Why a Butt Trumpet Playing Man and Other Unusual Images Appeared in Margins of Medieval Manuscripts
In an enlightening TED-Ed lesson written by Michelle Brown and animated by Wow-How Studios, narrator Adrian Dannatt explains how unusual illustrations, such as a man playing a butt trumpet, came to be so prevalent in so many of the illuminated manuscripts of medieval times. As it turns out, these deliberately obtuse drawings were meant to be interpreted as stories, parables, omens, and even political commentary, though which of these interpretations were ultimately up to the reader.
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