| Author |
Message |
|
Kirk K.
|
 Posted: Fri 27 May, 2016 4:04 pm Post subject: So *that* is where the 'killer rabbit' meme originated! |
 |
|
A bit of Medieval history, monks drawing strange and lurid cartoons, and rabbits laying waste to their enemies with weapons. Reality is stranger than fiction. Best keep your Holy Handgrenade close at hand.
https://boingboing.net/2016/05/25/why-medieval-monks-filled-manu.html
|
|
  |
 |
|
Ben Joy
|
| Posted: Fri 27 May, 2016 9:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Ok, I knew that the monks (and just about any literate person who handled books and had writing implements nearby) put drawings and comments in the margins. However, I had no idea about the specific history of the killer rabbits. Stickhare . . . I'm going to need to remember that one.
Anyway, thanks for the share. It really makes you wonder if the Monty Python crew knew about this when they did the killer rabbit scene, or if it's sheer coincidence because they thought having a killer rabbit would be the most unexpected and hilarious thing they could use.
"Men take only their needs into consideration, never their abilities." -Napoleon Bonaparte
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sam Barris
|
| Posted: Fri 27 May, 2016 10:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
We'll not risk another frontal assault. Those rabbits are dynamite! 
Pax,
Sam Barris
"Any nation that draws too great a distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools." —Thucydides
|
|
 |
|
Craig Peters
|
| Posted: Sat 28 May, 2016 3:17 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
I think it's not unlikely that the Monty Python members had encountered the rabbit marginalia. The reason I say this is because some of the animated scenes have artwork that is stylistically similar to 13th century and early 14th century manuscript illuminations. The killer rabbits illustrations seen within the article, along with others like them, fall within that timespan.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gregg Sobocinski
|
| Posted: Sat 28 May, 2016 7:40 am Post subject: |
|
|
Excellent stuff, there! I had never seen those images, nor had I heard the background behind them.
Thanks for sharing.
|
|
|
|
|
Roger Hooper
|
| Posted: Sat 28 May, 2016 9:07 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
I've heard that whenever a monk decided to draw a murderous rabbit in the margins, he told his companions that he was having a bad hare day.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mart Shearer
|
|
|
|
|
|
Philip Dyer
|
| Posted: Sat 28 May, 2016 8:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
Eh, what can we say, if you are isolated from society and required to hand copy several hundred to thousand page documents with ink and quill, I bet all of us would draw weird stuff to alleviate the sheer tediousness of the task.
|
|
|
|
|
Mikko Kuusirati
|
| Posted: Mon 30 May, 2016 3:10 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Philip Dyer wrote: | | Eh, what can we say, if you are isolated from society and required to hand copy several hundred to thousand page documents with ink and quill, I bet all of us would draw weird stuff to alleviate the sheer tediousness of the task. |
My grade and high school notebooks (and textbooks, for that matter) would concur. 
"And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
— Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum
|
|
|
|
|
Dan Howard
|
| Posted: Mon 30 May, 2016 3:24 am Post subject: |
|
|
A lot of scribes couldn't read. They simply copied the letters one by one. If they weren't told what the text was about it is unlikely that their doodles would have any relevance to the subject in the text. As Philip said, they'd just draw random weird stuff in the margins to alleviate the boredom.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This is a standard topic