30 strange and creepy illustrations from the songbook of the XVI century

The 1542 handwritten songbook by Zegere van Male contains songs from 500 years ago. It was written in the Belgian city of Bruges — and apparently, they had a lot of fun during the creation. The 1200-page book contains extremely strange and bizarre drawings, including illustrated letters. People knew how to have fun.

The songbook of Zegere van Male consists of four complementary collections of songs: Superius, Altus, Tenor and Bass. It contains about 229 compositions and songs on various subjects. Bright pen drawings decorate every sheet of the songbook — and this is a real flight of fancy. There are obscenities, and creepy scenes, and strange combinations.

The book is named after the Belgian merchant, representative of the bourgeoisie Zegere van Male (1504-1601). At that time, he traded yarn, dyes and flax, and was also a politician and writer. It is believed that he contributed to the creation of the illustrations of the songbook, and was able to preserve the whole heritage of the musical repertoire of the 16th century - 64 motets, 13 texts of masses, 125 pieces in French, 9 in Flemish, 3 in Italian, and others.