Beverley Minster Minstrels

Subject: RE: Beverley Minster Minstrels
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 Sep 13 - 04:34 PM

Tone, what I have learned about Beverley Minster has added another plus to our idea of visiting York and its environs someday. Thanks.

Subject: RE: Beverley Minster Minstrels
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Sep 13 - 12:14 PM

Those gargoyles are obviously part of the same scene:

Tell us a story, sing us a sang,
show us your bum, or oot ye gang.

- Duncan Williamson, setting out the groundrules for his house gatherings.

Subject: RE: Beverley Minster Minstrels
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 13 - 11:44 AM

Meanwhile my local church has a bunch of gargoyles showing their arses. So much for culture.

Subject: RE: Beverley Minster Minstrels
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 Sep 13 - 10:55 AM

No. 15 seems to be showing off his long beard, and perhaps that's the idea. But it's also true that his beard would probably have broken off if it were not stabilized by the rock in his hand.

I forget which number shows a man scratching his beard. The sculptors must have known that the sound of a man giving his beard a good scratch is like chalk on a blackboard to many people. (I know, I know. Neither chalk nor blackboards had been invented yet.)

Guest, no wonder the Folk Festival tottered and collapsed. Can't recognize a bagpipe. Such a disgrace!   :)

Subject: RE: Beverley Minster Minstrels
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 13 - 07:56 AM

No 10 was used as the image for the old Beverley Folk Festival where it was popularly known as 'man biting leg of octopus'.

Subject: RE: Beverley Minster Minstrels
From: Uncle Tone
Date: 13 Sep 13 - 12:21 PM

"Number 15 seems to be using his beard as a performance prop."

When my companion got as far as No 15, she called, "Hey Tone! Here's one of you!"

Tone

Subject: RE: Beverley Minster Minstrels
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Sep 13 - 10:43 AM

Number 2 shows a man tapping something rounded on a flat surface. I think there was once something (probably more board) crossing his lap, now it's broken away. The round things could be coconut shells. Wikipedia has this to say about the names for coconuts:

".. it was called nux indica, a name used by Marco Polo in 1280 while in Sumatra, taken from the Arabs who called it جوز هندي jawz hindī. Both names translate to "Indian nut".[16] In the earliest description of the coconut palm known, given by Cosmos of Alexandria in his Topographia Christiana written about 545 AD, there is a reference to the argell tree and its drupe."

Clearly, by the time the minstrels were sculpted for Beverley Minster, coconuts had been known for a long time, and Europeans could have been trading for coconuts. The round things could be shells, I suppose, or perhaps the skulls of animals. But I like the coconut idea.

Jack commented that the horn in number 5 is at an odd angle. That's because the stone it is made of would break under its own weight if it projected straight out, the way a real horn does. So they turned it sideways and reduced the strain.

Subject: RE: Beverley Minster Minstrels
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 13 - 09:26 AM

the early hurdy gurdy with the buttons is very interesting. I wonder if anyone has built a modern replica? must have been very drone backed music with bagpipes and hurdy gurdy.

Subject: RE: Beverley Minster Minstrels
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Sep 13 - 09:22 AM

Number 3 is holding a torch. There can't have been many coconuts in Britain when that was carved, but maybe a wood or metal equivalent.

Number 5 has a weird playing position for a horn, if that's what it is.

Crucial bits of numbers 11 and 14 have gone missing.

Number 15 seems to be using his beard as a performance prop.

Subject: Beverley Minster Minstrels
From: Uncle Tone
Date: 13 Sep 13 - 07:32 AM

On a visit to Beverley, paid my £3 for a photography licence and managed to get a few good images of the Beverley Minster Medieval Minstrels.

A slide show can be viewed here:

Beverley Minster Minstrels

Most of the instruments, although crude, can be identified, except for Nos 2 & 3.

Any ideas? I reckon 2 could be coconut shells, like the Bacup dancers use, but it's only a guess.

Tone