbolising lascivious concupiscence is the hare, in Classical times the animal associated with Venus. A rare and primitive depiction of hares with a male exhibitionist can be seen on a chancel-arch capital of an early Romanesque church in Auvergne.

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so it would seem that these grotesque little figures found on & in so many religous buildings were depicting Sinful things. A reminder that Satan/Devil lurked everywhere, and you would go to Hell if you wern't on guard.

This little bunny-man may then be a figure showing 'lascivious concupiscence', although the way he carries the nail (I still think it's a nail) and chalice & host (cheers kwaw); is it a parody of Jesus walking to his death carrying the (large) cross?

Still unsure about the 3-leaved clover thing. I don't think it has four leaves - looks like a stalk to me.


Bee

Bernice said:

so it would seem that these grotesque little figures found on & in so many religous buildings were depicting Sinful things. A reminder that Satan/Devil lurked everywhere, and you would go to Hell if you wern't on guard.

This little bunny-man may then be a figure showing 'lascivious concupiscence', although the way he carries the nail (I still think it's a nail) and chalice & host (cheers kwaw); is it a parody of Jesus walking to his death carrying the (large) cross?

Still unsure about the 3-leaved clover thing. I don't think it has four leaves - looks like a stalk to me.


Bee

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Indeed, the sculptures in the romanesque period are unbelievably varied, creative, funny, and often salacious; testimony to a free and wild imagination during a period when the church was not anywhere near as sobre as it is now. Interestingly, at the same time images of Jesus, or the Cross, or Mary, etc. are almost entirely lacking.

Regarding the "sinful things" -- yes, it is always possible (especially after the fact) to say the nun displaying her genitalia is an example of lust, or whatever, and the demons are there to scare you into good behaviour, etc. But the demons are mostly so cute, and the beastie monsters so charming and sympathetic, it leaves room to suspect that a lot of these critters are just gleeful expression of creative imagination. It is also very tempting to see here a survivance of pagan art forms !

The more I look at it, the more I see a bunny-man with a walking stick holding a bowl of clover. But, the chalice and host idea is very intriguing.

I found these pictures of stone cutters tools on line : http://www.futura-sciences.com/fr/d...aissance-dun-chateau-medieval_636/c3/221/p10/

The tool we have been calling a "nail" looks just like a "broche" used by stone cutters for splitting stone.

OMG firemaiden, you're right! Well, I think you are.
I now wonder if the little bunny-man could be a 'self'carving' by one of the stone cutters


Bee

The self portrait idea is great, except, I think the workers who cut stone into blocks in the quarry are not the same guys who make the sculptures. I do think this figure represents a prototype of fool, despite all the oddities.

Here possibly is another stone version of the fool, from the church in Pérignac, in the region of Saintonge.