21 September 2016
A Field Guide to Wodewoses
It’s #WodewoseWednesday, people. You might not know what a wodewose is, but you surely should. They are mythical forest creatures that are guaranteed to improve your midweek. I would describe myself as an avid wodewose-ophile and hence have compiled this handy guide to the behaviour and habits of the wodewose, in case you meet one, one day.
Name: Wodewose, faunis ficariis*
Range: The Wirral Peninsula, Africa
Habitat: Forest
Predators: Alexander the Great
Threat Level: Endangered, possibly extinct
*faunis ficariis is translated as 'wodewose' in the Wycliffite Bible (Jeremiah 50:39).
BEHAVIOUR
What is a wodewose? Well, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the creature as ‘a wild man of the woods; a satyr, faun’. Wodewoses are wild creatures. They seem not to like being disturbed in their forest habitat. In this image some dogs have woken a wodewose from its nap and he is displeased. Or he might be trying to hug them. It’s unclear.
Wodewose surrounded by dogs from the Queen Mary Psalter, England, c. 1310–1320, Royal MS 2 B VII, f. 173r
Wodewoses do not always dwell in the forest. Sometimes they like to be involved in pageantry. This one is sporting the arms of England.
Wodewose holding the arms of England, La Bible Historiale, c. 1470–79, Southern Netherlands, Royal MS 15 D I, f. 18
Wodewoses don’t seem to be very concerned about personal grooming. They have large bushy beards which cover most of their bodies, like a beard in onesie form.
A wodewose from the Luttrell Psalter, England, c. 1325–1340, Add MS 42130, f. 70r
Wodewoses don't often like to wear clothes. Here's a wodewose in its Sunday best, wearing a fetching leaf ensemble and matching head-dress.
A pasted-in wodewose from the end of Book I of John Lydgate's Fall of Princes, England, c. 1470, Harley MS 4197, f. 34v
It would be erroneous, however, to think that wodewoses are not sometimes quite stylish. These two dashing wodewoses are from the genealogy of the Portuguese and Spanish kings.
Wodewose Bluesteel, The Genealogy of the Royal Houses of Spain and Portugal (the 'Portuguese Genealogy'), Lisbon and Bruges, 1530–1534, Add MS 12531, f. 1r
Wistful wodewose, The Genealogy of the Royal Houses of Spain and Portugal (the 'Portuguese Genealogy'), Lisbon and Bruges, 1530–1534, Add MS 12531, f. 1r
DISTRIBUTION
Wodewoses appear to live in diverse parts of the world. In the late 14th-century romance poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, we hear how Gawain encounters wodewoses in the Wirral Peninsula in northwest England (line 721). But, they also apparently live in Africa as well. In John Trevisa’s 14th-century Middle English translation of a zoological text called De Proprietatibus Rerum (On the Nature of Things) by the Franciscan monk and scholar of the 13th-century, Bartholomaeus, there is a warning that in Africa one might find ‘satires, wodewoses, tigris, and oþer horrible bestes’. [satyrs, woodwoses, tigers and other horrible beasts]. Although, given that this text suggests that there are tigers in Africa, it might not be the most trustworthy source.
MATING HABITS
Wodewoses are terrible pick-up artists. I can’t be sure, because I’ve never met one, but it seems that wodewoses get tongue-tied around ladies. They just don’t have the right words; they can’t woo. Consequently they sometimes just have to make their affections clear to ladies after they’ve carried them off to their lairs. Unfortunately, the manuscript evidence suggests that this isn’t always a fool-proof strategy for winning the women of their dreams.
Ineffectual wodewose wooing from the Taymouth Hours, England, c. 1325–50, Yates Thompson MS 13, ff. 62r–63v
With thanks to the marvellous @iandouglas for stitching this little beauty together. This GIF makes us a teeny bit sad. As Ian observed, ‘poor guy. Can’t a wodewose attempt to carry off Princess Leia without being skewered for his trouble?’
In the beautiful Smithfield Decretals we can see some more wodewose wooing and wodewose repelling. In this image we’ve got a lady seemingly more taken with the embrace of a tree than that of the wodewose. Read more about this manuscript.
Wodewose attempts to embrace lady; lady appears more taken with the tree, Smithfield Decretals, Southern France (?Toulouse), c. 1300–1340, Royal MS 10 E IV, f 72r
Wodewose votes with his feet (and captivating arms), Smithfield Decretals, Southern France (?Toulouse), c. 1300–1340, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 72v
Woman demonstrates displeasure at wodewose's advances, Smithfield Decretals, Southern France (?Toulouse), c. 1300–1340, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 73r
Wodewose reaches lovingly for woman, Smithfield Decretals, Southern France (?Toulouse), c. 1300–1340, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 74r
Wodewose rewarded for his advances, Smithfield Decretals, Southern France (?Toulouse), c. 1300–1340, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 74v
Yet again wodewose gets speared for his trouble, Smithfield Decretals, Southern France (?Toulouse), c. 1300–1340, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 101
PREDATORS
Wodewoses have few known predators. However, some versions of the story of Alexander the Great describe the king encountering marvellous races in India, who are sometimes depicted as wodewoses.
Alexander the Great predating some wodewoses, 'Le livre et la vraye hystoire du bon roy Alixandre', Paris, c. 1420–1425, Royal MS B XX , f. 64
ADDENDUM: WODEWOSES CAN BE FIRE HAZARDS
On 28 January 1393, a masquerade ball was held at the court of Charles VI of France. The ball, held at the Palace of Saint-Pol, was to celebrate the marriage of Catherine de Fastaverin -- one of the queen's waiting women. The king and several of his companions decided to dress up as wodewoses and perform a wild dance to entertain the guests. They wore masks and linen costumes soaked in flax which made them appear shaggy. At some point in the proceedings, Charles' brother, the Duc d'Orléans, arrived with a lit torch. Disaster struck: the torch somehow came into contact with the dancers' costumes and they caught fire.
The king was only saved when his cousin, the Duchesse de Berry threw her voluminous skirts over him to extinguish the flames. One other dancer — Sieur de Nantoillet — survived by jumping into a vat of wine. All the others were burnt to death. Impersonating a wodewose can have dire consequences.
The 'Bal des Ardents' from Froissart’s Chroniques, Southern Netherlands, c. 1470–72, Harley MS 4380, f. 1
What is your favourite wodewose image? Send us your favourite suggestions to @BLMedieval, using the hashtag #WodewoseWednesday
Mary Wellesley
Further Reading:
Richard Bernheimer, Wild Men in the Middle Ages: A Study in Art, Sentiment, Demonology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952).
Timothy Husband, The Wild Man: Medieval Myth and Symbolism (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980).
19 September 2016
The British Library's Greek Manuscripts Project
Have you ever wondered what books looked like in antiquity? Perhaps you have pondered why some manuscripts are written on paper and some on parchment? Did you know that the ancient Greeks thought up machines and robots powered by steam? These issues and more are taken up on a new web resource dedicated to the study of Greek written heritage. Greek Manuscripts, which officially launches today, is intended to complement and promote the hundreds of Greek manuscripts digitised by the British Library in recent years. The website contains articles on a wide variety of subjects relating to Greek papyri and manuscripts, written by experts from the UK, continental Europe, and North America. Additionally, several videos provide short visual introductions to key topics. Collection items discussed in the articles are given separate item pages, with links to the online catalogue entry and full digital coverage on Digitised Manuscripts.
The Constitution of the Athenians, written on papyrus in Egypt c. 100 CE (Papyrus 131).
Drawing on the rich collections of Greek manuscripts held by the British Library, the website provides succinct introductions to major themes and issues, directed towards a non-specialist audience. The project’s aim is not to present new scholarship, although some of the most exciting developments in recent research are reflected in several articles and videos. We especially hope that the website will be helpful to students, scholars in related fields, and members of the public, in orienting themselves in a subject area that can often appear daunting from the outside.
The articles are organised into five overlapping themes, reflecting some of the most important aspects of Greek manuscripts, classical antiquity, and Byzantine culture: art, religion, scholarship, the Greek world, and the makers of Greek manuscripts. They cover the entire chronological period represented by the British Library’s Greek collections, from classical antiquity down to the early 20th century. Many of the most famous items in the collections, such as the Golden Canon tables, the Theodore Psalter or the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians, are included on the site, but so are many lesser-known volumes that are of major importance in their own way.
The earliest manuscript of the classical author Lucian, written in Constantinople in the early 10th century (Harley MS 5694, f. 60v).
A number of articles introduce complicated topics to the general reader. For instance, James Freeman surveys the shifting use of paper in Greek manuscripts, while Matthew Nicholls and Georgi Parpulov provide a clear overview of the history of libraries from Classical and Late Antiquity to the Byzantine Middle Ages. Other pieces take on a staggering range of material, to provide a succinct overview of a very broad theme: for instance, Dimitris Krallis’s article on Byzantine historiography, or Aileen Das’s survey of the transmission of Greek philosophy and medicine.
The Harley Trilingual Psalter contains the text of the Psalms in Greek, Latin and Arabic. Sicily (Palermo?), c. 1230-1250 (Harley MS 5786, f. 158r).
The biblical manuscripts that make up a substantial portion of the British Library’s holdings are well-represented on the website. Kathleen Maxwell shares her expertise in the Library’s illuminated Gospels, and the multifaceted transmission of the Old Testament in Greek is also surveyed. Greek manuscripts did not develop in a vacuum: they were circulated far beyond the limits of Greek-speaking antiquity and the Byantine empire. Peter Tóth presents just some of the examples of multilingualism that can be found in Greek manuscripts, while other articles look at topics such as the tradition of schoolboy compositions in Greek in Elizabethan England.
We will introduce more articles on the new website over the coming weeks, advertising them in a series of blog posts. The project, and indeed the preceding Greek Manuscripts Digitisation Project, has been generously supported by a range of donors, including the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the A. G. Leventis Foundation, the Sylvia Ioannou Foundation, and many others. We are grateful to them and to the many experts who have shared their knowledge on the site. We invite everyone to explore the articles and videos and learn more about the British Library’s unparalleled collection of Greek manuscripts!
The Golden Canon Tables, created in Constantinople in the 6th or 7th century (Add MS 5111, f. 11r).
16 September 2016
Snakes, Mandrakes and Centaurs: Medieval Herbal Now Online
Cannabis can be used to treat swollen breasts. The urine of a child has wrinkle-busting properties. Fern, mixed with wine, is a good treatment for wounds. (Sounds promising, although I might go easy on the fern part.) And should you fear encountering snakes, it is best to carry Adderwort with you. These are some of the nuggets of medical wisdom to be found in our recently digitised Sloane MS 1975. The manuscript is an illustrated collection of medical texts, made in England or Northern France in the last quarter of the 12th century.
A man attempting to vanquish a serpent and an image of the Teazle plant, England or France, c. 1175–1200, Sloane MS 1975, f. 21r
Sloane 1975 contains a collection of different works, including a treatise on herbs by Pseudo-Apuleius (the name pseudo-Apuleius is used to refer to an anonymous 4th-century Roman author whose work was sometimes erroneously attributed to Apuleius), Pseudo-Dioscorides, 'De herbis femininis', and a text by Sextus Placitus of Papyra (active c. 370 CE), entitled 'De medicina ex animalibus'. It is extensively illustrated, and the images are a joy.
The image below depicts the Mandrake plant, which was used as an anaesthetic and treatment for melancholy, mania and rheumatic pain. (The plant can induce hallucinations -- it produces tropane alkaloids: tropane alkaloids are also produced by Erythroxylum novogranatens, the plant which is used to create cocaine.) The roots of the mandrake have the habit of forking in two directions, and can appear to resemble a human figure. Depictions of it often show the plant with a human body or head. It was thought that the plant would scream when pulled from the earth and any who heard the screams would be condemned to death or damnation. Harvesting the plant would therefore pose some problems. The manuscript advises that strings should be attached to the plant and the other end of the strings attached to a dog, which would then pull the plant from the ground. Below, the dog can be seen harvesting the mandrake.
A Mandrake, England or France, c. 1175–1200, Sloane MS 1975, f. 49r
The manuscript’s illustrations serve a variety of purposes. This one, below, shows the appropriate way to deal with a rabid dog. (Can you tell it’s rabid? The clue is in its *rabid*, red face.)
Man and dog, England or France, c. 1175–1200, Sloane MS 1975, f. 24r
Should you be bitten by a rabid dog, the herbal elsewhere advises, it is best to consult a hen. If the hen has a good appetite, it bodes well for a speedy recovery.
A hen bodes well for speedy recovery, England or France, c. 1175–1200, Sloane MS 1975, f. 14v
Many of the images illustrate the properties of particular plants, like the one depicting the mandrake. Others, however, appear to have a more incidental purpose. The illustration for Carmel gestures to the alternative names for the plant. Curmel is called ‘Centauria Maior’ in Greek, hence the image below depicts a centaur holding the plant.
To the left, the plant Carmel, to the right a centaur holds the plant, England or France, c. 1175–1200, Sloane MS 1975, f. 23r
Centaurs make an appearance elsewhere. This image shows the centaur Chiron giving herbs to the goddess Diana or Artemis (who was his foster mother according to some sources). He has apparently named three plants of the genus Artemisia after her.
Chiron gives herbs to Artemis, England or France, c. 1175–1200, Sloane MS 1975, f. 17v
The manuscript also contains a text called 'De medicina ex animalibus', which has some wonderful images of animals, including something that bills itself as an elephant, but in person looks more like a disappointed tapir vomiting up a tusk.
An Elephant (apparently), England or France, c. 1175–1200, Sloane MS 1975, f. 81v
Yet, alongside endearing images of animals, this manuscript also contains grisly images of medical treatment. In this image, a patient’s hands are tied behind his back, while a doctor performs surgery on his head – a grim reminder of the realities of medical treatment before anaesthetics were discovered.
Grim images of medicine before anaesthesia, England or France, c. 1175–1200, Sloane MS 1975, f. 91v
A few folios on and the images get decidedly worse (yes, we also thought they couldn't get any worse). In the top left-hand corner of this image we can see a doctor removing haemorrhoids from a patient (the bowl on which the patient is standing may have been intended to catch the blood). Below this a doctor is excising a nasal growth, and to the right a doctor is removing cataracts.
Variety of hideous medical procedures, England or France, c. 1175–1200, Sloane MS 1975, f. 93r
This manuscript is currently on show in Cambridge, at the Fitzwilliam Museum's Colour exhibition. Read more about this exhibition and the manuscripts we have loaned to it here.
Mary Wellesley
03 September 2016
Guess the Manuscript Returns
It's been a while since we asked you to "guess the manuscript", that fun game for all the family. This medieval manuscript is found, in full, on the British Library's Digitised Manuscripts site. But what is it?
Send us your guesses via Twitter (@BLMedieval) or using the comments box below this post. Good luck! We'll reveal the answer next week.
A page from an old book, but we're not going to tell you what it is yet, as that would spoil it (British Library MS XXX!)
Update (5 September)
And the answer to our fiendish Guess the Manuscript is Sloane MS 1975, a 12th-century medical and herbal miscellany, currently on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum's Colour exhibition. We showed you folio 93v; here's the other side of that same leaf (f. 93r). Thank you everyone who took part and for all your fun guesses.
01 September 2016
A Calendar Page for September 2016
For more information about the Bedford Hours, please see our post for January 2016; for more on medieval calendars in general, our original calendar post is an excellent guide.
Calendar page for September from the Bedford Hours, France (Paris), c. 1410-1430, Add MS 18850, f. 9r
Summer’s end is in the air in the calendar pages for September from the Bedford Hours.
Detail of miniatures of a man treading grapes and the zodiac sign Libra, from the calendar page for September, Add MS 18850, f. 9r
The heavy agricultural work of the summer begins to give way to the preparations for autumn, and this calendar page for September shows one of the most common of these preparations. On the lower left, a man is carefully treading grapes in a vat for making wine; he has removed his trousers for this messy job, but his jaunty cap remains intact. To his right is a female figure carrying a set of scales, for the zodiac sign Libra.
Detail of a marginal roundel of Palas, from the calendar page for September, Add MS 18850, f. 9r
On the middle right of the folio is a miniature of a king with a forked beard, seated in a garden. Behind him stands an angel with an open book, which is visible behind the king’s crown. This scene is only somewhat explained by the accompanying rubric, which describes how the month of September is named after the number seven, which is ‘dedicated to Palas which means wisdom’. The honorific Pallas was given to the goddess Athena, who was indeed the goddess of wisdom.
Calendar page for September, Add MS 18850, f. 9v
More details about the month of September can be found on the following folio. The first marginal roundel shows a bearded man, clad in green leaves, standing in a walled garden overflowing with plants. Above him in gold lettering is the name ‘Verto[m]pn[us]’, who the rubric tells us produces fruit ‘in the month of September’. This figure is almost certainly that of Vertumnus, the Roman god of seasonal change, fruit trees, growth and gardens. At the bottom is a figure of a regal woman standing in a garden, with a bird flying directly before her. She is labelled ‘Elul’ and the rubrics go on to explain that the month of September is ‘called in Hebrew elul which means the mother of God.’ (Elul is the sixth month of the Hebrew ecclesiastical calendar, corresponding to parts of August and September in the Gregorian system.)
Detail of marginal roundels of Vertumnus and Elul, from the calendar page for September, Add MS 18850, f. 9v
29 August 2016
Monster Monday
You may have noticed the recent trend for naming days on Twitter. We've had #WorldElephantDay, #InternationalDogDay and even #nationalburgerday (seriously, who makes this stuff up?!). So, without more ado, we've decided to make a stand and to reclaim Mondays as our very own #MonsterMonday. (You know it makes sense.)
A man without a head, with eyes and a mouth in his chest (a blemmye): Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 102v
For the inaugural #MonsterMonday (the trademark application is in the post), we thought we'd kick off with the Marvels of the East, from the copy that forms part of the famous Beowulf manuscript. A quick advert for our Digitised Manuscripts site here: you should know that you can view digitised images of Beowulf and hundreds of the British Library's other medieval manuscripts, for free and online, from the comfort of your own office/living room/bathroom, 24/7. The manuscript of the Marvels of the East featured here was made sometime around the year AD 1000, most likely during the reign of King Æthelred the Unready (978–1016) or his successor, King Cnut (1016–35). Sadly, it was damaged during the Cotton Library fire of 1731, but the pages containing the images of fantastic beasts are mostly intact, even when the parchment has warped under the intense heat of the flames.
Which monsters do you recognise here? We'd love you to tweet us your favourites, to @BLMedieval, and to join in our little game of Monday mayhem, using the hashtag #MonsterMonday. Otherwise, someone else will come up with an equally daft idea, like #GlobalTurnipWeek, and we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?
A serpent and a two-horned beast: Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 99r
A cynocephalus (a man with a dog's head): Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 100r
A man 15 feet high with white bodies and two faces: Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 101v
A beast-headed man, holding a human leg and foot, alongside a person with long hair: Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 103v
A man with ears like winnowing fans: Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 104r
A woman with long hair: Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 105v
Julian Harrison
24 August 2016
The Great Medieval Bake Off
The return of a certain baking contest to British television screens this evening marks the time of year when viewers are struck by a peculiar kind of ‘baking fever’. Typical symptoms include: massively overestimating your own baking talents; buying and using peculiar ingredients you would never usually use; and avidly discussing whose cake had more of a ‘soggy bottom’. This fascination with the baking process and an enjoyment of bread, cakes and pies has long been an important part of society. Baking is, after all, one of the world’s oldest professions, and baking guilds were among the earliest craftsmen guilds established in medieval Europe.
The high level of skill required in the baking craft was certainly recognised in medieval society. In the passage below, the Anglo-Saxon monk, Ælfric, implied that everyone can cook, but it took special skills to be a baker! 'You can live a long time without my skills', he described a baker saying, 'but you cannot live well without them.'
Detail of passage from Ælfric’s colloquy which claims that everyone can cook, but it takes special skills to be a baker (pistor), from marginal additions to a copy of Priscian’s De Excerptiones, Abingdon, 11th century, Add MS 32246, f. 16v
The realities of medieval baking are also depicted in the beautiful illustrations of the Smithfield Decretals. This manuscript contains a collection of 1,971 papal letters, heavily illustrated with scenes which complement the letters and aspects of medieval life. These two illustrations depict two figures, one putting a loaf of bread into the oven and another who waits nearby with a basket of loaves. It is likely that this depicts a communal bread oven, which was popular in the 1300s and allowed all members of the village to bake their own loaves.
Detail of a baker putting a loaf in an oven, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 145r
Detail of a man with loaves in a basket and a baker putting loaves in an oven or taking loaves out of an oven, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 145v
Another illustration from a 14th-century manuscript depicts a rabbit baking its own bread in a miniature oven!
Detail of marginal image of a rabbit, from Lansdowne MS 451, f. 6r
In medieval society, bakers also provided extravagant fare at feasts and celebrations. Feasts were a fundamental part of medieval society and were used to celebrate victories, proclaim social bonds and enjoy the products of the land.
Detail of men feasting, from the Tiberius Psalter, England (? Old Minster Winchester), 11th century, Cotton MS Tiberius C VI, f. 5v
It is easy imagine that preparing for these feasts could be an extremely stressful experience for the cooks and bakers. The illustration below depicts an angry cook brandishing his knife at a member of the service staff.
Marginal illustration from the Luttrell Psalter, Additional MS 42130, f. 207v
Like their modern counterparts, medieval bakers created and used cookbooks, containing recipes and lists of ingredients. A particularly fascinating cookbook was recently discovered here at the British Library, which included recipes for hedgehogs, blackbirds, and even unicorns! The image below, however, is taken from the Forme of Cury, the oldest known instructive cookbook in the English language, dating to the 14th century. The world ‘cury’ is the Middle English word for ‘cookery’. This recipe is for a ‘toastee’, in which two pieces of toasted bread are flavoured with a spiced honey and wine sauce. This cookbook also includes recipes for ‘Pygg in sawse sawge’ or ‘Pig in sage sauce’ and ‘Bank mang’, the predecessor of blancmange.
Recipe for a ‘tostee’, from the Forme of Cury, England, c. 1390, Add MS 5016
Other medieval recipes can be found in the 15th-century cookbook known as the ‘Boke of Kokery’. This manuscript contains 182 recipes, instructing the reader how to ‘hew’ (chop), ‘mele’ (mix), and ‘powdr’ (salt). The page below describes some of the dishes served at a feast for the ordination of the archbishop of Canterbury in 1443. The page also describes a ‘sotelte’ or ‘subtlety’, which was an elaborate sugar sculpture, designed to replicate a biblical scene.
Description of sugar sculptures and other subtleties at a feast for the ordination of the archbishop of Canterbury in 1443, from A Boke of Kokery, England, c. 1443, Harley MS 4016, f. 2r
It is clear that there are many similarities between the medieval and the modern baker. Bakers are still valued members of society, use cookbooks and recipes, and cook for a wide range of functions. One particular difference, however, is the more tolerant approach that modern critics have for bakers whose culinary skills are just not up to scratch. No matter how bad their skills, modern bakers will not be drawn through the streets on the back of a horse with the evidence of their failure tied around their neck.
Detail of a bas-de-page scene of a bad baker being dragged on a horse-drawn hurdle with his deficient loaf of bread around his neck, from the Smithfield Decretals, Southern France (Toulouse?), c. 1300-1340, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 94r
Neither will modern bakers be strung up for their failures of the kitchen, and meet the same fate as the baker in the image below. This is taken from the illustrated Book of Genesis in the Old English Hexateuch, and accompanies the story of the hanging of the Pharaoh’s baker.
Depiction of the hanging of the Pharaoh’s baker in the Old English Hexateuch, Cotton MS Claudius B IV, f. 59r.
Thankfully to many an aspiring baker, modern society is far more tolerant of the varying talents of bakers and the cakes an loaves that they produce!
Becky Lawton
23 August 2016
Which Star Sign Are You?
Are you one of those people who reads their star charts religiously? Does it matter whether you were born a Taurus or under the sign of Aries? Do Leos rub you up the wrong way or Capricorns get your goat?
If you've answered yes to any of these questions, it might warm your heart to realise that astrology was taken very seriously in the Middle Ages. Take, for example, the Psalter of Lambert le Bègue (Add MS 21114), which contains this cycle of calendar pages, each adorned with its own zodiac sign. For January we have an image of a hooded man drinking from a bowl, below which is the sign of Aquarius; February is represented by a man lopping branches from a tree, with the sign of Pisces; while December depicts a man about to slaughter a bull, supported by the sign of Capricorn. Lambert (died around 1177) had founded the Béguine monastery of St Christophe in Liège, and his portrait is found on f. 7v of this Psalter, made sometime between 1255 and 1265.
Whoever illustrated this calendar clearly wished to supply the star signs for their readers, supplemented by drawings of typical activities for each month of the year, from hawking (May) to harvesting (August) and making wine (October). The vaguely optimistic bull on the calendar page for December is contrasted with the indignant boar for November and the proud hawk for May. Meanwhile, the star signs all resemble their modern forms, with that for Sagittarius firing its arrow into the distance off the right-hand edge of the page. So, which star sign are you?
January (Aquarius): Add MS 21114, f. 1r
February (Pisces): Add MS 21114, f. 1v
March (Aries): Add MS 21114, f. 2r
April (Taurus): Add MS 21114, f. 2v
May (Gemini): Add MS 21114, f. 3r
June (Cancer): Add MS 21114, f. 3v
July (Leo): Add MS 21114, f. 4r
August (Virgo): Add MS 21114, f. 4v
September (Libra): Add MS 21114, f. 5r
October (Scorpio): Add MS 21114, f. 5v
November (Sagittarius): Add MS 21114, f. 6r
December (Capricorn): Add MS 21114, f. 6v
You can find our more about calendar pages in our monthly post taken this year from the magnificent Bedford Hours.
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