> From: [log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>
> Perhaps you've been peeking at my pictures ! Actually, your description
> isn't exact, as they clerics have no hood - a skullcap or strange tonsure,
>
> perhaps.
>
Well, I really didn't think they would be exactly the same. Your
mentioning a "strange tonsure" recalls that the early Irish clerics were
derided for their "nonstandard" tonsures.
> But the remaining garment looks like a hospital gown, put on
> backward and fully "flared out". The clerics are part of a capital and,
> it
> appears, there were originally intended to be five of them - one on the
> corner, two one either side. The stone mason perhaps got bored - or
> over-excited - as the cleric on one end has relinquished his position to a
>
> non-descript carved stone ball of sorts. Hard to explain.
>
Maybe there was a dispute about payment. ;)
> As I said, I'll have to start checking the photos. One thing I have
> noticed about the few
> remaining sheelas, however, is that they don't often occur in highly
> decorated churchess....probably more a function of the earlier period in
> which they were carved and anything else.
>
One school of thought--as represented by Anderson and Harbison--is
that sheelas originated in France in the late medieval period. The other
school of thought is that sheelas were a holdover from pre-Christian Celtic
or even early Indo-European iconography. Either way, they were sometimes
saved from older buildings (ruins?) and incorporated in newer structures.
There's a figure in the wall of St. Michael's church in Copgrove, North
Yorkshire which may be a sheela; the figure is dated to the Romano-British
period by some, but the church was much later. Here's a link to a picture:
http://www.alkelda.f9.co.uk/copgrove.htm
Francine Nicholson
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