History, Art

The Obscene and Grotesque Marginalia of Medieval Books

Why are the medieval religious texts filled with grotesque doodles?

Detail of a marginal scene of a grotesque hybrid examining another’s hindquarters.

Medieval society wasn’t all about prayers and plagues. The printing press hadn’t been invented yet and the painstaking task of copying line after line of a medieval manuscript was performed by scribes. So how do you spice up the dull task? The scribes added penis monsters, butts, poop, and lots of vengeful animals in the marginalia of their manuscripts.

The zenith of intriguingly detailed marginalia was between the 12th and 14th centuries. The marginalia served as a side-note accompanying the main text.

Not all marginalia was obscene. However, there are plenty of examples in religious as well as medical texts of the medieval era that are full of images of disembodied body parts, animals, monsters.

Nothing quite prepares you for seeing a disembodied penis or a pooping posterior while reading a religious text!

Left — A grotesque image of an ogre shooting an arrow into another creature’s rear from the Rutland Psalter.
RIght — A nun plucks penises off a phallus tree in the Roman de la Rose.

Why did the medieval illustrators fill the marginalia with grotesque doodles?