1st post of 2024 - let the new journey begin

 Salvete Omnes,

so we have made it to this brand New Year - 

and from the Tristan en prose manuscript circa 147 comes this illumination showing a lance duel between two Arthurian knights  - I have chosen this illumination for a sort of  'allegory' of the New Year' victory over the Old Year

Plate armor, lances, great war horses, saddles and harness including curb-bit etc

 

so the New 2023 Year  has sailed - let us hope it will be a good journey for all of us on this God given earth 

ps

for my Polish fellow-travelers - prof. Jacek Kowalski about Old Poland's Christmas Holiday Season traditions - from foods to carols.

Valete

Master of the Llangattock Epiphany

 Salvete Omnes,

again today, Epiphany and some more of the fabulous European  medieval art - this time a medieval illumination -

Maître de l'épiphanie de Llangattock
/Master of the Llangattock Epiphany -  an anonymous Burgundian artist   active circa 1450-60s, plying his trade and art  in and araound Bruges.

Getty museum in L.A., Califronia, has a page from the larger manuscript, which is attributed to the Master of this Epiphany - you can obtain a very large scan of this page and illumination from the museum. Apart from the religious aspects of the Adoration of Christ and His Mother, we can enjoy the details of the XV century horsetack, including bridles, saddles, and gilded spurs, while the master illuminator provided some detail for the donkey? or a horse stabled in the stable, and also the  brown ox, where the Holy Family had found shelter.

Nota bene, the flock of birds  in the sky adds realism to this Northern Gothic piece.

Valete

Passages d'outremer & Experimental Lance Technique

Salvete omnes,

the article by dr Tobias Capwell on the late medieval couched lance technique and experiments done by the reenactors using such technique.

 Also, the great French digital library provided us with a scan of the entire manuscript titled Passages faiz oultre mer par les François contre les Turcqs et autres Sarrazins et Mores oultre marins (short title Passages d'outremer and can be bought in a modern edition from Taschen), written by Mamerot and with the illuminations that were  painted by Jean Colombe  during AD 1472-75. These paintings, painted for Louis de Laval, are extraordinary and just beautiful - using the library is easy and illusminations can be enlarged and downloaded for your use and enjoyment.

Italian XIX century painter Ludovico Marchetti's painting - Before the trounament

enjoy