Humor & Jokes

We often wonder what our ancestors were like. Where the people of the middle ages of the 14th century bogged down in plague, famine, wars and survival? What were the people of 17th and 18th century Europe like? Where they forever fighting wars, or amusing themselves with court intrigue and hunts? While paintings of these periods give us religious or decorative information only, tapestries on the other hand give us a view into the world from the 13th century on.

While many hand woven tapestries from the middle ages are religious in nature, many were also woven for wealthy patrons who commissioned tapestries for their dank, dark castle walls. Many themes included leisure time of the lord with his ladies in gardens. Or other popular wall tapestry themes during this period in history were triumphant battle scenes of the lord, duke or king. The weavers of these tapestries were typically itinerant, meaning they moved from place to place setting up shop wherever there was a commission to be had. The weavers were also the artists, so when a wall hanging tapestry was commissioned, it was the weavers responsibility to produce the art work for approval prior to weaving the wall tapestry. Humor was instilled in these tapestry wall hanging designs, sometimes with or without the patron’s knowledge. For example, with a bit of ‘tongue in cheek’ the weaver may place himself in the opposing army of one of the battle scenes. Or he may place his wife as one of the servant ladies in one of the wall tapestry leisure scenes, forever captured on the lord’s castle wall.

As we move on in time, the 16th century onward produced many tapestries with hunt scenes, harvest scenes, village fetes (festivals), coat of arms and leisure garden scenes of the wealthy.

By the 16th century artists were hired to create the artwork to be made into hand woven tapestries. The weaver was no longer the artist, but was still considered a skilled craftsman who was paid handsomely for producing a woven tapestry. Weavers came with different skill sets, and by now belonged to guilds, with the guild mark woven into the selvage of the wall hanging tapestry. While the design for tapestries was approved for weaving by the patron commissioning the work, the weaver still had some artistic license to interpret the design as he saw fit. Again humor enters the world of tapestries. For example, it would not be unusual to find a dog at the front of an elegant hunt scene relieving his bowels, or in the distant background of an elegant garden scene with noble ladies and gentleman, a servant couple engaged in some heavy love-making, or a dog in an elaborate border of an elegant tapestry licking his genitals. Often the patron commissioning these tapestries would discover the ‘added art work’ only when the hanging tapestry was complete. And not lacking in humor themselves would find it amusing.

Sometimes humor was woven throughout the tapestries commissioned by the church or patron. A good example of this is the Apocalypse series of tapestries now resident in Anjou in France. Woven in the 1300- 1400’s ’s they not only predicted the end of the world, but the religious message was interspersed with bawdy humor throughout showing the average man along with their noble counterpart, in various ridiculous predicaments and situations. A series of musical tapestries from the early 18th century shows musicians playing various instruments â€" all of them looking a bit mad and in odd postures.

Tapestries not only provide us with historical, ecological, botanical, musical data, but give us an insight into the lives, loves and humor of the people throughout time.