FINDING THE GREEN MAN IN THE CHURCHES OF EUROPE

BY Clay Larroy

In the world of traveling, there are plenty of great resources available to both new and experienced travelers alike. There are many websites, guides, books, videos, and other resources available. By writing this blog I hope that I am providing valuable information about wonderful vacation destinations. When you want to plan a vacation contact me!

Finding The Green Man in the Churches of Europe

In most examples, the Green Man merely observes. Across Europe, he can be found beside every major event in New Testament iconography, watching, but rarely reacting, although in Freiberg-im-Breisgau the green men appear to be weeping beside the tomb of Christ. This watching role has suggested that the Green Man can also symbolize immanent Divinity, present everywhere and at all times, observing the divine drama of life.

It has to be said that all that has been articulated about the Green Man has been said in the last seventy years, and most of it in the last thirty. Nothing at all on the subject has been found from earlier times: earlier illustrations of Medieval sculpture simply do not identify the image at all, and nothing has been found on the subject from the Middle Ages itself. And yet, after people and angels, this is the most common image in Medieval sculpture, with many cathedrals containing dozens of green men, and a few a hundred or more. Interest in the subject is recent, and part of its attraction is the fact that anyone may stumble upon a Green Man image that was previously unknown.

A few years ago I visited the church in an English market town in the hope of finding one of these images. I searched the church, and eventually, in the furthest corner, I found one, hidden behind and between some carved foliage at shoulder level. A man of retirement age who was working in the church enquired about my interest, and when I told him I had found a Green Man, he responded with "Never! Show me!" When he saw it, he said "I have worshipped in this church since I was boy in the choir, and no one has ever seen that before. Wait till I tell the Vicar - I bet he gives us a sermon on it."

Everyone has their own favorites, but there is some agreement that the Green Man under the platform of the famous mounted knight in Bamberg Cathedral in Germany is perhaps the best of all. The face is beautifully formed out of foliage, and he looks at us with great intensity. Another German cathedral with notable green men is that at Naumberg, while good examples can be found all over France, but perhaps the cathedrals of Le Mans, Poitiers, Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges and Chartres can be singled out. Of course green men can also be found in Italy, Belgium, Holland, Spain and other European countries.

Green men are very common in English Medieval churches, and in the Victorian churches as well. Not every church has carvings, some are quite austere, but in those with carvings, there is considerable likelihood of finding a Green Man or several, carved in stone or wood, and occasionally represented in the stained glass. Some of the cathedrals are very well endowed; Exeter, Winchester, Norwich and Ely, for example, are four of the loveliest of English cathedrals. In Norwich, the whole passion cycle in the cloister is wreathed in foliage and peopled with wonderful green men, beautifully painted, and Exeter Cathedral, the essence of English Gothic genius, has about seventy fine green men. Gloucester Cathedral is especially proud of its Green Man Collection, devoting a page of its website to the image.

Green men populate English parish churches across the country, but very notably in Devon and Cornwall. Perhaps the finest of English green men is in the small parish church of Sutton Benger, near Chippenham in Wiltshire, an extremely elaborate carving in the Decorated Gothic style, with a Green Man exuding branches of Hawthorn, including a number of birds eating the berries. The finest of English foliage carving is a Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire, and this, naturally, includes a good number of green men.

These are but a few of the many green men in English churches. There are many more in other architecture, including Nineteenth Century commercial and civic buildings, as are found elsewhere in the world. A book has recently been published including green men of Des Moines, and another of New York. The green man is now available all over the world in modern imagery - plaques, pottery, illustrations and other representations.

Somewhere, on your travels in Europe, you are likely to come under the eye of a foliate head gazing down at you. Watch for the Green Man, he’s watching you!

REFERENCE SITES:

http://www.travelresearchonline.com/

“Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life” 
― Michael Palin

Live Life, Have Fun and Travel Often!