Religious respite: monks bring light relief to the Macclesfield psalter

Medieval books were copied by hand and richly illustrated or 'illuminated' by skilled artists. This usually happened in monasteries, yet the monks delighted in filling the margins of the religious books they produced with cheeky, bawdy images. The Macclefield psalter, a masterpiece of English illumination, was created in 14th-century East Anglia. Among its many joyous marginalia, rabbits joust and animals play the organ. How did such irreverence relate to the Christian words of the psalter? It was a holiday, a rest for the reader and the artist. Illustration: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge