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GROBLIN NUMMA FOUAH

Monster Monday: What are these things?

Today we continue our ongoing series on the Luttrell Psalter for Monster Monday. The term ‘grotesque’ used to describe these fanciful creatures is derived from ‘grotto,’ or the fanciful images that may be found in a grotto, and began to be applied to fabulous creatures, including those adorning manuscripts, from 1488 when Nero’s Palace (first century AD) was discovered in the grottoes on the outskirts of Rome. They are also known as ‘hybrids,’ when composed of a variety of body parts from different species, ‘chimera’ (dream creatures), or ‘drolleries’ (for their amusing qualities). Author Michelle P. Brown suggests these ornate and mystical creatures adorning the Luttrell Psalter reflect the “neuroses and paranoia of a society in flux.”

Author Eric Millar questioned the sanity of the illuminator, writing that “the mind of a man who could deliberately set himself to ornament a book with such subjects ... can hardly have been normal.” While the grotesques are monstrous, they are still strategically placed with complex meaning.

Pictured at the bottom of folio 145r is an orange bird head with pendulous jowls, resembling buttocks, and the blue hindquarters of a scaled beast. To the left of it is a monkey in a purple tunic and bird-headed hat who flees from the pursuing grotesque but looks back in horror, holding aloft a small round object. Brown suggests this object is, in fact, a mirror. This may represent a double pun on the power of the speculum (a mirror, literally or allegorically in the form of a morally didactic text) which reflects the viewer/reader. The monkey is frightened by his own distorted image, but in turn, apes mankind and reflects our follies and vanities. The text above them reads “an everlasting reproach.”

Sure, the wacky combinations may have come from a crazy artist, but their subliminal messages were crafted by a genius. Or maybe the bird-lizard was just angry at the monkey-man for wearing his friend as a hat? Who’s to say.

View more Luttrell Psalter posts here!