medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Alas, no. See Adin Williams, comp., _Lechlade: Being the History of the Town, Manor, and Estates, the Priory, and the Church_ (Cirencester: E. W. Savory, 1888), pp. 94-95, where from the detailed nature of the description it's apparent that at the time the relief was frontally visible in the wall of the vicarage garden. The presence, if any, of concealing vegetation is not mentioned in this account of an object treated as a local curiosity.
One imagines a learned Victorian vicar, aware both of the traditional use of women's breasts to symbolize nourishment and fertility and of the formulation that the Church has been nourished / fertilized by the blood of martyrs, using that awareness to deny that the frisson he experienced when viewing this image was essentially pornographic.
Best again,
John Dillon
On 09/13/14, Brenda Cook wrote, quoting Genevra Kornbluth:
> > The idea that someone kept the Lechlade-on-Thames relief in
> > a garden is impossible to fathom.
>
> It is possible that it was put into a wall / earth &c face down? ie the image hidden but preserved out of respect for the art / iconography ? Or perhaps with modest plant life concealing her ?
>
> Brenda,
>
> who also finds the images frankly repellent.
>
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