Sorry about that, it's the Foliate Heads that are in the spandrels in between the musicians - a fine array in both respects. Looking forward to getting back there later in the year with a better camera - St Mary's in Beverley is well worth a visit too, inside and out.

Given the amount of skill, time & money involved, it seems unlikely that such carvings were the whim of the craftman's fantasy as seems to be a common misunderstanding these days with respect of the nature & function of vernacular (or folk) imagery in a medieval eccliastical context. I think this arises from a very modern view of the sort of organisation the medieval church was, or the extent to which its puritanical austerity exceded an awareness of the foibles of broader humanity, which was, after all, its ultimate cause. In such traditions as the Feast of the Ass (Asinaria Festa), the imagery of the Luttrell & Macclesfield Psalters and the songs of the Codex Buranus (Carmina Burana) and Cantigas de Santa Maria it's plain that such playful imagery is far from anomalous in an eccliastical context and that it serves a broader moral & didactic purpose. This isn't to say the masons & woodcarvers didn't have a whale of a time, but they were doing so with explicit instruction from the clerics who were balling with the best of them - but balling with spiritual, economic and political purpose that might seem a little strange to us today.

Anyway, here's one of the Beverley Minster musicians I took the last time I was there (August 2009) playing a double-pipe & tabor. Seems odd that the sculptor has gone to great lengths to show us that the tabor has a snare, but neglects to give the pipes finger holes, unless they were straight whistles without holes played by overblowing open harmonics, which could sound interesting given than one of the pipes is wider than the other. This isn't to say all such carving is absolutely figurative, but the snare is a bit of a giveaway!

Beverley Musician

Sedayne