How to interpret medieval marginalia 101

After perhaps my 9,000th time seeing someone describe medieval marginalia as ‘doodles’ or the product of ‘boredom’, I thought it might be nice to put together a brief guide to some of the themes and ideas that recur in the margins of manuscripts, hopefully helping to showcase the fact that these drawings were usually anything but ‘random’! In fact, far more interestingly, these little characters and scenes were part of a complex and visually dense world rooted in religion, pop culture, humour, and folklore. This is just a whistle-stop tour, but I’d love to add a second part soon.Context mattersIlluminated manuscripts were essentially always written first and illustrated second in the late Middle Ages. The scribes would add their writing to unbound, empty pages, working carefully around blank fields where painted miniatures and initials would later be added by a separate artist or artists. We do not know exactly what sort of education these artists would have obtained. However, they…