Cats appear as corbels more often than any subject, probably because they were popular pets with the nuns.

 

The Ancren Riwle, or Nun’s Rule, was the English rule for nuns written in about 1300. At first it was a rule for hermits but was soon revised to apply to all nuns. It is quite a strict and rigid rule but in part 8, ‘On Domestic Matters’ we read:

‘You shall not possess any beast, my dear sisters, except only a cat.’

      source:- http://www.all-creatures.org/ca/ark-209-2.html

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The blacksmith's wheel - corbel 

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'that a man of opulance, having too successfully tampered with the fidelity of a certain blacksmith's wife, was enjoined by the Pope, as a penance, to rebuild so much of the western end of the church as extends beyond this mark, which is interpreted as an emblem of the blacksmith's trade.'