Trades and Crafts in Medieval Manuscripts

Book excerpt: This is a book for readers who are interested in the art and the social history of the Middle Ages. Illuminated manuscripts of that period are a primary source of information about the way in which men and women went about the everyday business of living-working on the land, engaging in trade and commerce, devoting themselves to crafts and manufactures, or carrying on the range of activities that we now regard as the professions. Many of the scenes reproduced in this superbly illustrated account are simply works of art in their own right; others are taken from manuscripts that are famous for the very high quality of their illumination. Patricia Basing provides a rich commentary, full of interesting observations, that relates each picture its historical context, explores the connections between the illustrations and text, and gives an account of the general background of manuscript production in medieval times.