Charlemagne’s Months and their Bavarian Labors: The politics of the Seasons in the Carolingian Empire

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This essay focuses on two illustrations of the Labours of the Months’, incorporated into a pair of early ninth century manuscripts containing astronomical and calendrical treatises. They are extremely significant as the first examples of this popular medieval topic. Hammer’s work has two objectives: the first section examines the illustrations and their manuscripts from an art and intellectual history perspective, to place the pictures in the context of Carolingian cultural life, and also to determine whether the pictures are anything more then depictions of rural life. The second section aims to place the pictures in a more conventional historical context, suggesting why the manuscripts were produced in that period, who sponsored them, and their programmatic intent. This paper often goes beyond its primary subject to provide interesting insights into Carolingian politics.