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BOOK OF HOURS, use of Sarum, in Latin and English, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
BOOK OF HOURS, use of Sarum, in Latin and English, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Paris] 1532 110 x 75mm. 159 leaves: 1 9(i a singleton), 2 4, 3 8, 4-6 6, 7 8, 8-9 6, 10-19 8, 20 6, 21 8, 22 4, 23 2, according to pencil foliation lacking two prefatory leaves, otherwise apparently COMPLETE, this foliation running from 3-160 followed here, 19 lines written in black ink in a hybrid bookhand between two verticals and 20 horizontals ruled in red, justification: 70 x 48mm, rubrics in red, text area bordered with liquid gold and red fillets, one-line initials and linefillers alternately of red or blue with frondy decoration in liquid gold, two- and three-line initials with staves of pink or blue against a ground of liquid gold with flowersprays and black dots SIXTY-THREE MINIATURES IN FULL-PAGE RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURAL FRAMES, with vases, masks and putti. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SILVER-EMBROIDERED GREEN VELVET (edges very slightly rubbed). Tan morocco box, gilt with green and brown morocco onlays incorporating Hauck device and initials and dated 1950. AN EXQUISITE FRENCH BOOK OF HOURS WITH VERSES IN ENGLISH PROVENANCE: 1. Everything about the appearance of the manuscript, script, illumination and vellum, locates its production in Paris yet the contents show it was made for an English owner. The Calendar contains in red the feasts of Edward the Martyr (March 18) and his Translation (20 June), St Thomas à Becket (29 December) and His Translation (7 July), and the Translation of St Edward the Confessor (13 October), in addition to many other saints especially venerated in Britain. The liturgical use of the Offices of the Virgin and of the Dead is Sarum. The manuscript can be dated very precisely: the Easter Table opens for the year 1530 and the date 1532 is painted into the frame around the Martyrdom of St Lawrence. It is rare enough to find a French manuscript produced for the English market, but it is entirely exceptional that underneath most miniatures of the present Hours there are explanatory rhyming quatrains in English. Beneath the miniature of the Adoration of the Magi, for example the following four lines are written in red: 'How tre cynges of straunge nations Of chrystes byrth hayvng intellygence Unto betheem brought theyr oblacyons Of golde of myire and frankencence.' The uneasy ductus of the script, the occasional inversions or omission of letters and inappropriate word divisions suggest that the scribe was not a fluent reader of English. There is a precedence for these rhymes in the Prymer printed by François Regnault in Paris in 1527 (S.T.C.15955) and it seems likely that, wanting an extensively illustrated Sarum Hours, the deviser or commissioner of the present manuscript turned to the recently published Prymer as a model. It is most unlikely that such a costly and individual manuscript was made speculatively, yet there is nothing to identify the original owner; perhaps the two leaves once foliated 1 and 2 carried heraldic paintings. Or perhaps it was made as a gift: one could imagine it being commissioned by a member of François I's court to be given to a member of Henry VIII's court. The year 1532 was the high-point of Anglo-French amity, and Anne Boleyn, who had spent much of her youth at the French court, played an important part in this. François supported Henry's case for the divorce that would enable marriage to Anne, and she was given a position of honour at the meeting between the two kings at Calais in October of that year. Like the Field of the Cloth of Gold, this was again an occasion of sumptuous display and the exchange of opulent gifts. 2. Harvey Frost: his ex-libris on front endleaf. 3.Purchased from Harry A. Levinson 1 January 1954. CONTENT: Easter Table running from 1530-1546 ff.3r&v; Calendar ff.4-15v; Passion of Christ according to St John ff.16-23v; Gospel extracts ff.24-29; Office of the Virgin, use of Sarum mixed with Short Hours of the Cross from lauds ff.30-76v: matins f.30, lauds f.37