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Green Men in the Medieval Great Hall at Athelhampton House & Gardens

Fairly small and unnoticed, compared to the rainbow of the stained glass or the splendour of the roof, two Green Men sit above two doorways in the medieval Great Hall at Athelhampton House & Gardens.


A carved wooden head in a square shape, the eyes, nose, and mouth all clear. It's fairly agender - neither obviously masculine or feminine. The square shape is completed by four branchy leaves fanning out from the centre of the face and filling each corner. It sits against warm reddish-brown wood which isn't as dark as the face
A Green Man in Athelhampton's Great Hall

We're not sure how old these two particular "foliate faces" are: they may be contemporary with the rest of the 15th century screen they're attached too, or possibly they were added by Alfred Carte de Lafontaine, when he sourced the screen in the 1890s. Either way, as part of the family of green men in England, they have a long history.


A carved stone disembodied face, wearing a squarish cap and with the mouth wide open. Branches come out from within the mouth and surround the face with branching leaves and flowers
A 'green man' in Southwell Minster's Chapter House, c.1300

The green man was common in the 16th century as the English version of the Europe-wide “wild man,” and was used as a character at the head of pageants and parades to clear the way, for example when Maying at May-Day, or during the 12 days of Christmas.


A 16th century painting showing lots of middling and working class men and women celebrating may day. The vast majority are dancing around a maypole on the left hand side, while further in the fore ground on the right hand side lots of them are sitting or lying down while eating and drinking. Houses and a church form a street leading away from the viewer in the background, whihc is filled with people celebrating - some in masks, some with sticks or pitchforks, and a few seem to be fighting.
St. George's Kermis with the Dance around the Maypole, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, 16th Century

In the early C20th the green man became conflated with paganism, but this has since been debunked. While a very romantic idea, the concept of there being underground "secret pagans" living in England through the medieval period into the 16th century is a modern invention courtesy of neopagans. Even the people accused of heresy or atheism in Medieval and Tudor England still believed in the Christian god (until, arguable, the very late Elizabethan period, when scientific thought from one or two individuals resulted in a couple of cases of "true" atheism in the modern sense). They were just the "wrong sort" of Christian, rather believing in different gods entirely.


A 17th century woodcut in black and white, with Matthew Hopkins witch Finder Generall written at the top. A man in a tall hat, a standing collar, a doublet, cloak, breeches, and bucket top boots with long hair and a beard and moustache is stood holding a long stick in front of a wall, between the two windows. In front of him, filling the bottom two corners of the image, are two women - witches - sat down. The rest of the image is cropped.
Matthew Hopkins, Witch Finder General. From a broadside published by Hopkins before 1650.

In a very similar way, early modern women and men accused of or confessing to being witches were still operating in a very Christian framework - later ideas that they might have been pagan priestesses adhering to an ancient religion have again been thoroughly debunked.


A carved stone face with the beard and hair made out of foliage. It's surrounded by various written inscriptions, but the right hand side of the face as you look at it is worn away.
Sculpture of Green Man in ruins of Hatra, modern Iraq, 2nd century

Foliate faces, as these sorts of carvings are known, are likely to have originated in style in India, and have travelled across to Europe and England via the Arab empire. There are earlier examples of foliate faces in England from Iron Age Celtic and Roman art, but there’s no clear link from this time period through to their use in Christian churches: it doesn't start turning up in England until the late 11th century.


A man's mosaic face, the beard and hair made from green leaves and foliage rather than hair.
6th-century Byzantine mosaic in the Great Palace Mosaic Museum, Istanbul

From decorating monks’ manuscripts, it spread to decorate churches. It wasn't snuck in by secretly pagan stonemasons: instead, it is a directly Christian motif, commissioned and specified (as every part of a costly building like a church or cathedral would have been) by the wealthy patron(s). In addition to the standard biblical stories, apocrypha and hagiographies through the medieval period saw Christian legends created. One of these centred around Seth, a son of Adam, and is contemporary with the rise of foliate faces in architecture and carvings.


A scene showing the death of Adam. In the right hand corner of the picture, Adam, an old man with white hair and beard, is sat half reclined on the ground, surrounded by his family and apparently dying. The fresco is badly damaged so the central scene isn't entirely clear, but Adam, now dead, seems to be laid out on the floor, about to be buried, surrounded by mourners.
Death of Adam, Piero della Francesca, c.1452, fresco San Francesco, Arezzo

As his father lay ailing, Seth went back to Eden, where the Angel with the flaming sword who cast his parents out of the garden invites him to look through the gates. There, he sees three visions: one of paradise, one of the tree of life dead with a serpent wound round it, and one of the tree of life revived, with Christ sat at the top. The angel explained that Adam must taste death, but gives Seth three seeds from the tree of life, instructing him to plant them beneath Adam's tongue once he is buried. Seth does so, and the tree that grows passes through the hands of a variety of biblical figures before ultimately being used to make the cross on which Christ was crucified.


A very round, wooden carved face with large oak leaves issuing from the wide open mouth to frame the face both top and bottom as well as swirling around either side of the face.
King’s Lynn Minster (St. Margaret), c.1370s, Green Man disgorging oversized oak leaves

The green man featuring in churches and in medieval and Tudor architecture was a fashionable symbol in England, showing the commissioner's continental taste, while also showing mankind's promised salvation personified twice over - both in new life coming from Adam, and also in the source of the wood for the cross.


A carved wooden head in a square shape, the eyes, nose, and mouth all clear. The square shape is completed by four branchy leaves fanning out from the centre of the face and filling each corner. The bottom two leaves help to form a moustache. It sits against warm reddish-brown wood which is the same shade as the face

Come and visit to see the green men in Athelhampton's medieval Great Hall, and see if you can find any other creatures in the woodwork here. Athelhampton House & Gardens are open 7 days a week, all year round, aside from a few days at Christmas.






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