Excerpt from The Kalendar of Shepherds: Being Devices for the Twelve Months

The English printers appear to have contented themselves at most with making a good start for the Kalendar by using the block for January, leaving the other months unillustrated; and indeed the same may be said for the majority of the editions, whether French or English. It is believed that these strikingly vivid illustrations of country life in the Middle Ages have never been reproduced in modern times, with the exception of the January cut already mentioned, which was given by Dr H. O. Sommer in his annotated and critical reprint of the Paris edition of 1503 (issued in facsimile, with reprint of Pynson's London edition of 1506, in 1892) In the attempt to trace these woodcuts to earlier studies of the same subjects, a somewhat hasty and partial search among illuminated mss., such as the fine collection ofpsalters and Hours of the Virgin, which is at the disposal of students at the British Museum, soon revealed the fact that the subjects chosen as being typical of man's varying occupations from mouth to month were used from very early times. Possibly, indeed, they date back to the first illustrated calendar that was ever drawn. At any rate, they are found in germ in very early mss., and were repeated with more or less elaboration of treatment by many generations of artists throughout the centuries. Such variations as were made were due to the inventive ness and observation of particular workers, and as a rule the improve ments which are observable from time to time were retained by their successors. But though some of the miniature painting is of exquisite delicacy, and full of detail and a sense of atmosphere that is amazing considering the available space - often but a single square inch nothing was found that displayed a closer study from Nature than the vigorous woodcuts of the Compost. In many cases, indeed, the work is merely traditional and artificial in manner, suggesting thealoofness and retirement of the cloister rather than direct observation in the open air. About the same time, it is true, towards the close of the fifteenth century, some Flemish artists drew a remarkably fine series of illustrations for a calendar, which are to be found among the British Museum mss., Add. And These full page miniatures, which for sheer beauty of colour and drawing have probably never been surpassed, show to what a pitch of perfection the art could attain in the hands of a master. Yet, Splendid as they are, they do not give a stronger impression of actuality than the rugged engravings of the French book. The miniatures give us minutely detailed pictures of farming by wealthy landowners who look on while the labourers do all the work. In the Compost the farmer and his wife, with her keys dangling from her girdle, are shown working side by side with their men. Here, pictured for the twentieth-century reader, is the workaday life of the Middle Ages, in all its realism. But there are hints, too, that the terrible descriptions of peasant life, as given by Michelet and other modern historians, do not tell us the whole truth about the matter. There were, doubtless, hardship and cruelty such as we in these days can hardly realise. But even in the midst of the harrying and brutality there were intervals of peaceful, happy toil; and, as the woodcuts suggest, there was also, in some cases at least, that sharing of work between master and man which does so much to lessen grievances and to promote goodwill.

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