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Homoeroticism in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods - Sheela-na-gig

Sheela-na-gig

Sheela-na-gig is a woman who is in a squatting position displaying her vulva - a figure found on the walls, and towers (as well as in museums) in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England, similar to grotesques throughout Europe, to Baubo in the Middle East, and to Kali and other goddess figures in India and Southeast Asia.  Most commonly Sheela-na-gig is represented as an old, bald woman without breasts and is located on a church. This may seem to be an odd image to find on a church, but very common, nonetheless.

Shella na gig on Kilpeck Church, near Hereford England, 12th century

The form is both overtly sexual and somewhat comical – a kind of trickster figure. Like the “Venus of Willendorf,” it is unclear exactly what the figure represents.  Some believe she is the vestige of a female goddess from pagan times who was then translated into Christian iconography. It is also suggested that she may symbolize a warning against the sin of lust. Often the figure was found above a window, so she was also considered a possible protection against the entry of evil. While most surviving sheelas are medieval, Irish legend and older carvings suggest connections to pagan crone goddesses. According to lore and scholarship, sheelas may also have served as fertility, birthing, or erotic figures.

 

In recent years there has been more writing about Sheela-na-gig, as she has been of great interest to the Great Goddess Movement and to Feminist Artists and Theologians. Contemporary feminist artists such as Mary Beth Edelson, frequently incorporates the form of “Sheela” into their work.

Mary Beth Edelson, Sheela makes no apologies, silkscreen and collage on jute tag, 1978

Early Irish Churches Blatantly Show Female Genitalia

The Christian men in Ireland who were in authority over their flocks had churches built in order to perform the liturgies and rituals associated with their sacred duties. And what did the church authorities place at the entrances to many of their churches just before and after the time of the Crusades? In full view of the congregations that attended the various Catholic Churches then in Ireland, the priests and monks placed a statue carved out of stone (usually) showing a squatting woman with her legs apart and the genitalia of the woman held open with her hands. Such images were widespread in Ireland and each one was known as a Shiela-Na-Gig (probably meaning, the "Woman of the Vulva"). This naked woman was prominently displayed for all the churchgoers at the keystone spot of an arched doorway leading into the church (or sometimes over a pointed arch of a window that was also apart of the church).

It may be difficult for us of modern times to believe that such things happened in a Catholic Christian environment, but the fact is, they did indeed take place. In the prestigious "Encyclopedia of Religion," edited by Mercia Eliade and published by Macmillian Publishing Company for the University of Chicago, there are references to these Sheila-Na-Gigs (sometimes spelled Sheelagh-na-gig). Notice what the encyclopedia tells us about them.

"Aside from the transformative religious mysteries of sacrifice and initiation, the obvious life-giving and growth-promoting powers of the vulva and its secretions have given rise to a widespread use of representations of the female genitalia as apotropaic devices. The custom of plowing a furrow for magical protection around a town was practiced all over Europe by peasants. It was still observed in the twentieth century in Russia, where villages were thus annually 'purified.' The practice was exclusively carried out by women, who, while plowing, called on the moon goddess. A similar apotropaic function seems to have prompted the placing of squatting female figures prominently exposing their open vulvas on the key of arches at church entrances in Ireland, Great Britain, and German Switzerland. In Ireland these figures are called Sheelagh-na-gigs. Some of these figures represent emaciated old women. These images are illustrations of myths concerning the territorial Celtic goddess who was the granter of royalty. When the goddess wished to test the king-elect, she came to him in the form of an old hag, soliciting sexual intercourse. If the king-elect accepted, she transformed herself into a radiantly beautiful young woman and conferred on him royalty and blessed his reign. Most such figures were removed from churches in the nineteenth century.

And a little farther down in the same article:

"A remarkable parallel to the Celtic Sheelagh-na-gig is found in the Palauan archipelago. The wooden figure of a nude woman, prominently exposing her vulva by sitting with legs wide apart and extended to either side of the body, is placed on the eastern gable of each village's chiefly meeting house. Such figures are called dilugai. Interestingly, the yoni [the female genitalia] is in the shape of a cleft downward-pointing triangle. These female figures protect the villagers' health and ward off all evil spirits as well. They are constructed by ritual specialists according to strict rules, which if broken would result in the specialist's as well as the chiefs death. It is not coincidental that each example of signs representing the female genitalia used as apotropaic devices are found on gates. The vulva is the primordial gate, the mysterious divide between nonlife and life" (Encyclopedia of Religion, article YONI, Vol.15, p.534).

There is a great deal of information about these Sheila-Na-Gigs that were found in many places in Ireland (until the Protestant Reformation when many of them were destroyed by the reformers) and in various places of Northern Europe within Christian times (indeed, these images were found in the most prominent places carved on Catholic Christian churches). They were even found on Cathedrals (the seat of a bishopric). The highest authorities in the Christian Church allowed them to exist at the time.

In the famous "Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics," edited by James Hastings, we read the following.

"Nor are such female effigies confined to the pagan natives of tropical wilds. They were frequently carved on churches in the Middle Ages. Many have been preserved until recently in Ireland, as, e.g. on a doorway of Cloyne Cathedral, Co. Cork. The Royal Irish Academy in Dublin possesses a very good specimen removed from a church. They are known to Irish antiquaries by the name Sheila-Na-Gig. Most of them, however, have now been destroyed" (vol. IX, p.8~7).

Barbara Walker in her book "The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects," states under the subject Sheila-Na-Gig:

"Female figures prominently displaying the yoni [female genitalia] as a vesica piscus [Mandorla] were once common ornaments of Irish churches built before the sixteenth century. As a rule the sheila-na-gig was carved into the keystone of a window or doorway arch. Undoubtedly it was a protective sign left over from pre-Christian Goddess worship. Figures of the same type were found throughout Europe as cathedral decorations, on the capitals of columns, at the ends of ceiling beams, and so forth. Squatting Goddess figures almost identical to the Sheila-Na-Gig guarded the doors of temples in India" (p.104).

It should be recalled that the depiction of these women blatantly showing their genitalia in the most prominent places of a Cathedral or church were sanctioned and ordained by the Christian ecclesiastical authorities with the approval and approbation of the papacy in Rome (after all, some of them were found on churches as late as the nineteenth century). A few of these images approved by the priests and monks are shown below. These few represent the hundreds that must have existed on other churches.

PLATE VI (Shelah-Na-Gig Monuments) PLATE VII (VENUS OF THE VANDALS, BRONZE AND LEAD IMAGES, AND CAPITAL OF A COLUMN)

Many symbols and signs on churches and cathedrals in Europe were not as blatant as the Sheila-Na-Gigs, but the so-called benign symbols that the female and male genitalia represented only the initiated into the "church mysteries" would know what they meant. Many windows were given various designs that to the uninitiated looked like pretty decorations to make the church appear attractive to the eye. Yes, it did that, but the architects ofTen had much more in mind when they painted (or constructed) their rose windows or carvings in walls, on columns, at the top of columns, or at the end of beams. As a point in fact, at the Church of San Fedele in France there were discovered some medals dating from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries that had on one side the "benign" symbol in the form of a cross with other decorations with what the symbol actually entailed on the reverse side (which was a phallic symbol). Some signs were "male" and others were "female" and were identified by the respective genitalia found on the reverse side. The Plate IX below was taken from the book "A History of Phallic Worship," by Thomas Wright and published as a reprint by Dorset Press, 1992.

PLATE IX (ORNAMENTS FROM THE CHURCH OF SAN FEDELE

So, the next time you want to admire the decorations that are found in many of our modern churches (who often copied from early Gothic progenitors), look closely at the various designs of the crosses in the quatrefoils in the tracery windows. You will see that some of them are very similar in design (if not identical) with the medals from the Church of San Fedele shown above. And too, many churches today have lancet shaped windows (with their pointed arches) as their basic window designs. When you know what they actually mean to the initiated (without the outward ambiguity), you may be shocked at what you find displayed within those "beautiful ornaments of sacred art, that adorn even the quaint little "churches in the vale." Notice the medals shown above that depict on the obverse the female genitalia. The artists idealize the shape of the external genitalia by making what is called an "almond shaped" design that is called in symbolic language a Mandorla (which means "like an almond"). The same shape of genitalia (the Mandorla) was found in the majority of the Sheila-Na-Gigs that were carved on the top of doorways (usually at the pinnacle of a pointed or lancet arch) in the early churches and on some Cathedrals. This symbol of the Mandorla is a very much used in Christian art. Most of us have seen it at one time or another, but most people have not the slightest idea what it signifies. It is a woman's vulva. The illustration below shows how Barbara G. Walker in her excellent book "The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" describes this well known symbol called the Mandorla.

Vesica piscis

Mandorla "Almond," the pointed-oval sign of the yoni, used in Oriental art to signify the divine female genital; also called vesic~ piscis, the Vessel of the Fish. Almonds were holy symbols because of their female, yonic connotations. Almonds had the power of virgin motherhood, as shown by the myth of Nana, who conceived the god Attis with her own almond.' The candlestick of the Jews' tabernacle of the Ark was decorated with almonds for their fertility magic (Exodus 25:33-34). Christian art similarly used the mandorla as a flame for figures of God, Jesus, and saints, because the artists forgot what it formerly meant. I. Frazer, G.B., 403,

You will often see Mary and/or the supposed "Jesus" within a glorified Mandorla symbol. Note the following examples

Now note this. If you will cut the Mandorla in half; you will see that the two sections (if turned upward) resemble the famous pointed arch that we see in profusion in all of Gothic architecture. It is also the most used form for windows (such as lancet windows) that we see in churches today. In fact, it is common for us, when we see windows or doorways that have the pointed arch (which is the top part of the Mandorla sign) to say that is ecclesiastical or church-type of architecture. Even the little "church in the dale" is most often shown with doorways and windows with the pointed type of arch. As said before, this is simply a modified Mandorla symbol and it represents the external female genitalia.

This fact can be shown in a most remarkable way once we understand the medieval attitude toward rendering the Christian Church into the shape of a stone, wooden and metal building. This especially applies to that architectural frame of mind which used Gothic motifs to enshroud the clear meanings of their parts of a church with symbolic teachings that only the initiated would understand. We can see how the female genitalia (as well as the male) were used extensively in various ways to show that the "Church" was indeed a reckoned as a woman that would bear children for God and Christ who were in heaven. And though in some areas (and even on some Cathedrals) the Sheila-Na-Gigs were placed in full and blatant display of the female genitalia (to remind people they were going "inside" the Woman, the Church, in order to find "life" and regeneration), in most cases the architects used the esoteric motifs with ambiguous themes or displays that the uninitiated would not understand.

- Excerpts from Anatomy of an Early Christian Church by Ernest L. Martin, Ph.D., 1998