Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Breviary
France, ca. 1511
MS M. 8 fol. 21r

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Innocents: Massacre -- Woman, wearing headdress, mouth open, stands holding infant. Behind her, soldier, wearing helmet and armor, raises sword with right hand and grasps her shoulder with left hand. In foreground, kneeling soldier, raises sword with right hand and with left hand grasps shoulder of woman wearing headdress, extending right hand to the soldier, cradling nude infant with left arm. Behind them, soldier pierces head of infant with sword. Margins decorated with border of floreate ornament including campanula, daisy, strawberry and columbine, and inhabited by bird and hybrid bird with body of snail. Text is first lesson in first nocturn of Matins on 12.28, feast of Massacre of the Innocents.