An Anglo-Saxon Calendar

under construction

The secular picture cycle known as the 'Labours of the Months' is found in two Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The earlier of the two (BL Cotton Julius A. vi) was written and illuminated probably at Christ Church, Canterbury, in the early eleventh century. The later of the two (BL Cotton Tiberius B. v) was written and illuminated probably at the Old Minster, Winchester, in the second quarter of the eleventh century. The two cycles of pictures are clearly related closely to each other. It is possible that the compositions derive ultimately from a late classical model. Very similar picture cycles appear in many later medieval calendars.

The illustrations from these two cycles are used here to frame a calendar for each month, in which you will find entries relating to persons and events, drawn from a wide variety of sources. The calendar serves no useful purpose other than to remind us who may have died, or what may have happened, on the given day in a particular year.

In the files which follow, the upper image is from the later manuscript (Tiberius) and the lower image is from the earlier manuscript (Julius). The black-and-white images will be replaced by colour images when possible. Four of the images from Tiberius (January, April, July, November) are in colour.

• January
  • Ploughing and sowing
• February
  • Pruning vines
• March
  • Digging, raking, and sowing
• April
  • Feasting
• May
  • Tending sheep
• June
  • Reaping (Tiberius) / Cutting wood (Julius)
• July
  • Cutting wood (Tiberius) / Mowing (Julius)
• August
  • Mowing (Tiberius) / Reaping (Julius)
• September
  • Feeding hogs
• October
  • Hunting with falcon
• November
  • Stacking firewood, or Warming and smithying
• December
  • Threshing

J. C. Webster, The Labours of the Months (Evanston and Chicago, 1938)
E. Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066 (London, 1976), nos. 62 (Julius A. vi) and 87 (Tiberius B. v).
An Eleventh-Century Anglo-Saxon Illustrated Miscellany, ed. P. McGurk, et al., Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 21 (Copenhagen, 1983), Frontispiece (Tiberius), plate IX (Julius), and 3r-8v (Tiberius), with pp. 40-3
The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966-1066, ed. J. Backhouse, et al. (London, 1984), nos. 60 (Julius A vi) and 164 (Tiberius B. v).