NOBODIES, RIPON.
NON-DESCRIPT,
CHRIST CHURCH, HANTS.
The above examples are scarcely unique. In Ripon Cathedral, on a misericorde of 1489, representing the bearing of the grapes of Eschol on a staff, are two somewhat similar figures, likewise mere “nobodies,” though without tails. These are a covert allusion to the wonderful stories of the spies, which, it is thus hinted, are akin to the travellers’ tales of mediæval times, as well as a pun on the report that they had seen nobody.
It is evident that the idea of men without bodies came from the East, and also that it had credence as an actual fact. In the Cosmographiæ Universalis, printed in 1550, they are alluded to in the following terms:—“Sunt qui cervicibus carent et in humeris habet oculos; De India ultra Gangem fluvium sita.”
There are many carvings which are more or less of the same character, and probably intended to embody the idea of conscience or sins.
The two rather indecorous figures shewn in the following block from Great Malvern are varieties doubtless typifying sins.
SINS IN SYMBOL, GREAT MALVERN.