We've posted a lot of images of marginalia from medieval times at Neatorama, mostly to explore themes and weird tropes that occur over and over again. There's an entire world of illustrations from bored monks who just liked to doodle in the margins. The Instagram account Medieval Marginalia posts the funnier drawings found in medieval texts and artworks without context. After all, most of them appeared without any context in the first place. The poster gives us a punch line for a caption, which is always followed by commenters who have more punch lines. The top image is a caption challenge, in which all the comments are funny, but I really liked "My girls and I when the winter is over." But there are also posts full of surprising information. For example, this image is supposed to be a beaver.
Apparently, beavers were prized for their testicles, and it was said that they would nip off their nads to leave for a hunter in order to escape with their lives. And you thought it was a dog cleaning his testicles. That would make too much sense! Check out tons more medieval images and humorous explanations at Medieval Marginalia. -via Everlasting Blort
#marginalia #medieval #humor