MINIATURIST, French
(active 1320s)

Missal

1323
Manuscript (MS D. 40)
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague

Surprisingly, we can encounter a vast amount of bizarre, grotesque and often apparently subversive imagery at the margins of devotional manuscripts, the capitals of churches and cloisters and the undersides of choir stalls. The present image shows a marginal painting on folio 124r from a French Missal. It shows monkeys, one of them displaying his backside to a scribe.