Book of Hours
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Image:Les Tres Riches Heurs F2r.jpg Image:Hastings book of the hours.jpg A Book of Hours is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Each Book of Hours is unique, but all contain a collection of texts, prayers and psalms, along with appropriate illustrations, to form a convenient reference for Christian worship and devotion.
In its original form, a Book of Hours would list the appropriate texts for each liturgical hour of the day. However, over time, other useful references were often added, especially calendars of the religious and secular year along with the prayers and masses required for certain holy days.
The typical medieval manuscript called a book of hours is an abbreviated breviary, the book containing the liturgy recited in cloistered monasteries; the Books of Hours were composed for use by lay people who wished to incorporate elements of monasticism into their devotional life. Reciting the hours typically centered upon the recitation or singing of a number of psalms, accompanied by set prayers. A typical book of hours contained:
- The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which included the fifteen Psalms of Degrees;
- The Office for the Dead, which included the seven Penitential Psalms;
- The Litany of Saints
Most Books of Hours began with these basic contents, and expanded them with a variety of prayers and devotions. The Marian prayers Obsecro te ("I beseech thee") and O Intemerata ("O undefiled one") were frequently added, as were devotions for use at Mass, and meditations on the Passion of Christ.
As many Books of Hours are richly illuminated, they form an important record of life in the 15th and 16th centuries as well as the iconography of medieval Christianity.
Towards the end of the 15th century, various printed versions of the Book of Hours were produced, with woodcut illustrations.
One of the most famous Books of Hours, and one of the most richly illuminated medieval manuscripts, is the Très Riches Heures painted sometime between 1412 and 1416 in France for John, Duke of Berry.
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The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux
The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux was created between 1324 and 1328 by Jean Pucelle for Jeanne d'Evreux, the third wife of Charles IV of France. The book was acquired by Adolphe de Rothschild of Geneva during the 19th century. On his death in 1900, it was left it to his nephew Maurice de Rothschild in Paris. The book was confiscated by the Germans in 1940 during the occupation of France and sent to Neuschwanstein castle in Germany. Restituted to its owner in 1948, Maurice de Rothschild sold it in 1954 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City where it is now part of the collection held at The Cloisters.
The Rothschild Prayerbook
The Rothschild Prayerbook, a Book of Hours, use of Rome, was made c. 1505 and is only three and a half inches high. Owned by Louis Nathaniel von Rothschild, immediately following the March 1938 German annexation of Austria, the medieval Rothschild Book of Hours was looted by the Nazis from members of the Viennese branch of the Mayer Amschel Rothschild family. Through the efforts of Bettina Looram-Rothschild, the niece and heir of the owner, in 1999 the book and other works of art was returned to her by the government of Austria. It was sold for Ms Looram-Rothschild by Christie's auction house of London on July 8, 1999 for £8,580,000 ($13,400,000), a world auction record price for an illuminated manuscript.
See also
References
- The Oxford Dictionary of Art ISBN 0192800221
- Duffy, Eamon, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 (Yale, 1992) ISBN 0-300-06076-9
- The Hours of Mary of Burgundy (facsimile edition, Harvey Miller, 1995) ISBN 1872501877