poliphilo

When you come across misericords in a parish church it's usually because they've been imported from somewhere else- as often as not from one of the monastic foundations dissolved by Henry VIII- but Etchingham was a collegiate church- with a small community of priests attached to it and their patron thoughtfully provided them with a set of stalls, complete with misericords.

The stalls sit facing one another on either side of the chancel and the misericords on the left are faithful duplicates of those on the right (or vice versa).

Here are some curious fish.

And some ladies in uncomfortable headgear

And here is a fox preaching to geese- a fairly common motif in medieval art. It can be read as a satire on heresy (and that is presumably how the canons of Etchingham took it) but also as a satire on the clergy in general- and- pushing things a little further- as a harbinger of the Protestant revolution that was just around the corner.