time to talk about my favourite guy, victorian poet william barnes, who tried to replace foreign loan words in english with "pure germanic anglo saxon" ones that he made up. such as:

❌genealogy ✅kin-lore
❌grammar ✅speech-craft
❌pliers ✅nipperlings

(more below) ❌plagiarism ✅thought-pilfering
❌horizon ✅sky-sill
❌altercation ✅brangling
❌democracy ✅folkdom
❌flexible ✅bendsome
❌magnificent ✅high-deedy

i was sick the past three days so i made this for you guys :) welcome to the weird medieval guys build your own medieval outfit!!! open this thread to find out what your outfit would be in the middle ages...... disclaimer: i tried to only use original, extant medieval objects but sorry if some repros snuck in. also, some of the weapons are 16th century, sue me etc etc etc

anyways, let's get started!!!

spooky goblin, switzerland, 15th century source: st. gallen, stiftsarchiv (abtei pfäfers), cod. fab. xvi, fol. 92r e-codices.unifr.ch/en/ssg/0016/92r

drawings by a 7 year old boy named "onfim" (originally on birch bark), from novgorod, modern day russia, 13th century i really like this one, which shows a monster and the caption "i am a wild beast", while the text in the box reads "greetings from onfim to danilo" (who was probably a friend of onfim!)

noah's ark, france or spain, 12th century source: manchester, john rylands university library, latin ms 8, fol. 15r

digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/MS-LATIN-…

there is a myth in europe that hedgehogs use their spines to carry fruit home. while this isn't true, people have believed it for millenia--in part because it's such a cute idea!!

in honor of harvest season, here are my fave medieval depictions of the hedgehog harvest 🍎🍎🍎 obsessed with how Rotund this guy is!!

amazing medieval words you should definitely add to your vocabulary, a thread: FORWERP (english, verb)
to throw away or reject

ASLUPPE (english, noun)
to slip away

the 800 year old borgund stave church in norway. the entire church, including the nails used in its construction, is made out of wood. sadly not in use as a church any more but i believe it still can be visited!

dog healthcare, france, 15th century there's an impressive amount of medieval literature about dog care! dogs (especially greyhounds) were prized as hunting companions, and a lot of medieval hunting books include sections on dog wellbeing and illness

medieval italian writer boccaccio, when writing about paradise, described a land with a mountain made of grated parmesan cheese, inhabited by people who spent all day making macaroni and ravioli and rolling them down the mountain for the other inhabitants to eat this place is called chucagna (in english, the land of cockaigne) and existed before as a legendary land of plenty (like el dorado), but as far as i know boccaccio was the first person to write about a cheese mountain lmao

bed of frogs, germany, 15th century dream romantic scenario?

no more jesus jesus is cancelled

you've heard of Bratz™, now get ready for source! also sorry i did photoshop "ratz" slightly bigger to make it more legible i'm a historical revisionist i must own up to it
e-manuscripta.ch/zuz/content/zo…

king philip of france (1116–1131) died two years into his reign when his horse tripped over a pig in paris, causing him to be thrown from its back onto his head.

the french, naturally, put the story in just about every history book for 400 years. here are the best versions🧵 just a nice normal day out at the castle.....unless?

new post for you guys!! it's about the frankly insane history of english swan ownership

weirdmedievalguys.substack.com/p/no-the-king-… what do u think guys

god creating eve from adam’s rib, bohemia, ca. 1420 source: prague, knihovna národního muzea, III B 10 fol. 2r
initiale.irht.cnrs.fr/codex/3509

sorry not medieval but i can't stop thinking about this 25,000 year old cave painting of a woman like u know those guys were NOT having the lower stomach fat discourse

bowl with fish, iran, ca. 13th century this is in the hossein afshar collection in the houston museum of fine arts! if anyone goes to see it say hi from me

vessel with skeleton family, peru, 9th century or earlier I love this vessel and other vessels from the moche people, who produced ceramics showing skeletons doing all kinds of things !

death with dignity, germany, ca. 1540 how we doin folks

an axe with heart-shaped holes in the blade, japan, 14th century sorry this isn't a guy but it's one of my fave things ever!
here's a link to more details about it narahaku.go.jp/english/collec…