A Short History of the Middle Ages Fourth Edition

Plate 7.4: Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux (c.1325–1328). Meant for private devotion, this Book of Hours was
lavishly illustrated, probably by Jean Pucelle (c.1300–1355). Scenes from the life of Christ, the Virgin, and
King Louis IX (Jeanne’s great-grandfather) contrast with delicate illustrations at the foot of each page. On
the left-hand side of the two pages illustrated here is Christ’s Betrayal, the moment when Judas brings
soldiers and priests to capture Jesus, while Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus, the high priest’s slave. This
horrific moment is juxtaposed on the right with the promise of the Annunciation. Below, in delicate line-
drawings, the frivolity of the world is highlighted: on the left a man on a ram and another on a goat practice
jousting with a barrel; on the right, young people play a game of “frog in the middle.”

That worship could be a private matter was part of larger changes in the ways in

which people negotiated the afterlife while here on earth. The doctrine of Purgatory,

informally believed long before it was declared dogma in 1274, held that the Masses

and prayers of the living could shorten the purgative torments that had to be suffered

by the souls of the dead. Soon families were endowing special chapels for

themselves, private spaces for offering private Masses on behalf of their own