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medieval scholars of tumblr, please explain.

( marta-bee, i am for some reason looking at you.)

historieofbeafts

Nerd signal activated! I think it’s worth mentioning that half of the attack rabbits you see around come from a single narrative sequence in this manuscript, previously featured here. So it’s not quite as widespread a preoccupation as it can seem, though it’s still a hilarious trend.

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert, and none of this is in any way definitive, but my understanding of the rabbit thing is as follows:

a) The standard issue medieval rabbit was totally helpless and generally regarded as timid, passive and powerless.  In fact, the hare in the Reynard the Fox stories was actually named Coward (or Coart, or Kywart, or Cuwaert, spelling was pretty flexible). If you aren’t familiar with the Reynard stories, they’re basically wall to wall animal murder and inexcusable criminal behavior. Which is a good thing to keep in mind about entertainment values at the time.

b)It’s inaccurate on a number of levels to compare marginalia to the kind of thing you doodle in your notes when you’re bored, but it does kind of help to remember that drolleries and grotesques were meant to be entertaining. Like, fish knights and boat jousting? Drawn for the lols.

c) Role reversals, hunters becoming the hunted and animal violence were pretty standard tropes (see again the Reynard stories), so it makes sense that taking the most harmless prey animal and turning it into a terrifying murder machine out for revenge was comic gold?

look fierce