The pillar-biter is a late Gothic carving on the choir screen of St Bavo Church in Haarlem, Netherlands created in the early 16th century. The figure grips a column and bites into it, his face twisted into a grotesque expression, with a rosary hanging from his belt. In Dutch, a pilaarbijter referred to someone who displayed extreme religious devotion in public while behaving hypocritically in private. A Southern Netherlandish proverb summed it up bluntly: “He who is a pillar biter in church, shits devils in his own house.” The image served as a moral warning against exaggerated piety without genuine virtue. Though rare, the motif also appears in a few other churches and in Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s 1559 painting called Netherlandish Proverbs. #archaeohistories#