The Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles : A Book of 15th Century Sex Scenes

 

Sex wasn’t invented in the 1960s. Housed in the University of Glasgow’s Special Collections is the only known surviving manuscript copy of the 15th century French book Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, an anthology of 100 lewd and lascivious stories to entertain the toffs at the court of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.

The book’s central themes are sex, religious hypocrisy, extra-martial affairs, demons (look out for our hero doing battle with a beast with genitalia shaped like a human face) and a dinner guest offering his penis for dessert and a prequel to Hot Tub Time Machine.

Each tale begins with a small illustration. We’ve picked out the best (and worst) of them. In the book the images are remarkably small, which makes zooming in on the bellends and pudendum a test of eyesight. Staring too hard and too often might give you a squint. And from there, as the clergy had it, it was merest slip to blindness.

 

 

Via: Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles at Glasgow University and Julie Gardham