A Senior Capstone Experience by Shannon Smith ’25

Submitted to Department of Art & Art History

Advised by Dr. Aileen Tsui and Dr. Benjamin Tilghman

Contributor Biography: Shannon Smith graduated from Washington College in Fall 2024 with a degree in Art History. She currently works at Winterthur Museum, Gardens & Library in DE, where she continues to explore her passion for material culture and museum education. A medievalist at heart with a growing admiration for American arts, she hopes to continuer her work in academia—researching, teaching, and writing about the intersections of art, history, and humor. When she isn’t at Winterthur, she’s likely watching a film for her ever-growing Letterboxd log or visiting a local museum.

Description: This SCE thesis examines the humorous marginalia of the early 14th-century English Book of Hours (W.102), analyzing how grotesques, hybrids, and satirical figures both reinforce and subvert medieval religious and social structures. Using the relief, superiority, and incongruity theories of humor, it interprets the margins as outlets for devotional tension, mockery of authority, and visual disruption of norms. Because medieval humor resists easy interpretation, understanding its meaning remains an international mystery that continues to intrigue scholars. By situating W.102 within its theological and cultural context, the study reveals that its absurd and irreverent imagery was not merely decorative but integral to the manuscript’s meaning and function.

Read Shannon’s SCE below: