Welcome to July! According to medieval calendars, July is the month of Leo, the lion, usually represented as, well… a lion. Medieval artists were way better at drawing lions than many of the other astrological beasties, so they more or less look like you’d expect:

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It has long been established, both by Supreme Court decision and by a robust body of supporting case law, that I own the patent on making jokes about the Middle Ages on the Internet, ((See my original patent application for more.)) so it came as quite a blow to discover my patent  had been recklessly and shamelessly violated by the editors of Cracked.com, who saw fit today to publish an article titled “8 Filthy Jokes Hidden in Ancient Works of Art“, an article that allocates a full 3/8ths of its content to jokes about the Middle Ages.

To add insult to dire injury, while a full 8/8ths of said 3/8ths consists of topics already covered on this humble blog, ((And yet only 1/3 of those said 3/8ths credit this blog properly, sorely testing said blog’s aforesaid bloghumbleness.)) aforesaid said 3/8ths are riddled with inconsistencies and outright errors which cannot be excused merely by appeal to “comedic license”.  So, once more, I find I must return to topics long ago discussed to set the newly bent record straight. [continue reading…]

I absolutely adore David Sedaris.  I adore him so much that I’ll even use the word “adore” in a sentence with him as its object, even though I generally think of “adore” as the kind of word you may only use in earnest if you’re a precocious red-headed young girl in a Victorian children’s book. ((And even then only if you have sufficient levels of gumption.)) So imagine my delight ((Another suspect word, but we shall press on.)) when I came across the following pair of images in the lower margin of a page from the always-entertaining MS Bodl. 264:

The official catalog description labels the scene simply as “The blind mislead”, but just where is this little helpful fella misleading them to?  Straight into Sedaris’s “Six to Eight Black Men,” ((You can find the entire story here, and you probably should go read it immediately if you haven’t.)) as it turns out, specifically into the frame anecdote: [continue reading…]

The thing about taking an unannounced eight-month break from blogging is that over the hiatus you build up quite the backlog of reader questions in your inbox.  Weird, right?  Of course, ninety percent of it comes from people who still want to argue over my “Ground Zero Mosque” post of nearly a year ago, but what better way to break multi-month hiatuses than by answering those few non-Gingrichy questions in a post?  So consider this the first installment of the Got Medieval Reader Mailbag. [continue reading…]

Welcome to June, and to the return of my monthly medieval calendar posts. ((As you may have noticed/will soon notice (depending on when you read the footnotes), I’ve decided to ease up on the astrological stuff, on account of not really knowing enough medieval astrological lore to fill up a monthly post without serious research.))

According to medieval calendars, June is the month of Cancer, the crab, usually represented as the sort of weird lobster beast you might draw if you’d never seen a crab and only had one described to you years ago by someone else who’d also never seen one. Like so:

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I hope everyone ((Well, everyone in the U.S.  My international readers will have to just be extra indulgent for no reason.)) had a pleasant enough holiday that I can be indulged a bit of grousing about it.  Because you know what I hate about Memorial Day (and also Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter)?    The people who self-righteously clear their throats and insist that celebrants remember “the real reason” behind the holiday.  Yes, yes, it’s called Memorial Day on account of the soldiers and suchlike who protect our freedoms and all that, but does that really mean you need to be such a wet blanket at the neighborhood cookout? ((And funny how these same folks never show up on Labor Day, a holiday I can only assume sprung fully formed from Ronald Reagan’s forehead.  But I digress–more than usual, I mean.))

And so this brings me to this week’s ((Given my current posting schedule, I should probably reassign the three M’s in Mmm… Marginalia to “Monthly Medieval Marginalia”…)))  marginal image, taken from fan favorite and frequent blog-appearer, Bodleian MS Douce 6, AKA The Bumper Book of Monkeys:

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Warning: this picture is only tangentially related to the following post. You know, like how they do it on the Gawker Media.

A friend shot me a link to this Gothamist piece that asks the pressing question, “Is This the Greatest NY Times Correction of All Time?”  Of course it isn’t, ((That honor belonging to this from the week before.)) but I’ll take any opportunity to shame my cohort.

In a nutshell, here’s the “This”:

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I think I tweeted a link to this guy before, but then V&V went and reminded me he exists and I fell in love all over again.  I speak of Myths RETOLD, specifically his version of Part I of Beowulf. ((Influenced somewhat by the movie, but in a good way.))

Here’s a bit for the flavor.  He makes some good points, I think.

see at the start of this story
basically what Grendel is doing
is every night
when Hrothgar settles down to have himself a sweet party
in his meadhall
Grendel comes charging out of the swamp
humps the door down
and proceeds to play cockhockey with the internal organs
of all the people who are trying to get their booze on
he does this FOR TWELVE YEARS
there are several shocking things about this
one is that these are twelve years of solid murder we are talking about
but more importantly
where do they keep getting dudes
to come to these parties
after say
the first SIX YEARS of unstoppable death
you would think word would get around
like hey
party at Hrothgar’s crib tonight
are you coming
nah man I hear THERE IS A MONSTER THERE WHO MURDERS EVERYONE
but perhaps most bizarre
is the fact that Hrothgar CONTINUES to party throughout these 12 years
this is clearly a man who is committed to partying

Again, you can read the rest here.

None of my Facebook friends have inexplicably broken up or gotten engaged or announced they’re expecting today, so unless they’re planning to change their statuses later tonight to, “Hahahaha!! We’re totally [getting married|breaking up|in the family way] today, but we kept quiet as a big reverse April Fools!” it looks like people have finally started to remember that April Fools jokes are lame. Color me relieved. I mean, it’d be really cruel of me to write a post today promising a new schedule of near-constant updates, wouldn’t it? ((I’m optimistic about a resumption of previous levels of blogawesomeness, but only time will tell.)) Nevertheless, as a little “Hey, I’m still alive” post, here’s a handful or medieval fools for you to celebrate this first day of April by gazing upon.

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