A Selection Of Weird & Disturbing Medieval Manuscript Art

On May 17, 2015 by Tim Newman

Modern humans like a good laugh, and medieval humans were no different.

When you imagine a medieval scene, you might think of dirt, suffering, plagues, and violence.That’s fair enough, there was quite a bit of that going on.

But there was also laughter, and lots of it. Humans were still humans, and a fart was as amusing then as it is now.

When things are going wrong, laughter is often your only respite: people are covered in pustules and all you have to eat are turnips, there’s nothing else you can do.

Amusing Manuscript Marginalia

Writing manuscripts was a pretty dull task — the olden-days equivalent of data entry. I like to think that the cheeky monks, or whoever was writing, jollied themselves along with the comical drawings we have here today.

These drawings, along with various notes, are referred to as manuscript marginalia, because of their position in the manuscript’s margins. And what eloquent scribbles they are.

Although some monks dedicated their lives to copying out manuscripts, they didn’t necessarily like it. We know this thanks to some of the marginalia.

Every so often, these scribes would add winging and moaning into their marginalia. Below are some genuine inserts from manuscripts, which prove that monks weren’t always keen on their task at hand:

“New parchment, bad ink: I say nothing more.”

“I am very cold.”

“That’s a hard page and weary work to read it.”

“Thank God, it will soon be dark.”

“Oh, my hand.”

“Now I’ve written the whole thing; for Christ’s sake give me a drink.”

“As the harbour is welcome to the sailor, so is the last line to a scribe.”

“Writing is excessive drudgery. It crooks your back, it dims your sight, it twists your stomach and your sides.”

I’m sure many of the images below weren’t meant as a joke at the time, they only seem amusing now. But some of them surely were intended to be humorous. It’s infinitely pleasing that someone who was walking this earth almost 1,000 years before me still smirked at the sound of a fart.

I hope you enjoy these wonderful examples of medieval manuscript drawings as much as I did. They’re oddly brilliant and brilliantly odd.

Livres du roi Modus et de la reine Ratio, France, 15th century

Book Of Hours, England, early 14th century

Breviary of Renaud de Bar, France, 1302-1303

Vows of the Peacock, c. 1350

Decretum Gratiani 1340-1345

Cosmographie Universelle, 1555

Les Grandes Heures du duc de Berry, Paris, 1409

Weird Medieval Art - fifteenth century edition of Jean de Wavrin's Anciennes et novellas chronicles d'Angleterre

15th Century edition of Jean de Wavrin’s Anciennes et novellas chronicles d’Angleterre

13th-century Bible

Histoire de Merlin, by Master of Adelaide of Savoy in Poitiers, around 1450-1455

Liber de nature rerun, France, c. 1290

Nürnberger Schembart-Buch, 17th century

14th Century

Gorleston Psalter, England, 14th century

The Smithfield Decretals 1300

Recueil des croniques d’Engleterre, Bruges, 1471-1483

Le Livre des hystoires du Mirouer du monde, Paris, 15th century

The Luttrell Psalter, 1325-1335 – Angry Chef

13th-century English Bible

Why are snails fighting knights?

In medieval times, the knight versus snail motif was very popular in manuscripts. Medieval scholars aren’t too sure why it’s so pervasive, but there are a few theories. It could be that the snail symbolises the rising up of the poor or the constant struggle against the rich. Or it might be a euphemism for female genitals.

Another theory posits that the snail represents the Lombard family – a treasonous bunch – but this doesn’t ring true as often it is the knight who is losing to the snail.

We may never know its meaning for sure, but the snail versus knight crops up so often, it must have been very clear for a medieval reader: