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January from Walters MS. W.425
This leaf from the Walters Museum prayer book fragment, Walters MS. W.425 f. 1r shows the calendar page for January, with a partial list of saints days in the month. In the border on the right of the page is a small roundel featuring an image of Aquarius, the water-bearer, in the form of a small naked figure (male?) carrying a jug of water in each hand.is The calendar image shows a fairly conventional labor for the month of January. The scene is indoors. A well dressed man is seated at a table, with his back to a fire. The man wears a fur-trimmed robe; the scene looks domestic, suggesting…
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January from the Hours of Henry VIII
The calendar page for January from the Hours of Henry VIII (Morgan Library MS. H.8 f.1) features feasting in front of the fire, a typical labor for the month of January as depicted in books of hours. This illustration is an example of the “cutaway” scenes that featured in books of hours, with three panels.[ref]See for instance the February calendar image in the Très Riches Heures.[/ref] On the far left the image shows the outside of the house. It’s clearly a snowy winter day. It’s snowing, and the ample wood pile is partially obscured by the falling snow. The next vignette shows someone bringing in wood, while the central…
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January from the Da Costa Hours
This January calendar image from the Da Costa Hours, MS M.399, fol. 2v from the collection of the Morgan Library features typical January labors; warming by the fire, and feasting. A man and a child are, quite literally, warming their hands by the fire. The man has removed his footwear, a pair of crude sandals that are startlingly reminiscent of flip-flops. Behind him, a man and a woman are at a small dining table. The woman appears to be serving a leg of goose or other large fowl. The man is holding a covered bowl. The table is already set with a lit candle, two pieces of trencher bread, and…
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January from The Golf Book
The Golf Book (British Library Additional MS 24098) is a book of hours featuring the work of Simon Bening and his Bruges workshop, where the MS was produced sometime in the 1540s. The image for January (f.18v–19) features a snowy winter scene. In the background, a windmill works, and people are on the steps of a small church. Beyond the windmill and a church is a small figure on horseback and another kneeling in the snow. A man and a woman stand chatting in the path, near a bit of gate that looks very like a modern farm gate. In the foreground, inside a house with a smoking chimney and…
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January and Feasting in the Très Riches Heures
January in the middle ages was especially associated with feasting, and exchanging gifts on New Year’s and on Twelfth Night. In the c. 1400 Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the narrator refers to the nobles at Arthur’s court on January 1st exchanging gifts and playing games, including kissing games, perhaps, and something resembling handy-dandy prickly-prandy. January saint’s days include the Feast of the Circumcision on the first, the Epiphany on the sixth, Saint Agnes on the twenty-first, and the Conversion of Saint Paul on the twenty-fifth, among other feats. Typically the calendar page will show the sign of Aquarius, the water-bearer in a border (at the…
