Misericords have long fascinated modern viewers. Hidden away under choir-stall seats, they offer wonderful insights into medieval imagination and craftsmanship. Whereas earlier scholars such as Francis Bond regarded these carvings primarily as folk art, Paul Hardwick is one in a line of scholars (including Malcolm Jones, Charles Tracy and the late Christa Grössinger and Michael Camille) to search for the deeper meanings of the wide variety of carved scenes to be found on misericords. For Hardwick it is in the context of late medieval Christianity that misericords should be viewed: after all, they are situated within the liturgical space of churches and cathedrals where they were meant for the eyes of the clergy only. The introduction to the book is followed by six chapters in which Hardwick takes a thematic approach to the variety of subject matter and the underlying ideas, while citing copiously from both medieval sources (Chaucer and Langland as well as sermons and preachers’ manuals) and the work of other scholars. The argument is easy to follow and offers many interesting insights through in-depth discussions of specific motifs and case studies, showing that misericords may originally have meant more than the modern viewer might suppose. The plough could thus have been intended as a religious metaphor rather than just an everyday agricultural image. Hardwick also proposes that obscene imagery – like the phallic figure on a misericord at Swine reproduced on the cover of the book – could be a conscious reflection of masculinity and power within the church and indicative of a gender conflict, instead of just a bawdy reference to the fact that the clergy would have rested their bottoms on the seat above. None the less, Hardwick is well aware that the range of meanings may have been more complex and that it is their very ambiguity that makes these carvings so interesting. This is an intelligent and well-written book that includes translations of cited Middle English texts, copious notes, a full bibliography and an index. There is also a helpful gazetteer of the main surviving examples, alphabetically listed by place name, and a map that shows that Hardwick has not just confined himself to England, for Limerick and Dunblane are included as well. Only the illustrations and minimalist captions are somewhat disappointing, especially in view of the price of the book: although adequate in number to allow the reader to follow the argument, some are rather small and they bear no comparison to the wealth and quality of the illustrations in Grössinger's The world upside-down (1997). None the less a stimulating and useful addition to the literature on misericords.