Genitalia marginalia.

We were just talking about how people in 1824 saw the double entendre in that line -- "it is intercourse" -- in Gibbons v. Ogden. I ended that post saying, "We forget that people in the past were always talking about sex," and linking to an article about all the sexual double entendre in Shakespeare:

'The plays are absolutely packed with filth,' said academic Héloïse Sénéchal. 'I've found more than a hundred terms for vagina alone.'...

She claims that previous editions of Shakespeare have been too prudish, and that by using computer techniques she has uncovered unrecognised double entendres. These were aimed at the working classes who crowded into the Globe in London for their fill of bawdy entertainment. Sénéchal has identified seemingly innocuous words such as carrot, pencil and horn as terms for penis, while she pinpoints pie, fruit dish and 'buggle boe' as references to the vagina.

My colleague Karl Shoemaker, upon reading my post -- no pun intended! -- wanted me to see something that he found while reading 13th century plea rolls in London. So it's much older than Shakespeare and in the law context. Here's a photograph -- Karl had his student assistant take it -- of a corner of a document:



(Click here to enlarge.)

The words -- "ores itaunt le ad misyre/et itaunt le ad Gerardare" -- are law French. Karl's translation: "And thus Gerard to my Messire/And thus my Lord to Gerard." You can see the drawings at the end of each line, completing the thoughts -- rebus style.

The genitalia marginalia is a penis rebus.