  
  About the Artwork
  
  
  Humor, including scatological humor, plays a major role in the visual arts of the Middle Ages. Serious subjects are often surrounded by playful or fantastic embellishments. The main illumination on this folio from a book of canon (church) law illustrates the specifics of case 22: a bishop has sworn a false oath and now his archdeacon refuses to obey him. The archdeacon gives testimony before the seated pope who will decide whether the archdeacon has the right to disobey a superior. The artist pokes fun at the pope by placing an animal-headed creature dressed in a similarly shaped tiara in the margin. The orderly world under law depicted within the main illumination is thus contrasted with the irrational world that lies outside those borders.
  
  
  Title
  Leaf from Gratian's DECRETUM: Bishop Swearing Falsely
  
  
  Artwork Date
  early 14th century
  
  Artist
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  Life Dates
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  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  French
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Ink, tempera and gold on parchment
  
  
  Dimensions
  Sheet (irregular): 17 1/4 &Atilde;&#151; 11 3/8 inches (43.8 &Atilde;&#151; 28.9 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Manuscripts
  
  
  Department
  Prints, Drawings &amp; Photographs
  
  
  Credit
  Founders Society Purchase, General Endowment Fund
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum&acirc;&#128;&#153;s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems&acirc;&#128;&#148;no longer assigned&acirc;&#128;&#148;that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  61.248.A
  
  
  Copyright
  Public Domain
  
  
  
