Beschreibung:

Monastic Book of Hours, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [French Flanders or eastern Low Countries, fifteenth century] 79 leaves (plus 4 original endleaves), wanting a single final leaf, else complete, collation: i-ix8, x7 (last leaf with only a few lines of text wanting), single column, 23 lines in a small late gothic bookhand, red rubrics, 1- to 2-line initials in red or blue, larger variegated initials in same with floral infill in red penwork, one large historiated initial ‘D’ (opening “Domine labia mea aperies …”, the opening of the Hours of the Virgin), in gold on salmon-pink grounds, enclosing full-length portrait of the Virgin in a blue robe with a gold halo, holding the Christ Child, the initial extending in a gold bar down inside of text, with swirls of coloured acanthus leaves and single line foliage with bezants and red and blue flowerheads, some chipping to gold, slight rubbing to image of Virgin and Child (perhaps through ritual use), some endleaves repaired at gutter with fabric guards, some spots and stains throughout, else fair condition, 115mm. by 80mm., binding of modern leather over wooden boards (probably early) preserving an early seventeenth-century backboard, dated “1604” around a central cartouche within floral sprays and all within a frame of bearded men holding staves and a grinning skeleton in upper outer corner Provenance: (1) The script and art here appear to be that of French Flanders or the eastern Low Countries, and the inclusion in the Calendar of SS. Theodard (a seventh-century bishop of Maastricht, feast 10 September) and Hubert (bishop of Liège, feast 3 November) allow us to narrow that identification down to the vicinities of those two towns. However, the presence of St. Leodegar (bishop of Autun in Burgundy in Central France; d. 679, feast on 2 October, and the early addition of the death date of Adelaide of Burgundy (here Aelheidis imperatris in December, d. in 999), the second wife of Emperor Otto the Great and crowned alongside him in 962, strongly suggests that the patron who the book was produced for had ties to that region as well. (2) Within some decades the book was owned by the “Margryet van Cortebitch”, evidently a Dutch or Flemish woman, who added her name to an endleaf at the back. (3) Later owned by Anna Maria Elizabet van Reneburgh, who signs the first leaf of the Calendar, and perhaps also added the year 1794 twice to the top of the preceding leaf. (4) Ernst Hilmer: his ex libris dated 1921 on a modern endleaf. (5) Thore Virgin (1886-1957) of Qvarnfoss, Sweden: his signature dated 1938 at front. Text: This is evidently a highly personal book, written and illuminated for (and perhaps even by) a Low Countries ecclesiastic for their own use in the celebration of the Church year. The volume comprises: a Calendar (fol. 1r); the Hours of the Virgin (fol. 9r), interspersed with the Hours of the Cross, followed by various Offices and Masses for specific events such as All saints, the Feast of St. Michael and for the dedication of a church; these are followed by the Seven Penitential Psalms (fol. 39v) with a Litany (fol. 44r); and the Office of the Dead (fol. 47r) with further offices and prayers with Dutch rubrics, and an occasional Dutch prayer. The volume ends with a final Litany in Dutch (fol. 76r).