About the Project

Introduction

We are not strangers to monstrosity in our modern times. From novels to films, television to videogames, and everything that falls in, around, or between– monsters abound throughout contemporary media. Modern monsters come in all forms, from grotesque, prowling beasts to dreamy love interests, and the incredible diversity among these portrayals indicate an ongoing fascination with the ever-amorphous monstrous other. For as much as we are repulsed or terrified by monstrosity, so too are we enthralled and captivated by it, constantly creating new monsters to engage with. That we are so compelled by monstrosity is nothing new, as human interest in monsters has a history dating back centuries.

Though monsters have roamed the landscape of the human imagination for time immemorial, we turn our attention here to the monsters of medieval Europe. Dragons, griffins, giants, and more readily come to mind as emblematic of medieval monstrosity. However, these monsters can be understood to represent far more than mere flights of fancy. In “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” Jeffrey Jerome Cohen states that “[t]he monstrous body is pure culture” (6). That is to say: a monster is never solely a monster, but rather, a representation of the fears, desires, anxieties, fantasies, and other latent sentiments of the culture that created its body. The monster does not emerge from a vacuum, but rather, is shaped by human hands– and the shape of a monster should indicate something about the humans who brought it into existence.

With Cohen’s theoretical framework in mind, we can more closely consider the matter of medieval marginalia. Just as monstrosity lingers on the fringes of human civilization, so too does marginalia linger on the fringes of human creation. Medieval marginalia, the product of monks and scribes and illuminators choosing to leave a personal mark in the margins of their manuscripts, offer insight into the people who lived centuries ago. Medieval marginalia comes in all forms, from ornate page bordering to brief personal annotations, but among the medieval marginalia that we have record of, a not insignificant amount contain depictions of monsters. Strange creatures who are both man and beast, enormous sea monsters terrorizing monks on boats, and of course, staple monsters like dragons and griffins, frequently populate the margins of medieval manuscripts. While this monstrous marginalia is occassionally relevant to the text nearby it, such as in the case of bestiaries, just as often it has nothing to do with the words actually on the parchment. Regardless of whether the monster in the margins is relavent to the text on the page– but especially in the case of those that are not connected to the text– a human scribe or illuminator chose to take the time to draw them there. This choice to draw a monster, even when that monster is not relevant to the text in the manuscript, speaks to humanity’s persistent fixation on monstrosity, and begs us to ask: what is it about monsters that transfixes us so?

Project Description

Of course, the question above is one that is too large for any one project to answer. However, even a small-scale project such as this one can provide a place to start. Monstrous Marginalia is a collection of 51 images of monsters in medieval marginalia, built by utilizing Wax as a website base for a digital exhibition. The collection items in Monstrous Marginalia were sourced from the British Library and the Bodleian Library’s digital collections of medieval manuscripts. Monstrous Marginalia was constructed bearing in mind the terms of reuse delineated by both the British Library and the Bodleian Library. The British Library’s Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts was kindly made available under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. The Bodleian Library’s Collection of Western Medieval Manuscripts was kindly made available under a Creative Commons non-commercial license, with attribution (CC-BY-NC 4.0).

Though Monstrous Marginalia is a small collection, its contents are curated to demonstrate an assortment of monstrous marginalia across a variety of different manuscripts. Items are labeled based on what monster is depicted in the marginalia, the name of the manuscript it is found in, and the item shelfmark of its current repository. Each item is “tagged” with the monster it depicts, so that users can navigate the collection with ease. Where the tag system falls short, users can utilize the website’s search feature for more specific queries.

The process of selecting items for this collection was, admittedly, a very subjective one. The subject matter also complicates the matter. As Cohen so aptly puts it, “The monster always escapes because it refuses easy categorization” (6). The nature of monstrosity is to defy taxonomic standards. It can be difficult, at times, to determine exactly what kind of creature the marginalia is depicting. Moreover, what counts as a monster for the purposes of this project? A tentative list of criteria for inclusion (or exclusion) will be presented below, in order to transparently document the methodology of this project, but ultimately, monstrosity is a fluid concept that will always fall to subjective discernment over objective standards.

Collection Item Criteria

1. The marginalia must depict a monstrous creature. For this project, the term “monstrous” refers to physically non-human or not-fully-human creatures that are not readily identified as extant flora or fauna. This working definition thus includes grotesque hybrids, but excludes anthropomorphized animals (e.g. a monkey playing a trumpet, dogs depicted as clergy). There is also enough leeway in this definition to include mythical creatures that may have been interpretations of extant animals (e.g. a unicorn may be an interpretation of a rhinoceros, a serra may be an interpretation of a large, deep ocean fish).
2. The item is dated around the years of 500 - 1500 A.D. This criterion is fairly self-explanatory, as the scope of this project is to collect medieval marginalia.
3. The monster depicted is not part of a decorated initial. Medieval manuscripts are well-known for their illuminated initials– elaborately decorated letters that begin a new section of a manuscript. These come in a variety of forms, and occassionally feature monsters as decorative motifs. Such items were not included in this collection, as this project is more focused on monsters that are quite literally in the margins. Illuminated initials that feature monsters can technically count as marginalia, but their function as decorative motifs is much more clear, as opposed to monsters that seem to have just been drawn beside text not at all relevant to them. By no means are the depictions of monsters in illuminated initials any less important, valuable, or interesting; They simply do not fall into the specific scope of this project. In a similar vein, monsters that appear in decorative borders pose a similar dilemma. However, since those decorative borders do fall in the margins, they do occupy something of a gray area in this matter. As such, some items that featured monsters in decorative borders were included in this collection, but these items are the exception, not the rule.
4. An item was given preference if it featured a monstrous marginalia that was unrelated to the text on the page. Instances of a monster in the margin of a page where the text of that page had nothing to do with the monster depicted were given preference during the process of selecting items for these collection. This is entirely a subjective preference, as I feel these particular instances of monstrous marginalia are the most thought-provoking, especially given the intentions of this project. Items that featured monstrous marginalia where the monster depicted was referenced in adjacent text were still included, provided that the monster was indeed in the margins, and not framed or otherwise centered in the text.
5. The marginalia does not feature two different kinds of monster. This criterion is more related to technical matters than any subjective preference. In short, I was unsure if the “tagging” feature would allow for one item to have multiple “tags.” In order to bypass this issue and avoid potential coding catastrophe, I only included items that feature either one monster or multiple monsters of the same “type.” There are two items in the collection that are technically the same instance of marginalia, but entered as separate items to avoid the issue of double tagging. This is the only exception to this criterion. Future updates to the site may feature items with multiple tags if Wax can support it.

The items collected for this project were then collected into a Google Spreadsheet. This speadsheet was constructed using the Wax Demo Template as a guide, though I modified or added several fields for the purposes of this project. The field I modified was the “object_type” field, which I included as the “monster_type” field. I then added two fields: “language” and “marginalia_description.” All the metadata fields used for the Monstrous Marginalia spreadsheet are defined and explained below.

Metadata Fields

1. pid: The Persistent ID for a collection item. Each collection item receives a unique pid. This is a required field for use with Wax.
2. label: Each collection item receives a “label” that effectively serves as its title on the site. Items in Monstrous Marginalia’s collection are labeled according to what monster is featured and the source manuscript. Thus, most labels follow the general structure of “(Monster Name) from (Manuscript Name/Title/Descriptor) (Item Shelfmark).” This is a required field for use with Wax. Labels utilize apostrophes (‘) and not quotation marks (“) because the latter cause errors with the collection display.
3. monster_type: This field serves as the collection’s “tagging” system, in that each collection item is “tagged” with whatever monster it features. These tags are intended to be specific descriptors, but in certain cases the tag operates as more of an umbrella tag (e.g. the “sea monster” tag, or the “hybrid” tag). That which is monstrous tends to defy taxonomic structures, so these tags are a subjective but earnest attempt to make the collection more navigable. In the case of items tagged with umbrella tags, the marginalia_description field describes the monster in more specific detail.
4. artist: The artist of the marginalia. This field does not refer to the author of the work, though it may be attributed to the scribe who created the manuscript. More often than not, this field is marked as unknown, as it is difficult to ascertain who actually drew in the manuscript margin. The information in this field is sourced from the collection item’s catalogue entry at its current repository.
5. location: The country of origin for the collection item. The information in this field is sourced from the collection item’s catalogue entry at its current repository.
6. language: The language used in the collection item. The information in this field is sourced from the collection item’s catalogue entry at its current repository.
7. _date: An approximate date for the creation of the collection item. The information in this field is sourced from the collection item’s catalogue entry at its current repository.
8. current_location: The current repository of the collection item.
9. source: A link to the current repository’s catalogue entry for the collection item.
10. marginalia_description: A description of the marginalia featured in the collection item. The information in this field should name what monster is featured, what that monster is depicted doing, and other items of note in the marginalia. The information in this field is sourced from the collection item’s catalogue entry at its current repository.
11. order: Each collection item is numbered in this field, beginning with zero.
12. layout: This field determines what layout will be utilized for the creation of a unique item page. As Monstrous Marginalia is a single collection, “mmcoll_item” is used for every collection item.
13. collection: This field is generated by Wax.
14. thumbnail: This field is generated by Wax.
15. full: This field is generated by Wax.
16. manifest This field is generated by Wax.

The CSV can be downloaded or viewed below:

Once information was collected to fill the fields for each object, the spreadsheet was exported to a CSV, which Wax utilizes to build a collection’s pages. Once that was done, I utilized the tutorial provided on the Minicomp/Wax Wiki to build the site through my Terminal. After testing a locally-hosted prototype many times, I uploaded all the contents to the GitHub repository for this project.

Afterword

Titling this section “Afterword” as opposed to “Conclusion” felt a more thematically appropriate choice, as this project is an incredibly open-ended one. Monstrous Marginalia is a small collection of medieval marginalia that depicts monsters, compiled and curated so that site users can explore the collection and begin to wonder, on their own terms, about the nature of monsters that humans created centuries and centuries ago. If a monster is never just a monster, then what meaning do the monsters in this collection carry with them to us in our present moment? It is a line of questioning that has no conclusion– but wondering is, in and of itself, a means for us to connect back to our past. Whether a site user is new to depictions of medieval monstrosity or a kindred spirit in loving the monstrous, it is my hope that this little menagerie of monsters in medieval marginalia might offer a unique experience to engage with monstrosity from an era long past.