[Sca-cooks] OT: Mystery Object
Terry Decker
t.d.decker at att.net
Wed Jul 15 13:02:46 PDT 2009
For Europe, "sweeping out the old year" is primarily a custom in the north
of England where the fires are extinguished and the chimneys swept. I
believe it is also Chinese custom to sweep out the bad luck of the old year
on the Chinese New Year.
As for the figure, it looks to me as if he has a hurley resting on his
shoulder and a ball in his left hand. Of course, this being a medieval
church decoration, it should have some relationship to the Bible or the
liturgy.
Bear
----- Original Message -----
Following the theme of "what is it" questions we've had lately, I'm trying
to figure out this image from the Church of St. Lazare at Autun.
http://www.paradoxplace.com/Photo%20Pages/France/Burgundy%20Champagne/Autun/L_Medallions/L_Medallions.htm
The one I'm looking at is the enlargement labeled L1 with the caption "What
did he do?"
This is part of a series of images showing the signs of the zodiac and
labors of the months over the main entrance to the church. This image comes
at the beginning of the sequence and is followed by images that are
typically used to identify the start of the year.
Any ideas what the lefthand figure is holding over his shoulder? It just
occurred to me that it might be a broom for "sweeping out the old year" but
I don't know if that's a medieval concept.
This probably isn't food-related, but the folks on this list have such great
breadth of knowledge, I thought it couldn't hurt to ask!
Many thanks,
Helena
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list