Conundrum in a letter I
Decorators of medieval books loved to create humorous situations on the page. The producer of this 12th-century book painting was particularly successful. While he needed to produce a tall letter “I”, the start of the Latin word “Intellectus”, he replaced the letter in question with a tree. The individual high up in the tree has just finished cutting down the branches so that the tree resembles the letter in question. At the bottom stands a second individual: unaware of the trimmer above him, he is about to chop down the tree.
Medieval monks looking at this scene had a great time. Not only were they presented with a kind of in-your-face fun of a tree replacing an “I”, but they were also faced with the more subtle humour presented by the lower figure. He is right to chop down the tree for it has no place on the page: the book was made in a Cistercian monastery, where such excessive book decoration was explicitly forbidden. However, if he is successful the word “intellectus” will be left incomplete, which is not desirable either. Thus to the monks this page presented a conundrum: either have a proper, treeless page, or keep the tree but be disobedient. Fortunately, the fate of the green giant was not in their hands.
Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, 173 (made in the year 1111).
