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Miniature from a manuscript of the Decretum Gratiani, with a commentary by Bartolomeo da Brescia, datable between 1340 and 1345, now in the Municipal Library of Lyon, France (Ms. 5128, fol. 100r).
The illustration shows a woman riding on an imaginary animal, in the shape of a human penis. This image proposes a representation of the woman whose nakedness has not the meaning of a sinful element, but as a symbol of natural vitality and generative power, a conception still prevalent in common mentality.
According to Bachtin, the woman was viewed in medieval folk tradition as associated with the “low” of body and matter, with the earth and with the belly. For this reason she represented at the same time the grave and the origin of life, where everything ends and everything originates. It is not to be concluded, however, that such a conception should represent a purely unfriendly and negative judgment of woman in medieval tradition. “The image of the woman is ambivalent, like every image pertaining to this tradition” (Bachtin 1979, p. 263).

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Miniature from a manuscript of the Decretum Gratiani, with a commentary by Bartolomeo da Brescia, datable between 1340 and 1345, now in the Municipal Library of Lyon, France (Ms. 5128, fol. 100r). The illustration shows a woman riding on an imaginary animal, in the shape of a human penis. This image proposes a representation of the woman whose nakedness has not the meaning of a sinful element, but as a symbol of natural vitality and generative power, a conception still prevalent in common mentality. According to Bachtin, the woman was viewed in medieval folk tradition as associated with the “low” of body and matter, with the earth and with the belly. For this reason she represented at the same time the grave and the origin of life, where everything ends and everything originates. It is not to be concluded, however, that such a conception should represent a purely unfriendly and negative judgment of woman in medieval tradition. “The image of the woman is ambivalent, like every image pertaining to this tradition” (Bachtin 1979, p. 263). [Image: www.pinterest.com]