developed further.

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 maki