Les moissons
Heures de Marguerite d’Orléans, XVe siècle Paris, BnF, département des Manuscrits, Latin 1156 B, fol. 161v.
Next to the baptism of the Christ, farmers are harvesting. Women, a basket in their hand, bring them food.
Woman with baby cooking, child with bellows. detail. Ghent c.1320-30. bodl_Douce6 by tony harrison on Flickr.
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Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343-1400) from ‘The Parliament of Fowls’
A garden saw I, full of blossomy boughs
Upon a river, in a green mead,
There as sweetness evermore enough is,
With flowers white, blue, yellow, and red,
And cold well-streams, nothing dead,
That swimming full of small fishes light,
With fins red and scales silver bright.
On every bough the birds heard I sing,
With voice of angels in their harmony;
Some busied themselves birds forth to bring;
The little coneys to here play did hie.
And further all about I could see
The dread filled roe, the buck, the hart and hind,
Squirrels, and beasts small of gentle kind.
Of instruments of strings in accord
Heard I so play a ravishing sweetness,
That God, that maker is of all and lord,
Had heard never better, as I guess.
Therewith a wind, scarcely it might be less,
Made in the leaves green a noise soft
Accordant to the fowls’ song aloft.
Th’air of that place so a-temperate was
That never was grievance of hot nor cold.
There wax also every wholesome spice and grass;
No man may there wax sick nor old;
Yet was there joy more a thousandfold
Than man can tell; never would it be night,
But always clear day to any man’s sight.
Francesco del Cossa, Saint Lucy, c. 1473-74
She refused to compromise.
They gouged out her eyes, yet she can see just fine.
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Piero della Francesca (c. 1415 - 1492)
Augustinian Nun, 15th century
tempera on poplar panel
15 1/4 x 11 in. (38.7 x 27.9 cm)
Purchased by The Frick Collection, 1950
Accession number: 1950.1.158
“Unknown Artist. Minstrels with a Rebec & a Lute.
13th c. Manasseh Codex. El Escorial, Madrid.”
Medical and herbal texts, in Latin
England; 12th century, late MS. Ashmole 1462
fol. 16r
“Framed miniature: below, mad dog (white with blue head) running away; recumbent figure of man it has bitten, with doctor. At top, a hen: if its appetite is good, it is an omen of recovery.”
And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.
Alcuin in a letter to Charlemagne
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