Two grotesques from the Vaux Psalter, Lambeth Palace Library MS 233 f.15r. Glad you are back for another perplexing manuscript picture. It’s hard to believe these two grotesques are from the lovely Vaux Psalter. Just look at the left grotesque’s fearful dirty look. Dramatically amazing. But what is it? And why? Michael Camille in his book Image On…
Jacques de Longuyon’s poem“Vows of the Peacock.”1350s Tooting butt trumpets, really? It’s amazing what you can find exploring Medieval illuminated manuscripts on the Internet. And this isn’t the only one. Medieval scribes worked long hours in cold rooms bent over their work. To entertain themselves bored and cranky Medieval scribes used the page’s margins to kvetch,…
British Library Additional 14761 f. 30v c. 1340 Spain, N. E., Catalonia (Barcelona) I was surfing the British Library’s manuscript collection again for possible pictures to use on a scroll and noticed the cute bunnies in the manuscripts. Especially in the 14th century. So many, they weirdly multiplied like rabbits. But another thing you’ll notice is how…
Cambrai Channsonier, MS. 126B fol. 132v, Bruges 1542 Bibliothèque Municipale, When you look through this 16th-century songbook made for a Bruges aristocrat you see it’s filled with artistic, decorative daily life images. But it also includes many that are bluntly bizarre or crazy. It’s the Cambrai Chansonnier, MS 0128 dated 1543. Its fun pictures are delicately drawn in…
Link to image. When you look through this 13th-century manuscript made for the Pope you see it’s filled with giant killer bunnies, geese lynching wolves, and other crazy things. They are cute, silly, or a comment on Medieval daily life. But not all. This one pictures a dog hanging by its neck from a tree….
14th century (1349-1351) Austria – Lilienfeld Cod. 151: Concordantiae caritatis fol. 244v There is no reason you’d want to include a prejudicial illumination like this in SCA art. But why? What do you see? This 14th-century illumination shows a man wearing a Jews hat having sex, then being mortally stabbed for it. But there’s more that’s perplexing. What’s up with his pointy…
“Banquet With Courtesans In A Hostel” ca. 1455 – BNF, Paris Does this fun picture remind you of an SCA post revel? Music, food, and merry-making, but in Medieval clothing. Look again. What’s really going on? You see the musician, but one guy’s up-chucking and another’s getting handsy with a woman. The title divulges they’re cavorting with…