Checkmate! Medieval People at Play: Images

Here you will find the images from the manuscript exhibition "Checkmate," which opened in the summer of 2010, and which is now accessible as a fully digital exhibition on the website: http://thewalters.org/exhibitions/checkmate/. The show focused on the often overlooked lighter side of the medieval era. Neither stodgy nor perpetually pious, medieval people found time for amusement in the margins of their lives and their manuscripts. From peasant boys shirking their winter duties in order to lob snowballs at each other to monkeys gleefully dancing to "Ring around the Rosie," their antics have come down to us in art.