Book of hours: January

My series of Book of hours calendar activities-posts is up an running! Each month, I’ll present a bunch of illustrations from different volumes that I’ve found that has a calendar section with images. A bunch of the different books has the same kind of activity as others, and a few of them have another. Some of them have a bit more unique activities, and some has an activity that might be represented in another month much more often. But there’s some obvious themes in the different seasons, and we’re still in the cold winter! If you press a picture, you’ll get information about land origin and dating.

It’s the middle of the cold season, so what do we do? And what would the people in the Middle Ages have done? Well, keep warm and cozy of course. Eat good food, put on all your warm clothes and sit by an open fire!

You’re getting a lot of these images since of course they overlap quite nicely with my big interest for tableware and such things!
A lot of these images are mostly lone men sitting close to an open fire, eating by themselves and maybe getting served by someone. They’re all dressed in a lot more clothes than we see in the previous months and some are even seen lifting hands or feet towards the fire to warm them even more.

All but one sitting at a table have a white tablecloth, and the last one has a green tablecloth. The image is from the 1520’s and Belgium and I love how the cloth and the pillows match.

There aren’t many other activities going on in January, at least not that I’ve found. And those few are related to first one. Bringing wood to keep the fires going, tending to the fire and putting on more clothes. So at least I won’t feel very bad this month when focusing on keep warm and snuggly. I don’t have an open fire, but I’ll light a few candles, maybe have some mulled wine and not go out unless I have to!

I’ll throw in a bonus image which is actually the zodiac sign for January, Aquarius. In a bunch of the Book of Hours, it’s a naked cherub in a water stream pouring water. But this one is a male server, circa 1480, and he’s carrying 2 beautiful white metal pitchers.

/Honorable Lady Gele Pechplumin
(Magdalena Morén)