The Case For Coffee

THE Mens Answer TO THE Womens Petition AGAINST COFFEE, VINDICATING Their own Performances, and the Vertues of that Liquor, from the Undeserved Aspersions lately cast upon them by their SCANDALOUS PAMPHLET.

THE MENS ANSWER TO THE WOMENS PETITION, ETC

Could it be imagined, that ungrateful women, after so much laborious drudgery, both by day and night, and the best of our blood and spirits spent in your service, you should thus publicly complain? Certain we are, that there never was age, or nation, more indulgent to your sex; have we not condescended to all the methods of debauchery? Invented more postures than [the poet] Aretine ever dreamed of! Been pimps to our own wives, and courted gallants even with the hazard of our estates, to do us the civility of making us not only contented, but most obliged cuckolds: is he thought worthy to be esteemed a gentleman, that has not seven times passed the torrid zone of a venereal distemper, or does not maintain, at least, a brace of mistresses; talk not to us of those doting fumblers of seven or eight hundred years old, a lark is better than a kite; and cock-sparrows, though not as long lived, are undoubtedly preferable for the work of generation before dull ravens, though some think they live three hundred years: that our island is a paradise for women, is verified still by the brisk activity of our men, who with an equal contempt scorn Italian padlocks, and defy French dildo's, knowing that a small dose of natures quintessence, satisfies better in a female limbic, than the largest potion infused by art.

Let silly chits complain never so much that madam money is dead and buried, we dare appeal to all the commissioners of whetstones park, the suburb runners, and moorfields night-walkers, if ever they had better trading; nay, have we not forced languishing nature by preparations of [aphrodisiacs], spiced meats, anchovies, [French broths], jelly-broths, lambstones, [spirits], bonnie sausages, etc. All to answer the height of your amorous passions, and prevent the pitiful lechery of an artificial tranquility. Have we not with excess of patience borne your affronts, been sweated, purged, fluxed between two feather-beds, flogged, jibed, and endured all the rest of the Devil's martyrdoms, and will you still offer to repine? Certainly experienced Solomon was in the right, when he told us that the grave and the womb were equally insatiable.

But why must innocent coffee be the object of your spleen? That harmless and healing liquor, which indulgent providence first sent amongst us, at a time when brimmers of rebellion, and fanatic zeal had intoxicated the nation, and we wanted a drink at once to make us sober and merry: it is not this incomparable settle brain that shortens natures standard, or makes us less active in the sports of Venus, and we wonder you should take these exceptions, since so many of the little houses, with the Turkish woman straddling on their signs, are but emblems of what is to be done within for your conveniences, mere nurseries to promote the petulant trade, and breed up a stock of hopeful plants for the future service of the republic, in the most thriving mysteries of debauchery; there being scarce a coffee-hut but affords a tawdry woman, a wonton daughter, or a buxom maid, to accommodate customers; and can you think that any which frequent such discipline, can be wanting in their pastures, or defective in their arms? The news we chat of there, you will not think it impertinent, when you consider the fair opportunities you have thereby, of entertaining an obliging friend in our absence, and how many of us you have dubbed knights of the bull-feather, whilst we have sate innocently sipping the Devil's holy-water; we do not call it so for driving the cacodemon of lechery out of us, for the truth is, it rather assists us for your nocturnal benevolences, by drying up those crude flatulent humors, which otherwise would make us only flash in the pan, without doing that thundering execution which your expectations exact, we dare appeal to experience in the case.

Coffee is the general drink throughout Turkey, and those eastern regions, and yet no part of the world can boast more able or eager performers, than those circumcised gentlemen, who, (like our modern gallants) own no other joys of heaven, than what consists in venereal titillations; the physical qualities of this liquor are almost innumerable and its virtues (if you will believe pointing, able to out-noise the quack-noise of an all-healing doctor, when your kindness at the close hug has bestowed on us a virulent gonorrhea, this is our [panacea], in nature and [cordial] is an ass to it, it is base adulterate wine and surcharges of muddy ale that enfeeble nature, makes a man as salacious as a goat, and yet as impotent as age, whereas coffee collects and settles the spirits, makes the erection more vigorous, the ejaculation more full, adds a spiritual escency to the sperm, and renders it more firm and suitable to the gusto of the womb, and proportionate to the ardors and expectation too, of the female paramour.

As for our taking tobacco you have no reason to object, since most of your own sex are so well skilled in managing a pipe; and if you find that of your husbands to be naught, it is his natural infirmity, or your own perpetual pumping him (not drinking coffee) is the occasion of the defect, and therefore let such tom farthings be forbidden the concoction of the rare Arabian berry, and condemned everlastingly with the rest of do-little congregation, to the carrying of glister-pipes for the use of the well effected sisterhood.

You may well permit us to talk abroad, for at home we have scarce time to utter a word for the insufferable din of your ever active tongues, the foolish extravagances of our lives, are infinitely out-done by the wild frolics of yours; until noon you lie a bed hatching concupiscence, then having paid your adoration, to the ugly idol in the glass, you descend to dinner were you gourmandize enough at one meal to famish a town besieged; after that, you are called out by a cozen, and hurried out in his honors coach (whose jogging, serves as a preparation to your lechery) away to the play-house, where a lascivious dance, a bawdy song, and the petulant gallants tickling of your hand, having made an insurrection in your blood, you go to allay it with an evenings exercise at the tavern, there you spend freely, yet being robed of nothing we can miss, home you come in a railing humor, and at last give us nothing for supper but a buttered bun.

Cease then for the future your clamors against our civil follies. Alas! Alas! Dear hearts, the coffee house is the citizens academy, where he learns more wit than ever his grandfather taught him, the young-gallants stage where he displays the wardrobe of his excellent noble parts; it is the non-cons bull-baiting, the news-mongers exchange, the fools business, the knaves ambuscade, and the wise mans recreation: here it is where we have the sparkling cider, the mighty mum, and the back recruiting chocolate; it is coffee that both keeps us sober, or can make us so; and let our wives that hereafter shall presume to petition against it, be confined to lie alone all night, and in the day time drink nothing but bonny clabber. 

Finis.


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Wow. The men's answer to the women's petition can be summed up as, "We need coffee to put up with y'all." We are living in a wonderful world where documents such as this one are freely available to the world. I transcribed this and the Women's Petition into modern English and spelling, to make it easier to read. A fun little project.

Medieval Darwin Fish

Nothing is as new as you think

This image is from Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 56, fol. 250r and shows a fish with legs. The image dates to the 13th century and pre-dates cars by centuries. This is obviously a transition species  between a fish and a modern Darwin fish: this creature only has two legs and evolution has yet to select individual species with the more, recognizable patterned scales.

The Case Against Coffee

The women's petition against coffee : representing to publick consideration the grand inconveniencies accruing to their sex from the excessive use of that drying, enfeebling liquor : presented to the Right Honorable the keepers of the liberty of Venus

Coffee is such a mainstay of our world that it is easy to lose sight of the fact that it wasn't always universally accepted. At the introduction of coffee to London, and the opening of that city's first coffee houses, there were protests against the brew. Here is the text of a 1674 booklet against coffee and it is beyond description.


To the right honorable the keepers of the liberties of Venus; the worshipful court of female-assistants, etc.

The humble petition and address of several thousand of buxome good women, languishing in extremity of want.

Showish that since the reckoned amongst the glories of our native country, to be a paradise for women: the same in our apprehension can consist in nothing more than the brisk activities of our men, who in former ages were justly esteemed the ablest performers in Christendom; but to our unspeakable grief, we find of late a very sensible decay of that true old English vigor; the gallants being every way so Frenchified, that they are become mere cock-sparrows, fluttering things that come on saesa, with a world of fury but are not able to stand to it, and in the very first charge fall down flat before us. Never did men wear greater breeches, or carry less in them of any mettle whatsoever. There was a glorious dispensation ('twas surely in the Golden Age) when Lusty lads of seven or eight hundred years old, got sons and daughters; and we have read, how a prince of Spain was forced to make a law, that men should not repeat the grand kindness to their wives, above nine times in a night: but alas! Alas! Those forwards days are gone, the dull lubbers want a spur now, rather than a bridle: being so far from doing any works of supererogation that we find them not capable of performing those endeavors which their duty, and our expectations exact.

The occasion of which insufferable disaster, after a serious inquiry, and discussion of the point by the learned of the faculty, we can attribute to nothing more than the excessive use of that newfangled, abominable, heathenish liquor called coffee, which riffling nature of her choicest treasures, and drying up the radical moisture, has so eunuched our husbands, and crippled our more kind gallants, that they are become as impotent, as age, and as unfruitful as those deserts whence that unhappy berry is said to be brought.

For the continual sipping of this pitiful drink is enough to bewitch men of two and twenty, and tie up the codpice-point without a charm. It renders them that use it as lean as famine, as revivaled as envy, or an old meager hag over-ridden by an incubus. They come from it with nothing moist but their snotty noses, nothing stiff but their joints, nor standing but their ears: they pretend 'it will keep them waking, but we find by scurvy experience, they sleep quietly enough after it. A betrothed queen might trust herself a bed with one of them, without the nice caution of a sword between them: nor can all the art we use revive them from this lethargy, so unfit they are for action, that like young train-band-men when called upon duty, their ammunition is wanting; peradventure they present, but cannot give fire, or at least do but flash in the pan, instead of doing execution.

Nor let any doating, superstitious Cato's shake their goatish beards, and tax us of immodesty for this declaration, since it is a public grievance, and cries aloud for reformation. Weight and measure, it is well known, should go throughout the world, and there is no torment like famine. Experience witnesses our damage, and necessity (which easily supersedes all the laws of decency) justifies our complaints: for can any woman of sense or spirit endure with patience, that when privileged by legal ceremonies, she approaches the nuptial bed, expecting a man that with sprightly embraces, should answer the vigor of her flames, she on the contrary should only meet a bedful of bones, and hug a meager useless corpse rendered as sapless as a kixe, and dryer than a pumice-stone, by the perpetual fumes of tobacco, and bewitching effects of this most pernicious coffee, where by nature is enfeebled, the off-spring of our mighty ancestors dwindled into a succession of apes and pygmies: and the age of man now crammed into an inch, that was a span.

Nor is this (though more than enough) all the ground of our complaint: for besides, we have reason to apprehend and grow jealous, that men by frequenting these Stygian tap-houses will usurp on our prerogative of tattling, and soon learn to excel us in talkativeness: a quality wherein our sex has ever claimed preeminence: for here like so many frogs in a puddle, they sup muddy water, and murmur insignificant notes till half a dozen of them out-babble an equal number of us at a gossiping, talking all at once in confusion, and running from point to point as insensibly, and as swiftly, as ever the ingenious pole-wheel could run divisions on the base-viol; yet in all their prattle every one abounds in his own sense, as stiffly as a Quaker at the late barbican dispute, and submits to the reasons of no other mortal: so that there being neither moderator nor rules observed, you may as soon fill a quart pot with syllogisms, as profit by their discourses.

Certainly our countrymen's palliates have become as fanatical as their brains; how else is it possible they should apostatize from the good old primitive way of ale-drinking, to run a whoring after such variety of destructive foreign liquors, to trifle away their time, scald their chops, and spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking, nauseous puddle-water: yet (as all witches have their charms) so this ugly Turkish enchantress by certain invisible wires attracts both rich and poor; so that those that have scarce twopence to buy their children bread, must spend a penny each evening in this insipid stuff: nor can we send one of our husbands to call a midwife, or borrow a glister-pipe, but he must stay an hour by the way drinking his two dishes and two pipes.
At these houses (as at the springs in Africa) meet all sorts of animals, whence follows the production of a thousand monster opinions and absurdities; yet for being dangerous to government, we dare be their compurgators, as well knowing them to be too tame and too talkative to make any desperate politicians: for though they may now and then destroy a fleet, or kill ten thousand of the French, more than all the confederates can do, yet this is still in their politic capacities, for by their personal valor they are scarce fit to be of the life-guard to a cherry-tree: and therefore, though they frequently have hot contests about most important subjects; as what color the red sea is of; whether the great Turk be a Lutheran or a Calvinist; who Cain's father in law was, etc. Yet they never fight about them with any other save our weapon, the tongue.

Some of our sots pretend tippling of this boiled soot cures them of being drunk; but we have reason rather to conclude it makes them so, because we find them not able to stand after it: it is at best but a kind of earthling a fox to hunt him more eagerly afterward: a rare method of good-husbandry, to enable a man to be drunk three times a day! Just such a remedy for drunkenness, as the Popes allowing of stews, is a means to prevent fornication: the coffee-house being in truth, only a pimp to the tavern, a relishing soup preparative to a fresh debauch: for when people have swilled themselves with a morning draught of more ale than a brewers horse can carry, hither they come for a penny worth of settle-brain, where they are sure to meet lazy pragmatic companions, that resort here to prattle of news, that they neither understand, nor are concerned in; and after an hours impertinent chat, begin to consider a bottle of claret would do excellent well before dinner; whereupon to the bush they all march together, until every one of them is as drunk as a drum, and then back again to the coffeehouse to drink themselves sober; where three or four dishes a piece, and smoking, makes their throats as dry as Mount Aetna enflamed with brimstone; so that they must away to the next red lattice to quench them with a dozen or two of ale, which at last growing nauseous, one of them begins to extol the blood of the grape, what rare lagoon, and racy canary may be had at the miter: saist thou so? Cries another, let's then go and replenish there? With our earthen vessels: so once more they troop to the sack-shop until they are drunker than before; and then by a retrograde motion, stagger back to sober themselves with coffee: thus like tennis balls between two rackets, the fops, our husbands, are bandied to and fro all day between the coffee-house and tavern, whilst we poor souls sit moping all alone until twelve at night, and when at last they come to bed smoked like a Westphalia hogs-head we have no more comfort of them, than from a shotten herring or a dried bulrush; which forces us to take up this lamentation and sing:

Tom Farthing, Tom Farthing, where hast thou been, Tom Farthing? Twelve a clock e're you come in, two a clock e're you begin, and then at last can do nothing: would make a woman weary, weary, weary, would make a woman weary, etc.

Wherefore the premises considered, and to the end that our just rights may be restored, and all the ancient privileges of our sex preserved inviolable; that our husbands may give us some other testimonies of their being men, besides their beards and wearing of empty pantaloons: that they no more run the hazard of being cuckold by dildos: but returning to the good old strengthening liquors of our forefathers; that natures exchequer may once again be replenished, and a race of lusty hero's begot, able by their achievements, to equal the glories of our ancestors.

We humbly pray, that you, our trusty patrons, would improve your interest, that henceforth the drinking coffee may, on severe penalties, be forbidden to all persons under the age of threescore; and that instead thereof, lusty nappy beer, cock-ale, cordial canaries, restoring malagos, and back-recruiting chocolate be recommended to general use, throughout the Utopian territories.

In hopes of which glorious reformation, your petitioners shall readily prostrate themselves, and ever pray, etc.

FINIS.



I love this. The writing is so awesome. The arguments against coffee, according to this booklet, includes, it makes men gossip worse than women, makes them limp and "Frenchifies" once vigorous men.

But the icing on the cake is that there is a response to this booklet, done in typical British passive-aggressiveness.   

I will translate it in the future, but I can sum it up as, "Nuh-nuh! Girls are stupid! Now, if you'll excuse me, I would like a grande, iced, sugar-free, vanilla latte with soy milk and good day. I said good day!"

Weird things you find in medieval manuscripts.

Dude! Wanna get stoned?

This image is from Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 69, p. 269. It shows a demon, I guess, giving rocks to someone: a saint or Jesus. Yet another example of "I don't know what the artist was thinking". Taken out of context, it could mean anything. "Dude, I got your burger." or, "Shut up and put it in your mouth." or "The schnozberries taste like schnozberries."

Or, perhaps, the artist was trying to convey something more sinister.

You Know You've Been in the SCA Too Long When...

You Know You've Been in the SCA Too Long When...

You know you've been in the SCA too long when you see these two candies next to each other and you don't think about candy.

Which side to you support?

Things you shouldn't put on an SCA Scroll part 8

Things you shouldn't put on an SCA Scroll part 8

NO! NO! Put that away!

How to Diaper a Scroll

No, not that kind of diaper.

One of the easiest ways of making a scroll pretty is to add diapering. Diapering is the checker-board pattern seen on manuscripts, usually as a background to a figure. They can involve gold, such as:

Or plain colors:

Or a mix of colors and patterns:

Diapering can be as simple or as complicated as you wish to make it. Even the most basic of patterns can liven an image that would normally have a blank back ground:

 

Simple or complex patterns, it is simply a matter of layout and organization. For this example I am going to show you how to do a three color, square pattern. This technique can be modified for other shapes and patterns. You will need a lightbox and a straight-edge for this method. The lightbox is not a requirement, but it does make things easier. First find an image, trace it onto your paper and ink it. Inking the image before the diapering will make it easier down the road.

Next, get a print out of a checkerboard pattern. If you use a graphics program, like Picture Publisher, Photoshop, Paint.net, PaintShop Pro, you can create a box and fill it with a pattern of the size that you wish. 

Secure the pattern under your image and put it back on the lightbox. Use the straight-edge to mark your lines.

Line up the top edge of the boxes with the top border and let the boxes fall where they lay. You can orientate from the bottom edge or from either side, but I think that it looks better when aligned from the top.  It might be that I am accustomed to viewing from top to bottom. You are the artist: align it however you wish. When complete, you will have pencil lines on top of the ink lines. Any lines that you drew in the wrong places can easily be erased. If you look in the boat, under the axes, you can see that I had extended the lines out of the back ground and into the foreground. If everything was in pencil, it would be difficult to tell what is part of the image and what is part of the diapering. I already know that the image is in ink: everything in pencil is the diapering and I can easily erase wandering lines.

You're not done with the lightbox, just yet. Go back and put a dot in each black square. If you do this now, you won't have to figure out what color to use in the out of the way edges. Ink all of the diapering lines and dots and erase the graphite. From here on out, it's paint by numbers. Now, you don't need the lightbox; you can draw out the diapering lines with a straight-edge and make your boxes equal sizes, but, it is so much easier to trace it. Even when I trace an image that has diapering in it, I use my own patterns after I'm finished tracing the foreground images and the borders.

As I said, it is paint by numbers. Every square that has a dot, color it #1 color; in this case, gold. Do one color at a time so that you won't get confused.

Once you have color #1 compete, you can concentrate on the other colors.

By the way, the same square pattern, turned 45 degrees, can give you diamonds. Just line up the points along one border so that everything shows up even.

Once color #1 (gold, in this case) is laid down, move on to color #2, which is dark blue. Do all of color #2 (for three or four color patterns) before moving on. If you screw up, and put blue in the wrong box, and you don't want to scrape it out, just finish up the rest of the boxes in blue and make is a two color pattern.

There are plenty of patterns you can use for three or four colors. In this example I'm using a simple stripe pattern. One diagonal line of gold, one of blue and one of red. Check out https://www.pinterest.com/lindatruelove/sca-scribal-diapered-backgrounds/ for other patterns.

Once color #2 is in place, you should be able to see where you missed color #1. Touch up the gold, as needed, then start on color #3 (red).

Once the diapering is done, paint in the rest. I used the same red and blue for the border to give the image some continuity.

Try to avoid using the same colors in the foreground image as you used in the diapering, as the items will blend together. The goal is to enhance the foreground images, not hide them. If I use dark colors for the diapering, I'll use lighter shades for the foreground, and vice-a-versa. I want the diapering and the foreground to be distinct elements.

Here is the axeman with all of the color in place. See how the light red of the tunic floats on top of the dark red of the inner border and on the diapering?

Once all of the color is in place, start inking over the lines. The black lines will help the colors of the diapering stand out more, and will cover up any bits of wandering paint. Use a Micron or similar pen. I used a 0.3 for this image and a .07 for the axeman.

Once you have blank ink in place, it's time for the white work. Just a note: I put a white pattern on the outer border but didn't like how it turned out: too busy. The outer white work was drawing my eye away from the diapering and it didn't look at neat and tidy as the diapering. So, I painted over it.

With a couple more coats of dark red and blue, the image looks very nice. I used white lines running diagonally across the blue and red boxes. You can do this with a fine brush and paint (gouache only, not with water color), or with colored micron pens, or with gel pens. I used a gel pen on these two scrolls. I find the gel pen to give a very even and consistent line, although the pen I was using for builders ran out half way through the work: I had to run out to Michaels to get a new pen. For the builders I used a Gelly R@ll white pen with a .08 tip. On the axeman, I used a new pen; a Uniball Signo with a broad tip.

Once the white ink and completely dried, I put a dollop of paint on the intersections; blue on the red boxes and red on the blue boxes. This gives further depth to the diapering.

For the axeman, I made simple crosses in each blue box with a dollop of red in the center. The white brightens up the surrounding dark blue or red, making it appear much brighter than it actually is; again, helping it stand out. The Uniball pen did give a nice line, but would have been too thick for the pattern I used for the builders.

 There are many methods of enhancing diapering, in-box crosses and diagonal lines are only two options. You are only limited by how much space you have, how steady your hand is and how fine your brush or pen is. If you have large boxes, you can put a circle and a dot in each:

For smaller boxes, there might only be room for a small circle.

 In this example, I had a solid blue background, divided with black lines. I then drew diagonal white lines through the vertices of each box and put a dollop of gold at each intersection.

The next two examples are the same method, only at 45 degree angles to each other.

And finally, I used diapering in the recipient's colors with small black and white crosses in the middle of each box.

To conclude, diapering is not very difficult to do, although it does require some extra time and fiddly work. But the pay off is huge. I hope that this helps and inspires you to try your hand at scribal diapering.

Check out the full size images here and here.

How to ask for bread with your hands

That one, no that one! There! Look where I'm pointing!

The Benedictine monks of 12th century Cluny were under vows of silence and were restricted from speaking, particularly while eating. The clever monks invented a universal language using their hands that was used at monasteries throughout Europe.

For the sign of bread: make a circle with the thumb and its two adjacent fingers, because bread is customarily round.

For the sign of bread, which is cooked in water and which is better than that served on most days: after making the general sign for bread, place the palm of one hand over the outside of the other as if oiling or wetting.

For the sign of marked bread, which is commonly called torta: after making the general sign of bread, make a cross through the middle of the palm, because bread of this type is generally divided into quarters.

- Signa Loquendi, 11th century, sign language of Cluny

How to calculate the height of objects

You put your left foot out....

This image is from 'Traités d'astronomie et de géométrie' (mid-twelfth century), Municipal Library, Avranches.

It is interesting to note that the general impression of the middle ages is one of ignorance. That Europe reached a zenith during the Roman Empire, then fell into the intellectual toilet until the Renaissance (a word coined to mean the rebirth of the fallen Roman Empire).  History book after history book "teaches" that the middle ages and the dark ages suppressed learning and innovation. History books tell us that no one in Europe built in stone for a 1000 years after the fall of Rome, despite the continual existence of stone buildings, churches and fortifications that were constructed during that time period. No one read or wrote, despite the thousands of documents that survive from the so called "dark ages".  That the ancient knowledge of the Greeks were lost until Renaissance translators re-discovered them after the invention of movable type (an invention of the late middle ages), even though most of the ancient works had been translated into Latin and the vernacular in the 10th through the 12th centuries.

No learning until the Renaissance? The above image is of a practical use of geometry, using comparative angles and a known distance to calculate an unknown height. Mid 12th century.

The second image is from the same work and shows an example of the Pythagorean theorem of a right triangle. But I keep reading about how the medieval scholar was unaware of such things. I recently read that the Notre Dame Cathedral was one of the best examples of Renaissance  construction "of such size and scope that the narrow-minded Medieval architect couldn't imagine such a project." Really? Notre Dame Cathedral? Construction started in 1163 and is one of the finest examples of Medieval Gothic cathedrals in Europe. But this narrow-minded author couldn't double check his facts and discover that while there is no hard date for the start of the Renaissance, it sure as shit ain't in the 12th century.

William Manchester's A World Lit Only By Fire is back in print with a new edition. I saw it at B&N, on the shelf. First published in 1922, it has been a popular book that does a great hatchet job on the middle ages. Manchester didn't create the myth that the medieval man had no ego or sense of self, but he certainly perpetuated it. 

"Shackled in ignorance, disciplined by fear, and sheathed in superstition, the trudged into the 16th century  in the clumsy, hunched, pigeon-toed gait of rickets victims, their vacant faces, pocked by smallpox, turned blindly towards the future they through they knew, gullible, pitiful innocents who were about to be swept up in the most powerful, incomprehensible, irresistible vortex since Alaric had led his Visigoths and Huns across the Alps, fallen on Rome, and extinguished the lamps of learning a thousand years before." {p27 of the 1992 edition}

Bullshit.

Read any of the Canterbury Tales and tell me that they were written by an ignorant man. Read Pearl, by the Gawain Poet, and tell me that no one in the middle ages had a sense of self, or ego.  Look at the dozens of surviving cathedrals and churches from the dark ages and tell me that their architects were unlearned. Look at the mountains of manuscripts showing the intellect, creativity and humor of medieval scribes and then look me in the eyes and tell me that only during the Renaissance could such things ever have been created or appreciated. 

Weird things you find in medieval manuscripts.

Take us to your leader!

This image is from 'The Fortress of Faith': Valenciennes - BM - ms. 0244 f. 027. Alphonsus de Spina, La Forteresse de la foi. France, 15th century. It shows two... demons, I guess, one with a flesh hook and the other with an arbuquis... maybe. Another example of "I don't know what the artist was thinking". Perhaps he, or she, was trying to show a visual metaphor of evil attacking the "fortress of faith" (not to be confused with the Hall of Justice) which is represented as a castle in this image. 

Or, perhaps, the artist was trying to convey something more sinister.

A Hunting Hare

What prey is it hunting?

This is from  Pontifical of Guillaume Durand (Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, ms. 143, fol. 165r). This image is a hare, riding a greyhound, with a snail being held as if it were a hunting hawk. If that isn't weird enough, folio 76v has a cat, being ridden by a rat with a trained hunting starling.