Jacqui Palumbo at CNN:
So you want to live like you’re from the Middle Ages? Well, maybe that’s not a common aspiration, but nevertheless, it’s a subject that’s become Olivia M. Swarthout’s expertise.
Swarthout is the researcher behind the popular art history-inspired social media account Weird Medieval Guys, which has attracted nearly 700,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter, since she began posting with the handle @WeirdMedieval in April 2022. Now, she’s the author of a book with a tongue-in-cheek guide to living like it’s 999 AD — or thereabouts — called “Weird Medieval Guys: How to Live, Love, Laugh (and Die) in Dark Times.”
You might well have seen Swarthout’s handiwork in your feeds even if you don’t follow the account: Paired with her zeitgeisty captioning, many of the strange, cute and often absurd illustrations from 6th- to 15th-century manuscripts — showing jovial skeletons and wan angels, strangely drawn animals and the daily affairs of commonfolk — have become popular memes. There’s weird floating babies, a knight stabbing himself with the caption “I’m out,” a sneaky cat with a severed penis in its mouth, and a pair of men demonstrating not-so-vaguely sexual sword-fighting tactics.
More here.