Hilariously Inaccurate Medieval Art of Animals
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มิ.ย. 2024
- The funniest examples of medieval European paintings where the artist had clearly never seen the animal before.
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Medieval European art of animals often looked… a little different from the real-world species. European texts and illuminated manuscripts from this period are full of hilarious attempts to depict of far-off species, so here’s a breakdown of some of the most inaccurate - and most amusing - examples.
0:00 Intro
0:38 Elephant
0:58 Hippopotamus
1:24 Giraffe
1:42 Hyena
2:07 Tiger
2:40 Ostrich
3:24 Pelican
3:53 Whale
4:17 Dolphin
4:31 Sea Turtle
4:56 Crocodile
5:22 Scorpion
5:45 ???
6:13 Outro
Sources:
Animals in Medieval Art Overview - Melanie Holcomb: www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bes...
Medieval Elephants: blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscri...
Pelican Myth - Anastasia Pineschi : blogs.getty.edu/iris/the-peli...
Most images from Wikimedia Commons
♫ Music credit to Hooksounds ♫
#Medieval #History #Art
"So you say it lives in water?"
"Yes"
"Alright, fish it is then"
That’s actually true. On Fridays, Catholics aren’t allowed to eat any meat but fish, but during the Medieval period they still ate frogs and beavers because they could swim and swimming = fish.
@@ajzeg01 water birds got often also classified as fish 😂
Bruh...
"It lives on land?"
"Yes"
"Dog-cat-horse it is, then"
Capybara: "Guess I'm a fish"
when the only animals you've ever seen are cats, dogs, horses, and cows- everything is gonna look like a cat, a dog, a horse, or a cow
@naka Just because some Europeans saw them, doesn't mean the artist saw them.
Remember, they had no photographs or anything, just eye witness descriptions.
@naka that is like saying "I'm pretty sure everyone knows how to take care of a child cause they're all over the world, people only do the wrong thing because they just want to be bad parents" that simply isn't true
@@salt7625 yeah, information isn't naturally distributed equally. The information age has accompanied such a great proficiency for learning that from a modern chronocentric perspective it's difficult to dissociate the internet's ubiquitous influence and utilities because for many, it's practically intrinsic to life.
But that's an extremely modern bias.
Knowledge comes *to* us today, but before? The manics and academics searched *for* knowledge, at any cost.
Even among them their knowledge was sparse and fallacious, lectures and tabulated details were not perfect sources for information. Secondary sources will always be malleable, they can always be misinterpreted. That's not even calculating for a layperson's egocentric and limited explanations.
What could someone expect artists to do with eyewitness accounts, when even in the age of surveillance cameras eyewitnesses misremember details? Should they recreate perfect anatomy from the words of superstitious populations which have a track record for poetic misunderstanding?
Kinda... unlikely, to say the least.
Don’t forget fish
@@edgarrosales9873 birds and rodents too! lots i missed haha
A possible reason the turtles would have been depicted as having shells like that is because many Germanic language variations of their names derive from the word for "shield". For instance, in German, Swedish, Dutch and Danish it is known as a "shield-toad". Some artists of the time may have interpreted this name a little bit too literally.
Well, that is why we have to always stick to straight-forward names. "Blue-ringed octopus", no quarrel there at all.
@@yueshijoorya601 then the octopus gets drawn as a blue ring with 8 arms.
Still pretty stupid, considering turtles literally live in these lands up to this day.
@@yueshijoorya601 And then someone summons the ornithologists who name a bird either "black headed yellowbill" or "satanic nightjar"
@@aminadabbrulle8252 in which country for example? I live in Germany and I never saw a turtle
5:22 "Finally, at least this one looks more like what a crocodile would"
Narrator: "It's a scorpion".
That looks nothing like a crocodile
@@user-zp9nf5qo8j Fr, they should inform the artist.
I mean to be fair they were all results of people playing the longest game of Telephone on earth, as each animal was just described by one person to the other and so on. Eventually you get to really weird alien creatures thanks to people adding or removing details
That and also probably the first ones who saw the animals didn't see them clearly and so some details were lost and some added
This, just look at what the Chinese though lions looked like.
@@davidgusquiloor2665 what keywords i should search for i image that looks really interesting
@@antonioalbul00 As someone chinese I guess I'll give you a small telephone and leave it to your imagination, fluffy with a chinese dragon like head but a short snout, they have unicorn horns on them sometimes and lustrous eyelashes. They have mouths so large it spans from ear to ear, and somehow in the long lost myths they were golden and shiny or crimson red
@@crep1544 is that Haetae?
Traveler: "I saw this animal able to change colors, it was called a chameleon"
Monk: "Hm, colorful camel or lion. Got it."
That animals is not from here better not to tell where it from😏 keep it a secret is good
But how did they know camel?
Lmao
@@Hary0n fairly extensive trade between east and west even then
@@Hary0n camels live in Europe
5:43
Me: “Oh that one’s easy. That’s a horse!”
*”The Chameleon!”*
Me: “What the actual heck..”
Hey, it's blue and red at the same time, HOW did u not see its a chameleon
@@mymagnumDONGBecause… well… LOOK AT IT!! How is that a chameleon?! 💀💀
I was thinking of a Zebra 💀
@@osfex SAME!
@@mymagnumDONG the only way you can see it as chameleon is if u drunk
Despite all the inaccuracies, you gotta admit that those people can make some good drawings. And also I'd love to see a fantasy book or game with those designs
Good drawings lol?? They are so 2 dimensional they look like a toddler drew them. Not that fantasy art isn’t cool though
They were the Marvel Comics and DC Comics of Middle Ages.
The designs are not that outlandish but you may want to check out the game Inkulinati
It's still in early acess but it does the medieval art aesthetic in an interesting way
i'd LOVE to base a creature off the scorpion ones
@@andrewparker318These are for the most part way harder to make than you would think
Medieval art in general is like leaving the "artist" enclosed in a room all his life and asking him to paint from descriptions of drunk sailors
Who hear it from another drunk sailors
Lmao
@@rizkyanandita8227 who saw the animals by looking through a cracked telescope, also while drunk
Underrated comment
It’s not like that, it just literally IS that, considering these illustrations were done by monks.
Whale: big fish
Dolphin: smaller fish
Turtle: shield fish
Crocodile: fish with legs
Ironically, Darwin argued we all evolved from fish.
@@iliya3110 how about gumball?
@@iliya3110 damn you Tiktaalik grandpa
The german name of turtle is ,Schildkröte' .Der Schild means shield, and Kröte is an annimal related to frogs.
A simpler time
I find the scorpion particularly hilarious. Surely all they had to do was say "you know crabs? Draw one of them but skinny and long, with a tail"
Were crabs mainstream food ? If not I don’t think they would know what crabs are unless they live near them
Edit: I changed we’re to were, stupid autocorrect
@@justinw8716 That's actually something I hadn't considered. If they lived inland then yeah, they probably wouldn't have any idea.
Rivers have crayfish
Or spiders!! there's spiders EVERYWHERE, europe included! Just say "draw a spider with satan's pointed tail" and you have a scorpion!
Scorpions have pinchers they don't look like spiders@@Pinkstarclan
The cameleon at 6:02 is beautifully drawn. Of all the animals in the video it's the only one that actually looks as if it's alive. The others mainly look like examples of bad taxidermy.
It looks like a pokemon
Writer: "I need illustration for this book about tiger."
Painter: "Best I can do is dog."
Lol
😂😂😂
Damn hey he tried.
Like a cheap tattoo parlor, “you want a tiger?, I can really draw a dog, how about a dog?”
@@alphagt62 lmao imagine getting some of these illustrations tattooed
Monk 1 : "I need to draw a whale for this book, what do they look like?"
Monk 2: "I know a guy who knows a guy who talked to an old drunken one-eyed sailor who saw one from a mile away when he was young"
And his name is
Liyey
Exactly. I bet that one-eyed guy also claims to have had 'relations' with a mermaid.
@@tigermunky and found a treasure but it went overboard in a storm
@@DOKZAONE Shit! That always happens! And that treasure had all the booty you could ever dream of. It's happened to me at least 4 times now.
@@tigermunky and he won so much money and then gave it to poor
Any Exotic Animal on Earth : _(Exists)_
Medieval Artists : _"Ayo, what the dog doin ???"_
something to keep in mind about these illustrations is that in the medieval era (at least in Europe), the religious institutions and scholarly institutions were generally one and the same. any study of animals was done through a Christian-centric lens and assumed that every animal put on Earth was done so to represent a moral lesson, which is probably why stories like the pelicans eating each other became prevalent. another one is about the antelope, which medieval writers described as having two horns not because of any evolutionary advantages like mating displays or defense from predators, but because the horns represented cutting one's self away from sin and vice. as hilarious as these old illustrations are, i think they can make for fascinating studies of the cultural mindset they were drawn under.
Reminds me of the restoration of the painting featuring the lamb of God, people disliked how the lamb’s face became uncanny humanoid after the restoration, but as it turned out, the generic lamb face the painting had prior the restoration was really just an overpaint done some time ago, while the creepy lamb was actually the original, and it’s human features were done on purpose, the artist was capable of drawing animals super well, and it’s supposed to be something divine and overworldly, not just some random sheep
I’m convinced the mythical dragon was just a wrong, very wrong depiction of a hummingbird.
Hahah
Dragon in Asia is based on river snakes tho
Or a jumbled pile of dinosaur fossils someone dug up.
@@rfresa or live ones that just died out. Let's face it, if an asteroid killed them all it would have killed every thing else. Humans however are good at killing things off.
@@calebfreeman8284 The bones would be fresh but they’re not
2000 years later: Hilariously Inaccurate 21st Century Art of Aliens.
“Look that big head in a tiny body, what those people were thinking lmao”
This guys predicted
"Bogos binted? And what the hell is that supposed to mean exactly?"
Ancient aliens:As you see is this stone circle made from aliens?
i would say 10years or something....
I laughed so hard at the sea turtle at 4:40. A smug fish with shields on his back!
He cute
0:35 OMG, it's Sanic The Elephant!
Medieval man: "Look at this cool pokemon I drew."
Modern man, hundreds of years later: "lmao that's not a turtle, idiot"
More like judgmental modern garbage.
You lost me when you put "cool" and "pokemon" in the same sentence. Drop in the medieval time reference and I'm out. My vagina just turned into the Sahara desert. 🙈
😂🤣😂🤣
@@YouDontKnowAsMuchAsYouThinkUDoStfu
@@YouDontKnowAsMuchAsYouThinkUDoI’m willing to bet money that you’re replying to a minor right now
@@wystrix439 why is that important?
Actually, elephants were used in wars, and they DID at times have harnesses with literal wooden fortifications on their backs that would have several archers be behind parapets, like in castles. Saying "they had castles on their backs" is therefore not completely inaccurate either, it were just wooden ones.
So they're mighty after all
Those stories were probably brought back after seeing things like the Islamic wars
Remember the giant elephants from lotr that are basically just giant versions of those, thats pretty cool
@@Singleraxis Hannibal legit just pulled a LOTR tier fantasy battlw during the Battle of The Alps to a point that it spawned fantastical description of Elephants lmao
@@Singleraxis whether or not they can carry castles on their back, they’re still mighty, those things are tanks.
description: the turtle is a shielded animal
painter: so it's carrying shields like a knight would, got it.
Imagine being shown only images like these, and hearing the stories that come with them for your whole life only to see and learn about the actual animals. That would either be the scariest experience, or the most relieving experience.
This makes mythical animals make a bit more sense
Remember mythical animals were thought to exist with these “different” depictions
Actually, that's a good point.
Cyclops probably came from elephant skulls and gryphons probably came from triceratops skulls.
@@Shythalia or just a one-eyed blind guy and some bird
The myth of dragons came from dinosaur fossils.
These all look fun, but i dare you to make an accurate drawing of an animal you have never seen just going by the half remembered, exaggerated descriptions of uninterested sailors and merchants.
Yeah i myself thought that descriping elephants to someone who never seen them before is like trying to descrip colors to a Blind man.
Challenge accepted.
I get animals like elephants, but it that hard to imagine tiger as big cat? Cats are really common in Europe.
@@ExtremeMadnessX how knows maybe the person who descriped it to the artist didn't see it very will becuse if he did he'll die they Either see it from far away or just see it for half a second or doesn't remember Specifically how it looked the just Remember the shape also we call them artists but they aren't artist at all they are just monks
Would be such a good concept for an art channel
I love these medieval animal illustrations, they're literally so creative and funny. I went to an art museum the other day that had a few medieval paintings and a lot of the animal depictions literally had me laugh out loud.
When you think about it tho it is immensely interesting to think about how you would imagine some exotic animals based purely on explanations that might even just reach you second, or third hand with months, or even years between the sighting and the description. Rly something that we don't get to experience anymore, now that any information and imagery is just a few finger swipes away.
Most people back then never traveled outside their regions. Let alone their villages and towns.
Как художник мне это интересно 😮😮😮😮❤
3:54 Animal crossing seabass but as a boss
Don't forget one of the earliest shitpost in history. killer rabbit wielding lance and shield riding snail with human head.
That's fucked up hahaha
Huh
lol a shitpost
I like how it took humanity this long
We’ve been trolling for so long we didn’t even know we were trolling
Better throw the Holy hand grenade of Antioch, just in case.
The elephant carrying a castle is actually technically true; they're called howdahs and they're essentially elaborate saddles of the elephants
Very true was a siege tatic
@@sapphiredawn5773 Right! And If I'm not mistaken Ancient Chinese actually implemented using War Elephants in some of their wars
@@chargemankent i know india did not sure on china though
@@sapphiredawn5773 India was using war elephants way too often
But China is different, since there are no wild elephant in China they have to import elephant from South and South East Asia...
That is why I say they implemented War Elephants in *Some* of their wars
One Ancient China war that I know of using War Elephants is the Qin's War of Unification
More specifically the Hangu Pass War
Lord of the Rings moment.
The peculiar thing is that even older Neolithic cave paintings are actually quite good and accurate. We can clearly see deer-like creatures and mammoths in those paintings (at least accurate comparing to real Mammoth Arctic findings).
it's because they were drawing the animals they actually SAW every day. These people drew from the end of the chain of bad descriptions passed from one drunken sailor to another
ohh look a Horse!!
Medieval artist: "Me apologies sir that's a chameleon"
The turtle one is actually so genius! A turtle looks like two shields with a head and legs sticking out, so obviously a medieval monk will use literal medieval kite shields with a head sticking out. It's funny, but it makes sense.
In German we call them Schildkröte (shield toad). The drawings are accurate to that name!
Sorry to be that person, but they are heater shields not kite shields.
But... it's not as if there where no tortoise in europe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@Jessie91J In Swedish we call them Sköldpadda, which also means shield toad. I was ecstatic when I saw these drawings!
@@simonz5905 Maybe Southern Europe, but not Northwest Europe.
Animals that existed in medieval Europe:
- Dog
- Fish
- Horse
- Cat
- Bird
Wolves reindeers bears birds
And rats. Lots and lots of rats.
Dragons
Goat, pig, chicken (and other birds)
Compared to every other continent Europe is lacking in dangerous wildlife.
"It has a tail that can hold on to branches, it can change it's colour, move it's eyes independently and eject it's tongue."
"Got cha, cyclops horse."
The artist just straight up drew shields on the sea turtles back. Someone also told the monk about a chameleon and the monk was like “cool camel lion”
Turtle in german literally means "shild toad" (Schildkröte)
@@hailgiratinathetruegod7564
true
On an old Saxon book is written as "Came a Lion"
@@hailgiratinathetruegod7564 Same in dutch "schildpad" Shield-toad
Giraffes were known as camelopard for their long-necked loping gait and their spots.
Funny: Turtle is "Schildkröte" in German, the words mean "shield" and "toad". The first picture of a turtle looks exactly like a toad with an shield on it.
Same in Swedish: sköldpadda - sköld (shield) and padda (toad). :)
shield toad
Same in Dutch too: Schildpad (Schild=Shield, Pad=Toad)
Well, it's called "żółw" in polish and the word has got no meaning and only funny letters
4:39 that Pepe smirk
I've read that ostriches and emus do indeed eat small metal objects, seemingly without any harm to themselves, as witnessed by many owners. An autopsy of a captive ostrich in the 1930s shows that its stomach contained "copper coins, metal tacks, staples, hooks, and a four-inch nail".
The "scorpion" at 5:32 looks exactly like the various "free-tailed" bats of Europe, at least its lower half, right down to the down the colour and finely clawed toes. I would say it is drawn from life. The artist probably knew bats because they likely lived in the towers of the monastery The artist has shown the bat as it looks clinging to a hard surface. He has removed the bats folded-up wings, changed the face and decorated the spine.
I love how a common misconception was that Ostritches could eat and digest anything, including metal. Some dude probably saw some ostritch gremlin eating coins or rocks for no reason and was like "Ayo how it do that" and in reality ostritches are just really stupid.
Some birds eat rocks and gravel to help them digest food. It probably stems from that
Imagine if these medieval artists had made their way to Australia. Animals like the platypus were still baffling Europeans as late as the Victorian era.
animals like the playpus are still baffling me today
like
they just look like something that should not exist
its a cross between an otter, a beaver, and a duck who got in an unfortunate car accident
or an otter who got a sock stuck on his nose
and dont even get me started on some of the baby platypus images
@@enderlordex9396
and a secret agent
@@sparkyboi4387 he's got more than just mad skills
@@enderlordex9396 Don’t forget that they can inject venom out of a small quill above each of their front flippers.
@@AlmostAnimixers And that they sweat milk out of their armpits because screw nipples lmfao
The description: "it's like a crab but with a long pointy tail"
The artist: "fur it is then!"
😩🤣😂🤣🤣🤣
Like they know ehat a crab is, if you didnt live near the sea or are a trader you would have never saw the sea
@@raresnaftan3977 like a large spider with a tail like a chain that ends in a spike
@@pegasBaO23 yea that would have did the job.Wonder ehat description did they actualy get to mess up this bad
Sounds like a lobster.
Actually, isn't the thing with pelican cannibalism story the same as with flamingos? There used to be a legend that flamingos' feathers are pink because they feed their chicks with their own blood. Pink pelicans aren't that rare.
I don't blame the artists, I blame the terribl descriptions.
I guess medieval artists forgot to look at ancient Roman mosaics: Their animal depictions are very accurate. After all, they imported all sorts of beasts for their arenas.
Most likely they didn't have access to such things at all. They couldn't just "check a source" most of the time. This was before even the press, after all.
I had to look up for Roman mosaics, and I'm delighted. Those animals depictions are indeed quite accurate.
The Romans had mastered realism long before.
Take a look at early British attempts to copy Roman coins for another example. The copies are crude caricatures at best.
There wasn't google or reliable sources back then, so obviously a medieval artist wasn't able to draw an image of an animal accurately if it's from a different geographical region. Plus, medieval artists didn't obsess over realism and accuracy the same way ancient Roman or Renaissance artists do and prefered to use iconography.
Romans had access to those animals and where also a unified nation with a lot more resources and more accessible information
“The dolphin resembles a slightly goofy looking fish”- well how would YOU describe a dolphin sir???? How would YOU????
Here is my try:
It was an aquatic animal that jumped in and out of water. Instead of the scaly skin and the veiled fins which characterizes the familiar fish; it had a smooth, blue skin and stunted front limbs which jutted out of its side. In addition, it had a dorsal fin much like that of a sharks and a tail whose wings were to the sides. The animal had no hind limbs. When it comes to its head, Its side facing eyes were beady and dark. Its muzzle was elongated forwards and housed many small teeth. The peculiar curves around its facial structure gave it a look of carefree happiness.
grey banana...?
@@bahayesilyurt9433 @M D yes to both of these
What is a shark? What is a banana?
Big happy fish
I laughed so hard looking at the paintings 🤣 great video!
1:54 Rest easy, hyenas only drag away LIVING humans in the dead of night.
"Ok man I want you to paint an animal for me"
"Sure"
"It's a lizard about the length of my hand, has two big eyes that point in two directions, a long tongue, hands and feet that look like oven mitts and long tail that curls like a spiral."
*draws horse* done!
"Got it... what's a lizard?"
Chameleon
in medival world all animal that exist is a horse, a fish or a dog and some small birds
-Say, does he wear boot and a round mounting chair?
-Who said is a he?
-So is a she?
-That is a good question
@@danholmesfilm just like a horse, but better
Us trying to get the dinosaurs right.
Humans in the future: Well, they tried.
But future humans (hopefully) won’t have seen live dinosaurs either…
@@bradsmith20 Take the genome and make a bird create an egg with the dinosaur genome.
The Smithsonian had a dinosaur skeleton on display for over a century and it had the wrong head on it.... I'm not sure which one it was.
@@bradsmith20 a few scientists claim t rex’s had feathers & resembled a colorful murderous modern day chicken
@@olasdorosdiliusimilius2174 I’m a gnome and you’re been gnomed!
1:13 "HiPpOpOtAmUs" Is GrEeK fOr "RiVeR hOrSe" NoT LaTiN
That was a great little video I really enjoyed it
okay, but be fair: your cousin goes “yeah, saw an animal in the woods. had these weird ears, rat like tail, kinda armored lookin, long pig snout, stubby legs,” and then try to draw an armadillo without ever seeing one and using only this description
But can't they draw it?
@@_Dr_Fate The people describing the animals were most likely terrible at drawing themselves, or too busy to draw. Hence the artists.
Accidentally draws a pig with armour
And they're a cloistered monk who has limited artistic training.
I thought of that or an aardvark.
Imagine a monk deciding to travel the world and see it for himself and then running back years later shouting "OH GOD WE WERE SO WRONG"
I honestly wished they did.
My eyes were annoyed.
@@dandelionmosssycamore8218 Well, if you can find their unmarked graves, I'm sure they'd be happy to listen to you critique their art.
This actually did start happening in the middle ages--there are written accounts of monks who ventured into central Asia in search of some of the animals described by Herodotus in his works. The monks wrote back, "wow, Herodotus was an idiot, I haven't found any gigantic gold-mining ants yet, or one-footed umbrella-people."
Especially since it would take them years to travel the distance we can go in hours today.
They wouldn't make it back, because they tried that mirror thing with the tiger ;P
Why is this my favourite video I've seen so far this year? 😂
4:49 Actually, the hedgehog-turtle does kinda resemble a real species called the Alligator Snapping Turtle pretty nicely.
Jokes aside, it would be really cool to see a videogame where these inaccurate depictions are actual, living monsters. Imagine fighting off a pack of those "hyenas" or a bunch of sword wielding rabbits. I'd buy that in a heartbeat 😂.
My first thought. A whole alternate history where all the legends are true
Or a movie
I was thinking they'd make good pokémon.
Not gonna lie, it portray how common object if it being described to those who don't know.
Try to explain a three piece suit in medieval time is interesting. It look like what noble wear, yet felt lacking the ornament.
@@rizkyanandita8227
Not really. Medieval nobles tended to wear tunics, tights and flowy clothing. Completely different than a modern three piece suit which has both pants and a buttoned up shirt. The jacket or coat would be a bit more similar to a cloak but then again it wouldn't be flowy and instead form fitting and would have the buttons all the way down. In the Renaissance you'd find a bit more similarity due to the use of collars but not quite yet for buttoned up clothing, that has to wait for the Enlightenment.
"Bees are the smallest of birds. They are born from the bodies of oxen, or from (...corruption...) the decaying flesh of slaughtered calves; worms form in the flesh and then turn into bees. Bees live in community, choose the most noble among them as king, have wars, and make honey. Their laws are based on custom, but the king does not enforce the law; rather the lawbreakers punish themselves by stinging themselves to death."
Yep those guys had it all figured out :)
Medieval Bestiaries are fun to read
Thanks for sharing this. Really interesting
No wonder they pict a crocs like a flying horse.
Where did you find this and where can I read it?
Well iv never seen a mummy bee give birth to a baby bee so Im saying this could be legit. I mean where do bees come from?
@@stickemuppunkitsthefunlovi4733 Do i really need to give you the "Flowers and the Bees" Talk? :)
My favorite thing about Medieval mythical creatures and monstrous people is that you can tell that the one describing the creature was either exaggerating or saying something derogatory but the artist took all of it literally.
Very interesting content, keep it up :D
*Elephant?* Yeas, long-nosed horse
*Chameleon?* Yess, color-changing horse
*Turtle?* Oh yes, double-shield horse
*Giraffe?* Hum yes, long-neck horse
*Hippopotamus?* Right, water horse
*Scorpion?* Nice, lots-of-feet-a-horse
*Whale?* Got it, water horse 2
Equinization - the tendency of medieval art to gravitate towards a horse-like body plan
When the medieval artist didn't have much to go by, the horse was the default body shape.
Yeah, when you see horses all the time then other legged animals cant be that different from a horse right?
Hippopotamus does mean "river horse." Looks like another case of artists going the literal route.
@JZ's Best Friend Imagine a thousand years from now there'll be a youtube video titled: hilariously inaccurate depictions of aliens in silicone-age art.
I feel like the people drew chameleons as all of these different creatures because they thought they were like shapeshifters, misunderstanding accounts of them changing their appearance to blend into their environment.
69 pog
I had a similar thought. I wonder if it's actually true, though. makes sense.
And the word "leon" at the end that seems to spell "lion"
Brilliant, didn’t think about that
I think you could be right, I never thought about that! For me, the fact that they are often portrayed as hairy/fluffy was - in my opinion - because of their name "chameleon", which in the ears of a medieval monk would probably have sounded like "a mix of a camel and a lion", leading to these representations with mammal paws an furry bodies.
3:32 Perhaps this is because people in medieval history observed the Pelicans feeding their chicks by transferring fish from their beaks to their chick’s and because of their massive bills it looked as if the parents were “eating” their chicks or vice versa. Just a guess of course, no way to know if this is actually true.
The chameleon was likely hard to illustrate back then because of its bizarre shape, alien like eyes, and of course it’s ability to change colors which likely confused the people trying to describe the animal to the artist.
Plot twist: All those medieval drawings were accurate drawings of animals now extinct
That could be.
We’ve been lied to so much, who really knows the truth?
*illuminati confirmed sfx
@@nerospapa8814 ah yes amongus before amongus existed good times
@@lifeispoetry8349 Well because there couldn't be any reasons I could think of for why they'd hide it and because a random person would probably eventually find out one way or another
Thank you people think they were retarted back then
Sailor: I saw a big fish.
Painter: He said fish, then it must have scales.
And legs
@@susone8353 and human teeth
They didn't know about mammals and cetaceans.
@@dot5687 there are some fish with human-like teeth
@@aninuji8882 , Pacu fish?
This highlights something I think a lot of people don't think about, the mindset of people from any point in time far from our own.
They didn't have internet, tv, and hardly any books even. Most people couldnt read anyway. Imagine if your entire world was your little village, and traveling 1 or 2 towns over to visit a relative was a month long adventure. Imagine the amount of speculation and misinformation. Even the well educated people like the ones who drew these pictures and wrote the books they were in were working with a first, second, maybe even third or more person's description of animals so different from what they know that this is the best their imagination can come up with, the best they can comprehend.
I think it's just super interesting to try to imagine the mindset of people from centuries ago. It's really hard to put yourself in their shoes, but I think its vital to understand their lives through their stories and art. A lot of times I think our modern way of thinking takes us a completely different direction than was intended. I think that even applies to understanding things like how the pyramids were built and all those things we today think would have been so impossible it must be aliens, lol. We obviously do not understand people from the past in many ways.
The bipedal turtle and fuzzy crocodile made me giggle, LOL. I really enjoyed the artwork though. Thank you for this amusing and interesting post.
It's like telling someone to draw a Pokemon they've never heard before.
That's a great idea though, asking artists to draw from the description of a pokémon without telling the name of the pokémon
@@mrsweetkandy7673 Ever watched drawfee?
@@CallmeOzymandias The Spheal...by god
@@BJGvideos 🤣 Which one was that? I don't remember.
@@CallmeOzymandias Julia drew a creepy guy instead of a round seal, because she interpreted the name as "skeevy feel"
You didn't even mention how rhinos were probably responsible for unicorns.
One rhino boinks a horse and a thousand years later you are still shaming them. Stop blaming them
Didn't Narwhal horns get sold as "unicorn horns" in Europe?
@@LuckyBird551 I think so. Though as there was a known land animal with 4 legs and a face horn, it would be easy to convince people who would have no way to know any better. They didn't have photography or any proper first person sketches. That's a big reason naturalists were also sketch artists later on who spent time drawing animals extremely accurately
@@LuckyBird551 I think its probably medieval a scammer or the rhino species went extinct.
And dinosaurs are for dragons
They probably saw another dinos bones next to one and assumed it had wings
Also they like to give animals super powers so the fire breath comes from there
Dragons in the east are more peaceful then the west because of difference in culture there they are represented by water rather then fire which could mean that the first dinosaur found may be near a river and a serpent which resembles there shape in asian myths which is like a giant snake a titanaboa(the worlds largest snake fossil) may be the one found
Medieval art is a certain and specific aesthetic that I very much dig
"According to historical records, all non-human animals were either big fish, crows, or (most frequently) dogs. It is, as of now, unknown how these animals were able to so rapidly evolve into their current forms"
- historians
Sometimes it is possible to trace these misunderstandings by looking at the text or thinking how someone might try to describe the thing. For instance, there is the "vegetable lamb" which seems to be a misunderstanding of cotton:
European guy: "Hey, neat fabric! It's so cool and breathable! What's it made of?"
Syrian merchant: "Well...You know how you make clothes out of sheep wool? Well, there's this plant that has like clumps of wool growing off it."
European guy goes home, relates this story to local monk. Resulting picture: Tree with sheep growing on it.
Their was the description of Antelope. No hunter can approach it (they meant Antelope always heard the hunters coming) they have horns like saws. No one could get close enough so the ribbed horns looked like curved saws they used to make, Antelope used these saw horns to cut down trees, the research’s saw the Antelope scratch it’s horn on some thin tree and knock them down and assumed that’s what the horns are meant for.
There is an idiom in China called "hearsay", which refers to spreading what one hears on the road seriously and without reason; Metaphorically unfounded rumors
The German word for "cotton" is "baumwolle": tree wool.
Oh man, now I wish we had medieval drawings of Australian animals. Just imagine how much weirder they would be.
it would just look like a grim reaper fashion show
-Death with wings
-Death with 8 legs
-Death, but pretending to be a koala
Its tall stands on two legs and can jump and has a pouch which it carries babies in on its stomach and they have arms that allow them to slap eachother
something tells me kangaroos would be depicted as "two-headed" creatures because of the baby in the pouch and we'd end up with a CatDog style monstrosity
By Australian animals... what animal name is it?
you look like Gordon Freeman lol
Great music. Abbey is amazing at the spoons. Keep warming our hearts.
I have to remember that when they are referring to the medieval time period, they are probably referring to European depictions of animals, because with the tiger for instance, Asian cultures have beautiful paintings of tigers that go way back, probably before medieval times. Maybe because they were more familiar I guess.
- So it's a tiny scaled reptile, green and with big eyes.
- A little cat, understood.
if you consider the first source to be a (likely drunken) sailor, who told a merchant, who told a maid, who told the artist... and likely none of them were good at taxonomy... i can happen :P
I bet if we now play at describing a teddy bear without saying its a teddy bear (and only its appearance, not materials), then hand a second person the description and ask them to write them back 1 hour later and a third person has to draw it without knowing its a teddy bear and i would bet it can go medieval
@@vittocrazi u got a point
How did they mess up a tiger? All you had to describe was "big orange cat with black stripes."
So Garfield?
@@samuraijackoff5354 exactly.
What about a giraffe? Just say It's a "skinny cow with a long neck, short horns and black pints"
well they made the ostrich look like a standard bird 😂
Or crocodile, giant armoured lizard with a long narrow snout, lives in rivers.
Edit: forget the armour it seems to confuse people for some reason
So great!! Thanks!!
My TH-cam recommendations never fail to amaze me...
The German word for turtle literally means "shield toad". Given that name and describing it having aquatic features, the depiction at 4:39 is actually not that far off.
i love how it just has actual shields as its shell, judging by the shape
the designer's like "I followed the brief, those were your requirements. There's the shield. Why does it have a crest on it? Because shield? dude you're confusing me. What do you actually mean? Whyyyyy did I take this commission???"
And the hippo is the horse of the nil in german
@@alexbrown8900 which is funny, because the name originated from when people first discovered it. They found them in the Nil, but now they don't live the anymore, but people still think that they do because of the name.
The first crocodile image actually makes a little sense. I could see a medieval person describing a crocodile as a river dragon, which would explain the wings. The beak could be because a crocodile has a pointed snout.
Wouldnt a dog snout be a better example? Just longer
True. I still think of crocodiles as basically real world water dragons, especially considering how much such creatures ended up inspiring a lot of ancient and medieval dragon myths and art
Some monk sitting in a library just drawing weird dogs because he’s never seen a giraffe or a crocodile in his life: 🥲
The illustration equivalent of the telephone game.
Or the historic version of Gartic Phone
In some of these examples I'm not even sure how we know what the artist was trying to depict, other than the texts they're found in.
1. elephants are often used in certain cultures to hold "buildings" with people in them, like little carriages
2. hyenas are scavengers and therefore it makes sense for them to be "eating the dead"
Jackals definitely do scavenge graveyards, so the hyena might be getting conflated with the sort-of-similar jackal.
3. The pelicans aren't eating each other, it's not a cannibal medieval legend but Christian symbolism. According to western Christianism, pelican parents were the embodiment of Jesus Christ's sacrifice for humanity. Pelican parents would wound themselves to feed their babies their own blood whenever there's no food and they are starving.
This video is full of bs. Their source is "trust me bro".
@@Shesvii And what are your source for such a claim ?
Yeah I really didn't get the whole "Oh look Elephant with a castle... SO STUPID" comment.
@@MrSafior the Pelican was a significant motif in mediaeval Christendom, look it up
A small correction- hippopotamus is a Greek word, not a Latin one.
isn’t Greek derived from Latin?
Edit:I know it isn’t now you can stop replying lol
@@This_is_Order Yes but that doesn't mean it's the same language
@@This_is_Order Actually we were wrong, I searched it up and Greek is older than Latin.
@@This_is_Order ancient greek existed at the same time as latin
Well hippopotamus is a Latin word derived from the ancient Greek word hippopótamos (aka ἱπποπόταμοςaka, aka hippos potamios, aka riverine horse), at least according to Merriam-Webster and wiktionary
Medieval people couldn't even get known animals right though. Even common housecats were painted with human faces.
😂😂😂 this is one of the rarest moments where learning something gets funny.
“Let’s paint some animals”
“But we know nothing about them... we don’t even know what they look like”
“Well we can guess”
I've never seen a duck
But it sounds like it could be some sort of fish like cat dog
That's what happened when people in the past found dinosaurs remains did and even nowadays, we could at best know that they have scales and in certain species, feathers, but beyond that, their looks and their muscle texture were only reverse constructed using existing knowledge on how bones and muscles works. As to how certain species flies or swim in a way that is not found in present day animals became a game of fact-based guessing. Beyond that, their colour would remain a mystery forever - I mean for example, how would you know a Zebra or a tiger or leopard have strips and dots if all you found were some bones?
We do this so much with fossils.
It's real art.
@@stormmeansnowork There are some feathered dinosaurs with melanosomes preserved within their fossils, which actually determine what color they were in life. Granted, this is a rare kind of perseveration, and a more recently-discovered one too.
In the olden days, people believed Unicorns were more likely to exist than Black Swans.
Bruh
Isn't unicorn supposed to be rhinoceros?
@@noahanders7605 Yes.
Both exist tho
@@trent_king Since when do unicorns exist? It's highly likely it was just an incorrectly drawn rhinoceros, which later adapted itself as a different species.
Many times they also drew cats with human like faces. It's not just a matter of inaccuracy but also the artistic styles of that era.
When you put it like this, the names of various constellations begins to make more sense.
I'm pretty sure the "castles" depicted on the elephant's backs are meant to represent Howdahs and the image of an Elephant and Castle is a stylized symbol of strength in medieval English art. I don't think medieval people thought elephants could carry a literal castle on their back.
Based on how their art is, it's hard to be sure. If you see consistent inaccuracies then it's hard to say that a few are out of context otherwise how do you justify the rest?
Medieval people lived in a Mad Max-esque world after the fall of Rome. These artists were literally going by word of mouth and I wouldn’t be surprised if they thought Elephants carried castles due to mistranslations of elephants carrying Howdah which is a carriage that elephants used to carry people with on their back.
@@Ebrill_Owen That was the dark ages, which historians place before the medieval ages.
i think it an confussion about the indians using elephants as war machine a moving fortress
@@31oannamphong66 Indians did put Towers on elephants. But wooden ones. Maybe some trader told them about elephants with towers and they were like "woah, out of stone and stuff? Thats rad lets draw it."
I think this is genuinely where the myth of the unicorn came from. You describe a rhinoceros as a quadruped with a horn in the middle of its face, someone's going to draw a horse with a horn.
And then somebody sees a mutated roe with one horn in the middle of their head and bam, confirmation.
Actually, the myth of the unicorn comes from the one horned goat phenomenon. A one horned goat is a genetic mutation that occurs amongst certain species of goats and was once thought to be a symbol of divinity. For some reason, the one horned goat over time became a one horned horse.
The myth of the unicorn (as well as the dragon) is thousands of years older than the medieval period and spans several continents. There is no way to know exactly where it came from or how it got started, since it goes back before any written history we have access to.
I've had a long hard day and this just made me feel like myself again. Thank you for making me laugh! Medieval art always gets me 😆
Most people today will be struggling to draw a crocodile or a hippo (Not to mention exotic animals) accurately even with photos to reference. Now, imagine drawing an animal you've never seen in your life, from a description of a guy who has heard from his friend, who has heard from his sailor uncle, about animals that look like a fish with long face, a fanged mouth, and a large tail, that can walk on land, and a large fat horse, with wide face, and a giant mouth, that lives in water. These monks really tried their best. Their depictions still look hilarious tho XD
As inaccurate as these depictions are, they're a goldmine of inspiration for creature designs!
Most of them would be terrifying to encounter in a survival open world game
@@zbady4595 Possible Ark mod(s)? Medieval Times in Ark
Right? I'm stealing the concept of Elephantish creatures carrying castles
@@juanandrescastillofuenmayo6843
Wouldn't be stealing if it's an idea available to the general public.
@@mdalsted yeah, it's more like " using"
Stealing make you sounds like, you know, someone with bad reputation
Some Asian war elephants actually had “towers” or rather, carriages on its back. I’m pretty sure when the artists heard about it, it was described to them as a tower by a storyteller, veteran, who actually seen it.
The Europeans then drew the stone towers they were familiar with instead of the specialised wood and wicker ones that were used.
@@ckl9390right
Just google Carthaginian War Elefant. They came with Hannibal across the Alpes.
This was only eight months ago? Oh how far you’ve come curious archive :)
2:46 *ITS EATING SUSSUS AMOGUS QUICK SOMEONE SAVE IT!!!!*