Part 2: February Page
This brief essay will examine the February page of Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. This page, in stark contrast to the previously discussed January page, depicts a peasant scene. In the left foreground, the front wall of the little cottage has been removed to allow the viewer to voyeuristically peak inside at the three peasants warming themselves by the fire. The woman in the immediate foreground daintily lifts her skirt up to warm her feet. The man and woman beside her are not as restrained: they have lifted their clothes up above their knees, revealing their genitalia, in an effort to warm up. Perhaps they would not have been so vulgar had they known that people could see them. In any case, this is an assumption of vulgarity on the part of the noble patron, the duke of Berry, and the Limbourg brothers, the artists who painted the scene.
A snowy yard enclosed in woven fencing (a croft) circles the house. Sheep are wintered in an open pen immediately to the right of the peasants’ cottage. The makeshift nature of this sheepcote is noted by the gap in the roof, allowing snow to fall on the sheep huddled together underneath. This is the best that they could muster for the livestock upon which their livelihoods depended. It stands in stark contrast to the stone building in the right middle ground next to the man dancing trying to keep warm, which is a dovecote. Dovecotes were buildings designed for pigeons and doves to nest and lay eggs. This building stood as a reminder of the duke of Berry’s presence: only landowners were legally permitted to build dovecotes and they could build them wherever they chose. Dovecotes gave landowners ready access to meat and eggs throughout the year. Next to the dovecote stand four beehives; there were regulations regarding these, too. Even though the three peasants are resting in their house, there are subtle reminders that it did not truly belong to them.
In the background a man fells trees at the edge of a forest. In addition to renting land from the landlord to work and use, there were also stipulations over use of the forest for timber and grazing. The man here is able to cut down trees thanks to the generosity and beneficence of the landlord, who is the owner of this book. Pat on the back there! A lone peasant with a donkey bearing timber trudge away in the snow towards the nearby village—likely to sell the timber. According to the February page, these are the activities that occupied peasants in the dead of winter. However, they also had to prepare harvested grain for milling, mind the winter crop, and carry out routine maintenance work around their farms. Agriculture was a year-long affair of difficult labor but these details were not important to someone of the duke of Berry’s status. The March page that follows depicts the spring tasks undertaken by farmers.
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