Beschreibung:

Leaves from an English Book of Hours, Use of Sarum, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [England (probably London), c. 1420] Ten leaves, including the complete Calendar from the parent volume, a bifolium from the Office of the Dead and the Psalms, and individual leaves with a prayer to the Trinity and the Psalms of the Passion, each leaf with single column of 14 lines in an English late gothic bookhand, one-line initials in gold or blue with penwork in brown or red, 2-line initials in gold on blue and pink grounds with sprays of green-leaf foliage with gold bezants and ivy-leaves in margins, one 5-line initial in pink and blue heightened with white penwork, enclosing foliage in same spiralling out from a small blue flowerhead in the centre, on burnished gold grounds, and with full decorated border of green and blue acanthus leaves decorated with rows of white dots entwined around gold bars, these with large flowerheads with strawberry-like red centres and other foliage, one leaf with a 6-line square miniature, accompanying an illuminated initial 'I', enclosing the Trinity, with God the Father, seated and supporting Christ on the Cross as the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a tiny dove, all before a rich burgundy background heightened with foliate penstrokes in liquid gold, this with decorated border on three sides of red, blue and green acanthus leaves entwined around a gold bar, sprays of single line foliage in upper and lower margins with trumpet-like flowers, gold seedpods and bezants and mirrored green leaves, one leaf torn away at base with losses of margins and the lowermost lines of text there, another with a small hole affecting a few letters of text, shine-through from decoration, initial Calendar leaf discoloured and with scrawls, some cockling overall, folds to a few corners, overall fair condition, each leaf approximately 102 by 73mm. From an English Book of Hours, made for a Dominican (see lot 104), once containing the Fifteen Oes of St. Bridget of Sweden, but with the absence of that saint from the Calendar evidently not made for a member of that order (see C. Gejrot, 'The Fifteen Oes: Latin and Vernacular Versions', in The Translation of the Works of St Birgitta of Sweden Into the Medieval European Vernaculars, 2000, on the existence of this text quite apart from Brigittine books). The parent volume was sold at Skinner's of Boston, 23 May 2017, lot 1160, and thereafter dispersed in the North American trade, with the present leaves passing to Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby. The Calendar here is thoroughly that of Sarum, with St. Swithun added in the margin for 2 July. The first leaf of the Calendar has pentrials in its upper part and an apparent date (perhaps '1481') in its lower margin and partly trimmed away, over which a shaky sixteenth-century hand has written "Fr Claudii de Sto Be[...]d[...]". See also previous three lots.