Medieval 'artists'

The day when you have to pay off your rent is a terrible day. I haven’t even lived in my house for next year yet, and already have had to dish out £909 for it. Yesterday I had to suffer this excruciating loss to my bank account, and so how better to cheer me up than a cheeky mystery shop!

My visit was based in the swanky Clarence Docks area of Leeds. Beautifully renovated for all the posh people to live, shop and socialise. I bought a hefty amount of sushi and ate it lovingly by the canal. I was surprised I finished it due to the fact that I had already eaten an entire BHS breakfast just an hour before. (8 bloody items!!)

So, feeling rather bloated in the Leeds sunshine, I waddled on down to the Royal Armouries museum. Free entry to see a load of guns and weapons and shit? Yes please!

Having nursed my belly through the world wars, oriental imperialism and civil war exhibitions, I finally got to the medieval stuff. I have to say, they wore a hell of a lot of armour. It must have weighed a ton! Helmets, chained tunics, breastplates, shin guards, crotch boxes (maybe not) were all on display.

The medieval weaponry was also fairly cool. Swords and shields built in varying sizes but basic shapes told me that these guys knew how to manufacture stuff that was affective in battle and easy to use.

Unfortunately, the art scene at the time of the medieval period was clearly not up to the same standard. The picture above shows a delightful scene of a French siege, in which the battling forces are protected by what looks like metal tortoise shells. Now, this is either a fantastic representation of how the French used Troy-like customs to disguise themselves as giant souvenir tortoises to gain entry to the city, or medieval artists were simply shite at realism painting.

I reckon it was the latter. The people in the buildings are smiling, and one of the tortoises has his head on the side of his shell. The geezer who painted this really captured the emotional torment and physical struggle or war-torn France.

I left the museum wondering how on earth society had managed to represent itself so beautifully in the Greek and Roman times through art and architecture, only for it to degrade to a level of childish scribblings in the medieval period. What was wrong with those guys?

This question troubled me up until I had to pay my rent. A bigger annoyance (surprisingly worth £909) then took over.