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Cathar Kether (History)
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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This raises the intriguing possibility that heraldry (which breaks out around the same time as Green Men, Gothic cathedrals et al)...

This is a common misconception. The Green man can be found in fairly large numbers in ancient Roman wall art.

This was the point I was trying to make. I do not say the GM originated at the time of the Gothic Cathedrals, I say they 'broke out' at this point, and more to the point mostly in the Gothic Cathedrals.

The symbol appears to be both ancient and pagan, yet it suddenly becomes all the rage with the cathedral-builders. Since the cathedrals themselves were somewhat wondrous, it suggests that the GM is associated with ancient wondrous gents.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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This was again in Trier, where Bishop Nicetius took some of these carvings from the ruin of a nearby Roman temple and built them into a new pair of pillars in his cathedral. For 500 years these carvings of the Green Man occupied a very prominent place until blocked up behind brick during restoration work in the 11thC.

Trier is interesting, the bishop and the prince were in competition and their respective buildings reflect the power struggle ('my tower is bigger than yours'), the bishop's view was deliberately sabotaged by the palace edifice. The blocked up outer wall carries a peculiarly macabre legend of a reprobate nun being interred during the bricking-up operation. All very secular.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Mick Harper wrote:
The symbol appears to be both ancient and pagan, yet it suddenly becomes all the rage with the cathedral-builders. Since the cathedrals themselves were somewhat wondrous, it suggests that the GM is associated with ancient wondrous gents.

Symbols such as it, and others, may also signify that the builders of the Cathedrals were none of them "Christian" in the way we use the term or imagine it to have been used in the version of the past we all have collectively manufactured.
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Hatty
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Symbols such as it, and others, may also signify that the builders of the Cathedrals were none of them "Christian" in the way we use the term or imagine it to have been used in the version of the past we all have collectively manufactured.

Stonemasons were a professional group with a highly specialised, esoteric body of knowledge, not an ecclesiastical formation. Were they building to order? They must have had some control over the form the the construction would take being the 'experts.

The Green Man, a fertility god like Dionysus or Silenus or Bacchus et al. is clearly pre-Christian, so when the image appears in 12th and 13th century cathedrals was its inclusion for the benefit of the populace with the blessing of those who commissioned the building -- was it the king/local prince who commissioned a cathedral rather than the Church? (You have to know where to look though, the GM isn't given prominence but included in the gargoyle section).
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Mick Harper
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Yes and yes. And those orders rarely came from the Church.

You'll have to explain this. The cathedrals were always technically commissions by the local bishop. I accept that there might be considerable input from other interests (most notably the state) but does this amount to "rarely from the Church"?
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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AJMorton wrote:
I don't think this is the collective belief Ish. I have never thought of them as being particularly Christian. At least not primarily. The masons that built the cathedrals often answered only to the local magnate or king and not to the church.

I didn't mean the hired help. I meant the owners and occupants.
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AJMorton



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I didn't mean the hired help. I meant the owners and occupants.

Entschuldigung. The following sentence must have thrown me somewhat:

...the builders of the Cathedrals were none of them "Christian"...
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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The church didn't have the necessary expertise to do anything above and beyond commissioning a new building. The actual structure, the designs and the statics were all under craft guild control.

Nevertheless the church commissioners must have condoned the sculptures of frond-strewn faces or were wisely myopic. Or they might have been plain ignorant of what the carvings represented assuming that the masons' esoteric knowledge lay beyond a churchman's ken. 'course, being situated so high serves as a defence against demolition tactics... any record of green men being destroyed or effaced?
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Hatty
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Symbols such as it, and others, may also signify that the builders of the Cathedrals were none of them "Christian" in the way we use the term or imagine it to have been used in the version of the past we all have collectively manufactured.

Jesus is another version of the quintessential Green Man crowned with leaves, complete with long hair and beard. Religious leaders/prophets often have beards and flowing locks, not altogether dissimilar to images of ancient gods with leaves coming out of their mouths, maybe to illustrate spouting wisdom. The "Christian" metaphors of 'breath of life' and 'The Word' are in the same tradition though singing from a different hymn sheet.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Where are the Green Men sited? Rather than plaques for people to look at, aren't they used more like talismans to protect or sanctify the structures they are placed on or the spaces they overlook?
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