Book of hours: May

My series of Book of hours calendar activities-posts is still going strong! Even though this month is quite late due to Double Wars… But, 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 now we’re heading in to early summer! If you click on a picture, you’ll get information about land origin and dating.

So if you read my April post last month, you’ll see a pattern here! Spring months are apparently for leisure. And now there’s even less work for the working classes. May seems to be all about having fun for the higher classes. The few activities for labor last month are now gone, but I’m sure that there was plenty to do before the summer came around in rural Europe. May seems to have been the month for digging ditches, first ploughing of fallow fields, and sowing spring crops. Cows also came back into full milk as pastures took over from sparse winter fodder. Any time left over was spent on maintenance work – hedging, ditching, repairing fences and buildings. But apparently, these activities didn’t make it into the artwork of the Book of hours.

Something that seems very popular to do in May is falconry! All the cool kids do it. Or at least the young men. Historically, falconry was a popular sport and status symbol among the nobles of medieval Europe and it was largely restricted to the noble classes due to the prerequisite commitment of time, money, and space. A trained peregrine was the falconer’s most treasured possession and one of the merchants’ most expensive trade goods.

Apart from falconry, the young nobles seems to have enjoyed horse riding, listening to music, walking in nature and in parks, and relaxing on a boat. Doesn’t sound too shabby at all.

Next month, I suspect there will be a lot more rural working images again, as we head into summer and maybe some harvesting!

/Mistress Gele Pechplumin (OP)
(Magdalena Morén)

Book of hours: February

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 well into the cold winter now! If you press a picture, you’ll get information about land origin and dating.

As in January, there’s still is a lot of hibernation going on, people are staying indoors and keeping warm in front of the fire.

But as we also can see, quite a few of these images also depicts the servant coming to the man of the house, carrying wood for the fire. In the January ones, it was more common for the servant to be carrying something for the meal, maybe a pitcher of wine or a plate of food. So maybe, February is less of a feasting month than the previous ones. Maybe there’s less of the meats left after the big slaughter in December, and now they’re just trying to keep warm and wait out the winter.

And as a friend pointed out after reading this post, February is lent time! So for 40 days before Easter, there were diet restrictions for everyone Christian. That of course is a great reason for there being less “feasting” images in the Book of Hours during February.

But, these wood carrying servants also leads to the second kind of activities that are common in the depictions of February.

While the richer man stays indoors to keep warm, the farmer and the workers are back at it, starting to prepare the lands for a new season of growth and cultivation. So maybe they got January off (probably not), but it wasn’t a long rest. Because the nature waits for no one, and if you want to benefit from it, you have to keep up.

And as a little bonus, this image from Belgium circa 1520! No one here seems to actually wear skates, but that isn’t stopping anyone from playing and having fun.

/Honorable Lady Gele Pechplumin
(Magdalena Morén)

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)

Book of hours: December

My new series of Book of hours calendar activities-posts is now 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 starting of with the fall! If you press a picture, you’ll get information about land origin and dating.

December is overwhelmingly prone to one activity, and that is the slaughter of pigs. And that doesn’t surprise me very much at all due to the explanation of the abundance of food at Christmas. I’ve always heard that we have such a big feast at Christmas because of the slaughter of animals in the weeks before. Sure, we celebrate Christmas because of the birth of Jesus, but his birth was decided to be December 25th during the 3rd century and other pre Christian celebrations like the winter solstice, Yule and Saturnalia has been celebrated around the same time of the year. So did they slaughter because of the celebrations, or are the celebrations placed that time of year because of the slaughter? The animals had the opportunity to eat and get fat during the summer and fall, as we saw in the previous post about November. And you probably didn’t want to waste food during the harsh winters to keep the animals alive.
The killing itself seems to be something for the men to do, while there’s usually a woman there, collecting the blood from the pig. Nothing goes to waste in a society where food can be scarce. A frying pan with a long handle seems to be the way to go.

The other big activity that we can see a lot of during December is the baking! So more food for the holidays I presume. And to be that makes total sense. Not just the making of food for upcoming festivities, but also it’s a nice and warm activity to do during one of the cold months. So doing indoor chores seems logical!
Most of the bakers seem to be men, only a few women pass by. So maybe a lot of the baking was done by men, or the men we see are the bakers that has monetized the chore and turned it into a business. A lot of the domestic chores were done by women until someone realized, they could make money out of it, and then it became a job for men.

December is very clearly a month for food prep, as I haven’t seem to found an example of something else. So spend the food cooking delicious food, meat or no meat. Maybe give a few historical recipes a chance and see how they turn out.

/Honorable Lady Gele Pechplumin
(Magdalena Morén)

Book of hours: November

My new series of Book of hours calendar activities-posts is now 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 starting of with the fall! If you press a picture, you’ll get information about land origin and dating.

By far, the most common activity I could find in the sections for November is this! Watching over the pigs, and also taking your stick and hitting the oak trees so the pigs can feed on some acorns to get fat and juicy. This will also make more sense when seeing the activity for December.
We’re seeing a slight change in the wardrobe of these shepherds. They’re putting on more clothes, extra warm layers like hoods under the hat and capes.
This also seems to be a mans job, and there aren’t many women present. We can see one picking acorns and one spinning.

Another fairly common theme for November seems to be preparing flax. To make linen fabric, there’s a lot of steps from the raw material to the finished product. In these images, the people has laid the flax in a circle and then the two men in the front beats the flax that has been soaking in water for several days; this process was called retting. After retting the flax is beaten which loosens the fibers from the flax stems. The women in each image are also doing one of the steps in the flax preparation. Using a scutching knife to scutch the flax, they’re remove the outer woody covering from the fibers. So the work with flax seems more to be a joint effort, by both men and women, even if the men is doing the more physical part.

We also have few examples of baking in November as well. But it does make sense that bread has to be made all year around. But it is intersting to think about the selection process of the one making these illustrations. Or did they get a list of activities that they had to put in there?

Next up is December! Which activities do you think will be the most common ones then?

/Honorable Lady Gele Pechplumin
(Magdalena Morén)

Book of hours: October

Last post I presented my new series of Book of hours calendar activities-posts! So 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 starting of with the fall! If you press a picture, you’ll get information about land origin and dating.

The most common image for October was one or more men sowing. Some times, the men had some help from a woman and one time she sat beside him, hand spinning thread.
Most of the men are fully clothed, most of them have hats. And it is October, so that might be the common choice. One of them are wearing a linen shirt and no hose (but of course a red hat!). But he seem to be wearing some kind of hose or protective sock that we can see in a lot of the images of working men, including a bunch of the well dressed gentlemen above.

The second most common category for October seems to be the most commen category for September (that you’ll see more of in about a year!). It’s wine o’clock! Some are stomping, some are pressing, some pouring and some are probably doing a taste test as well…

The last section are a few uncommon ones. The three first one seem to be some kind of kettle purchase. Some kind of wealthier man seems to be inspecting the animal.
But we also have some baking, plowing and some making of wooden casks.

Overall, October seems like a fairly work heavy month, but not as badly as the summer ones. The weather is cooler and that has to be a plus after the warm months on the field.

Again, if you want to have a look at Book of hours yourself, have a look here! And in a month, we’ll see what they were up to in November.

/Honorable Lady Gele Pechplumin
(Magdalena Morén)

Book of hours

If you’ve been following my Facebook page for the last few weeks, you’ve seen all the manuscript pictures I’ve been sharing. And one of my favorite categories has been the Book of hours. So my plan here is to share a bunch of these, as they make an interesting example.

Books of hours are Christian prayer books which were used to pray the canonical hours. The use of a book of hours was especially popular in the Middle Ages and as a result, they are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. During the latter part of the thirteenth century the Book of Hours became popular as a personal prayer book for men and women who led secular lives. It consisted of a selection of prayers, psalms, hymns and lessons based on the liturgy of the clergy.

France, between 1500-1510

The style and layout for traditional books of hours became increasingly standardized around the middle of the thirteenth century. By the end of the 15th century, the advent of printing made books more affordable and much of the emerging middle-class could afford to buy a printed book of hours. As many books of hours are richly illuminated, they form a record of life in the 15th and 16th centuries. Although each book of hours is unique, common patterns of illustration occur across many books.

France, Rouen, ca. 1420-1425

Most books of hours begin with a calendar, to help the owner keep track of saints’ days and other feasts. Each month gets a page with listed days; important holy days are often written in red (the origin of the term “red letter day”). Decoration for this section is usually limited to marginal images; they may show the relevant sign of the zodiac or an activity associated with that month, or both.

And it’s these images of monthly associated activities that I’d like to focus on this coming year when I show you illustrations from different books, month by month!

I’ll start next month by showing you the lovely activities of October and then keep on going until September next year. Hopefully we’ll learn something about the lives of people during the Middle Ages.

France, perhaps Verdun and Paris, ca. 1375

If you want to learn more about Book of Hours and related things, I’d recommend this website by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and also this one from the same origin. Harvard Library also have a page about the Book of Hours in their keepsake, and here you can read about the structure in these opuses.

/Honorable Lady Gele Pechplumin
(Magdalena Morén)