Humour and Folly in Secular and Profane Prints of Northern Europe (1430-1540)

This book highlights the importance of secular and profane prints for the reconstruction and understanding of themes popular in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, and examines their function as patterns for the other arts, and as sources for moral teaching and entertainment. As successors to the marginal illuminations of medieval manuscripts these prints represent the 'low' arts, and as such have licence for subversion and comedy. They are lower both in medium and subject matter than…