Leaf from a Book of Hours: Suffrage (St. Christopher Carrying the Christ Child)

The Suffrages of Saints often included Saint Christopher, an apocryphal giant known for aiding travelers by transporting them from one side of a river to another. According to a popular legend surrounding the saint, Christopher once struggled to carry an enormously heavy child across the river, only to discover afterwards that the child was Christ. Shown bearing the Christ child on his back in this miniature, Saint Christopher was extremely popular among medieval Christians, who prayed to this patron saint of travelers for protection during their journeys. Some believed that looking at an image of Saint Christopher each day would guarantee the opportunity to say confession before one died.