Knight deflowering a virgin. Allegory from
the British Library.
Malcolm Jones' "The secret middle ages. Discovering the real medieval world" proves that nothing is as secret as when it is hidden in a plain view. This is not surprising that the Middle Ages art was full of pornographic or scatological imagery; what is amazing is that many of these artifacts were prominently displayed in churches or laid in bequests of model citizens--the book begins with the testament of the patrician Mayor of Frankfurt--who mentions among the objects of value biscuit molds with carvings some depicting saints and scenes from the Holy Scripture but others are obviously pornographic. Yet, reading the book to the end, one does not get an idea why this juxtaposition was the case.
The author's contention that the Middle Ages we imagine--as a place of total and pervasive religious worship--is a largely Victorian invention, is solidly proven by the fact that even the surviving artifacts--the main source of his imagery in the book are the church misercords, but also the lead jewelry, which has to be much more widespread than the glorious gold and silver altarpieces, are so numerous as to belie the idea that the medieval porn was rare or underground. But why many of these images existed for centuries in churches or in religious manuscripts? Jones does not even attempt to answer this question. Some of these phenomena can be attributed by the secret or homegrown paganism, which he mentions but obviously these were too widespread and cropping in unusual places, such as abovementioned testament of the Frankfurt's mayor, as to explain them that way.
The book limits itself to nonsensical, pornographic and scatological imagery, but it cannot be complete without the images of death, torture and macabre, which were also widespread. Some of these intruded into the field of pornography like the death with fully erect penis, whilst a wife tries to masturbate an obviously impotent husband in front of their child obliviously playing with money. If it is an complex allegory, its meaning is lost to the centuries. Malcolm Jones broke into this important field of study but the definitive answer is far from our view.
Merry pranksters of the Middle Ages.
