The iconographic and literary representations of food production: spaces, actors and ideologies between Antiquity and Middle Ages

Abstract

An iconographic and literary study on seasonal work as productive cycle between antiquity and the late middle ages is proposed, looking for boundaries between the iconographies and economy and society that produced them. The auspicious representation prevails in the historical view of iconographies associated with the prediction and hope of abundance. Within the medieval society they are deeply bounded to main themes such as season changes, cyclic passage of time, journey through birth, death and resurrection. The representations of monthly work and activities change, and this change is much more than a mirror reflection, a reflection of society on the space and actors of the food production cycle. The legacy of antiquity to the middle ages is a great amount of images based on notions of personification as well of reference for the activities associated with the seasonal changes, a legacy that will be assessed and changed based on the new social and religious experience. These permeate the century during which most of the month cycles illustrated by productive works in the field are produced.