Les Accidens de l'Homme
"Mors de la pomme" starts with Adam & Eve and The Fall.
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Les Accidens de l'Homme is a series of 26 metal cuts.
It was printed in the margins of books of hours published by Simon Vostre from the year 1512 onwards —
as a sort of alternative to Simon Vostre's more normal Dance Macabre.
Accidens builds on a tradition that goes back to Mors de la Pomme
from 1461 or earlier:
The personified Death boasts of how he
(or perhaps rather "she", since the text is in French),
has had power over man ever since Adam and Eve.
Death does not dance around in a long chain dance as in Lübeck or
Paris, but seeks out his victims individually
in their daily lives between their family, friends and colleagues.
The story ends with the resurrection and Judgment Day.
"Mors de la Pomme" has inspired parts of "La dance aux aveugles",
The Dance of the Blind,
a poem from approx. 1465 about three blind guides: Blind love, blind fortune and blind death.
The section on the blind death includes 26 stanzas of 10 lines, which follow the "Mors"-tradition,
with Death accosting people in their everyday life — starting with Adam & Eve and ending with Judgment Day.
What is new is that Death doesn't work alone but employs allegorical creatures:
"Accident", "Mortalité", "Guerre", "Famine", "Aage" (old age), and "Justice".
In 1499, the stanzas from The Dance of the Blind were printed in the so-called Shepherdess Calender,
and this publication is interesting for two reasons: Firstly, that
the publisher has done away with three of the stanzas, so that there are now only 23,
and secondly that the date, August 17, 1499, is established..
The favorable reader will know that fixed dates are rare in the world of medieval poetry.
Loups Ravissans
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After this it becomes a little uncertain, but in 1505 a book was published by name
"Loups ravissans", The ravening wolves.
The text is very loosely based on The Dance of the Blind, but has been greatly expanded to 3,220 lines.
In this text, the protagonist is "Accident", who
employs "Mortalité", "Guerre" and "Famine",
while "Aage" does not appear.
The text is accompanied by 23 woodcuts (one of which is repeated),
which are designed in a very lively style.
Shortly after, approx. 1506-07, books of hours published by Gilles and Germain Hardouyn
were adorned with a series of images in the margins named La Vie de l'Homme.
The 23 images are copied in detail after "Loups",
but the format is different: they are tall and narrow in order to be printed in the margin.
The 23 six-line stanzas are much inspired by "Aveugles"
(see the table on the page about La Danse aux Aveugles).
Vie de l'Homme
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There is some uncertainty about this data. There are relatively few copies of "Vie",
most of these books of hours are undated, and some of them are "hybrids": pieced together from different editions.
The order of the stanzas is very random, e.g. whether Death comes first or last,
the combination of text and images is careless and far from all verses or all images,
appear in each book. See this dry table.
The series was copied by Guillaume Godard. The uncertainty is even greater here,
but presumably it was Godard who copied Hardouyn, and not the other way around.
The images are detailed copies of Hardouyn's, while the texts are extremely jumbled and fragmentary.
Godard must probably be regarded as a dead end.
Holbein ends with Judgment Day
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Around 1512 came the series that is the subject of this section, namely
"Les Accidens de l'Homme".
The images are clearly based on Hardoyn's, but are free copies,
and the text is even freer.
The 23 pictures and stanzas are expanded with three new ones:
lèse-majesté,
child and
authority.
Simon Vostre used the same metal cuts for two other series with Latin texts,
which I call Las Horas for lack of a better name.
Again, there is uncertainty about the dates (and thus the order), however
it must be assumed that the widespread "Accident" in the French vernacular is the original,
while the rare Latin variants are later editions for the export market.
All the works mentioned on this page,
have in common. that they have ultimately inspired Holbein's great dance of death.
Holbein lets his dance of death begin with
Creation and
The Fall.
He lets Death attack his victims
at the court,
at sea,
on the highway and
in deep cellars,
and he ends his dance with
resurrection and Judgment Day.
About this online-publication
The text on these pages has been taken from
"Ces presentes heures a lusaige de Lion toutes" fra ca. 1513 (see external link).
There is no particular reason why this particular edition was chosen, for Simon Vostre's publications
are reasonably consistent and error-free.
The big pictures on each page are taken from "Heures a lusaige de Sens"
except for #13 and #15 that have been torn.
The text has been transcribed and
translated by Mischa von Perger, author of Totentanz-Studien.
The dance starts here: Death.
Click on the pictures to enter the dance.
Death
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Adam & Eve
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Cain & Abel
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Cardinal
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Bull
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Usurer
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Unarmed
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Sheath
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Scythe
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Soldiers
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Woman
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Tower
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Strangling
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Gallow
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Beheading
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King
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Battle-axe
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Bed
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Fallen
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Child
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Crowd
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Meal
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Minstrel
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Hermit
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Judgment Day
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Authority
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External links
Further information
Dances of death
Various
Les Accidens de l'Homme
