Ham Mocking Noah Consequently, many of his works were attributed to Leonardo. Ham Mocking Noah Ham Mocking Noah is an early 16th century (1510-1515) painting by Bernardino Luini currently in the Brera Gallery in Milan, Italy. The subject is the Old Testament story of Noah when drunk. Shem and Japheth averted their eyes from their father's nudity, and covered him, but Ham mocked his father. The story is found in Genesis 9. The story is illustrated in many "Biblia Pauperum" and the "Speculum Humanae Salviationis". It is also illustrated in the Great East Window of York Minster, and the Tudor stained glass of
Curse of Ham and Phut the Libyans. In medieval Christian exegesis, Ham's sin was regarded as laughter (for mocking his father and doing nothing to rectify his condition). Elsewhere in Medieval Europe, the "Curse of Ham" also became used as a justification for serfdom. Honorius Augustodunensis (c. 1100) was the first recorded to propose a caste system associating Ham with serfdom, writing that serfs were descended from Ham, nobles from Japheth, and free men from Shem. However, he also followed the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7:21 by Ambrosiaster (late 4th century), which held that as servants in the temporal world, these "Hamites" were