Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Book of Hours
France, Paris, ca. 1480
MS M.253 fol. 87r

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Innocents: Massacre, and Innocents: Massacre commanded -- Woman, veiled, holding swaddled infant, kneels on floor beside nude bleeding infant before Herod the Great, wearing hat, pointing with right hand, holding scepter in left hand, seated on canopied throne. Beside him stands man, wearing hat, holding roll in right hand. Behind the woman stands another woman, veiled, holding nude infant before two helmeted soldiers, including one raising dagger above the infant.
Margins with floreate ornament. In lower margin is escutcheon with arms of Jerusalem (argent a cross potent between four crosslets or), surmounted by a crown.