Book of Hours, of apparently unrecorded use, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [French Flanders, c.1460]

79 leaves (plus early flyleaves), 160mm. by 120mm., wanting a number of leaves throughout, collation: i-ii^{6, iii2 (probably wanting outermost bifolium), iv6, v8, vi6 (reconstructed with loss of 2 leaves), vii2 (loose in volume), viii2, ix-x6, xi4, xii6, xiii2, xiv8, xv9 (last probably a singleton), 18 lines in black ink in a late gothic bookhand, rubrics in red, one- or 2-line initials in liquid gold on blue or pink grounds heightened with white penwork,} seven large initials in same enclosing swirls of coloured foliage and on burnished gold grounds, with thick text frames in same on three sides and full borders of coloured acanthus leaves, other foliage and gold bezants (fols.22r, 29r, 32r, 34v, 36v, 38v, 42r, that on 36v smudged), another similar enclosing a sprig of realistic blue flowers, with full border of foliage on yellow grounds (fol.70r), enclosing four birds, a peacock and a fire-breathing drollery creature appearing from a flower bud, two three-quarter page arch-topped miniatures (fols.15r: the Annunciation to the Virgin and 44r: David in prayer), with full borders as above enclosing a butterfly, birds, an owl, a rat-like drollery emerging from a snail shell, and God the Father holding an orb, (both somewhat scuffed, rubbed and oxidised in places), trimmed at outer edges, some small stains, overall fair condition, eighteenth-century calf over pasteboards, scuffed and rebacked, with two working metal clasps

provenance

(1) Written and illuminated for a patron in French Flanders: SS.Omer, 9 September, Fermin of Amiens, 25 September, with translation in January, and Hubert, first bishop of Liège and the 'apostle of  the Ardennes' in March. The use is unrecorded by the Center for Håndskriftstudier i Danmark (Prime, antiphon: "Quando natus est ...", capitulum: "Paradisi porta per ...", and None, antiphon: "Germinavit radix iesse ...", capitulum: "Per te dei genitrix ..."), but is closely related to a Flemish use of unidentified origin (Drigsdal, no.93).

(2) Perhaps from the library of the Franciscans of Boulogne: seventeenth- or eighteenth-century inscriptions on last flyleaves.

(3) Thomas Barritt (1743-1820), one-legged saddle-maker and antiquary of Manchester, acquired in 1779: his inscriptions on flyleaves. Many of his manuscripts were bought for Chetham's Library, Manchester; the others were sold by Thomas Dodd, Manchester, 19 February 1821. This volume passed to T. Galland in the nineteenth century: his bookplate.

text

The volume includes: a Calendar (fol.1r); Gospel readings (fol.13r); Hours of the Virgin, with Matins (fol.15r), Lauds (fol.22r), Prime (fol.29r), Terce (fol.32r), Sext (fol.34v), None (fol.36v), Vespers (fol.38v), and Compline (fol.42r); the Seven Penitential Psalms (fol.44r) with a litany; the Obsecro te (fol.70r) and O intemerata.