Christmas 2023

 Salvete Omnes,

Willem Vrelant's Nativity miniature

Today is Christmas Eve - if  you are celebrating , then do enjoy your special feast with the family and friends, may it be full of joy, tasty foods made at home and happiness.

Merry Christmas to you all, dear friends -:) 

Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia - wesolosci i humoru, pieknej a smacznej Wigilii 

Feliz Navidad...

May your horse, dogs and other domestic animals stay healthy and useful 

Merry Christmas  - may peace prevail and wars cease

and some medieval horses for your pleasure

Valete

Ashburnham Pentateuch - camels, donkeys, mules, and horses

 Salvete Omnes,

Ukraine must become peaceful again - war of aggression must stop.

...

Today a bit of a late Antiquity and early Christian art from.. well, could have been Italy,  North Africa or Western Asia, then still under the Eastern Roman empire -  late VI or perhaps early VII century treasure of beauty and spirituality.

Because what a treasure this manuscript - Ashburnham Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) - French national Library  Gallica page -  still is, and it has some turbulent story to it too. 

Nota bene fre/libre/gratis  book from the Metropolitan Museum of Arts  - Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century.

some details

Valete!

Bréviaire de Martin d'Aragon circa 1410AD - Gallica

 Salvete Omnes,

I hope your Christmas went well, and your batteries have been recharged - but we're in the holy period, the Orthodox Christians are still ahead of their Christmas, and then the Epiphany etc.
So taking this special period into account and feeling quite opportune I would like to share with you the link to a special breviary - Bréviaire de Martin d'Aragon - that can be perused at the French Library site aka Gallica.

It s one of those amazing examples of the medieval manuscript art - the illuminations are breathtaking and simply beautiful.
I am grateful for Gallica librarians that they made it available to us, the viewers and purveyors of beauty via digital collections.

This Cistercian breviary contains many paintings and illuminations, including some horse and equestrian images. The manuscript has been associated with the king of the Crown of Aragon, Martin el Viejo.

nota bene the shield looks very much like the adarga or the traditional Iberian  leather almond-shaped shield.  (the adarga shield was used by the frontier dragoons of the Spanish Northern Provinces in North America until the very end of the colonial Mexico)

and the Tournament illumination 

there is one more   illumination with horses  but I am going to keep it for another time, and it will be soon - :)

valete

Jensky Codex - glory of Bohemian Late Medieval Art

Salvete Omnes,
a quick entry - medieval illuminations, late gothic armor and Jan Hus and Jan Žižka.

so without much ado , from the late medieval Kingdom of Bohemia ( since 1471AD ruled by Jagiellon king Wladyslaw II aka Vladislav Jagellonský) comes the so called Jensky (Jena) Codex painted by a master Janíček Zmilelý z Písku, who worked in Prague from the late 1400s until 1520s AD, and the codex is dated between 1490-1510AD.


 and the battle scene showing the Hussites fighting the German crusaders - see the Hussite wars page on Academia , eg Religion and Violence during the Hussite Wars. Although the painter showed the scenes from the first quarter of the XV century yet he painted the combatants using the last quarter of the XV century arms and armor, including the horse tack too.
We are rewarded here with the perfect lance technique - nota bene the main lancer with the couched lance is using the arret or lance rest.
 

On Jan Hus and his relationship with Polish Crown and Polish nobles see this article.

On another medieval Bohemian codex - you could read this article.

the whole manuscript can be viewed here
Valete

Saint Martin Feast

Salvete Omnes,
 Today, on this Veterans Day and Polish Independence Day  we also have saint Martin of Tours Feast day.
In Poznań, one of the oldest cities of Poland  and also one of the early capitals of the Piast Kingdom of Poland, they celebrate the feast with the Saint Martin Feast Day Parade along the Swiety Marcin Street, eating cooked or baked goose and a very special pastry: Rogal świętomarciński (Saint Martin roll), and visiting museums and many churches, perhaps especially the Swiety Marcin Catholic Church in the center of Poznan.
 
Let us celebrate with some XV and early XVI century manuscript illuminations from Europe.
 

 
 from this Burgundian Breviary of Jean San Peur and Marguerite of Bavaria.
their  funerary effigies below

and from the Hours of Anne de Bretagne:

   The New York City-located Morgan Library has plenty of priceless manuscripts,   and in this XV century Hours of Catherine  de Cleves, showing beautifully painted illuminations painted  by an anonymous  scribe for the pious patron, you can see Saint Martin portrayed as a wealthy nobleman and knight of the times sharing his fabulous cloak with a beggar. You can study his horse tack by enlarging the page...

Valete

Magi in Journey - Leiden Saint Louis Psalter

Salvete Omnes,
ha, and there we have a very first post in the brand new calendar year of 2018.
We should go right back to the Magi and their journey ( still several days ahead of this sweetly warm holiday of gift-giving and celebrating the birth of Jesus) as portrayed in the noble medieval art while keeping up with the hipology theme.

So here we have this page from the Leiden Saint Louis Psalter - painted for Geoffrey, Archbishop of York in around 1190AD and later on used by young Saint Louis. The manuscript is presently kept at the Leiden University Library.

Magi - riding pacing horses, highly collected

Holy Family - Madonna and Child are riding a grey mule, as probably the monk-painter and his milieu could not fathom Madonna riding a donkey.  Note that Madonna and Child Jesus are riding side-saddle. The bridle is also very interesting, as we see here a curb-bit and a curb-chain or a chin-strap. 

and another horse from this Psalter, Joseph sold by his brothers is being taken to Egypt as a slave

Valete!
ps
images from Wiki Commons

The Magi from XIII century

Salvete Omnes,
let imagination take us to the XIII century German lands in order to see some fine horses, their tack and riders from the early part of that century, as portrayed in the medieval manuscript illumination showing Adoration of Magi.
The images comes from the Berthold Sacramentary that has been named after  Berthold of Heimburg who was the abbot of the Benedictine Weingarten monastery( in the Holy Roman Empire) between 120 and 1230 AD, and it is currently held at the The Pierpont Morgan Library, NYC.
The name of the monk who painted them is unknown and he has been named the master of the Berthold Sacramentary.

Adoration of Magi

Below, on the gold chestnut palfrey, that is  stepping horse, do note high pommel and cantle saddle, double cinches and curb-bit, extended legs of the rider

note the horseshoes

 A stepping steel grey palfrey and his rider in full foreshortening

Fine portrayal of the foreshortened horse and rider - both rear and front, note his long, extended leg position in the saddle.

elaborate bridle on the stepping gold chestnut palfrey

Valete!

Wigilia Bożego Narodzenia - Christmas Eve

Salvete Omnes,
Merry Christmas to you all!
dzisiaj Wigilia Bożego Narodzenia - Wesołych Świat!
!Feliz Navidad!
may peace, family, health, joy and prosperity always be with you.
Especially all the best to the Christians of the Near East, and to all good Muslims and Jews there.

... and some Medieval nativity artwork to go with this post, ahead of us the Christmas Eve supper, gift-giving and then  2 days of holidays with family and loved ones -
nota bene I love Mary, Mother of God , especially the Black Madonna from Jasna Gora.
 

master of the Vissi Brod

valete!

Crusaders' horse - Outremer

Salve,
back to horses and away from the madness of our world...

...perhaps the time is ripe to take a look at the Crusades and Outremer (Crusader states in the Levant/Near East ), and by Jove, I will try to do some this year (fingers crossed :) ).

Basically, I have been skipping the Middle Ages (and by that therm I mean the European history between the Muslim conquests of 630sAD and discovery of the Americas), but for several on the Medieval warhorses, saddles etc.

Thanks God, we can use images from the period - great depositories at  Wiki Commons and other fine 'open' websites offer us plenty of opportunities -
so in this spirit several images from the Siculo-Norman cultural area, i.e., the Kingdom of Sicily ruled already then by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI  and drawn by Petrus de Ebulo (Pietro or Peter of Eboli) around 1196 AD. The work comes from a manuscript ''Liber ad honorem Augusti'' (held presently in Bern, Switzerland) but published and available here with Italian commentary.
Roger II of Sicily 

The conqueror of the Siculo-Normans - emperor Henry VI

Constance of Sicily, clearly riding a palfrey while seating a side-saddle.

Note that all riders use a form of curb-bit and riding holding reins in one hand.. queen's horse tack is especially rich and beautiful, while her horse seems to be a dapple-grey one.

Dr. David Nicolle and his prodigious amount of work will probably figure strongly in this thread - his two-volume set ''Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era 1050-1350'' is a must here.

enjoy
ps
It is a great pity to us readers that the American historical fiction writers always and constantly write about the English Medieval history & characters, when there is this great and unploughed field of the continental Medieval history, while,mind you, most of the Americans are either German, French or Spanish in their descent. Seems like the British royals conquered the US popular culture without firing a single shot (after having lost the two wars 200 years ago - 1776-83, and the War of 1812). Cecelia Holland is a notable exception with her many novels, eg the novel 'Antichrist' telling the story of Frederick II, son of said emperor Henry VI, most successful crusade since the creation of Outremer.