"Reconsidering the 'Obscene': The Massa Marittima Mural." Shift 2 (2009). "A 'Rose' By Any Other Name: Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston as Illuminators of Vernacular Texts," in Manuscripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris, 1200- 1500. "The Phallus Tree: A Medieval and Renaissance Phenomenon." Journal of Sexual Medicine 7:2 (2010). Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art.
Subject (See Also): Eroticism Humor, Bawdy Monks Nuns Penis Sexuality Women Artists.Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France.Given the monastic subjects of the Roman de la Rose’s illumination, and the raciness of the poem itself, intent to parody spiritual and courtly love may have motivated Jeanne de Montbaston to include the phallus tree and embracing couple in her marginal illustrations. More simply, representations of a phallus tree may have been intended to be funny, especially when they appeared as parodies of images associated with popular devotion (Koldeweij, 2004). In other instances, phallus tree iconography poked fun at fear of male impotence. While a single concrete meaning behind the phallus tree remains elusive, the image carried connotations of fertility and generation (Hoch, 2006). Phallus trees appear in various mediums, including lead pilgrimage badges, wood carvings, and perhaps most famously, in frescoes like the Massa Marattima fountain mural. Jeanne operated the atelier independently after Richard died in 1353, leading some scholars to speculate that the whimsical and often bawdy illuminations in this particular manuscript were solely her creations (Camille, 2003 Rouse and Rouse, 1999).Īlthough the appearance of a phallus tree may seem strange at first, the iconographic motif appears to have been quite popular in the late medieval secular world. The couple collectively copied and illuminated nineteen extant manuscripts of the Roman de la Rose. This risqué marginalia comes from a secular Parisian atelier run by a husband and wife team, Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston. Several additional folios in the manuscript depict equally subversive scenes, such as a team of nuns gathering phalluses, sex among monks and nuns, and a nun leading a monk by a chain attached to his penis. At right, the same nun engages in a taboo embrace with a blonde, bearded monk in a grey habit. It publicises all aspects of the Librarys work on western manuscripts produced before 1600, including our digitisation and cataloguing projects, exhibitions and publications.
At left, a nun plucks disembodied phalluses from a tree brimming with phalluses and gathers her harvest in a green basket. The Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts Blog is written by curators in the British Librarys Department of History and Classics. Description: The bas-de-page of this fourteenth-century manuscript of the Roman de la Rose pairs two erotic and likely humorous scenes.Title: Nun Harvesting Phalluses from a Phallus Tree and a Monk and Nun Embracing.
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