One day, the Internet may at last rest its case against George Lucas and his incessant tinkering, but I hope that day does not come any time soon. The relationship between artist and audience is not a simple one, no matter how much the MPAAs, RIAAs, and SOPA-supporting politicians of the world wish to legislate it into being so, ((Their view: the artist makes and the audience buys, and the audience’s part is over before the ink dries on the receipt tape.)) and the Affair Lucas affords us all the chance to wrestle ((My vote for the best wrestling goes to the Red Letter Media guys. You’ve probably seen their famously long prequel reviews, but you might not have caught their recent two-part feature on The People Vs. George Lucas (part of the highly underrated Half in the Bag movie review series), which manages to find even more to say about the Lucas and the holy trilogy without retreading much at all from before. Absolutely worth the look.)) with all the messy and complicated strands of thought knotted up in the nagging feeling that it’s just Wrong for one man to have so much control over something that matters so much to so many but which he clearly no longer understands. ((The Red Letter guys make a pretty good case that he never understood it to begin with in that link above that you’ve already watched, right? Right?! Oh, you were waiting until I actually got to the funny pictures before leaving the site? That’s cool, too.))

While I’d certainly like to join the Lucasian fray, the subject of this here blog is the Middle Ages, so instead I’ll have to content myself with pointing out that Lucas is not the first person to let things get out of hand when touching up a pre-existing work of art. To this point I humbly enter into evidence a manuscript I’ve featured here quite a bit, the British Library’s Royal MS 10 E iv, also known as the Smithfield Decretals, a late fourteenth-century law book containing many illuminations including, but not limited to: a fish-slapping fight fought for the love of a naked mermaid, the constant threat of surprise bear attack, a hunting dog’s day in rabbit court, and bloodthirsty maidens who will not be wooed, thank you very much. And so that you don’t stop reading this post on account of excessive peremptory framing and explanation, here’s a bonus image that the British Library’s online catalog files under the innocuous heading ‘woman attending to a man seated by the fire’:

[continue reading…]

…but I aten’t doing so hot right now, either.

I’ve always kept this blog ((to the extent that my haphazard updating warrants the term ‘kept’)) fairly impersonal, so I really have very little idea what most of the people likely to read this post think that I’m like. I mean, I’d hope you think I’m pretty sharp, or at least a little clever, but other than that, I don’t know. But if you’re reading this, it’s pretty likely that you’ve been here before, and you’ve wondered why the intermittently in my blog tagline ((I realized upon re-reading this after it was posted that I haven’t had a blog tagline for a while. It used to read, ‘A [(n) intermittently updated] tonic for the slipshod use of medieval European history in the media and pop culture.’)) has become rather more inter than mittent over the last year. So this post is the explanation. As much of it as I can say.

[SPOILER WARNING: What follows is long and personal and not much like what I usually write here, so if you’d rather just wait for a resumption of normal service, you’re certainly entitled to that, too.]

[continue reading…]

It’s been a while since I posted, and a while longer since I’ve posted marginalia, and a longer while longer since I’ve posted something from one of my favorite manuscripts, Morgan Library MS G 24. So, in honor of Halloween, ((Or if you prefer, Hallowe‘en.†
†If you look close, you’ll find that I’ve helpfully italicized the ‘ in Hallowe’en.)) here’s a marginal monkey hanging himself:

Apologies for the lack of a larger version. The Morgan remains stingy with its high-def images.

[continue reading…]

What to get the medieval enthusiast who has everything? Why not a black dress that is everything? Behold, the Bellydance Gypsy Renaissance Pirate Medieval Peasant Witch Costume Dress Chemise Top:

(Click to zooooooom)

Or perhaps the question is, “Why cosplay as one historical thing, when you can be seven all at once?” Available at Amazon.

[UPDATE] ((Does it count as an update if I noticed it while writing the post and decided to add it before I published it?  I’m going to say yes.)) It gets better if you check the fine print:

The Renaissance was a lot like the Civil War, right? ((What? There were civil wars during the Middle Ages, too? Carry on, then, my bad.)) The War Between the States surely featured a lot of women in off-the-shoulder dresses vamping it up, didn’t it?

Welcome to August! According to medieval calendars, August is the month of Virgo, the virgin, the most boring of the astrological signs, because all you have to do to draw her is draw any young woman you’d like and dress her however you’d care to. Like so:

[continue reading…]

I know I said last week that I wasn’t going to be making a whole month out of these cats’n mice in Harley 6563, but the resulting protests in every major city ((And also Houston, which was kind of overkill, guys.)) have moved me to reconsider.  But before I go on, I do warn you, the image of a cat playing a rebec above ((From much earlier in the MS.)) is false advertising. ((And only placed here so that I didn’t have to give the end of the story away when I post this to Facebook.  Preview pictures are my bane.)) The fate of the Harley kittys is not so sanguine.  Click on the ‘Read More’ below only if you are prepared for feline tragedy. [continue reading…]

The greatest medieval video game hero of all time, Ghost’n Goblins‘ Arthur, has a chat with his blacksmith in this reasonably funny offering from Dorkly.

The last few cat-centric posts have generated such positive feedback that I almost went back to retroactively declare July “Medieval LOLCat Month” here at the old blog. But, such pandering is at odds with my blog’s main organizing principle: always leave them disappointed. ((–And wondering if you’ve given up blogging altogether.)) So, instead, I’m going to retroactively declare July “Stuff Happening in Castles” month. So let us now join this week’s castle-based tableau, already in progress:

[continue reading…]

I know I left you all with a big cliffhanger last week.  Whatever would become of the grey and black striped kitty who was trapped in his castle home, surrounded on all sides by fiendish mice?  Worry not, true believers, for the illuminator of Harley 6563 provides an answer on the very next page! ((I apologize for the image quality.  The British Library is kitty-biased–for good reason, I’m sure–and doesn’t have a high-quality scan available.))

[continue reading…]