For more details on calendar pages or the Golf Book, please see the post for January 2013.

The important end-of-the-summer work in the fields continues in these calendar pages for September.  In the opening miniature, men are ploughing with teams of horses, while another man sows grain from a bulging sack.  Behind them can be seen a modest farmhouse, and to the right, a man knocking acorns from the trees to feed the pigs that have gathered around him, in a labour more usually associated with November or December.  In the bas-de-page, a group of white-clad men are playing at marbles, while another is trying his luck on a pair of stilts.  On the following page, below the saints' days for September and a roundel of a scorpion for Scorpio, is a scene of men playing a game that closely resembles golf (hence the name given to this manuscript, the Golf Book); for more details on this unique depiction, please see our post A Good Walk Spoiled.

Calendar page for September with a miniature of labourers ploughing and sowing grain, from the Golf Book (Book of Hours, Use of Rome), workshop of Simon Bening, Netherlands (Bruges), c. 1540, Additional MS 24098, f. 26v

Calendar page for September with a bas-de-page scene of a men playing a golf-type game, from the Golf Book (Book of Hours, Use of Rome), workshop of Simon Bening, Netherlands (Bruges), c. 1540, Additional MS 24098, f. 27r