Just as it is today in the Catholic Church, repentance was a very important concept because not only was it good to repent your sins, it also affected the time you spent in purgatory before ascending to Heaven. Actually it is much more complex than that, but this is not a theological site so we will just say that one of the particularly humbling, and therefore powerful, acts of repentance is to wash someone’s feet, particularly those of a victim. It still happens today occasionally, and in medieval times it had at least as much power to bring the mighty low as it does today. This little set depicts just such an act of contrition.

On the cast list are a clearly upper class woman standing while what we must assume is her husband kneels, pouring water into a basin. A presumably poor old man with a stick looks on while a similar individual is sitting on an upturned tub, feet in the basin having water poured in. A cleric is on hand as if to witness the act of repentance, while a soldier makes sure everything goes smoothly. It’s a simple little scene but nicely done, and all the costume is authentic. The poses do just what they are intended to do, so this is very much a one-use set that depicts what it depicts and nothing else. However it does that job very well, so a very nice diorama can be created here.

As with all Valdemar plastic figures these are very finely produced in a very hard and somewhat brittle plastic compound that shows detail very well. There are no bases on any figure, but these are clearly meant only for display rather than the wider uses for the usual, much more robust figures we generally review. There is no flash, and proportions are excellent, so this is a very well put together set that comes as a welcome change for the usual military sets on our site.