![]() And, why in many of the illustrations, the snails are winning. It was so common, in fact, that the British Library started looking into just why snails were such a common opponent for the knights. ![]() One thing that shows up with bizarre frequency are illustrations of medieval knights jousting with or fighting snails. ![]() They’re penis trees, all right? Penis trees. And (showing that humor really has stayed the same over the centuries) there are also a lot of disembodied body parts, and . . . other body parts growing on trees. They poop on the text, they poop on other illustrations and on other animals, and, in some, they poop on dinner plates. Monkeys are often found, doing what monkeys do best-pooping. And there are some themes that, strangely, keep showing up in manuscript after manuscript. There are walking fish, animals playing instruments, and people with arrows stuck in them. Other marginalia are simply doodles in the margins. Others simply want ink that’s a better quality, and one monk in particular isn’t happy about how hairy his parchment is. Some lament that the book they’re creating will last longer than they will, others appeal to the saints to bring on the darkness and a momentary pause to the work. Some of it is, of course, scrawled complaints about the conditions the monks were working in, about the aches and pains that went along with hours and days of copying manuscripts, about how long they were working on the same book. Mindlessly boring wouldn’t even begin to describe it, so it’s not surprising that many monks took some liberties with what they were copying.Ĭountless books and manuscripts from medieval Europe have a little extra something found in the margins and hidden in some of the pictures. From sunrise to sunset, by candlelight, copying the words of others. One of the less desirable things about being a monk was the potential to spend hours and hours every day, painstakingly copying pages and pages of text and manuscript illuminations. The Whole Bushelīefore the invention of movable type and the printing press, the only way to make copies of books was by hand-and there was no care for proper lighting or ergonomic desks then, either. This marginalia provides an epic, humorous look into the lives of those who were caught in the most dreary of 9-to-5 medieval office jobs. Monks who were bored, aching, and sore from long hours copying manuscripts word for word often doodled in the margins of the books they were working on. We’ve all seen beautifully illustrated medieval manuscripts, but next time you see one, take a closer look. “Isn’t history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?” - Emile Cioran, Histoire et utopie In A Nutshell
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