Marginalia c. 1275–1285
Psalter-Hours of Yolande of Soissons
f. 344v
A grotesque with a monk's tonsure and a bird's body lays an egg while reading a psalter. The egg is golden and radiates lines of light.
Scholarly Interpretation
The tonsured bird-monk producing a golden egg may parody monastic productivity — the scriptorium as henhouse. Alternatively, the golden egg could represent the precious text the monk labors to produce.
from the margins of the medieval world