When approaching the doors of many medieval churches, calendar images greet the visitor on the portals or doorjabs. These images typically give a representation of each month through an image of the sign of the zodiac and / or an occupation that takes place in that month.
The occupations often highlight rural activities like cutting grain and harvesting grapes. But many other past times also appear, including hawking, courting, and warming by the fire. The scholar Bridget Ann Henisch has pointed out that many of these images are extremely idealized versions of peasant life and real hardship is rarely shown although it was common.()
Most calendars framing the entrances have the expected cycle of 12 months, although some have additional images do appear, such as the seasons on the portal of Vézelay.() In some cases, like on the Virgin Portal of Notre-Dame of Paris, the months and their signs are slightly mixed up so that the order or correlation is not correct.()
But what do these images of the calendar year mean? How were they interpreted by viewers?
The calendar images as church decoration were most likely seen as a symbol of divine order, of God's control over the earth. The year was fixed by God and thus repeated each year again and again. Henisch writes, “The calendar cycle was the embodiment of a deeply-felt, long-held belief that human life on earth was an unending round of work, shaped and driven by the year’s unending round of seasons.”() As a Christian symbol then, the calendar was understood as part of God's dominion. It makes sense that this would be a symbol through which visitors would pass. The message was that just as God controls time, he controls the individual.
() Bridget Ann Henisch, The Medieval Calendar Year (University Park, PA, 1999) () Véronique Frandon, “Du multiple à l’Un. Approche iconographique du calendrier et des saisons du portail de l’église abbatiale de Vézelay,” Gesta 37/1 (1998), 74-87. () William Hinkle, “The Cosmic and Terrestrial Cycles on the Virgin Portal of Notre-Dame,” The Art Bulletin 49/4 (1967), 287-296. () Henisch, 8.