Studying the Relationship Between Illustrations and Text to Reveal the Mentality of Medieval People

I specialize in the study of medieval European literature, with a focus on Britain. In particular, I have recently been concentrating on the study of illustrated books. I investigate the relationship between illustrations and text in 14th- and 15th-century manuscripts and in books printed shortly after Gutenberg.

The most popular illustrated books of that time were prayer books for lay Christians called Books of Hours. They compiled prayers and psalms and were used as guides for faith and worship. While it is natural that illustrations depicted the life of Christ, the margins also contained things like playful, cartoon-like drawings completely unrelated to the text, obscene pictures, and romances or stories from ancient Rome depicted like a serial drama. At first glance, these seem to have no connection to the main text, but by considering the metaphorical meanings embedded in the illustrations, we can clarify their intent and see their relationship with the text. This kind of research requires a wide range of knowledge, including not only medieval literature and the cultural history of Christianity but also book history, art history, and iconography.

Illustrations directly or indirectly influence the reader's interpretation of a work. To put it another way, by analyzing the relationship between illustrations and text, we can see how readers interpreted the work. Through the books of that era, I delve into the mentality of medieval people. That is where I find the fascination of this research.

I also study Chaucer's 14th-century "Canterbury Tales," and I hope to unearth traces of how the work was read and reflect that in its interpretation.

In "The Canterbury Tales," people of various social standings and occupations take turns telling stories they know. The genres of these stories are diverse, and some include obscene tales. Nineteenth-century readers disliked the obscene tales and sometimes removed them from the book, but in the 20th century, conversely, only the obscene tales were sometimes translated or adapted into films. Modern readers thus have a tendency to rank the tales and read them selectively. Medieval readers, however, read the tales they wanted in the order they wanted. While in modern times literature came to be seen as something lofty, in the Middle Ages, readers enjoyed works more freely according to their own criteria.

A work is created by its author, but each reader rereads it with their own background. When a work is read by many people across different eras and regions, the readers can expand the world of the work and cause the work itself to grow significantly. I want to continue studying this kind of relationship between the reader and the work.