The main miniature on f. 20v shows a peasant in the foreground who stops digging in a terrace in a fenced herb garden to dock his cap to the lady. She gestures eloquently and energetically to him with her left hand. Two peasants in the midway distance chop a bare tree down whilst the lord, slightly further away, talks to another peasant leaning on the handle of what could be an axe. In the background on the left is a castle with its moat full of water and a man riding across its drawbridge on horseback. A large mansion can be seen above the walls and on the right is a peasant riding one of the two horses pulling what is probably a cart for carrying firewood under a granary. The peasant in the foreground holds the spade he has dug and removed earth with to make new terraces.
The image of a lady giving the gardener instructions is influenced by the illustrations of some of Petrus de Crescentiis’s Opus ruralium commodorum manuscripts, also known thanks to the French translation dated 1373 and entitled Rustican or Livre des prouffits champestres. The tree-felling scene in the midway distance shows that wood was not just used as firewood but possibly also for building houses or making furniture or household utensils.
Depicted in cameo in the bas-de-page on folio 20v are several children shaking wooden rattles, as in the top right rectangle of the border around the text in the Mayer van den Bergh Breviary calendar (f. 2v) and the top band in the Spinola Hours (f. 2v), both by Gerard Horenbout. It is difficult to know whether the two children shown fighting on the left are quarrelling or involved in a sporting or mock fight.
The main miniature on f. 20v shows a peasant in the foreground who stops digging in a terrace in a fenced herb garden to dock his cap to the lady. She gestures eloquently and energetically to him with her left hand. Two peasants in the midway distance chop a bare tree down whilst the lord, slightly further away, talks to another peasant leaning on the handle of what could be an axe. In the background on the left is a castle with its moat full of water and a man riding across its drawbridge on horseback. A large mansion can be seen above the walls and on the right is a peasant riding one of the two horses pulling what is probably a cart for carrying firewood under a granary. The peasant in the foreground holds the spade he has dug and removed earth with to make new terraces.
The image of a lady giving the gardener instructions is influenced by the illustrations of some of Petrus de Crescentiis’s Opus ruralium commodorum manuscripts, also known thanks to the French translation dated 1373 and entitled Rustican or Livre des prouffits champestres. The tree-felling scene in the midway distance shows that wood was not just used as firewood but possibly also for building houses or making furniture or household utensils.
Depicted in cameo in the bas-de-page on folio 20v are several children shaking wooden rattles, as in the top right rectangle of the border around the text in the Mayer van den Bergh Breviary calendar (f. 2v) and the top band in the Spinola Hours (f. 2v), both by Gerard Horenbout. It is difficult to know whether the two children shown fighting on the left are quarrelling or involved in a sporting or mock fight.
Carlos Miranda García-Tejedor
Doctor in History
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