Book of Hours, Use of Sarum, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [southern Netherlands, c.1460]

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

154 leaves (plus original flyleaves), 140mm. by 95mm., wanting single leaves from third and tenth gatherings, else complete, collation: i^{6, ii^{9 (i a singleton with miniature), iii^{7 (last wanting), iv-ix^{8, x^{7 (first wanting), xi^{9, (i a singleton with miniature), xii^{8, xiii^{9 (vii a singleton with miniature), xiv-xvi^{8, xvii^{9 (v a singleton with miniature), xviii-xix^{8, xx^{2, eighteenth-century pagination, single column, 15 lines in brown ink in an angular late gothic English bookhand, rubrics in red, one-line initials in liquid gold or blue with contrasting penwork, larger initials in liquid gold on blue and soft pink grounds heightened with white penwork, six pages with a large gold initial and three quarter border of acanthus leaf sprays, single line foliage terminating in coloured flower buds and gold bezants (pp.105, 114, 119, 124, 130, 134), another with same but border on four sides (p.301),}}}}}}}}}}}} eight historiated initials with three-quarter borders as previous (pp.33, 37, 40, 43, 45, 47, 49, 51; that on p.40 once containing St. Thomas Becket and erased on purpose: see below), five full-page arch-topped miniatures (80mm. high) framed in liquid gold (pp.14, 56, 158, 203, 266), each with full decorated borders and facing a large initial in blue or pink with sprays of coloured foliage on gold grounds, with full decorated borders, leaves slightly cockled with some stains, vellum rough and thick in places, else fair condition, scratched and torn eighteenth-century dark leather over pasteboards, rebacked, brown cloth slipcase with half-leather spine gilt

Provenance

provenance

(1) Written and illuminated for the English market, and adapted there to comply with Henry VIII's edict of 16 November 1538, with the initial containing St. Thomas Becket on p.40 scrubbed out, and prayers to the saint on pp.40-2 and 97-8 and his name in July and December in the Calendar struck through.

(2) Owned in 1741 by "Johannes Marshall in Seely": his ex libris on front flyleaves and pp.156 and 173.

Catalogue Note

text

This is an appealing relic of the English reformation, adapted for continuing recusant use or perhaps because the owner could not bear to part with a treasured possession. The volume contains: a Calendar (p.1) with SS. Edward, king and martyr, and Edmund; prayers to Christ (p.15), to the Trinity, SS. John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, George, Mary Magdalene, Catherine, Barbara and Margaret; the Hours of the Virgin, with Matins (p.57), Lauds (p.74), Prime (p.105), Terce (p.114), Sext (p.119), None (p.124), Vespers (p.130), Compline (p.134); the O intemerata (p.145) and Obsecro te (p.149) in male form: "famulo tuo" on p.153; the Seven Penitential Psalms (p.159) with a Litany; the Office of the Dead (p.205) with the Commendatio animarum on p.267; and readings on the Passion of Christ (p.301).

The miniatures comprise:

1. p.14, God the Father standing within a gothic interior between two kneeling angels.

2. p.56, the Annunciation to the Virgin, her kneeling at her prie-dieu before a white flower in a golden pot.

3. p.158, Judgement Day, with Christ seated on a mandorla, gesturing as the dead rise from their graves below him.

4. p.203, the Raising of Lazarus.

5. p.266, a soul (here as a naked woman with blonde hair and her hands clasped over her breasts), raised up to heaven in a white cloth supported by two angels.