Yoda’s Long Lost Twin Found in a 14th Century Illuminated Manuscript

In a new pic­ture book called Medieval Mon­sters, pub­lished by the British Library, his­to­ri­an Damien Kempf and art his­to­ri­an Maria L. Gilbert have gath­ered togeth­er illus­tra­tions that high­light the great mon­sters of the medieval world. Mon­sters were every­where, includ­ing “on the edges of man­u­script pages” and on “the fringes of maps.” The suc­ces­sor to Medieval Cats and Medieval Dogs, Medieval Mon­sters con­tains no short­age of fas­ci­nat­ing illus­tra­tions, includ­ing the one above. It looks remark­ably like Yoda, does­n’t it?

A British Library cura­tor told NPR, “The Yoda image comes from a 14th-cen­tu­ry man­u­script known as the Smith­field Dec­re­tals.”  “I’d love to say that it real­ly was Yoda, or was drawn by a medieval time trav­el­er.” But “it’s actu­al­ly an illus­tra­tion to the bib­li­cal sto­ry of Sam­son — the artist clear­ly had a vivid imag­i­na­tion!”

See more mon­sters at the British Library’s Medieval Man­u­scripts blog.

via NPR

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Medieval Cats Behav­ing Bad­ly: Kit­ties That Left Paw Prints … and Peed … on 15th Cen­tu­ry Man­u­scripts

Wear­able Books: In Medieval Times, They Took Old Man­u­scripts & Turned Them into Clothes

Won­der­ful­ly Weird & Inge­nious Medieval Books