Medieval comedy performance discovered in 15th century manuscript

An unprecedented record of medieval live comedy performance has been identified in a 15th-century manuscript. Raucous texts – mocking kings, priests and peasants; encouraging audiences to get drunk; and shocking them with slapstick – shed new light on Britain’s famous sense of humour and the role played by minstrels in medieval society. The texts contain the earliest recorded use of ‘red herring’ in English, extremely rare forms of medieval literature, as well as a killer rabbit worthy o...

The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel (1565) – The Public Domain Review

Clip source: The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel (1565) – The Public Domain Review The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel (1565)In 1565, twelve years after the death of François Rabelais (1494-1553) — the French Renaissance author best known for his satirical masterpiece The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel, the bawdy tale of two giants, Gargantua and his son Pantagruel — the Parisian bookseller and publisher Richard Breton brought out Les songes drolatiques de Pantagruel (The drolatic dreams of ...

Stored in the Body - and other TLS clips - 11 Jun 2021 Print Edition

Architecture and the poetics of marble - Stony Names - LRB

Alchemical Symbolism in a Coat of Arms

Adam McLean Alchemical Symbolism An alchemical coat of arms Back to alchemical symbolism indexFrancis Thynne (1545-1608), was a herald and antiquarian who was well connected to the major figures of the Elizabethan age. In the 1570's he developed a particular interest in alchemy. He combined this with his knowledge of heraldry to create his 'Insignia Philosophorum', essentially a coat of arms for alchemical philosophers. He depicted this in a notebook which has survived in the Bodleian L...

313 AD to 1500 AD - the rule of Christendom