Featured Image Credit: Credit: British Library/Disney
Topics: Film and TV, Star Wars
Gerrard Kaonga
Characters like Star Wars’ odd-speaking Yoda may be closer than a galaxy far far away, according to one historian.
An illustration of a figure that appears to have a striking resemblance to Jedi Master Yoda caused a stir upon its initial discovery.
Pretty peculiar one might think, this is.
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In 2015, historians Damien Kempf and Maria L. Gilbert discovered a drawing of a short figure that was wearing a long robe, had green-greyish skin and large ears in a religious 14 century manuscript.
And when you look at it, you can't deny that it's a pretty striking resemblance to Yoda.
But you may be asking yourself, how did Yoda - or something that looks like him - end up in an ancient manuscript?
Well, Harrison explained to NPR where the image had came from - and why the creature looks the way it does.
“The Yoda image comes from a 14th-century manuscript known as the Smithfield Decretals," he said.
“I'd love to say that it really was Yoda, or was drawn by a medieval time traveler.
“It's actually an illustration to the biblical story of Samson — the artist clearly had a vivid imagination!”
So sadly, it wasn't any time traveller's doing.
The Smithfield Decretals was created in southern France between the 1300 and 1340, and the volume is also known as the 'Decretals of Gregory IX with gloss of Bernard of Parma'.
And a decretal's job was to collect papal letters that compiled decisions on church law and doctrine.
Following the discovery, the image of not-Yoda was published by the British Library on its blog in a piece entitled Ten Things to Know about Medieval Monsters, alongside a promotion for a book about the monsters explored.
“In their new picture book published by the British Library, Medieval Monsters, medieval historian Damien Kempf and art historian Maria L. Gilbert explore the fantastic, grotesque and exuberant world of monsters in the Middle Ages,” The British Library post read.
“[A world seen] through the images found in illuminated manuscripts, from dragons and demons to Yoda and hybrid creatures.”
The historians played into the similarities between the two figures and after putting the Yoda-like figure at number 10, they also wrote a poem illustrating the age-old adage that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’.
In the blog, they wrote: “[The tenth thing to know] is the monsters may look like Hollywood movie stars.
“Sendak, Burton, Lucas, and Seuss. Their films: medieval monster reuse! Handsome, playful, quirky, and whimsical. Nothing, it seems, is ever new in principle.”
While it may be disappointing to learn that the 900+ year-old Jedi hasn’t been lurking in plain sight all along, it is a funny old coincidence.
But whose to say creator George Lucas hadn’t been siphoning age-old texts for inspiration for his space opera?
Possibility could it be. Yeesssssss.