A couple of medieval scholars are arguing over a dick pic. Apparently, the Bayeux tapestry depicts more than just a battle — it has numerous images of penises.
The Oxford professor George Garnett drew worldwide interest six years ago when he announced he had totted up 93 penises stitched into the embroidered account of the Norman conquest of England.
According to Garnett, 88 of the male appendages are attached to horses and the remainder to human figures.
OK, so a handful of warriors were flopping out of their gear, and the tapestry artists were careful to include that detail. The debate is over how many people had a wardrobe malfunction.
Now, the historian and Bayeux tapestry scholar Dr Christopher Monk – known as the Medieval Monk – believes he has found a 94th.
A running man, depicted in the tapestry border, has something dangling beneath his tunic. Garnett says it is the scabbard of a sword or dagger. Monk insists it is a male member.
I’ll let you decide. Here’s the figure in contention. Penis or dagger?
“I am in no doubt that the appendage is a depiction of male genitalia – the missed penis, shall we say. The detail is surprisingly anatomically fulsome,” Monk said.
Heh. “Anatomically fulsome” — I’ll say. That thing is hanging down to his knees and is so massive that he’s got to run with his legs spread wide. I wonder if it was stitched by his girlfriend.
I can see where the confusion arises. The human warrior pictured obviously has the 89th horse dick.
Protective athletic cup. This is clearly an early form of baseball, in which players wielded two bats. Not shown from this tapestry: there were also two pitchers throwing fastballs at the same time.
Sports were so much cooler in medieval times.
I mean, come on, you can even see his f’ing glans! It might be fulsome, but it sure is an anatomically accurate depiction!
speak softly and carry three big sticks
Male aardvarks drag their junk near the ground. A hybrid?
I’m not so sure. Look at the color — black with a red tip. If that’s a dick, it’s a sick dick.
“black with a red tip”
Artistic freedom I’d say. White dick on white canvas would have looked way less impressive.
I attended some of Garnett’s lectures back in my postgrad days.. None of them were this exciting.
I’d say that it’s entirely possible it was meant to “really” be a scabbard or dagger sheath, while just accidentally being in a hilariously phallic place as a joke. Medieval folk were as fond of dick jokes as we are, probably more so.
rorschach, #3 – Very unlikely to be the glans. Circumcision was virtually unknown in England in the 11th Century, outside of Jewish communities who were not allowed to fight in the king’s armies. It’s still vanishingly rare here even now. My guess is that the reddish bit is the metal reinforcing tip on a dagger sheath that prevents the pointed tip of the dagger from damaging the leather.
But it’s a nice reminder that Medieval Europeans had very different sensibilities and hang-ups than we do today. Nudity and public sexuality was, for the most part, seen as a sign of knockabout silliness rather than ghastly shame in most Medieval European cultures. There was still a strong post-Roman association of phallic symbols with warding magic and power against evil, to the extent that even some pilgrimage centres made lead souvenirs of phalloi (often with legs or wings or their own little mini-phalloi underneath) for pilgrims to remember the saint’s cult by. We’ve found many of these in Canterbury at the Beckett shrine, for instance.
Also, a lot of the human penises on the Bayeux Tapestry are on the corpses of the slain that have been stripped by their enemies and their clothes looted. Not exactly the most erotic of contexts.
Mind you, it isn’t even a tapestry (it’s an embroidery – the patterns on a tapestry are woven in as the material is made on the loom, here they’re stitched onto plain cloth afterwards) and probably wasn’t made in Bayeux (a lot of people think it was probably made in Kent, it gets its name because it was commissioned by William I’s kinsman, Odo of Bayeux).
also, go and do a google search for “mediaeval penis tree” to see a fun manuscript illumination of a nun collecting giant cocks from a tree in a basket.
So.. first example of someone comparing war with a dick measuring contest? lol
“Circumcision was virtually unknown in England in the 11th Century, outside of Jewish communities who were not allowed to fight in the king’s armies.”
There you go, I learned something today! If somewhat niche…:-)
A scabbard? Worn underneath the kilt? Seems like it would make it difficult to draw one’s, ummm, weapon. Also, did medieval men wear underwear or was going commando the fashion of the day?
Looks like an Uzi to me.
Larry., #13,
I think the theory is that the scabbard is actually on the left side of the man’s body, and thus behind him from the viewer’s perspective as we’re looking at his right-hand side. So it would be mostly concealed behind his tunic, with only the bottom few inches visible.
As for mediaeval underwear – not an easy question to answer. I doubt there was any great consensus across Mediaeval Europe, either temporally or geographically, what to do about underclothes, and little was written on the subject at the time. We don’t really have archaeological survivals of underwear before about the 15th Century, and only one or two that early, though given how perishable thin cloth from the time was, we wouldn’t expect to have any. There was no great cultural imperative either towards or away from undergarments, and we know the Romans made considerable use of them (subiacula, which could be simple loincloths or something a bit more like our briefs), so it seems unlikely the practice would have died out entirely. We have a little evidence from artistic representations in paintings and sculptures, and some written accounts that hint at underclothes, but just like today people weren’t all that interested in the topic and didn’t tend to write important books about pants and their significance.
What makes you so sure it wasn’t a boyfriend that stitched it on?
I’m not buying it. Not because I doubt there are dicks on the tapestry, but why is it black? Rhe rest of the figure is embroidered white, so the black thing is obviously not supposed to be flesh.
From Spike Milligan “Is anything worn under the kilt? No, it’s all in perfect working order.”
cartomancer, you are an education in yourself! Thank you for the mini-dissertation – fascinating. And, of course a scabbard would be on the left for most people, but that’s not obvious to us in these scabbardless days.
As a needleworker (of only moderate skill) I will add that it is easy to lose control of the shape-iness of things when doing free embroidery. After reading the comments and looking back at the image, I wonder if the needle-plier, checking her work on the scabbard, then added the two circle-ish bits at the back for fun.
I would go with a rectal prolapse perhaps sustained from a sword. Explains the redness quite well. And the darkness too.
Some kind of side-arm.
Welcome, Time Traveler, to the Battle of Hastings!
Looks like some sort of Star Wars-y laser gun. Pew pew!
That is clearly a Rubber Glock Handgun.
Right shape, right color.
Larry, @ #13: He’s not wearing a kilt. The kilt wasn’t invented until about 500 years later, in a completely different culture – and the type of kilt you’re thinking of wasn’t invented until another two or three centuries after that.
I tend to agree with the scabbard idea, but at first glance it reminded me of the bit in Steven Berkoff’s play ‘East’ when two east end of London lads are comparing the size of their equipment. It culminates in one declaring that his balls are so large he has to pick each up in turn in order to be able to walk, and his dick is as wide as his hips. In context it was very funny.
I’m not say Aliens, but it’s definitely not aliens.
It’s hard to say what it is without other penile examples from the piece. But those look like testicles next to it.
As far as exaggeration of images of penii to a fulsome degree, look at any gay porn. We do it now, of course they did it then.
What is Trump doing underneath that warrior?
If it was meant to be a scabbard, why aren’t there two, one on each side since he has two weapons.
I still think its a bollock dagger worn handle down. Mostly because that means it is both a dagger and a phallus
Does the arachnology world have such debates, like the number of spider dicks?
All due respect, but nothing on the Bayeux tapestry is anatomically correct, nor was it intended to be.
His nose looks more phallic than that gangrenous mass does.
Nope, never thought this was meant to be a dick in any way. Of course we can never know for sure, but looks to me like something affixed to the side and hanging below the garment. I kind of doubt exposing your wang in open battle would be a good idea.
C’mon everybody, he is going to battle. It’s a Magnum .44. Anybody can see that.
@dangerousbeans #31:
The Battle of Hastings predates bollock daggers by a couple of centuries.