Calendar

Fol. 1r-1v. Calendar for January, February, March.

Fol. 2r-2v. Calendar for April, May, June

Fol. 3r-3v. Calendar for July, August, September.

Fol. 4r-4v – Calendar for October, November, December. 

Fol. 5r. Ymago uenarum (vein man), Ymago signorum (zodiac man).

Fol. 5v. Instructions for using the tables.  

When folded 160 x 41 mm (including tab), 132 x 41 mm (excluding tab); when open 264 x 164 mm. Fol. 5 is separate, dimensions 264 x 157 mm.

The verso sides are blank but for a contemporary title of contents on a fold. 

Five folios folded in half (horizontally) then folded vertically into four with edges turned in towards centre, sewn together at one end. Fol. 1-4 attached to vellum tab, fol. 5 separated. One column of 33 lines, ruled in brown ink. Prickings in the margins. 

Fifteenth-century English gothic bookhand (textualis) in brown ink. Calendar in brown and blue ink. 

Illuminated in ink, gold & watercolour. Gold and blue are used for special feasts in the Calendar, red ink for the tabulae. Each calendar month is headed by an illuminated initial with marginal feathered sprays terminated by green buds. There are two drawings in ink of naked men seen frontally and on greenish grounds (fol. 5r) – ymago uenarum (vein man; microcosmic man) and ymago signorum (zodiac man). 

K.V. Sinclair, Descriptive Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Western Manuscripts in Australia, Sydney, 1969, pp. 274-275 (Item 169).

M.M. Manion and V.F. Vines, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Australian Collections, London, 1984, pp. 109-110 (Item 44).

“This almanac is a very unusual type of medieval manuscript, a folded vademecum whose contents present the calendrical requirements of astrological medicine. The figurations of the Vein Man and the Zodiac Man of f. 5r are integral parts of this medical reference book since they provided information necessary to the medieval physician for the prognosis and treatment of ailments. To modern minds the two illustrations encapsulate medieval beliefs that man was a microcosm within the fixed celestial cosmos and that his physical well-being was governed by astronomical forces.The Ballarat manuscript should be added to a small group of fifteenth-century portable calendars, discussed by H. Bober, which also contain twin illustrations of the Vein Man and Zodiac Man. They are London B.L. MSS.Add.28725, Harley 5311, Stowe 1065. Among Bober’s collection of illustrated material, several examples depict the Vein Man within a series of concentric circles, a configuration which was intended by the medieval authors to connote Man as Microcosm, within the Macrocosm. The Ballarat version belongs to the same category.[1] As Bober pointed out, such folded calendars were often contained in cases, an example of which has been described in a recent Sotheby catalogue. The Ballarat manuscript with its rounded vellum tab was in all probability similarly endowed.[2] The saints marked for veneration indicate that the calendar was executed for a patron who lived in north-eastern England.”[3]

 http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/168499