The art of the choir stalls and miserere seats was a natural ebullition of the humourous instinct, which had so little opportunity for exploiting itself in monastic seclusion.  The joke was hidden away, under the seat, out of sight of visitors, or laymen:  inconspicuous, but furtively entertaining.  There was no self-consciousness in its elaboration, it was often executed for pure love of fun and whittling; and for that very reason embodies all the most attractive qualities of its art.  There was no covert intention to produce a genre history of contemporary life and manners, as has sometimes been claimed.  These things were accidentally introduced in the work, but the carvers had no idea of ministering to this or any other educational theory.  Like all light-hearted expression of personality, the miserere stalls have proved of inestimable worth to the world of art, as a record of human skill and genial mirth.

[Illustration:  MISERERE STALL, ELY:  NOAH AND THE DOVE]

A good many of the vices of the times were portrayed on the miserere seats.  The “backbiter” is frequently seen, in most unlovely form, and two persons gossiping with an “unseen witness” in the shape of an avenging friend, looking on and waiting for his opportunity to strike!  Gluttons and misers are always accompanied by familiar devils, who prod and goad them into such sin as shall make them their prey at the last.  Among favourite subjects on miserere seats is the “alewife.”  No wonder ale drinking proved so large a factor in the jokes of the fraternity, for the rate at which it was consumed, in this age when it took the place of both tea and coffee, was enormous.  The inmates of St. Cross Hospital, Winchester, who were alluded to as “impotents,” received daily one gallon of beer each, with two extra quarts on holidays!  If this were the allowance of pensioners, what must have been the proportion among the well-to-do?  In 1558 there is a record of a dishonest beer seller who gave only a pint for a penny drink, instead of the customary quart!  The subject of the alewife who had cheated her customers, being dragged to hell by demons, is often treated by the carvers with much relish, in the sacred precincts of the church choir!

[Illustration:  MISERERE STALL; THE FATE OF THE ALE-WIFE]

At Ludlow there is a relief which shows the unlucky lady carried on the back of a demon, hanging with her head upside down, while a smiling “recording imp” is making notes in a scroll concerning her!  In one of the Chester Mysteries, the Ale Wife is made to confess her own shortcomings: 

  “Some time I was a taverner,
   A gentle gossip and a tapster,
   Of wine and ale a trusty brewer,
     Which woe hath me wrought.

   Of cans I kept no true measure,
   My cups I sold at my pleasure,
   Deceiving many a creature,
     Though my ale were nought!”

There is a curious miserere in Holderness representing a nun between two hares:  she is looking out with a smile, and winking!