SOURCE: “In Due Season: Farm Work in the Medieval Calendar Tradition,” in Agriculture in the Middle Ages: Technology, Practice, and Representation, edited by Del Sweeney, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995, pp. 309-36.

In the following essay, Henisch studies the visual depiction of agricultural labor in the calendars of the Middle Ages.

When a medieval artist was told to illustrate a calendar, he knew exactly what he was expected to provide. It made no difference whether he was working in wood or in stone, tracing the design for a stained-glass window, or brushing gold onto a sheet of vellum. He reached into his store of patterns and pulled out, not twelve scenes, or emblems, one for each month of the year, but twenty-four. One illustration showed a characteristic occupation for the month, and the other displayed the month's dominant zodiac sign. The artist then proceeded to group his pictures in...