Where did I read about wooden "wheels of fortune" in old churches?
September 29, 2020 8:22 PM   Subscribe

Pretty sure I read an article about this. I mean literal large wooden wheels, in I think medieval churches? Maybe later. Maybe not called wheels of fortune. Definitely don't mean wheel-like rose windows or drawings of wheels, which are the main things that come up when I search for this.
posted by lgyre to Religion & Philosophy (11 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Are you thinking of a Breaking (Catherine) Wheel?
posted by msali at 8:51 PM on September 29, 2020


Response by poster: no
posted by lgyre at 9:43 PM on September 29, 2020


In Buddhism there's the Wheel of Dharma.
posted by gennessee at 9:52 PM on September 29, 2020


Are you thinking of a foundling wheel / baby hatch?
posted by runincircles at 10:10 PM on September 29, 2020


Best answer: AKA Carillon Wheels? Pics at journal and forum

Main article: A history of amulets in ten objects, Science Museum Group Journal 04-09-2019
Section: A wheel of fortune and a pendant against rabies

[...] a French example, acquired by the Science Museum from a chapel called ‘Notre Dame Du Riollou’ in Brittany, near to St Nicholas-du-Pélem in the north-west corner of France. This is a ‘Roue saint à carillon, dite ‘Roue de Fortune’ – Saint Carillon wheel, called ‘Wheel of Fortune’, dated 1777. [...] Once a widespread feature of churches in France and across Europe, these wheels are said to have originated in Brittany, and according to René Couffon were used during services, baptisms, celebrations and pardons.

A Book of Brittany, S. Baring-Gould, 1901

At Kerdreuff, in the chapel of Notre Dame de Comfort, is a wooden wheel of fortune, with bells suspended to it, that is made to turn and tingle. A box for the reception of sous is under it, and it is supposed to have a miraculous effect for the cure of various maladies. The aspirant after health deposits his offering, and then pulls a rope that makes the wheel revolve and set all the bells clanging. [...] A chapel of S. Nicolas in Prisiac, about four miles from Le Faouet, contains a noble Renaissance rood- screen, with its original paintings quite untouched, and a " wheel of fortune," now fallen and broken.
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Slow Europe community forum:
Eglise Notre-Dame-de-Confort was built in the C16th, although the chancel is later. [...] The inside of the church is fairly plain. The most important sight is the Carillon wheel with twelve bells, over the last arch in the nave. The bells were rung at baptisms.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:25 PM on September 29, 2020 [6 favorites]


The wheel of fortune - where one is cast up and another down - is certainly a familiar Medieval image. For example in O Fortuna (the 13th century poem that Carl Orff opens his Carmina Burana with), Fate is "rota tu volubilis" - a whirling wheel (according to that translation). See also the manuscript on the right where the illustration features the wheel, a motif that is echoed by designs on the Wheel of Fortune card in earlier Tarot decks.

Which is to say, unlike Iris Gambol, I can't actually answer the question, but given the prevalence of the image, and the fact that the Church will have found such images useful for educational/propaganda purposes, it would be wholly unsurprising to find wheels of fortune in medieval churches.
posted by Grangousier at 12:10 AM on September 30, 2020


The Wikipedia entry Rota Fortunae (which is your search term I believe) explains that the idea of a great big wheel being spun by a blindfolded goddess dates back to the ancient Greeks and Babylonians. With a wheel the idea that that wonderful stroke of luck that your neighbour has experienced is the necessary counterpart to your plans all going to shit. Unlike today's TV show designers, medieval artists seemed to have been more interested in the going to shit aspect.
posted by rongorongo at 1:35 AM on September 30, 2020




Perhaps you're thinking of the treadwheel cranes that survive in a few churches, notably in Canterbury Cathedral, Beverley Minster and St James's Church, Louth in England, and Strasbourg Cathedral in France.

The image of the pulley was sometimes used in late medieval writing to illustrate the system of salvation, with souls being pulled upwards to heaven or downwards to hell. This image famously appears in a late 15th-century manuscript in the British Library, showing souls being lifted out of purgatory by the prayers of the faithful. Some late medieval pageant wagons also had complex pulley mechanisms that were used to stage special effects such as Christ ascending into heaven.
posted by verstegan at 8:52 AM on September 30, 2020


also regarding Carmina Burana: the German 1975 TV version features a giant wheel turning on a stage set which resembles a church shape, with a winch turned by a devil and an angel.
posted by ovvl at 10:09 AM on September 30, 2020


(Wow! I've wanted to see that again since... well... since 1975. Thanks!)
posted by Grangousier at 10:20 AM on October 1, 2020


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