‘Fighting and Feasting’

• How is the family’s wealth indicated in pictures of them feasting?
• How are the various types of meat prepared and cooked?
• Give examples of the different kinds of food which come from Sir Geoffrey’s estate.
• What different kinds of jobs are done by the servants?
• Name the two types of bow used for firing arrows.
• What was ‘jousting’?
• Whom was Sir Geoffrey preparing to fight?

‘Heaven and Hell’

• How is the Christmas story represented?
• How is the Easter story represented?
• How did the saints Catherine, Apollonia, and Bartholomew die?
• How is the death of Thomas à Becket shown?
• How is the Last Judgement shown?
• What was the road between London and York like?

Examining Sources

• If you were living in medieval times, how do you think you would have felt looking at the pictures showing heaven and hell?
• In what ways do you think the images of Biblical stories are not historically accurate?
• Why do you think the artists have included so many violent images, monsters and babewyns?
• What other sources from medieval times would we need to examine in order to check the reliability of the Luttrell Psalter?

Further Activities

• Write an essay addressing the question: ‘Would I like to have lived in medieval England?’
• Either make a fair copy of a page of the manuscript, or design your own page in the style of the Luttrell Psalter.