Time in the Medieval World: Occupations of the Months & Signs of the Zodiac in the Index of Christian Art (review)

Although this volume is lavishly illustrated, it is a functional rather than a glossy production. It catalogues the hundreds of representations of the occupations of the months and signs of the zodiac – in a variety of media – found in Princeton's Index of Christian Art. It is intended as a guide to using that huge resource for themed research. It represents an enormous undertaking, and will doubtless be of great use to art historians and others seeking to explore how medieval people marked and imagined the passage of the year.

The book comprises a categorised list of relevant entries in the Index, followed by a large selection of illustrative examples taken mostly from American collections, and preceded by a brief introductory essay. In his introduction, Colum Hourihane notes the necessary incompleteness of the list published here, which might otherwise have been delayed for many years as new items continue to be added to the parent Index. One must agree with him that it is in the interests of scholars and scholarship that the existing material be made available sooner rather than later, even at the expense of further entries, so that its primary purpose of facilitating research can begin. Because his intent is to provide a research tool for others, Hourihane is deliberately descriptive rather than interpretive in his comments, and anyone seeking a full discussion of the concept of time in medieval Europe must look elsewhere. However, he does draw attention to several common themes: for example, the close relationship between man and nature in life and as an expression of God's will; the comforting familiarity of time's cyclical patterns; and the association of such cycles of seasonal death and rebirth with the driving concepts of contemporary popular religion. Of course, the annual cycle was only one measure of time, albeit one that was frequently expressed through illustration. It is to be hoped that later volumes in this handy series might focus on others: the time of day (canonical hours, night/day), days of the week, seasons, time of life (passage from childhood to adulthood), or historical time (the past, present and future).

Although the body of the book consists almost entirely of illustrations, it is extremely dense. The visual information is given only the loosest of structures (divided into the occupations, zodiacal signs, and some miscellaneous items), and supplemented with no text but the briefest of notes on provenance. To extract the best value from it will take a dedicated and methodical approach, and probably only after forming a clear idea of one's purpose in doing so. However, it cannot be doubted that consulting Time in the Medieval World will be an efficient way of accessing the enormous Index itself, which must require even greater patience and dedication. And there is much of value to be drawn from the variety of depictions of the passing year. For example, art historians may be tempted to make comparisons between the many, and sometimes bizarre forms of 'Scorpio', while historians may glean much from the similarities and differences between depictions of contemporary agricultural practice, interiors or fashions in the labours of the months, before even considering the impact of notions of time on medieval lives. So much potential has the collected art as a resource, that it is almost a disappointment to find this book so determined to avoid contributing its own interpretations, although establishing categories and order of presentation are themselves interpretive activities. And, as a historian, this reviewer could not help but yearn to know what is written on the pages above, below, or around the illustrations shown. That is the beauty of this reference work: it cannot help but...