Drollery

A drollery, often also called a grotesque, is a small decorative image in the margin of an illuminated manuscript, most popular from about 1250 through the 15th century,[1] though found earlier and later.

Often they have a thematic connection with the subject of the text of the page, and larger miniatures, and they usually form part of a wider scheme of decorated margins, though some are effectively doodles added later.

Another manuscript that contains many drolleries is the English Luttrell Psalter, which has hybrid creatures and other monsters on a great deal of the pages.

The Taymouth Hours, Gorleston Psalter, and Smithfield Decretals are other examples; all four are 14th-century and now in the British Library.

Such images are the most plentiful sources of contemporary illustrations of ordinary life in the period, and many are often seen reproduced in modern books.