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medieval imaginations:
literature and visual culture in the middle ages



picture data:

medium: manuscript 
date: 13th century
episodes: All
owner/location: British Library, London
catalogue information: BL. Cotton Ms, Nero C.IV. fol 39r
related images:

Last Judgement

Image 566 An image from the Winchester Psalter (c.1225), showing the damned being swallowed into a toothy hell-mouth, which also has a hell's gate being locked behind them for all eternity by an angel. Inside hell, demons with shaggy bodies and claws are tormenting their victims. Upper left, a crowned king is being shaken upside down; another crowned king writhes lower right, as a demon with a tail spears him with a pitch-fork. A crowned queen (upper centre) clasps her hands despairingly. The demons grin as they go about their work in a crowded hell. Bovey 2002, p.37-8

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further reading:
Bovey, A., Monsters and Grotesques in Medieval Manuscripts, London 2002