Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval ArtWhat do they all mean – the lascivious ape, autophagic dragons, pot-bellied heads, harp-playing asses, arse-kissing priests and somersaulting jongleurs to be found protruding from the edges of medieval buildings and in the margins of illuminated manuscripts? Michael Camille explores that riotous realm of marginal art, so often explained away as mere decoration or zany doodles, where resistance to social constraints flourished. Medieval image-makers focused attention on the underside of society, the excluded and the ejected. Peasants, servants, prostitutes and beggars all found their place, along with knights and clerics, engaged in impudent antics in the margins of prayer-books or, as gargoyles, on the outsides of churches. Camille brings us to an understanding of how marginality functioned in medieval culture and shows us just how scandalous, subversive, and amazing the art of the time could be. |
Contents
Acknowledgments | 7 |
In the Margins of the Monastery | 56 |
In the Margins of the Cathedral | 77 |
In the Margins of the Court | 99 |
In the Margins of the City | 129 |
The End of the Edge | 153 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alexander Romance Amiens animal artist Aulnay Aulnay-de-Saintonge babewyns bas-de-page beggars Bibliothèque Nationale Bodleian Library body Book of Hours British Library carnival carved centre century charivari Christ Church of St cloister court courtly creatures deformed depiction described edges English fabliau figures flesh folio font forms fourteenth fourteenth-century frame gargoyles gloss Gothic gryllus Hours of Jeanne human illuminated illus James Austin jongleurs knight lady Lancelot Latin literally liturgical London Luttrell Psalter manuscripts Marcolf marginal art marginal imagery marginal images Marguerite's medieval Middle Ages misericords monastic monkey monks monsters monstrous Museum Ormesby Psalter Oxford painted Paris parody patrons peasant Photo Pierpont Morgan Library play popular Portail des Libraires portal prostitutes Psalm Randall reading Roman de Fauvel Romance Romanesque Rouen Cathedral Rutland Psalter sacred scene sculpture secular sexual signs snail social space St Pierre stone things thirteenth-century twelfth-century urban visual Walters Art Gallery women words Ysengrimus
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