Summer in medieval calendar

It is harvest time. While most people are now enjoying their holidays, summer used to be the busiest time of year. Crops had to be gathered and not only did that involve a lot of work, it was also a matter of life and death. No harvest, no food. The importance of harvesting is clearly reflected in medieval calendars.

Already in the Roman era there were calendars that depicted the seasons and the activities that took place during those seasons. At the beginning of our era, the summer months were also marked by the harvest of both grain and fruit. This tradition continued into the Middle Ages and the calendars were put up in churches where everybody could consult them. Each month in these calendars showed a picture of a farmer with the specific tools for his activities, such as a sickle for mowing in the summer. This way, the Christian church tried to convince people that work was not a punishment, but the way to salvation. In the 13th century the calendars went out of fashion and they disappeared from the churches.

Court culture
Agriculture was the most important source of income, for both the farmers and the owners of the farm land: the nobility or the church. Everyone depended on the land, which explains the prominent position of agricultural labour in the calendars. The aristocracy were hardly part of the images of the early calendars that were up in the churches. That changed in the 15th century, when a new type of calendar was introduced.

Court culture had started to flourish in the century before and the elite spent their time in the countryside differently from the farmers. They went hunting, played and held tournaments at the countryside castles. The nobility became the newest client for calendars, specifically, the Book of Hours. The elite used these costly and abundantly illustrated written books for their personal prayers. These volumes were no longer publicly available, for everyone to use. The images in the books of hours are illustrations to accompany the manuscripts.

Aristocracy in calendar
Although agriculture was still essential and farming activities were still depicted in the summer months, the noble clientele´s wishes differed from the church´s and the images changed. Court life was also represented in the calendars now, for example, in images of lavish banquets in the winter months. There are also significant differences in style. The new calendars idealised country life and no longer showed lone, hardworking farmers.

These calendars portrayed farmers working companionably in small groups, seemingly without much effort. The same images now also showed the nobility, enjoying themselves without a care in the world, against a background of the lord´s castle. The calendars ordered by the elite purposely depicted the differences between the social classes. They emphasised the good relations between the landowners and their tenants. The master visited the farmers, who would give him a friendly welcome.

The most famous calendar of this kind is Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, made around 1410 by miniature painters the Van Limburg brothers. Nowadays, this calendar is considered one of the highlights of Gothic painting. One of the new motives of the 15th century is illustrated in the month of July: sheep shearing.

To the city
In the 16th century, the idealisation of rural life continued. The corridors of power were now in the cities and the number of city residents grew rapidly, especially in The Netherlands. Remarkably, the themes of the still popular calendars did not change. The simple country life of working on the lands according to the seasons only became a more popular topic, to oppose the more complex city life. Therefore, in that period, the main buyers of the calendars were rich and sophisticated city dwellers.

In that same century, Pieter Brueghel Sr. introduced a new way of representing the farmer, although he did so in paintings, not calendars. He turned them into a caricature, portraying them as clodhoppers who got drunk, partied, urinated, threw up and had sex in public. Again, it was the city residents who liked these innovative images, but it was precisely this group that wanted to distinguish itself from the so-called uncivilised medieval farmers in the country.

Find the details
The countryside is also represented in the Chessmen Museum. There is a truly adorable chess set in the window that is full of small details worth having a good look at. The chess pieces represent forest and farm animals as well as natural products such as honey and nuts. A beautiful mix of agriculture and nature, as was usual in the Middle Ages. The chess pieces almost seem like a glorification of that period, long before the current age of large-scale mass production and bio-industry.

By Marjolein Overmeer