ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the varieties of setting in a manuscript of the late 1430s, having surveyed what evidence there is for the growth of topographical awareness in English art. The rise of realism in Northern art is most often measured in terms of the development of portraiture. Artists in late 14th-century and early 15th-century England, like their French and Flemish contemporaries, attempted both the accurate delineation of named individuals and the depiction of character-types. In much of the literature it is asserted that Harley 2278 was presented to Henry VI during his stay at Bury from Christmas Eve 1433 to St George’s Day 1434. Several of the landscapes in Harley 2278 incorporate a background of ‘blue remembered hills’, studded with features such as a windmill, a wayside cross, a man ploughing and a beacon. The miniatures in Harley 2278 which have most fascinated antiquaries and archaeologists are those which purport to represent the shrine of St Edmund.
