According to NPR, historians Damien Kempf and Maria L. Gilbert highlighted the Yoda lookalike on the Medieval Manuscripts blog, which featured him among other, as they deemed, “Medieval monsters.”
Of course, there are some differences between the Yoda from “Star Wars” lore and the Smithfield Decretals. The green creature in the manuscript is much taller than the Yoda “Star Wars” fans know and love. Plus, while the green creature is wearing a flowing gown similar to Yoda’s in the “Star Wars” movies, it is more orange in color opposed to Yoda’s tan robe.
However, the creature in the manuscript definitely has Yoda-like ears and a hair on the top of his head, although much more than the sparse strands of hair Yoda sported in the “Star Wars” movies. The creature in the manuscript also has webbed hands instead of individual fingers and thumbs.
Going on the belief that Yoda existed in our time, NPR presented a valid scenario that it could have been indeed the Jedi master in the manuscript since he lived until he was 900 years old. That scenario, however, has its flaws since the creature would have to be very young at the time of the decretals. Meaning it probably would have looked more like Grogu — aka Baby Yoda — than a full-grown version of Yoda.
