Polish Netflix has recently produced widely acclaimed comedy series entitled “1670”, satirically presenting contemporary Polish society in historical costume of the seventeenth century (trailer in English is available HERE). Opening, however, is a compilation of artworks that do not date back to the 17th century, but have been taken from…
Cleaning Up the Dirty Middle Ages
One of the most irritating misconceptions about the Middle Ages is that people back then bathed once a year or so – it is a myth I keep fighting. I am very happy to say that recently my article on this subject has been published by JSTOR Daily (available HERE)….
UNDERWEAR MYSTERY IN “THE DECAMERON”
Many years ago, when I had an honour – still being a student – to present my paper on certain medieval manuscript on a Very Serious Meeting of the art historians, the Very Serious Audience got themselves into a discussion: was it acceptable for a young aspiring scholar (i.e. me)…
Merry children’s games from past centuries
My previous post was dedicated to female artists in the Middle Ages; of course artistic activities of women are better documented when it comes to the Early Modern Times. One of the known female artists was an engraver Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella (1636-1697). She was a daughter of a goldsmith named Étienne…
Shitload of fun
I observe various medievalists on Twitter, and lately I came across a tweet that thoroughly amused me: apparently smiling poop emoji 💩 has a late medieval source of inspiration. As I like to repeat: everything already happened in the Middle Ages. As it happens, the motif of excrement quite…