History is full of coincidences and ironies.  The date of 28th January is one such coincidence – 28 January 1457 and 28 January 1547 – two dates 90 years apart.  The former the date of birth of the first Tudor despot, the later the date of his son’s death, the most tyrannical Tudor monarch of all.

Below are close-ups of the entries for the birth of Henry VII and the death of Henry VIII.

Although Henry VII’s date of birth was 1457, and Henry VIII’s date of death 1547, the years above of  1456 and 1546 are correct because these are contemporary entries written at times when the old Julian Calendar was still in use in England.  Until 1752, the 1st January was only the start of the ecclesiastical New Year but not when the year-date changed. The change to a new year started on Lady Day (25th March).  Thus English documents written prior to 1752 will have any dates between 1st January and 24th March written in the Old Style.  Modern historians either have to adjust these dates to the New Style or ‘double date’ the entry to show both old and new date (e.g. the above dates would be dated ‘1456/7’ and ‘1546/7’).

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You may also be interested in the following posts
– Prince Arthur, Prince of Wales
– Tudor Coronations
– Henry VIII – Images of a King: Part 1
– Henry VIII – Images of a King: Part 2 Henry in Love
– Henry VIII – Images of a King: Part 3

Post published: January 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019

The 5th December, is the Eve of the Feast of St Nicholas.  The 5th and 6th December are times of much celebration for the excited children (and parents!) from many countries across Europe.  Saint Nicholas is due to make his arrival and give presents to the children of Europe. Parts of France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Poland all celebrate, in different ways, this saint – known as the protector of children.

However, in England, as a consequence of Henry VIII’s break with Rome and the English Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, it is no-longer the custom to celebrate Saint Nicholas on 6th December.  But before Henry VIII’s break with Rome in the 1530s, the feast of Saint Nicholas was celebrated in many towns and villages of England as part of the Catholic festivities of Yuletide and Christmas.

The legend of Saint Nicholas
The stories and legends of St Nicholas made their way into the exquisite and breath-taking illuminated manuscripts of medieval England.  One such legend is the tale of three children who had wandered away from their homes and got lost.  A wicked butcher lured the children, by now cold and hungry, into his shop where he attacked and murdered them, then pickled them in a large tub.  Fortunately Saint Nicholas saved them and brought them back to life – thus forever taking his place in legends as the protector of children.

Another story was that he saved sailors from drowning after their boat capsized. Thus becoming the patron of mariners.

Below is a selection of images of Saint Nicholas, the saviour of pickled children and drowning mariners.

Bishop Nicholas of Bari (or Myra)
By the 1400s, the illuminated manuscripts changed from showing the stories of the pickled children and drowned mariners. Instead, the exquisite medieval manuscripts shifted their focus to show St Nicholas in his bishopric finery.

Saint Nicholas and Boy Bishops
By medieval times, the Feast of Saint Nicholas on the 6th December was a firm part of English cultural life.  The feast was coupled with the medieval practice of electing young boys as bishops.  A boy from the local community was elected as the parish’s (or establishment’s) ‘Bishop’ on the Feast of St Nicholas and he replaced the authority of the real Bishop until Holy Innocents day (28th December).  (See my blog-post Boy Bishops & the Feast of St Nicholas for more details about this medieval custom).

In 1542, Henry VIII abolished the custom of having boys-bishops on Saint Nicholas’s feast day. It was probably around this period, with Henry VIII’s full-on attack on the Catholic cult of saints, that Saint Nicholas’s feast day itself was brought to an end.

The late Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
During the reign of Elizabeth I, Christmas was still celebrated with great feasts, games, and the celebrations of the 12 Days of Christmas from 25th December until 6th January. But the celebrations were without Saint Nicholas.

Christmas itself was legally stopped during the Interregnum of the mid-seventeenth century.  In 1647, Christmas was officially banned with the Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals. Deemed as a throwback to Catholic days and too full of Popery, frivolity, merry-making and gluttony, the Puritans didn’t want any part of Christmas.

However, it was during the Interregnum that we once again catch a glimpse of Saint Nicholas. Although by this time, calling him Saint Nicholas was far too much for Puritan sensibilities. Two satirical pamphlets about Christmas were published in the 1650s.  And, for the first time in literature, Father Christmas (aka Old Christmas) was named as such.

 

The 1658 woodcutting of Father Christmas clearly shows that by the mid-seventeenth century, he had already taken on the appearance that we know and love today. Who knows what colour his robe would have been if they had colour printing then! Would it be red? Or green? Or brown? Or purple…

Fortunately for us, when the monarchy was restored in 1660, Christmas was too.

References to Old Christmas are tantalising glimpsed in a small number of plays and pamphlets throughout the eighteenth century. But it wasn’t until the Victorian era that there was resurgence of the popularity of Father Christmas.

Charles Dickens and the Ghost of Christmas Present
The Victorian revival and obsession with Father Christmas was partly due to Charles Dickens’ 1843 story A Christmas Carol. His pen-portrait of the Ghost of Christmas Present along with the accompanying illustration by John Leech showed that Father Christmas was alive and very much kicking! Dickens described Scrooges’ encounter with the Ghost thus:

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit. “Look upon me.”

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

Early Twentieth Century Father Christmas
Dickens described the Ghost as having a green robe.  We’re not quite there with our modern day Father Christmas! By the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Father Christmas had a variety of different coloured robes. This was before that well-known gigantic soft-drinks company unilaterally made him a little rotund beaming fella with red robes trimmed with white fur!…

Below are a selection of early twentieth postcards showing Saint Nicholas/Father Christmas/Santa Claus in a wide variety of robes. Notice that even when he was dressed in red, the early 20th century Father Christmas was a tall and lean chap. Not the little fat fella of today!

Father Christmas had nearly fully transformed. From being a pre-Reformation Catholic saint and the saviour of pickled children, he was now a tall angular man with a fur trimmed robe, who brought gifts and presents to good children throughout the world.

Nearly transformed… But not quite…

Modern day Father Christmas
The Father Christmas that we all know and love today is the consequence of a massive advertising campaign by that well known soft drinks company. In the 1930s, the artist Haddon Sundblom, created the very familiar image of Santa for Coca-Cola.  Below is “Somebody Knew I Was Coming” and the basis for the company’s advertising material during the 1930s/1940s at Christmas.

Sundblom based his Santa on the 1822 poem by Clement Clark Moore

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads

Saint Nicholas’ metamorphism into Father Christmas (aka Santa Claus) was complete! Although, strictly-speaking Santa’s red-robe wasn’t because it was Coca-Cola’s corporate colours. Or was it?

His red-robes had long been established before Sundblom’s creativity, as seen in the early twentieth century postcards. But just maybe, by using their corporate colours, Coca-Cola stopped all the other brown/blue/purple/white robed Father Christmases!

Looking at Sundblom’s image and the ones above showing the saintly bishop, it occurred to me that six hundred years after the beautiful illuminated manuscripts of the middle ages, Father Christmas’ right hand is still raised in a form of benediction.

 

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© Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2018

Regular readers of my blog will know that beautiful medieval illuminated manuscripts have long held a particular fascination with me. Created in the medieval period – with some manuscripts now 700/800 years old – the medieval world seemed to have been inhabited by mythical creatures: jousting snails, cats in towers hurling missiles at their enemies, giant fish – to name a few. All elaborately and painstakingly drawn and painted by craftsmen from another era.

Today’s selection of images from the British Library’s collection of illuminated manuscripts is the sea-nymphs and mermaids (and a merman too!) of the medieval mind.

Click on any picture to be taken to the British Library’s full description of the image.

Detail of a mermaid sitting on a bar border holding her tail in one hand and a circular mirror in the other. From Scholastic miscellany, (France, Central (Paris), between 1309 and 1316); shelfmark Burney 275 f.404

Miniature of a mermaid playing a harp luring sailors in a boat. From Bestiary, Guillaume le Clerc (England, 2nd quarter of the 13th century); shelfmark Egerton 613 f.38

Detail of a miniature of a mermaid and a fish. From Image du Monde (Le livre de clergie en roumans) (France, Central (Paris) and England, 2nd quarter of the 15th century); shelfmark Harley 334.

Detail of a miniature a mermaid with a mirror and comb. From from Les Fais et les Dis des Romains et de autres gens (France, N. W., Normandy (possibly Rouen), c. 1460-1487); shelfmark Harley 4372 f.79v

Detail of a miniature of the siren (Syrene) or mermaid who holds a fish, and the prow of a boat with two men in it, one rowing. From Bestiary, with extracts from Giraldus Cambrensis on Irish birds (England, S. (Salisbury?), 2nd quarter of the 13th century); Harley 4751 f.47v.

Detail of a miniature of a mermaid and merman with bow and arrow from Decretals of Gregory IX with glossa ordinaria (the ‘Smithfield Decretals‘), (France, S. (Toulouse?), Last quarter of the 13th century or 1st quarter of the 14th century); shelfmark Royal 10 E IV, f.3.

Detail of a bas-de-page scene of a mermaid. From Decretals of Gregory IX with glossa ordinaria (the ‘Smithfield Decretals‘), (France, S. (Toulouse?), Last quarter of the 13th century or 1st quarter of the 14th century); shelfmark Royal 10 E IV, f.47.

Detail of a bas-de-page scene of two grotesques fighting with domestic implements; between them is a mermaid. From Decretals of Gregory IX with glossa ordinaria (the ‘Smithfield Decretals‘), (France, S. (Toulouse?), Last quarter of the 13th century or 1st quarter of the 14th century); shelfmark Royal 10 E IV, f.69.

 

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that does fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong,
Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest, circa 1610-11

This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe by using the Subscribe via Email button.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the “Like” button or Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Smithfield Decretals: The story of the sinful hermit
– Smithfield Decretals: The story of the medieval spinster
– The cats of the Macclesfield Psalter
– Early-modern images
– Images of Medieval animals
– Images of Medieval music
– Images of Tudors
– Images of Medieval devils
– Images of Medieval funerals
– Images of Medieval cats

© Essex Voices Past 2014.

Today’s post is an image of The Crucifixion taken from the mortuary roll of Lucy de Vere. In the twelfth century, she founded the Benedictine nunnery of Castle Hedingham, North Essex and and was its first prioress. According to the British Library’s catalogue “The roll was sent to 122 religious houses in the southern half of England, each writing an answer to a request for prayers made by Agnes, Prioress of Hedingham, for the soul of her predecessor Lucy.”

‘The Crucifixion’ from Mortuary roll of Lucy, foundress and first prioress of the Benedictine nunnery of Castle Hedingham, with tituli (responsive prayers) 1-6, (Essex, England)  c. 1225 – c. 1230. Shelfmark Egerton 2849 Part I

Happy Easter to all my readers and followers.

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Notes
Images from the British Library’s collection of Medieval Manuscripts are marked as being Public Domain Images and therefore free of all copyright restrictions in accordance with the British Library’s Reuse Guidance Notes for the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

You may also be interested in the following posts
– Easter celebrations in a late medieval English parish
– Easter Monday during Tudor Queen Mary’s reign
– Early modern and medieval illuminated manuscripts

© Essex Voices Past 2014

Medieval December from the Macclesfield Psalter.

‘December’ from The Macclesfield Psalter,
probably produced at Gorleston, East Anglia circa 1330
Gold & tempera on vellum, 17cm x 10.8cm,
© The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

If you want to read more about The Macclesfield Psalter from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the ‘Subscribe via Email’ button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do ‘Like’ it with the Facebook button below.

All digital images from the Macclesfield Psalter appear by courtesy of The Fitzwilliam Museum and may not be reproduced (© The Fitzwilliam Museum).

Further reading
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter: A Complete Facsimile (2008)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter Book (Cambridge, 2005)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter (PDF format on CD)(Cambridge, 2005)

You may also be interested in the following
– Images from the British Library’s online images from the early modern period
– Images from the medieval illuminated manuscripts
– The Macclesfield Psalter

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

On the first day of each month, to each person you greet, it is traditional to give a (small!) pinch and punch whilst you recite the above ditty.  At the end, you must say ‘and no returns’ or ‘white rabbits’ to stop your poor victim from assailing you in return. At my school, it was tradition to return the compliment by saying – with the appropriate (gentle) actions: ‘Here’s a kick for being so quick’.

‘November’from The Macclesfield Psalter,
probably produced at Gorleston, East Anglia circa 1330
Gold & tempera on vellum, 17cm x 10.8cm,
© The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

If you want to read more about The Macclesfield Psalter from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the ‘Subscribe via Email’ button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do ‘Like’ it with the Facebook button below.

All digital images from the Macclesfield Psalter appear by courtesy of The Fitzwilliam Museum and may not be reproduced (© The Fitzwilliam Museum).

Further reading
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter: A Complete Facsimile (2008)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter Book (Cambridge, 2005)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter (PDF format on CD)(Cambridge, 2005)

You may also be interested in the following
– Images from the British Library’s online images from the early modern period
– Images from the medieval illuminated manuscripts
– The Macclesfield Psalter

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

If you watched the recent BBC drama, The White Queen, and its bloody climax – the Battle of Bosworth Field – you would be forgiven for thinking that the battle took place during late autumn or even during early winter. For, according to the Beeb, a thick covering of fallen leaves lay on the battlefield floor and light snow covered the bridleways.

But the battle didn’t take place during winter.  It took place during the high summer of 1485 – on Monday, 22^nd August, to be precise.  On the 7^th August, Henry Tudor, soon to be crowned on a battlefield as King Henry VII, landed off the Welsh coast at Milford Haven. By late August, he was seven miles west of Leicester, near the village (or, in those days, the hamlet) of Market Bosworth.  Margaret Beaufort (born 1443, died 1509), the mother of Henry VII, recorded these momentous events in her Book of Hours.

‘August’ from The Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours (England, S. E. (London), c. 1430,
before 1443) shelfmark Royal 2 A XVIII f. 31v. (We do not know if this is her hand or if a scribe wrote the entries for her.)

The first left margin note in black reads

The day landed king harry the vijth at milford have[n] the yere of o[u]r lord vijth cccc lxxxv [1485]

The second left margin note reads

The day king harri the vijth won[n] the feeld [field] wher was slayn ki[n]g Richard the third Ao Do[m] 1485

The day before the battle, on the 21^st August, King Richard III, along with an army of 12,000, rode out from his temporary accommodation at the White Boar Inn in the city of Leicester and set up his overnight camp in a field on Ambion Hill.

Early 20^th Century etching of the Blue Boar Inn, Leicester. King Richard III spent the night of the 20^th August 1485 in the Inn. It is alleged that he left his bed behind in the inn – perhaps he thought that he’d be coming back to the inn after he had dispatched his enemy, Henry Tudor. A white boar was the personal emblem of Richard III.  Legend has it that the inn was originally called the ‘White Boar’ but after the battle and the death of Richard, the inn-keeper hastily changed the inn’s name to the Blue Boar.

By the end of that fateful day, 22^nd August 1485, King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenets, lay dead on the battlefield.  And the Tudor dynasty began with King Henry VII crowned on Crown Hill in the nearby village of Stoke Golding by the treacherous Lord Thomas Stanley, the new king’s step-father.

King Richard III holds a council of war before the battle.

King Richard III’s trusty advisers.

The general area of the Battle of Bosworth Field.  These photos were taken in the early summer of 2013. In August 1485, it is likely that these fields had the remains of that year’s crops still in the ground.

The general area of the battle.  By the end of the battle, it is thought that approximately 1,000 men on Richard’s side lay dead on the field, along with 100 men from Henry Tudor’s forces.

Overlooking the general area of the battle-site.  The spire in the distance is the (post-medieval) church spire of Stoke Golding, near to which the first Tudor King of England was crowned.

1813 Monument to Richard III.  During the battle, the King drunk from the well that was located here.

The Fellowship of the White Boar’s plaque.

Legend has it that the dead king’s body was brought back to Leicester that same evening.  Stripped naked and devoid of any dignity or kingly regalia, his body was put on display for several days in Leicester.  His enemies (and, of course, his followers) could see for themselves that he really was dead and their new king was Henry VII. Shortly afterwards, he was buried quietly, without ceremony, in the church of the Greyfriars – a Franciscan monastic order.

Modern-day statue of Richard III in a park in Leicester.

Of course, over 520 years later, we now know this legend to be true.  King Richard III was indeed buried by the Franciscans in their monastery, where he lay undisturbed until his discovery in 2012.  I, like many other people around the world, was riveted to the television during the live press release by Leicester University in February 2013, when they confirmed to the waiting world that the body that they had found was indeed that of the last of the Plantagenets. As the Tudor kings of England had so rightly said, Richard III really did lyth buryed in Leicester.

Richard ye was sonne to Richard Duwke of yorke & brother un to kyng Edward ye iiijth Was kyng after hys brother & raynyd ij yeres & lyth buryed at leator [Leicester].  From Biblical and genealogical chronicle from Adam and Eve to Edward VI (England, S. E. (London or Westminster), c. 1511 with additions before 1553) shelfmark King’s 395 ff.32v-33

Watching the astonishing live press release – showing the perfect synergy of archaeology, genealogy, forensic science, and DNA science – was my small home educated son.  He was entranced by the news.  So, keen to capture his excitement, a few months later we headed north to Leicester for our most spine tingling School Trip Friday for academically challenged.

If Leicester’s one-way system had been in existence in 1485, then Richard III would never have made it out of the city and into the nearby villages and fields to meet his nemesis.  In the 21^st Century, guided by my trusty SatNav (who told me several times to ‘please take the 7^th exit’ as I repeatedly circled the city), I eventually managed to navigate my way into Leicester, ready for a weekend of finding Richard.  Trying to be as authentic as possible, I decided to stay in the exact location where Richard III had spent his second-to-last night on earth – the Blue Boar Inn.  Except, of course, the Blue Boar Inn has long been demolished and swept away, but in its place is another hostelry with ‘blue’ as its insignia.  Yes, my son and I stayed in the Travelodge – a modern 21^st Century inn built on the exact site of its predecessor, the Blue Boar Inn.

The Blue Boar Inn 2013 (aka Travelodge).  The area is continuing its medieval drunken past by being, in the 21st century, the weekend home of countless hen and stag parties. The location is now part of Leicester’s multi-lane one way system, and so my son and I spent two nights sleeping more-or-less on a massive roundabout, with the steady stream of all-night cars noisely whizzing around the city. 

As well as visiting the site of the Battle of Bosworth (and the wonderful Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre), we, of course, made our way into the centre of the city to find Richard at the temporary exhibition within the medieval guildhall.

My son comes face to face with a medieval king.

The spire of Leicester Cathedral, overlooking the medieval guildhall.

Leicester Cathedral and the Guildhall.

Looking in one direction: the precinct of the Cathedral. To take this photograph, I had to stand directly in the middle of the small road shown in the next photograph.

Looking in the opposite direction: the location of the Greyfriars monastery. Behind the building on the left, halfway down is the entrance to the council car park containing the mortal remains of King Richard III.  The distance between Richard’s original resting place for over 500 years is a mere stone’s throw from his proposed next resting place. Should he be moved a mere few hundred yards into Leicester cathedral? Or should he be moved a hundred miles to be reburied in York?

Inside The Car Park. The forbidding green gates, with their modern-day graffeti and barbed-wire tops, .

The car park is tiny – a lot smaller then it appears on the television.  Georgian and Victorian buildings surround the space.  With five centuries of urban building-work, it truly is a miracle that the exact location of Richard III’s was left, in the main, undisturbed.  At some point during the Victorian period, builders managed to sever the king’s feet as they were not recovered with the remains of the rest of his body in 2012.

A temporary marque protects the grave of the five-hundred years dead king.  The building in the background is Alderman Newton’s grammar school, which will eventually become part of the new Richard III Visitors’ Centre.  If this building had been built even 50 yards further forward, then we would have lost Richard’s grave forever.

The grave of King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenets.  The only king of England to die in battle, since Harold died in a hale of arrows in 1066. Stripped naked and buried without a shroud, with his hands tied after death, Richard was stuffed into a shallow grave which was too short for him.

Seeing Richard’s grave was spine-tingling – we so nearly lost him forever to urban development.  Eventually the site of his original grave will become part of a beautiful garden next to the new Visitors’ Centre.  However, seeing the grave in the setting of a stark and bare council car park was an experience I will never forget.

The quiet serenity and beauty of Leicester Cathedral. Will this be Richard’s final resting place?

Richard, Duke of Gloucester.  Born 2^nd October 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire; died 22^nd August 1485, Bosworth Field, Leicester.
King of England 1483-1485.  Buried 1485 to 2012 in Greyfriars monastery, Leicester.
His current location is known only by the University of Leicester.

 

What do you think about the search and discovery of Richard III?
Where should his final resting place be?
Please do leave your thoughts in the Comments box below.

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Notes
Images from the British Library’s collection of Medieval Manuscripts are marked as being Public Domain Images and therefore free of all copyright restrictions in accordance with the British Library’s Reuse Guidance Notes for the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

You may also be interested in the following posts
– Richard III – ‘I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not’
– School Trip Friday – Of cabbages and kings
– Shakespeare’s version of King Richard III
– Richard III lyth buryed at Leicester
– Elizabeth of York

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

I have a typical English-person’s obsession with the weather.  After a cold, wet and dismal start to the summer in June, I am so pleased that since early July, we are now in the full glory of a hot sunny English summer.  If you believe in old superstitions, then the next 40 days will be just as glorious as today.  Happy St Swithun’s Day.

 

St Swithun’s day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St Swithun’s day if thou be fair
For forty days ’twill rain nae mar

St Swithun from Breviary, Use of Sarum with Norwich variants (‘The Stowe Breviary’), (Norwich, England), between 1322 and 1325), shelfmark Stowe 12 f.273 Feast of Swithun

Notes
Images from the British Library’s collection of Medieval Manuscripts are marked as being Public Domain Images and therefore free of all copyright restrictions in accordance with the British Library’s Reuse Guidance Notes for the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

You may also be interested in the following posts
– Early modern images from the British Library

© Essex Voices Past 2013.

A few days late, but here’s Medieval May from the Macclesfield Psalter.

‘May’ folio 4r from The Macclesfield Psalter,
probably produced at Gorleston, East Anglia circa 1330
Gold & tempera on vellum, 17cm x 10.8cm,
© The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

If you want to read more about The Macclesfield Psalter from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the ‘Subscribe via Email’ button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do ‘Like’ it with the Facebook button below.

All digital images from the Macclesfield Psalter appear by courtesy of The Fitzwilliam Museum and may not be reproduced (© The Fitzwilliam Museum).

Further reading
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter: A Complete Facsimile (2008)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter Book (Cambridge, 2005)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter (PDF format on CD)(Cambridge, 2005)

You may also be interested in the following
– January from The Macclesfield Psalter
– A pinch & a punch for the first of the month: February from The Macclesfield Psalter
– Images from the British Library’s online images from the early modern period
– Images from the medieval illuminated manuscripts
– The Macclesfield Psalter

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

To celebrate April Fools Day (and Easter Monday), here is Medieval April from the Macclesfield Psalter.

‘April’ folio 3v from The Macclesfield Psalter,
probably produced at Gorleston, East Anglia circa 1330
Gold & tempera on vellum, 17cm x 10.8cm,
© The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

If you want to read more about The Macclesfield Psalter from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the ‘Subscribe via Email’ button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do ‘Like’ it with the Facebook button below.

All digital images from the Macclesfield Psalter appear by courtesy of The Fitzwilliam Museum and may not be reproduced (© The Fitzwilliam Museum).

Further reading
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter: A Complete Facsimile (2008)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter Book (Cambridge, 2005)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter (PDF format on CD)(Cambridge, 2005)

You may also be interested in the following
– January from The Macclesfield Psalter
– A pinch & a punch for the first of the month: February from The Macclesfield Psalter
– Images from the British Library’s online images from the early modern period
– Images from the medieval illuminated manuscripts
– The Macclesfield Psalter

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.