exhibit it with little ornament beyond flourishes in red and blue ink-Christmas day or Easter sometimes with the additional honour of gold letters. King Athelstan's Psalter-believed, however, to have been written long before his time, as early as 703includes, in addition to the kalendar, lunar tables, and these are of frequent occurrence in subsequent manuscripts. Those indispensable adjuncts to the later kalendars, the signs of the zodiac, are not to be met with as yet; but rude representations of the various agricultural labours of the year will be found in many Saxon kalendars, and in one a pleasant picture of Christmas festivities. The inquirer who would seek to enter the very homes of our forefathers, and learn how they worked, and how they feasted, how comfortably they sat over their blazing log fire in January, how toilsomely they delved and ploughed in March, how pleasantly in May they disported themselves in the green meadows, how in August they gathered the harvest, and in September the apples, or the vintage, owes no small tribute of gratitude to the illuminators of the ancient kalendar, more especially those from the eleventh to the fourteenth century.

It is a question whether these medieval kalendars ever existed in a separate form. Prefixed to the missal, or the book of the Gospels, their use was obvious, for they supplied the long, almost interminable list of saints' days, and the rules, too, whereby the moveable feasts might be determined, while as yet almanacs were not; but save for the churchman and church-goer, the earlier kalendars offered little information that could be of use. Some of the later, however, so much resemble, in their miscellaneous information, their successors, the almanacs, that M. Louis Moland, who has directed particular attention to this question in his essay on Les Calendriers avant l'imprimerie, thinks that some must certainly have existed in a separate form, although none of these are now in existence. As illustrating the history of art, these kalendars are often more valuable than the books to which they form an introduction. It is frequently only from some specific entry, or some date in these, that the age of the manuscript, or name of the owner can be ascertained. Thus the splendid Prayer Book of Charles the Bold is verified by the entry of the baptism of his eldest son; and thus the beautiful ivorybound missal in the Egerton Collection (No. 1139) is proved to have belonged to Melisenda, the fair and energetic queen of Jerusalem, from the notice of the death of her father, Baldwin II., as well as that of her mother, being inserted in the kalendar. In many kalendars the locality may be ascertained by reference to the illuminations which head the various months. The vintage scene will afford proof that the manuscript is French, while the

Pictorial Illustrations of the Medieval Kalendars.

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merry apple-gathering, with the laughing maidens, light haired and rosy-cheeked, will prove with almost equal certainty that the illuminator was an Englishman. In the French kalendars, reaping is the occupation of July; in the English, of August. In November and December, the French kalendars mostly represent the killing of cattle for the winter provision; the English, with better taste, depict the threshing-floor, or the Christmas festivity. We may here remark how very pleasant a subject pig-killing appears to have been to the Flemish illuminator. We have looked over well-nigh a score of Flemish kalendars, and invariably found the month of November or December illustrated by a huge pig, sometimes two, hung up, and men, with most murderous-looking knives, preparing to cut their throats. In that exquisite volume, the proudest boast of the Flemish illuminators, Anne of Brittany's missal, the gift-book of the twice-crowned queen of France, the reader would scarcely believe that so revolting, as well as homely a subject would find a place; but there, finished with the delicate minuteness of a Teniers, is a fat pig, hung up to a stout staple by its hind legs, its throat just cut by a very complacent-looking butcher, while a neat-handed Flemish damsel, with coif and apron white as snow, is gleefully holding a huge earthen dish, evidently indulging in pleasant anticipations of future black-puddings. What a dainty picture 'to set before a queen!' and how illustrative of that coarseness of taste which has characterized the Flemish school through every period of its artistic history. Very different are the Italian illustrations of the kalendar. Delicate wreaths of flowers, arabesque borders enclosing the signs of the zodiac, each sign sometimes exquisitely painted in natural colours on a raised gold ground, sometimes like cameos, and in such fine relief that we almost involuntarily touch them, and are surprised to find that they are not raised. Sometimes, in addition to the sign a single figure, engaged in the occupation of the month, is placed beside. These are exquisitely finished in the missal of King Renè-a beautiful volume, which, although executed in France, is unquestionably Italian in its character; and in this, each page of the kalendar has in addition a beautiful little bird perched at the top-the nightingale representing May, while robin redbreast ushers in December.

While much information, as we have seen, may be derived from the pictorial illustrations of these kalendars, they likewise supply to us many curious illustrations of the superstitions and popular opinions of our forefathers in the tables of fortunate and unfortunate days, the dietetic rules and the miscellaneous remarks, which from about the middle of the thirteenth century, they

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mostly contain. There are, of course, no predictions in these kalendars; and the readers therefore-save here and there somelearned churchman who stealthily cultivated astrology—were left in happy ignorance from year to year, whether 'doleful Saturn was diffusing his baleful influences, or whether 'fiery Mars' was about to deluge the land with bloodshed. Our forefathers in the middle ages, however, had notwithstanding little cause to rejoice, for in dread array the unlucky days' were set forth, duly noted. in many kalendars by a red cross being placed against each, like the plague-stricken houses of later times. Two unfortunate days are in every instance, except April and December, assigned to each month in the French kalendars, while April claims only one, the 30th; but December three. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to ascertain the rules that guided the medieval astrologer in this selection. April 30th, consecrated, so to speak, to witchcraft and devilry, as the Walpurgis Eve, might well take its place in the list of unlucky days; but why the 20th of July, the day on which St. Margaret was celebrated throughout Christendom, the 1st of August, Lammas Day, September 21st, consecrated to St. Matthew, and, stranger still, the day before Christmas Eve, and New Year's Day, all seasons in which the church held high festival, should be marked with the portentous red cross, seems utterly inexplicable. As the list from which we have quoted is common to the kalendars of the south of France and Lombardy, we can. almost suspect that some wily Jew, or heretical churchman, and there were no lack of the latter in the thirteenth century, took a malicious pleasure in marking as unfortunate, days on which holy church had commanded her children to rejoice, and seeing them take possession of their 'Lammas land' with fear and trembling, and join in the New Year's feasting with feelings better suited to a fast. We were happy, however, to find, that, as in most other subjects, there was some difference of opinion as to unlucky days; the English list varying greatly from the French, so that we doubt not but if a general collation of medieval kalendars could be made, we should discover that each day marked as unfortunate in one, would be found a 'lucky day' in another.*

To good or bad luck, as concerns the days of the week, these kalendars make no reference, save to Friday, and this most unfor

* As fortunate and unfortunate are words of wide import, the reader may per-haps like to know what the kalendar-makers themselves intended by their use. M. Louis Moland, therefore, gives us the following explanation from a kalendar of the fourteenth century:-"Those who fall ill on unlucky days will be in danger; those who are born then will either die or grow up to be poor. If a man marries, either he or his wife will not live long, or they will not love, or will be always poor; and those who travel will return either not in good health, or poor and disap-pointed.'

Black Friday-Ancient Weather Prognostics.

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tunate of days is proved to deserve its evil name for thirteen reasons, all of which are duly set forth. Some of these are anything but conclusive, for, although the first reason that on this day Cain killed Abel,' may be fairly allowed, still the second, that, ' on this day the children of Israel entered the Promised Land,' cannot be so. That on this day the Annunciation took place,' seems a strange reason for a fast, although the massacre of the Innocents, and the beheading of St. John the Baptist, both of which, we are told, took place on this day, may be considered so. However, that Friday was the black day of the week, was the belief of all medieval Europe, a belief so deeply inwrought, that even in the nineteenth century, and among those who have never heard of these thirteen reasons, it is still regarded, even by our own peasantry, with a feeling of mysterious dislike.

In some of these kalendars, there are astronomical tables, illustrated by carefully drawn, and sometimes beautifully finished illuminations. The Antiphonal (Arundel Collection, No. 83), has a very well executed orrery: the sun in the middle, with flaming face, inscribed according to ecclesiastical opinion, infernus, and beyond him all the planets from Mercury to distant Saturn, moving round in their courses. In another, in the Sloane Collection, are very graceful representations of each planet with its appropriate attributes. In some of these kalendars are prognostications respecting the weather; and among them many sayings will be found, in rude rhymes, French or English, which still keep their place in the popular mind. The well-known distich'Evening red and morning grey Is the sign of a fine day,'

we found in a kalendar of the fifteenth century, and the equally well-known rhyme of the rainbow in the morning,' is also frequently to be found in them. Similar rhymes are common in the French kalendars, which also occasionally preserve short satirical remarks on various subjects, mostly national or provincial traits, often curious and characteristic enough. Here is one taken from a kalendar of the thirteenth century:

Pitie de Lombard, travail de Picard,

Humilité de Normand, patience d'Allemand,
Largesse de Français, loiauté d'Anglais,
Devotion de Bourguignon, sens de Breton,
Ces huit choses, ne valent un bouchon.'

It is suggestive to observe here, how the pride of the Norman and the stupidity of the Breton, are recognised as their characteristics full six hundred years ago. For the hard-heartedness

assigned to the Lombard, we may find the reason in the fact that during this and the following century they were the great moneylenders of Europe; and succeeding to the profession and emoluments of the hated Jew, the Lombard succeeded also to his inheritance of scorn and detestation. The disloyalty of the Englishman, too, was apparent enough to the writer of that age, for had he not seen the barons arrayed against their liege lord, and forcing him to submit? and his son, perhaps at the very time when these rude rhymes were composed, at strife with De Montfort, or a fugitive in France supplicating aid from his good brother and ally, St. Louis? The separate notice of the Frenchman' appears strange, until we call to mind that at this period a very small portion of modern France was France proper. As the term 'Français' was frequently used to signify the Parisian of those days, may we not detect some recognition of the épicier character, even thus early, in the charge of miserliness brought against him?

But however varied in regard to general information these kalendars may be, they almost always contain a short directory of medical and dietetic advice. These directories, while similar in their general outline, all agreeing in their recommendations of most nauseous herb-teas, and peremptory in their directions for bleeding both at spring and fall, besides one or two supplementary blood-lettings against Christmas, exhibit occasional differences, sufficient to show that the learned doctors of Salerno, and the even more learned leech who had studied eastern lore at Salamanca, could not always agree. Still the absolute necessity of frequent bleeding and continual physickings, is insisted upon in all; as the reader will find from the following ample directory, copied by M. Louis Moland from a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal.

'In January it is not good to bleed, but you should take ginger as medicine. In February it is good to bleed in the arm, and take agrimony as medicine. In March we should drink sweet drinks, and take rue as medicine. We must not, however, be bled; but may be cupped. In April it is good to bleed the middle vein to cleanse the lungs, and to eat fresh meat, and to be cupped, and take betony as medicine. In May we ought to eat hot things, and drink hot things, and bleed the liver vein, which is then full of venom (venim). Avoid eating the feet or head of any beast, for such meat is injurious to health. It is good to take medicine of wormwood and fennel-seed. In June it is good to take cold water every day fasting, and to eat lettuce and garlic to abstain from excess, for the humours now rise to the brain. It is good to take sage and grape-flowers. For July the same. In August, drink neither ippocras nor beer, but take medicine of sage. In September, it is proper to eat the flesh of geese and pigs, because of