Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Book of Hours
Belgium, Bruges, ca. 1500
MS M.390 fol. 69v

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Innocents: Massacre -- Woman, wearing turban-like headdress, grasps helmeted head of soldier, with sword in right hand stabbing infant held in his left hand. The infant is also held in hands of woman, wearing veiled headdress, kneeling on ground. To right is second group of figures, including woman, laying on ground, cradling bleeding infant in right hand and with left hand raised to soldier, kneeling on her abdomen, with sword raised in right hand. Another figure, wearing headdress, possibly a woman carrying an infant, enters doorway or gate at right. In background are fences and buildings of city.
Margins with scattered flowers, including viola and strawberry, inhabited by birds, insects, and animals, including animal, resembling kangaroo, squatting before box (?).
Escutcheon with arms of Jean Carondelet (azure a fasce and six bezants or en orle, an archiepiscopal cross in pale beneath the shield), with the initials IC and the motto MATURA.