Sources for America’s History: Printed Page 5
1-2 | | Peasants Working a Lord’s Estate |
LIMBOURG BROTHERS, March: Peasants at Work from the “Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry” (15th Century) |
The world Hariot described (Document 1-1) probably seemed exotic to Europeans who would have been more familiar with the scene of peasant life depicted in this image from an early-fifteenth-century Book of Hours. Here we see peasants farming a manor, employing ploughs and domesticated animals. In this more cultivated and subdued way of life, peasants worked a lord’s land in exchange for the right to use his mill to grind wheat and his oven to bake bread. In turn, the lord offered protection from famine and military conflict. A Book of Hours was a book of prayers meant to be recited at appointed hours during the day. The page reproduced here is for the month of March. The arch above the miniature illustration includes zodiacal references, including Pisces and Aries.
READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
A French prince, the Duc de Berry, commissioned this illuminated manuscript, depicting scenes important to him. What might this scene tell us about the world de Berry inhabited? What assumptions about society do you think de Berry made?
What evidence of a religious worldview does this illuminated book of prayers, complete with Zodiac signs, provide?
How would you compare the world shown here with the natural world described by Hariot in Document 1-1?