Killer Rabbits in Medieval Manuscripts | Hacker News Reader

Killer Rabbits in Medieval Manuscripts

openculture.com

123 pointslelf55 comments

My great aunt wrote some of the original scholarship on this type of marginalia: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5064937-images-in-the-ma...

It's a shame that she is not mentioned. In answer to one of the other posters wondering about Monty Python, the answer is yes. She told me that Eric Idle or possibly Terry Jones (?) at one point had a fascination with these illustrations and I believe they corresponded. In any case, it wasn't just the rabbit sketch - some of the interstitial animations between skits are taken directly from tropes in these drawings.

Terry Gilliam, most likely.

Indeed - I asked her yesterday and it was Terry Gilliam.

> like a barber with a wooden leg (which, for reasons that escape me, was the height of medieval comedy)

Surely this is no great mystery? Barbers acted as amateur surgeons across the mediaeval world. They'd typically be the ones amputating the limbs, not the ones having amputated...

Barbers acted as professional surgeons across the world until surgery became a formalized profession. Maybe 200 years ago at best?

Correct. No self-respecting "doctor" wanted anything to do with the messy business of surgery.

I found The Devil's Doctor by Philip Ball to be an interesting book on this sort of thing.

This is more of a ex-British empire thing, but at least some surgeons I have heard of in Australia insist, among medical company, of being called "Mister" not "Doctor", to set them apart from "mere doctors".

I think this is a formal distinction in the UK, but in Australia I think both groups can be called Dr.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119265/

It is also to do with the doctor-patient relationship. The surgeon-patient relationship is far more limited. A patient is refered to a surgeon by a doctor for a specific treatment.

In the UK the 'Dr' title is dropped for a doctor who has risen to become a consultant. Never heard of it working that way for surgeons

Are you sure? I've met lots of consultants who are titled Doctor.

You might be right - could be the consultants I've encountered gave all been surgeons.

> but in Australia I think both groups can be called Dr.

They can be called Dr, but will respond with a snippy "Mr Smith" if you do it.

Considering that in the pre-medchem era (i.e. until 1935 when sulphonamides entered the field) surgery was the only field of medicine that actually worked, this is strange. Physicians could diagnose patients just fine since before the days of Papyrus Eber, but the treatment options were very limited.

> Physicians could diagnose patients just fine since before the days of Papyrus Eber, but the treatment options were very limited.

Can you elaborate on this? Until germ theory and lesion theory, western medicine lacked the concept of etiology of disease, limiting the ability to accurately and consistently diagnose disease. Doctors operated within a Galenic framework and relied heavily, if not exclusively, on uroscopy for diagnosis (hence diabetes mellitus -- to pass through sweet urine).

> surgery was the only field of medicine that actually worked

"War is the only proper school for surgeons." -- Hippocrates

Doctors, following Hippocratic and Galenic traditions, would refuse to perform surgery, due to its usage of knives and causing harm to the patient. Even the study of anatomy by means of human dissection was discouraged until the 16th century, when Vesalius and others published their landmark works. Prior anatomical publications (such as those by Leonardo da Vinci) likely presented dissections of other animals as if they were human, due to the presence of structures such as the rete mirabile.

In the absence of antibiotics, surgery was a risky, and frequently lethal procedure. One surgery famously led to the death of 3 people. Before the advent of chloroform in the 1800s, there was no way for surgeons to effectively anesthetize subjects. Consequently, surgery was not looked upon favorably, nor considered a reliable medical practice.

They were probably doing equivalent things until more recently. My local barber has a retro sign hanging in his shop that looks to be an antique one from a barber shop probably in the 1800's. It lists 'tooth pulling' as one of the activities alongside har cutting and shaving etc.

Strangely, the tooth extraction didn't cost much more than a shave & a haircut - I wonder what sort of anaesthetic was used!? :)

Alcohol. Which wasn't so much an anesthetic as it made the person unable to get up and flee.

I learned recently that the red stripe on the barber poles symbolises blood. Not something I expected.

They also seem to miss a fairly obvious reason for the fearsome but humorous rabbits and snails:

Farmers, as most monks were, do not get on horseback and fight dragons but instead get on their knees and wage war with small rodents and snails that eat the fruits of their garden.

It's self deprecation. In annals recounting heroic deeds and legends, we have monks illustrating their own epic battles (and defeats) at the hands of the dastardly hares. Those fruit stealing @#$%s.

It double as a counterpoint to the notion of saintly innocent white bunnies, too.

"Christ bunnies me arse, little buggers will find themselves on their own cross if I catch them in me cloves again."

Let us never forget the Jimmy Carter rabbit incident.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident

I think that article overestimates the number of people that saw "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" in the USA when it came out.

I don't know, it was a pretty big deal. A major film.

Not in the USA[1] in 1975[2]

1) https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Monty-Python-and-the-Holy-...

2) https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/domestic/all-...

But it was the CBS late night movie in 1977. Also, the wikipedia page just says "some people" -- not sure that "overestimates" the number of people who would have been aware of killer bunnies.

Yeah, I'm thinking a movie that aired on CBS starting at 11:30 p.m (ET/PT) in 1977 probably wasn't well watched even in the 3 (or 4) channel era.

The Wikipedia writer wanted to put Monty Python in the article and ignored the actual history and provided no actual link or cited source of the link.

Where did you live in 1977 that only had 3 channels? I was in the greater LA media market and I think we received about 20 terrestrial channels counting all the UHF. About every other VHF channel picked something up.

Also, my recollection is that TV airing of movies that were a couple of years old was a bfd back then. My father worked 2pm to 10pm in 1977 and he and my mom were huge monty python fans, so I bet they watched it.

It also aired on PBS, the dates are not in the wikipedia article, but by the time the Carter incident became public it might have aired a few times.

And 1975 is when Monty Python started to show on public television in the US (vs 1969 on BBC). I was only 7 in 1979, but I know we as a family watched flying circus when it aired (I didn't control the TV during prime time, but flying circus, dr who, nova, macneil lehrer newshour, some business news show, and yoga are all shows I remember watching with my parents on PBS) https://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/26/archives/monty-pythons-fl...

A 1979 NYT article called it a "killer rabbit" https://www.nytimes.com/1979/08/30/archives/a-tale-of-carter...

I find it hard to believe there were not any people who made some humorous connections between the killer rabbit of caerbannog and the killer rabbit of a Plains, Georgia pond.

Cable wasn't much of a thing outside the big metros until the 80's. Most of the rural area in 75 had over the air. LA and NYC were there own world, and it showed from some of the writings of the time.

Someone might have, but it sure wasn't enough to justify the entry, and given the author didn't cite a source, I'm pretty sure it was just the author.

I didn't say anything about cable. From what I know of the history of cable, it started for places that were geographically isolated from receiving terrestrial broadcast (because of a valley of whatever). Terrestrial == over-the-air. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_television

Not sure why they NYT would have called it a "killer rabbit" if it was not a monty python reference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Lepus

The killer rabbit needs to be the next zombie fad. Hollywould can do nothing but remakes, let's have a modern CGI extravaganza remake of this please.

In the meantime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombeavers

If I ever somehow acquire a Bill Gates level fortune, my plan is to use it to fund a secret research program tasked with using genetic engineering to create the low level monsters from assorted MMORPGS and figuring out how to set up self-sustaining breeding populations of them in the wild near towns.

Offhand, I can't think of an MMORPG that had low level killer rabbits (zombie or not). It's mostly giant snakes, giant bats, giant rats, small orcs, small goblins, small kobolds, small gnolls, small gelatinous cubes, and things like that. (Skeletons are also common, but they don't seem feasible except as robotic skeletons).

However, I'll add killer rabbits, as they would fit right in.

Prior art: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Lepus

I am reminded of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sheep_(2006_New_Zealand_...

oh thank you for reminding me of that, Netflix has it now.

Is it behind the rabbit?

Run away!

I never would have thought that the Pythons were inspired by medieval meme culture...

It’s got fangs! Look at the bones!!

What's he do, nibble your bum?

They were mostly fancy lads and lasses from Oxford and Cambridge so I shan't be too surprised.

Oh they absolutely were. Their research into the time periods in which they wrote sketches was often far better than that of "serious" films and TV series. Notably, Terry Jones has had a deep professional and personal interest in medieval literature and art his whole life. I'd bet good money on his being intimately familiar with medieval killer rabbits when they worked on Holy Grail.

Would it...help to confuse it if we run away more?

This is a reference to the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_of_Caerbannog) in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in case you're unfamiliar with this very well-known meme. It's a hilarious scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmu5sRIizdw).

Wikipedia entry states "The idea for the rabbit in the movie was taken from the façade of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. This illustrates the weakness of cowardice by showing a knight fleeing from a rabbit."

I watched the movie with my son (11) a few weeks ago, and was wondering if he'd enjoy the sometimes dry humor: he loved it, esp. the questioning at the Bridge of Death.

Apparently there are three (maybe two?) knights chasing rabbits in the stonework of the facade, and another in the stained glass of the west rose window:

http://www.geekybob.com/pictures/Killer_Rabbits-8x6.jpg

Were, I guess.

Are:

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/15/europe/notre-dame-artifac...

I have to link this one instead. It's the same as yours, excepting that thou proceeds to the Holy Hand Grenade scene. https://youtu.be/QM9Bynjh2Lk

My son is also 11 and a Monty Python virgin. Thanks for reminding me of this necessary cultural education and that it will be at least semi age-appropriate. Damn I'm looking forward to both watching it again myself and watching him watching it.

And, depending upon his reaction it, on to Life of Brian in order to cement critical thinking skills against any future attempts to recruit him into lifelong religious servitude (and of course learning the details of latin grammar).

Hare-raising stuff.

“Drolleries sometimes also depicted comedic scenes, like a barber with a wooden leg (which, for reasons that escape me, was the height of medieval comedy) or a man sawing a branch out from under himself“

... because how could the barber amputate his own leg? Ahaha...

I'm getting a "403 Forbidden" on this link.

Screen: https://screenshots.firefox.com/iVgcEiymPOnHrmIX/www.opencul...

I thought this was Inkulinati by Yaza Games for a second https://mobile.twitter.com/YazaGames

The only defense was the Holy Handgranade.

Indeed they recently found an unexplored one and hat to shut several streets:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/pub-is-closed-by-monty-pytho...

Similarly they shut down an Underground station on finding an alien foetus:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/nov/04/5

I suppose they’re taught not to think in case they make a mistake

Then it appeared in the Worms. https://youtu.be/4dKnnUcNrwU

Where it is the weapon with by far the biggest blast radius, but alas you only get one per game under the default settings.

These look more like hares to me.

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