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December from the Da Costa Hours
We often think of December as the entry to winter and to Christmas. In the middle ages, typically, winter featured much more dramatically than Christmas. The calendar pages in Books of Hours showing the labors of December most often feature an image of hog butchering, a boar roast, or a boar hunt (sometimes they feature an image of St. John boiling in oil, or the baking of bread) as December labors of the month. This wintery scene is a detail from the December calendar page from the Da Costa Hours (Belgium, Bruges, c. 1515) now in The Morgan Library. (MS M.399, f. 13v). The landscape is snowy, and the people…
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November from the Da Costa Hours
The traditional labors of November are knocking down acorns for swine to feed, or hog butchering. This November calendar image from The Morgan Library’s Da Costa Hours MS M.399, fol. 12v shows neither. Instead, it shows a farmyard and people preparing flax (though there are some pigs grazing in the background). Flax is a fiberus plant grown for both the seeds (for food for people and animals) but more importantly, for the fibers, used to make linen. While wool was the most common fabric in the Middle ages in Europe, linen was also used for clothing and household textiles since it made durable light-weight cloth that was particularly suited for…
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October from the Da Costa Hours
Sometimes the calendar images in a book of hours departs from the more common labors of the month. This is the case with the Morgan Library’s Da Costa Hours image for October. The more common labors for October in books of hours include ploughing and sowing in colder climates, transferring the new wine into casks and barrels for aging in warmer wine-growing areas, or even, a late harvest of grapes in the warmer Mediterranean climates, which is one of the labors in this image from the Morgan Library’s MS M.399, fol. 11v, the October calendar image from the Da Costa Hours. The Morgan Library’s Da Costa Hours calendar image for October…
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September from the Da Costa Hours
The traditional labors of September shown in books of hours are harvesting and treading grapes in warmer regions and ploughing and sowing (and sometimes, threshing) in colder climates. In this detail of the September calendar image from the Morgan Library’s Da Costa Hours (MS M.399, fol. 10v), in the foreground a man ploughs with the aid of two horses. Behind him another man is sowing seeds by casting. The seeds are probably winter wheat, and there are more of them in the basket of grain resting on the ground. Behind him and to the left, a man with a stick is knocking down nuts for the swine below the trees;…
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August from the Da Costa Hours
This is a lovely but also fairly traditional book of hours calendar image for August from The Morgan Library’s MS M.399, fol. 9v The Da Costa Hours, showing the customary labor of August, threshing grain, as well as the last reaping of grain. In the front on the left, a woman is finding the cut wheat into sheaves for drying. Front and center a double-flail wielding man is beating the ripened grains from the stocks. To his right another man with a sickle is reaping the ripe grain. In the middle distance on the left a cart drawn by two horses (one with a rider) is hauling away a…
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July from the Da Costa Hours
This image shows the common labor of July, haying, from the Morgan Library’s Da Costa Hours, MS M.399, fol. 8v. In the front on the right, two men are using scythes (note the long handles) to mow the grass. On the left is a wagon (or haywain) with a team of draft horses. I consulted a draft horse expert (Hi Jenni!) who tells me that “the tongue on the wagon is what’s called a ‘stiff tongue.” When the horses aren’t attached to it, the tip remains suspended in the air rather than drop to the ground. . . . The horses [in this image] don’t have to hold the end…
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June from the Da Costa Hours
The occupation for June in this Simon Bening calendar image from the Da Costa Hours (Morgan Library MS. M.399, fol. 7v) is sheep-shearing. It’s pretty much exactly what you’d see today, though electric clippers are more common these days. Bening also depicted sheep shearing for the June calendar page in the Golf Book in a strikingly similar scene. The positions of sheep and shearer are the same even now. A fellow in a coat and hat is leaning on a walking stick; this might be the owner or the shepherd, or even a nosey neighbor, but his clothing marks him as someone who’s more than a peasant laborer. He has his…
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May from the Da Costa Hours
This Da Costa Hours May calendar page illuminated by Simon Bening of Ghent (1483/84–1561) is from the Da Costa hours in the Morgan Library (MS M.399, fol. 6v). It is very similar to the May calendar page that Simon Bening created for the British Library’s Golf Book. Just as in the Golf Book calendar page for May, Bening in the Da Costa Hours features a boat with greenery and musicians celebrating May 1 and the heart of Spring, an appropriate labor of May. As with all of the calendar pages in this book of hours, May from the Da Costa Hours features what the Morgan Library describes as “an illusionistic…
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April from the Da Costa Hours
This illustration for the calendar page for April (MS M.399, fol. 5v) from The Morgan Library’s Da Costa Hours is a somewhat atypical scene for April, in terms of what most books of hours depict for the April calendar; the labors of April include, most often, scenes of courtship or, or the verdant spring in the form of flowers or spring planting or pruning. Here is a spring farmyard scene, with a cow being milked, a shepherd with lambs, a flock of sheep (and a single billy goat) exiting a sheepcote with some assistance from a man inside, a ewe nursing a lamb. In the background a woman in the…
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March from the Da Costa Hours
The typical labors of March include digging and plowing in preparation for spring planting. In this March calendar image from the Morgan Library’s Da Costa Hours (Morgan Library MS M.399, f.4v) a false frame surrounds a full page illumination by Simon Bening. Outside a castle with a moat and bridge, two workers are digging garden beds with “D” handled spades.To their right, two gentlemen (based on their expensive clothing) on a walkway, one in blue with a hat, and one resplendent in a red furled cape, appear to be conversing with one of the workers, perhaps, giving instructions about the garden beds. In the background a grape arbor covers the…
