Weird Medieval Guys: How to Live, Laugh, Love (and Die) in Dark Times

by Olivia Swarthout

Live, laugh love and die in the Middle Ages with Weird Medieval Guys!

Explore what your medieval life would have been through a choose-your-own-adventure full of quizzes, how-to guides, diagrams and flow charts that takes you from your birth to your gruesome end, revealing your patron saint, the fate of your love life and the trials and tribulations you faced along the way.

Then, discover everything you need to know to survive the natural world, from stripping naked to survive a wolf attack, decoding the signficance of birds visiting your sickbed and brewing love potions all while learning about the magical gemstones found in the heads of toads, horrifying basilisks and saintly hounds - all illustrated with the very best ancient drawings of beasts, birds, fishes and serpents from all four corners of God's creation, drawn by people who definitely saw these creatures with their very own eyes and lived to tell the tale.

Chock full of hilarious, mad and bad advice for surviving and thriving on the mortal plane, this complete guide to life in the dark ages is guaranteed to make you laugh.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Humor, Medieval, Art, Historical, Medieval History

203 pages, ebook

First published November 2, 2023

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

Entertaining coffee table book with lots of good reproductions of bizarre medieval images. It's a comedy thing rather than informative but an amusing sofa-coma Christmas read.

[Carolyn Walsh]

4.5. This is a well-researched history,aiming to immerse the reader in medieval times. It involves quizzes, and based on the reader’s responses,it places them in a suitable location, social class, profession, while providing them with a horoscope and patron saint. There is information about weapons, duels, illnesses including fearsome ones like leprosy and the plague and lesser medical emergencies and treatments. We learn about births and deaths in the fourteenth century, the crusades, romance, and the making of love potions to attract the opposite sex, rendering themselves irresistible.

The second half of the book is devoted to animal life, with many descriptions based on observation and folk lore of the time, but many invalid today. This section involves Beasts, where cats, bears, unicorns, manticores, centaurs, wolves, lions, dogs, and rabbits are mentioned. Birds, listing eagles, bats,phoenix, and bees. Fish, including whales, eels, mermaids, and crocodiles. Serpents, such as snakes and dragons.
This is a humorous book, with some laugh-out-loud passages, illustrated by unique and strange art work found in old manuscripts.
Rating is based on hilarious content, and intensive research. It is clearly informative about how medieval people lived, and what they believed. Recommended!

[Koen Crolla]

Books based on Twitter accounts rank somewhere between books based on podcasts and novelisations of superhero movies, but I do like Swarthout as a person to some extent, so I thought I'd give it a go. It does contain a good number of pictures of weird Medieval guys, but the comedy typed around them is purely vibes-based and cavalier about leaning into common myths about the Middle Ages, which makes it hard to enjoy.
Swarthout does say that she's not a historian, but this could have been much better.

[Alan (The Lone Librarian) Teder]

The Old Medieval Weird
A review of the Square Peg hardcover (April 9, 2024) of the Vintage hardcover/eBook (November 2, 2023).

This is a curated survey of images recorded in medieval manuscripts. The book is in 2 parts: human life and a bestiary. For the most part it is the more absurdist and comic images used rather than the grotesque. Commentary with some decision trees and survey questions are included. The images are often digitally enhanced for clarity as the original manuscripts may be faded.


Enhanced medieval bat image shown with original. Image sourced from Weird Medieval Guys Twitter/X . Original manuscript from Oxford Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 304, fol. 47v.

A thorough index of sources is provided as an appendix. The table of contents gives you an idea of the subjects covered.


This is more of an art book with comic commentary than historical information as the context of the images are not stated. Still, a pleasant GR 4 rating for me.

Trivia and Links
The inspiration for the book comes from the author's Twitter/X account Weird Medieval Guys and the same titled podcast available on Spotify here.

[Dan]

2.5 stars. It was a short enough read that it wasn’t too taxing to finish, but I definitely could’ve used more information about the medieval time period. I understand it’s mostly just meant to be comedic, and it is occasionally, but there could’ve been a bit more to it. I was tempted to remove a star because she referred to the Book of Revelation as “Revelations” which always kind of irks me. It’s like, you’re doing research, research the proper name, (I know it’s just a pet peeve that annoys me, but it just makes you sound less intelligent).

[Rhi Carter]

A nice coffee table book with some funny pictures and a couple of decent jokes

[Bonnie_Rae]

It is very cute. Love the artwork within, especially how monks thought various creatures looked like - crocodiles and bats in particular.

[Virginia]

This was a VERY small (with minuscule print and tiny illustrations) book that I think was aimed at adult readers who already have a good grasp of medieval art, customs and lifestyles, as it doesn’t really add anything to the average person’s knowledge base. It was somewhat funny but less informative than I’d hoped.
The humour stems from the magazine-format personality tests resulting in sketchy answers, and sophomoric descriptions of medieval beliefs. The list of illustration credits at the end was interesting to glance through, and might be a basis for further research. I think the value in this book comes from the pictures and descriptions in “The Bestiary” section. An interested reader might want expand their knowledge of the medieval understanding of animals by picking up The Deorhord: An Old English Bestiary by Hana Videen.

[Sarah AF]

CUCURBITARIUS (LATIN, NOUN) A lover of gourds and squash

It saddens me that I have little opportunity to use this in my day-to-day life. Sigh.

Now I don't actually follow the Twitter account, but the cover was cute and the blurb was fun so I decided to give this a whirl and it was...cute and fun (and also a bit alarming from time to time). Drawing a lot of inspiration from medieval art of varying quality and vision, it was a witty exploration of the European societies that would lay the groundwork to become us which, frankly, seems like a miracle with some of the stuff I learned about in his book!

My favourite bit? The looming threat that SNAILS posed. Their street cred *really* took a nosedive post-Renaissance, eh?

[Kimi]

This was very cute.

[Natalie H]

May 2026
Kindle edition

The things I read because my sister wanted to. A lot of illustrations, quizzes and a bestiary. Apparently you can survive a lion if you have a rooster but you're screwed if you meet a snail. The pelican was wtf. My name turned out to be Primavera MerkeWytt, lived in London as a hermit, died of disease, somehow lost my head and went to purgatory. It was interesting. Why exploding cats though? That's just mean.

[Piiki]

Thoroughly entertained

[krentenbol]

Millennial humor ):
Erg pop sci ):
Leuke tekeningen in manuscripten (:

[Hailey]

me if i was a book

[Brecht Reintsema]

I am obsessed. I got this for my flatmate who is an actual medievalist with a penchant for weird medieval marginalia and with a great sense of humor, so I figured this would be perfect. But I couldn't help read through it first myself and I am glad I did.

This is a silly little book filled with a lot of silly but lovely medieval art and takes the reader through medieval life, love, and death, as well as a bestiary. It is vaguely educative but it is mostly very, very funny. Like actually cackle-out-loud funny. Might be my personal love for weird medieval things but the text is actually super witty combined with the art.

It even includes little quizzes and generally makes for a very fun (and fast) reading experience. If you ever see this in a bookshop, at least allow yourself the pleasure of looking through it. I might be tempted to buy my own copy just to look back on... but now I at least know I found a good gift :-)

[Lizzy]

The weird little guys ARE present, as promised, but the images are often really small and it’s full otherwise of vibes-based humor, medieval stereotypes, and very little in the way of insightful or entertaining facts. It starts as a choose your own medieval (loosely used) life and then becomes a bestiary. It feels like a lazy cash grab. The author (at their own admission) isn’t a historian, but more of an actual historical spin with some humor thrown in, instead of the opposite, would have made this feel less like a waste of time coffee table book. The title is misleading, and the book is weirdly organized and its purpose seems muddled.

[Paige]

DNF at p91

I so badly wanted to like this book — I love her twitter account by the same name — but it just isn’t working for me. Pictures from manuscripts, without any context and with lots of humorous (or intended to be humorous) quips. I didn’t expect this to be a textbook, but I did expect it to have a bit more actual information.

Reminds me a lot of the Museum Bums book.

11/16/24

[maya]

i thought this was interesting and kinda silly like an odd, slightly disjointed collection/blend of medieval art with myths and facts and also a choose your own adventure type thing with silly recipes and personality tests and also a bestiary but mostly a lot of poking fun at things from taken mostly out of context. i really wish there was more informative content in this book (kinda the main reason i picked it up) but what more could i have expected from a twitter-account-turned-book?

[Jo]

Based on her successful social media account, Swarthout pulls together various images from medieval manuscripts to highlight life from back then. Amusing and with beautiful illustrations this is a marvellous book to dive into.

[Corinne]

3.5 stars, enjoyed the critters

[Avery]

Cute book, I loved the bats

[delphine]

fun quick little book

[Stefano Cucinotta]

Un curioso table book dalla grafica accattivante. È zeppo di illustrazioni bizzarre (da miniature e opere d'arte medievali) ma mi aspettavo contenuti un po' più divulgativi e meno caciaroni. È ok da far vedere agli amici, e in libreria fa una bella figura.

[lauren]

There are some really good weird medieval pictures in here but the writing is just silly and not in a fun way but in a trying to be funny but really not that funny and not adding anything way.

[Rebecca Fell]

Did what it said on the tin, entertaining with some cracking medieval manuscript illuminations and illustrations!

[Kate Mozier-Tichy]

As a historian and lover of Medieval History.... hilarious. I am definitely buying this book for my collection!

[Sydney Smith]

It’s good for what it is: a funny take on medieval European culture while also reminding readers of shared humanity/humor we have with people who lived over a thousand years ago. I wish it was more informative but I guess this book was meant to be more accessible than scholarly.

[Amber]

Unhinged. Love it.

(Also, I’m a huge fan of how OS did citations for the manuscripts.)

[Chuck]

A brutal let down. I wasn't sure what to expect but I was prepared for some laughter and silliness or some bizarre-but-true stories coupled with art or honestly anything... but there's barely any content in this book. The images from the manuscripts are nothing really that amazing or silly (though they are fun to look at on their own), in fact I feel like I've seen many of them before. The ancillary text and games actually detracted from the appeal by trying to make light of stuff that is deliberately taken out of context. Har har its from back in time so the people were silly! What was the purpose of this book???

[Gortius Octavo]

Una bonita colección de ilustraciones medievales con contexto. Los comentarios aportados en el libro son divertidos y genuinamente interesantes. Pero tuve la sensación de estar leyendo propaganda cristiana cuando hablaba del “origen del mundo” o a las cruzadas. Si lo encontráis en una librería, lo recomiendo, es una lectura ligera y un buen regalo.