Dr. Erik Wade -- CEASEFIRE NOW
@erik_kaars
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queer medievalist researching the global origins of ideas about sex & race in medieval English lit. helicopter parent to a kitty. phd. (he/they). views my own.
Joined November 2015
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This is a meta-thread of my medieval threads, so they're all in one place, and I don't forget/lose track of them. Wander down memory lane with me! First stop: medieval cat law.
#MedievalTwitter
Thread: Did you know cats feature in early medieval law? The 10th-cent Welsh Laws of Hywel Dda listed the qualities of a good cat: “that it not devour its kittens, and that it have ears, eyes, teeth and claws, and that it be a good mouser.”
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This registration form is the biggest gender mood ever.
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Funny how racist trolls are mad at Rings of Power for changing the "author's vision" by casting POC, but are ALSO mad at the Sandman series for casting POC, even though the author Neil Gaiman says that's what he wants.
Maybe it's not about "the author's vision" after all. 🤔
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I am an American living in Germany. My grocery store currently has a temporary “American food” section. Join me for a tour of what Germans think Americans eat.
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"We had to kill the Vikings, bc they bathed and brushed their hair and our wives couldn't resist such sophistication" is a HELL of a take by medieval English chroniclers.
#MedievalTwitter
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A thread of medieval lions who would rather not:
This one is 1000% done with everyone's shit today.
(Clermont-Ferrand, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 84, f. 27r)
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Plz look at these married Roman queer women!
The clasped hands are a traditional sign of a married couple on funerary reliefs like this.
Their names are Fonteia Eleusis and Fonteia Helena. Quick thread about them!
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MEDIEVAL MERMAID THREAD
White people on the internet: The Little Mermaid can't be black! It's a European legend! She has to be white!
Medieval Europeans:
(Book of Hours, Dutch, f. 67)
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Here's a AMAZING 12th-century Middle Irish story about lesbians accidentally having a baby. A woman asked the king to determine her baby's father, bc she hadn't sex with a man in a long time. The king asked if she'd had sex with a woman. The woman said yes.
#MedievalTwitter
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Racists: Oh Viking Times! Men were Men! Warriors blah Western civilization blah
Viking men: Just got back from Turkey, & I’m wearing the latest fashions. Call me Bolli the Elegent. My men & I only wear the most colorful silk & carry Byzantine spears. Everyone agrees it’s HAWT.
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Ok, I'm dithering to avoid sending a piece of writing, SO how about a mini-thread on medieval cannibal babies?
Medieval Christian theologians were OBSESSED with the cannibal baby question: if our bodies are resurrected in the Last Judgment, what happens if we were eaten?
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My body: Wow, a decade has passed. I definitely feel ten years older.
My soul: I feel 57,2454 years older. I was there, Gandalf. I was there three thousand years ago. I was there the day the strength of Men failed.
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Thread: Did you know cats feature in early medieval law? The 10th-cent Welsh Laws of Hywel Dda listed the qualities of a good cat: “that it not devour its kittens, and that it have ears, eyes, teeth and claws, and that it be a good mouser.”
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As a historian of sex & Christianity, lemme say that people mad at
@LilNasX
for giving Satan a lap dance in a music video should read literally any medieval theologian, bc they all wanted to marry Christ & have sex with him. Really.
Thread with receipts below!
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Are you a white dude who talks about his "Viking heritage" and thinks those were the good old days when "men were men & women were women"?
Let a medievalist give you some tips on how to be an Authentic Viking Man!
First: make sure there's lace on your clothes.
#MedievalTwitter
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The thing I love about the Lamb of God is that it *sounds* sweet in the abstract because lambs are cute.
But in its only physical appearance in the Bible, it's TERRIFYING. Seven eyes, seven horns, etc. And medieval art LOVED this. (BL, MS Add. 35166, fol. 6r)
#MedievalTwitter
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Ugh, I can't believe I need to go down this road, but let's discuss a case study of how the Western idea of illness in leaders shifted from acceptable to a sign of weakness and effeminacy. Let's talk about King Alfred's hemorrhoids.
#MedievalTwitter
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Have I got a *wild* medieval story for you.
A woman sleeps with someone in exchange for presents, and her husband gets mad. So she sets out to prove that her husband would ALSO allow a man to have sex with him in exchange for presents.
#MedievalTwitter
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I too am a sucker for a man who sometimes changes his clothes.
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Love letter from one twelfth-century nun to another nun. We read it in class on Tuesday and 😭😍😭
"[I] sigh for you at every hour, at every moment, like a hungry little bird."💔
#medievaltwitter
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At the Museum Schnütgen yesterday, I saw this very dramatic piece of early modern mourning clothing. Want to subtly remind people you’re in mourning? Wear a black robe with a massive skull on it! High key goth drama.
(Spain, c. 1730, with ornaments from late 16th)
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Lol this thread blew up. I don’t have a Soundcloud but you should all consider donating to TransLifeline. They’re the only trans-run, tran-staffed help line in existence, and they need donations with the attacks on trans rights in the US. Donate! Share!
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White people: ......ok, maybe we should ask the Renaissance for help.
Renaissance Europeans:
Fin.*
*pun intended
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Legit question for medieval saints - How do I kill the 30-50 feral hogs that run into my room within 3-5 mins while I am doing holy things?
(BnF, MS Français 50, f. 265v)
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THREAD: So I study medieval sex, and what *fascinates* me are sex acts that don't get discussed in medieval texts. Take analingus/rimming: almost NEVER mentioned, but it appears *all the time* in illustrations.
[CW: butts and rimming, duh. also genitals]
#MedievalTwitter
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Medieval manuscripts:
🍑💨
✝️✝️✝️✝️
🐌 ✝️✝️✝️✝️ 🐱
🐌 ✝️✝️✝️✝️
👹 ✝️✝️✝️✝️ 🐉
🍆💦
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“American mix”! Just like we all ate growing up!
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Why are we not talking about Sir William Neville & Sir John Clanvowe, the two gay English knights buried together in a tomb with marriage motifs???
Who were friends with Chaucer and possibly the inspiration for his The Knight's Tale?
And also maybe SPIES?
#MedievalTwitter
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American condiments: you have your pick of mayo and ketchup or ketchup and mustard!
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This lion is SO EXCITED that someone has "more of a comment than a question."
(BL MS Harley 1585, f. 66v)
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White people: Medieval Europeans, you're bothered by this, aren't you? After all, surely you can agree that mermaid skin color is --
Medieval Europeans, nodding: Blue!
(Amiens, Bibl. mun., ms. 0200)
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The story's relative lack of criticism of two women having sex is noteworthy, and *once again* suggests that the history of queerness is a lot more complicated than "the Middle Ages were oppressive/homophobic." The king assumes correctly that women often had sex together.
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Everyone talks about "[Exit, pursued by bear]" and not about "Ay, with a twink."
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The feeling when you wake up and all your responsibilities and deadlines come flooding back.
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He was foretold in ancient texts.
(Bodleian Library MS. Laud Misc. 302, f. 210r)
#MedievalTwitter
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Thread: everyone knows that medieval art is filled with snails fighting knights, but there's actually a whole medieval snail ecology and society, from snail-birds to snail-monks. And, ofc, snail-cats.
WARNING: this thread gets very very silly.
(Paris, MS. 62)
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Unfortunately, Viking 'history' is now being used by white supremacists to build up ideas of white toxic masculinity, ignoring how the Vikings were multiracial, multicultural global traders who liked to look pretty.
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White people, sweating: ....ok, but in a EUROPEAN fairytale, you'd expect for the mermaid to --
Medieval Europeans, nodding: Kill and eat sailors!
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Are you an Egyptian lesbian in the 2nd or 3rd century AD? Is there a woman you want to fall in love with you? Well, you might consider summoning ghosts to put a spell on her!
We have several surviving spells Egyptian women cast on other women. Let's dive in!
#MedievalTwitter
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How to Have Sex in the 600s: A very NSFW
#MedievalTwitter
Thread.
Archbishop Theodore gave many judgments on what sexual acts were appropriate (and not) in the late 600s in England. So...how *was* it appropriate to have sex?
(Lyon, BM, MS 5128, f. 100r)
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Thread: weird medieval depictions of God creating Eve.
First up: Eve looking like a novelty balloon.
(Morgan Library, MS m766, f. 022v)
#MedievalTwitter
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This lion wishes it hadn't decided to watch the news.
(BnF, MS Français 9140, f. 1r)
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There is a LOT happening in this story. The priest sells himself to the devil for nice woodwork, the devils just carry him around for years, etc. But the central claim is that a king's truthful judgment scatters demons. The truth of lesbians drives demons away. 🌈
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Thread on the "Dark Ages":
"Modern" people: The Middle Ages had no science, just theology and doctrine!
Someone in the late 1000s/early 1100s: I have been observing the yearly movement of the planets. Here are my observations
(BL, MS Royal 13 A XI, f. 143v)
#MedievalTwitter
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An early Irish legal source listed a good cat as being a mouser and being able to purr. Such a cat would be worth three cows, according to these legal commentaries (based on Catslechtae). A cat that could only purr (but not hunt mice) was still worth a cow and a half.
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And, last but not least, this lion had no idea you held THOSE particular political views and is rapidly reevaluating your friendship.
(BL MS Additional 19776, f. 54v)
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White people on the internet: Ariel HAS to be white! She's European!
Medieval Europeans:
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A late 4th-century woman--born in Rome--buried in London wearing Chinese silk, with a pillow stuffed with Mediterranean bay leaves & a coffin scented with pistachio resin. A reminder of how global the premodern world was.
#MedievalTwitter
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Gentle reminder that the word “heterosexual” was invented in 1892, and any attempt to talk about heretosexuals before then in history is anachronistic. It’s very “PC” to talk about heterosexual love in history these days, but it’s just imposing a modern category on the past.
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This lion cannot believe how rude someone is being to the cashier.
(Abbeville, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 16, f. 34v)
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This half-naked man trying to calm down what looks like a large root vegetable with a sword is the best thing I've seen in ages.
(Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Français 25526, f 40r)
#MedievalTwitter
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In the Old English Life of St. Euphrosyne, the assigned-female-at-birth saint lives as a monk & takes the name Smaragdus. The anonymous author switches to male pronouns for the saint.
If the medieval author can respect a person's pronouns & not deadname them, so can you.
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This lion DID see you over there but was hoping you wouldn't make eye contact bc they're not feeling up for a conversation right now.
(BL MS Royal 12 F XIII, f. 5v)
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Starting email with "I hope this email finds you well":
-Boring
-When has an email found someone well?
Starting email with "I hope this email finds you":
-Ominous
-It found you
-Accurately represents the horror of all communication
-If this email found you, others could too 😱
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The part considered too risque to discuss is the semen, NOT the women having sex together. Later, in the 20th century, people refused to translate these texts because of the women having sex with each other. That was a *modern* anxiety, not a medieval one.
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White people on the internet: Look, there's just a WAY that mermaids are supposed to look. It's cultural heritage.
Medieval Europeans:
(J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. 100)
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As promised, a quick thread on medieval ghost lawsuits. So. Those were a thing. I know of examples from Scandinavian and Chinese literature.
Two forms: suing ghosts and being sued by ghosts.
Let's dive in!
#MedievalTwitter
#MedievalGhostStories
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White people: Ok, but you can surely agree that there's a Certain Way to portray mermaids, right?
Medieval Europeans, nodding: With a mirror and comb, so we know that they're symbols of Vanity!
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White people on the internet: A mermaid who doesn't have white skin and red hair will be an ATTACK on our history!
Medieval Europeans:
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My students are reading the description of the Black Death from Boccaccio’s Decameron next week, and I gotta say, this account of how some people in Florence treated the plague as an “enormous joke” and ignored it feels....timely.
#MedievalTwitter
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Thread: did you know that smiling had different connotations in the European Middle Ages? I discovered this in Kim Philips' amazing article "The Grins of Others" for
@postmedieval
: grinning with your teeth was a sign of animality and racialized aggression.
#MedievalTwitter
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White people: ......
Medieval Europeans:
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How tired are you, on a scale of medieval owls? A
#MedievalTwitter
thread:
1: Honestly too awake. That last cup of coffee was a mistake.
(BL, MS Additional 42130, f. 52r)
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This lion is trying to hold it together even though the one white man on their panel is going WAY over his allotted time.
(BL MS Sloane 1975, f. 80v)
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After Dante Alighieri was exiled in 1302, he spent his isolation writing the Divine Comedy, a poem about Dante's favorite poet showing Dante all his enemies in Hell.
Don't be afraid to use social isolation to write the petty, self-insert fanfic of your dreams.
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Seriously, though, the racist and sexist misappropriation of "Viking" civilization and culture is completely inauthentic and based on the modern sexism and white supremacy of the people who practice it.
See this piece by
@dorothyk98
:
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Currently obsessed with angry Amazon reviews of Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles written by men who thought it was a general historical novel about Ancient Greece and then discovered it was Gay.
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I've been thinking lately about how being a queer scholar of medieval sexuality almost inevitably working with homophobic sources. Not the medieval ones (homophobia doesn't seem the right word for their hostility to same-sex acts): the scholarly ones.
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The British Museum is SO confused.
"why are the ladies acting like they're MARRIED?!"
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This lion would like a night away from the kids, please.
(BL MS Sloane 3544, f. 1)
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White people on the internet: Look, if you look back at European folklore, you will SEE that mermaids are white!
Medieval European folklore:
(Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 1511)
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Americans! Wondering what German socialized healthcare is like? I went to the Dr recently & didn’t have my insurance card, so I paid out of pocket. They apologized repeatedly, promised the money back & had me sign a form saying I knew why I was charged SO MUCH.
It cost €10.72
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Hi, new followers! 👋 I mostly post medieval sex facts, manuscript pictures, and stuff about racism in the Middle Ages (and in modern medieval studies)!
Celebrating 17k followers with this classic diagram of how to avoid sinful sex, according to the early medieval penitentials.
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#AcademicTwitter
, I have a job market question: where on the CV is it appropriate to list that one has the patronage of the esteemed Lady Catherine de Bourgh?
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I love how every single study about octopuses is just completely wild.
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The king basically says, "Oh, then she must have had sex with her husband beforehand, and the semen fell into your womb during your 'tumbling.'"
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The second 16th-century version (this one in prose) is my FAVORITE, because, in this version, the woman tells the king that her lover had sex with her bc her lover's husband couldn't satisfy her (unlike the woman, who def could).
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This lion wishes those kids would get down from there without making it yell.
(BL MS Harley 4903, f. 135)
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I am SCREAMING at this medieval depiction of Lot's wife bc the illustrator added animals licking her to show that she really turned into a pillar of salt.
(Morgan Library, MS M268, f. 004v)
#MedievalTwitter
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Remember that one of the results of the Black Death was peasants organizing to force landlords and the government to pay them better, end serfdom, and give them more rights.
Don’t be afraid to let this pandemic radicalize you to change society for the better.
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Marginal figure drags a piece of text that the scribe forgot to copy into its rightful place.
(British Library, MS Arundel 38, f. 65)
#MedievalTwitter
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Immediately, a MAN FALLS OUT OF THE SKY. He introduces himself as a priest who made a deal with a demon. The demons had been carrying him through the air for 7 years, but they were overhead when the king was speaking, & the truth made the demons scatter, freeing the priest.
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Awww this got popular 🥰 Don’t have a Soundcloud but please consider donating to RAICES to support their work helping refugees and working to reunite separated immigrant families:
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Bernadette Brooten was the first to suggest that Fonteia Eleusis and Fonteia Helena were women married to each other. Brooten's book Love Between Woman has a lot of evidence for marriages in Roman areas (especially Egypt!) in antiquity.
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But medieval theologians had the bigger problem: cannibal babies. What if 2 cannibals eat you & they have a baby, made entirely out of substance from consumed flesh? How will God resurrect the baby & you if you are made of the SAME MATTER? Will the baby's substance turn into you?
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Archaeologists studying the burials of Norse invaders in early England often determined sex by whether they were buried with jewelry or weapons/equestrian equipment. But, when they osteologically sex the bones, they find some Norse women were buried with weapons and horse stuff.
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Tired: The Middle Ages were repressive.
Wired: Medieval people practiced sex magic.
A quick thread on medieval aphrodisiacs, love spells, and sex magic!
(Paris, Bibliothèque National, MS Fr. 25526)
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As several people have noted, Abassid traveler Ahmad Ibn Fadlan's 921 account of the Vikings (who he called the Rus) and their cleanliness does NOT inspire confidence (see these two excerpts I've put together). They *are* washing themselves and combing, but....
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The thing I love about medieval dragons in European manuscripts is that so many of the drawings are smol and cute. This is a silly
#MedievalTwitter
thread of smol, adorable dragons.
(Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS W.37, f. 128r))
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