The New Murrey and Blue blog

Here’s a smile for New Year’s Eve. Was it ever a 15^th century mode—even for as briefly as a month—for men to, um, stick their bottoms out for the sake of fashion….? Look at the two gents talking lower centre in the image above. Are they or are they not adopting a stance that ensures protruding posteriors?

And what of the illustration below, in which the man in salmon pink on the left is, I believe, thought to be Richard, Duke of Gloucester?

There’s that backside again, stuck out as if it’s twice its actual size. Please don’t tell me men were expected to walk like that too. They’d resemble ducks!

Well, in medieval illustrations the ladies are shown as if in the middle-to-late stages of pregnancy. To make them seem fruitful and capable of multiple successful pregnancies. So why on earth would men draw attention to their derrières? That’s not the side that’s not the anatomical area that….well, you know.

Maybe the two top illustrations that have drawn my attention to the posture are just an idiosyncrasy of the particular artist? My fingers are crossed. In the meantime I refuse to believe it. Richard did not walk or pose like this. It’s ridiculous. P-L-E-A-S-E let him have walked normally.

He did not WADDLE!