A friend of mine is a Medieval scholar at a prestigious American university.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n I recently sent him some Medieval manuscript images that I found online and asked him to explain them to me. These are the results:<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n You should think of the images of the illuminated manuscripts of the 8th<\/sup> to the 15th<\/sup> century as the Instagram of the day. In this particular \u201cpost\u201d we see a Medieval version of the Kardashian sisters as they conjure magical spells while encircling a tree. These young women are almost certainly witches, and when the community uncovered their black magic, they would have surely been tied to wild horses and torn apart while the townsfolk cheered and threw potatoes. (Note the surgically enhanced breasts. The cosmetic surgeons of the day used to insert clay molds beneath the skin in order to achieve the desired shape. Mortality rates were very high with this procedure. )<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n This is a highly skilled depiction of some very put-out dogs standing in a field. One of the dogs, the white one with the regal collar around its neck and the small erection, looks slightly ashamed. He likely offended the commoner dogs (note the mottled colours and blunt expressions that characterize the serf animals) by questioning their religious values and then attempting to rape them. Think of this panel as one that prefigures Cute Overload.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Monks did more than just illuminate manuscripts. For recreation they played other monasteries in a Medieval version of Ultimate. Of course, a frisbee had not yet been invented, so the monks used a scapula, also known as a human shoulder blade. These were festive occasions for the monks, characterized by excessive drinking (They brewed beer, too) and the ribald singing of team songs. This image of the bat is the team crest of the Carthusian Bats, a formidable franchise known for their vows of silence and ferocity on the field.<\/p>\n