The Black Death - an integrated unit

This is a picture of the fresco in the former Abbey of Saint-André-de-Lavaudieu, France, 14th century, depicting the plague personified as a woman, she "carries arrows that strike those around her, often in the neck and armpits—in other words, places where the buboes commonly appeared" (Franco Mormando, Piety and Plague: from Byzantium to the Baroque, Truman State University Press, 2007).

source:  https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/late-gothic-italy/beginners-guide-late-gothic/a/the-black-death

source:  http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/ARTH200/artist/guilds.html

Thamar (the Master) is shown working on a painting of the Madonna and Child while an apprentice is busy grinding pigments behind her. To become a master in a particular craft, one had to serve an apprenticeship under a master. A major part of the training of the apprentice was devoted to technical aspects like the preparation of materials. The quality of the materials was a crucial consideration for the medieval craftsman. It appears significant that the miniature shows the apprentice grinding the color blue while Thamar paints the blue robes of the Virgin. Before the invention of chemical pigments in the nineteenth century, to produce a rich ultramarine blue demanded the grinding of a semi-precious stone known as lapis lazuli which would have to be imported from the East. Contracts of the period regularly specify the use of this high quality blue. An early fifteenth century copy of an encyclopedia entitled the Livre des propriétés des choses shows a king buying gems and a nobleman buying ground colors at an apothecary shop:

source:  http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/ARTH200/artist/guilds.html

Images for Medieval hats from http://www.revivalclothing.com/medievalhatsandheadwear.aspx

Image of Medieval shoes from  http://www.by-the-sword.com/c-93-footwear.aspx