Choir Stalls were some of the most important pieces of art in medieval cathedrals with their complex imagery and craftsmanship
Choir Stalls and their Workshops
23.06.2016 – 25.06.2016
University Greifswald, conference room in the main building,
Domstraße 11 (entrance 2), 17489 Greifswald.
The conference is free of charge but there are costs for the excursions
Choir stalls were not only simple seating for the priests and monks. With their highly complex imaging systems they were also one of the most important and complex artistic tasks in medieval cathedrals, monastic churches, and even parishes. In recent years, research has focused primarily on iconographic research and formal and stylistic analysis, as has the research of Misericordia International. There are very few studies dedicated to the workshops and their working conditions. Therefore this year the Misericordia International conference in Greifswald will deal with these questions. In addition to questions about substantive and economic mechanisms of art production the conference will deal with basic knowledge craftsmanship such as the structure studies. It also examines the use of drawings and models in the production of choir stalls.
The venue Greifswald is chosen wisely. North Germany has a rich “choir landscape” whose research is a rewarding task. Nevertheless, despite work by relevant scientists that wealth is not well known, let alone scientifically. The colloquium thus aims to stimulate a reinterpretation of this type liturgical furniture and provide new impulses.
Die Tagung ist zweisprachig. Die Vorträge werden in der Sprache präsentiert, in der der Titel angekündigt ist.
Programme
Frédéric Billet, President of Misericordia International (Sorbonne Paris IV): Welcome
Gerhard Weilandt (Universität Greifswald): Introduction
Workshop practices
Thomas Eißing (University Bamberg): Science of Joining structures as knowledge reservoir for workshop practices? A methodological introduction
Anja Seliger (Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung Berlin): To get an idea – Visualization as a starting point in the manufacturing process
Angela Glover (University of Toronto): Module as Model for Early Modern Choir Stalls
Kristiane Lemé-Hébuterne (Amiens): Big seats for fat Benedictines, small ones for slender Cistercians? – Some statistics on the siz
16th- and early 17th-century choir stalls – Tradition or restart?
Volker Dietzel (Dresden): Berufsbezeichnungen und Werkzeugnamen der Tischler, Schreiner und Kistler
Ulrich Knapp (Leonberg): The Choir stalls of Salem Cistercian Monastery Church as testimony of liturgical and economical reforms (1588 till 1593)
Jörg Lampe (Academy of Science Göttingen): The choir stalls of the monasteries of Pöhlde and St. Alexandri in Einbeck – Observations on their time of origin from an epigraphical and historical point of
Evening
Dorothee Heim (Berlin): The woodcarver Rodrigo Alemán. An international acting choir stalls maker and businessman in Spain about 1500.
Choir stalls made of stone – A forgotten furniture
Jörg Widmaier (University Tübingen): The stone bench of Burs – Gotland’s masonry in context and their connections to the main land
Erika Loic (University Harvard): Liturgical Activation of Master Mateo’s Stone Choir in Santiago de Compostela
James Alexander Cameron (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London): Microarchitectural reflexivity in the design of sedilia and choir stalls
Authorshift and groups of work – Case studies
Willy Piron (Radboud University, Nijmegen): The bilobate misericords of the Lower-Rhine area: a local phenomenon?
Christel Theunissen (Radboud University Nijmegen): Jan Borchman and his fellow craftsmen. The creation of choir stalls in the Low Countries
Barbara Spanjol-Pandelo (University of Rijeka): Matteo Moronzon – an artist or a project manager of a woodcarving workshop?
Detlef Witt (Greifswald): Die Wangen der Anklamer Chorgestühle
Kaja von Cossart (Drechow): The choir and other 13th century furniture in the Cistercian Monastery Doberan
The conference includes the official meeting of the society: Misericordia International and a number of excursions to see choir stalls in Northern Germany – Bad Doberan, Retschow, Rostock and Ribnitz-Damgarten and Stralsund
LEARN MORE:
FEATURED PHOTO:
Samson with the Lion and carrying the port of the city. From a series of Choir Stalls in the Cathedral in Roskilde c. 1420. The carvings were probably carried out in a local workshop. Only Roskilde and Ringsted in Denmark possess work from the same artist. Source: Medieval Histories CC BY 3.0
