MINIATURIST, French
(active early 14th century)

Book of Regnault de Montauban

1300-20
Manuscript (MS Arsenal 5073)
Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris

To mark great formal occasions with a banquet has been characteristic of all times and cultures, but the Middle Ages took this to its extreme. Nowhere was consumption more conspicuous or ceremony more elaborate. A large proportion of medieval illuminations depict feasts and feasting. The miniature on folio 148 of this French manuscript depicts a feast in honour of the bride.