Medieval People at Work

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The Author Joins Other Laborers in the Castle of Work.
La Voie de Povreté ou de Richesse (Le Livre du Chastel de Labour)
by Jacques Bruyant
By the workshop of the Bedford Master
France, Paris or possibly Rouen, c. 1430-40
Free Library of Philadelphia, Ms. Widener 1

Both scholars and ordinary people today wonder about daily life in the middle ages, especially the way they used science and technology. Important information can be found in illustrated manuscripts like these, even though they aren't about building or farming techniques.

Using a saw

Here the people are building a castle and one man, the overseer, stands beside a curfew bell and watches the laborers. The workmen are using a variety of tools, including saws, mallets, and a level. In the margins, from top to bottom, people are sowing seeds, cutting wheat, chopping wood, and gathering grapes. They represent activities for each season of the year.

About the Book

The overseer

In addition to devotional texts, wealthy men and women owned elaborately decorated books containing works of secular (nonreligious) literature. Often written or translated into French, these manuscripts attest to the rise of lay (average person) readership in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The newly literate public desired instructional, entertaining, and visually appealing books. Literature in the form of moralized histories and romances became very popular. Tradition often dictated what images should accompany the texts of Bibles and Psalters. The artists who executed the miniatures in literary texts had the opportunity to interpret the written words in a freely imaginative and inventive manner.

The level

Le Livre du Chastel de Labour (The Book of the Castle of Work) is an allegorical poem that was written around 1342 by a Parisian cleric named Jacques Bruyant. The story describes the vision of a newlywed man, called the Author, who must choose between the path of honesty and hard work and that of fraud and deceit. The climax of the story occurs in the Castle of Work, where the Author commits himself to a life of truthfulness, humility, and labor.

Although eleven manuscripts of this text survive from the fifteenth century, this is the only copy that is illuminated. A miniature that represents characters in remarkably clever ways introduces every chapter of the book. This page introduces chapter 40, "The Castle of Work." Upon entering the Castle, the Author sees hundreds of people at work. He is eager to join them, but first he is warned that he must labor hard and that he will not be allowed to be idle. Agreeing to this, he joins the other workers building the castle.

Vellum, ii + 73 fols. + iv
Folio: 8-1/8 x 5-3/4 inches (210 x 145 mm)
Text: 4-1/2 x 2-7/8 inches (113 x 72 mm)
French, bâtarde

Leaves of Gold catalog entry #70
Featured on Leaves of Gold CD-ROM

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