Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Book of Hours
France, Paris, ca. 1460
MS M.282 fol. 190v

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Scene, Liturgical: Burial -- Fossor, wearing hat, standing in grave with spade, holds in both arms corpse wrapped in cross-inscribed shroud. Beside the grave stand two tonsured priests wearing vestments, including one holding processional cross and situla and the other holding raised aspergil and closed book. Behind them stand three hooded mourners. Bones and cemetery cross (Crucifix) beside the grave. Grave Markers and cross-surmounted church in background. Scene in churchyard enclosed by wall, with buildings beyond. At to left, Angel, holding nude soul in left arm, with cross-staff held in right hand pushes away winged devil below (Death, Scene: Struggle for Soul).
Margins with floreate and scroll ornament, inhabited in left margin by hybrid man, wearing hat, holding switch in right hand and in left hand tail of fantastic animal that comprises his lower body; and in lower margin by fantastic winged animal with dart-shaped tongue.