The Past World

The good old “tis but a scratch” joke from the film Holy Grail with the Monty Python troupe has been found in a medieval manuscript. Manuscript researchers at the British Library found a drawing in a 15th-century manuscript that shows almost the same scene as the famous 1975 scene with the black knight in the Holy Grail.

In the film, John Cleese plays the swashbuckling knight who refuses to move aside for King Arthur, and when Arthur cuts off his limb, the knight just calls it a “scratch” and insists they fight on.

The 15th-century manuscript is called the Sherborn Missal and is a massive 694-page illustrated publication. It was created at St Mary’s Benedictine Abbey in Sherborne, Dorset sometime between 1399 and 1407.

Ellie Jackson, director of illustrated manuscripts at the British Library, told BBC4 that the drawing was a great example of the violence in medieval manuscripts that is often seen in cartoons today. Two legendary barbarians are fighting. The fight has been going on for some time. One fighter has his sword broken and he uses his severed leg instead. The other barbarian has been decapitated and uses his severed head as a shield in place of his broken shield lying nearby.

Jackson says that the researchers immediately discovered that the image is the same as in the Monty Python joke. She says the drawing accompanies a text about the Easter Mass and may be expressing an idea of ​​life after death and the struggle not to give into death.