Book of Hours
Book of Hours
The book of hours was first only found in noble cirlcles. The man-hours and material costs alone put these texts far out of anyone lower than a lord's price range (1). Typically, a noble would comission the book to be made in professional ateliers, which is basically a medieval art studio, or a convent could take on the task.
The books would be made to order and the buyer could ask for specifc saints like Saint George or Saint Thomas to be included (1). They could also ask for minatures of biblical scenes like we see here. The picture to the left shows John the Baptist pointing to the Holy Lamb of God, which is a symbol of the Chirst in biblical texts (9). If you were looking to spend big money on your book of hours, you could request that a self potrait be illistrated into the book in a minaiture as shown in the picture below (3). As long as you could pay, you could put anything you wanted in your book of hours.  |
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Besides the illistrations, there were several prayers that could have been present within the pages of a typical book of hours: Adoro te, a prayer to express the love of God, prayers to Saint Anne, who had quite a large following during the 14 centuray, and corpus christi, which was a prayer said during the Eucharist, to name a few (1). Below is a link to a YouTube video which shows a modern rendition of this prayer set to song.
These books would even sometimes contain calendars which listed the major Catholic religious dates and even the the patron saints' birthdays. And while nobility could create their book of hours from scratch, some chose to merely add their own little touches to "mass production" copies after recieving them (3). These book of hours would have sometimes had tiny pieces of cloth or parchment with symbols of like the cross or the Virgin Mary sewn in. The owner might add a curtian to his or her book. This was simply a small piece of fabric that was sewn in to cover the picture up until they opened their book again and lifted it to reveal the picture (1).
The Importance of Format
Needless to say, a lot of time, effort, and thought went into a book of hours. And it doesn't take much to see that these prayer books were complex and orinate. This characteristic is perhaps shown in greater detail when we dive into the actual formatting of these texts.
Medieval scribes and artists were obsessed with cramming each and every page with color and design. They even went so far as to descibe this practice as, "horror vacui, the fear of empty spaces" (3). This "fear" in part lends to the richness and grand design we associate with medieval texts. When looking a typical design in a book of hours, we can see this played out .
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This is a scene depicting John, one of the 12 disciples of Christ, in exile on the island of Patmos (5). We can see that surrounding the picture of John, there are drawings of butterflies and flowers, along with large patches of color and gold scrolled leaves near the edges. Clearly, these drawings have nothing to do with the small scene in the center but the creator or owner needed to fill the space (3).
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That wasn't even the half of it. Once a letter was in place, scribes or an artist would begin to add the border decoration. These borders had to look like they came out of the letter itself and depending on the imprtance or the passage, could fill up to four sides of the page. The matieral was also important, as gold and painted figures trumped gold and painted abstract designs; just paint trumped penwork (4).
Although these books were only able to be affored by those in postions of power early on in medieval times, around the 1400 mark the masses started to be able to aquire their own book of hours (2). By the 15th and 16th centuries, both men and women all over Eroupe had their own book of hours. They took these books and passes them down as hierlooms. And while nobelity still gave lavish versions to each other as party favors, they too began to pass the little devotional books to trusted friends and family members (2). The book of hours became firmly rooted in the medieval household.
Works Cited
(1) Reinburg, Virginia. “‘For the Use of Women’: Women and Books
of Hours.” Early Modern Women, vol. 4, 2009, pp. 235–240. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/23541586. Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.
(2) Scott-Stokes, Charity. “Interpretive Essay: Women and Their Books of Hours.” Women's Books of Hours in Medieval England. NED - New edition ed., Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge, Suffolk; Rochester, NY, 2006, pp. 149–161. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt14brvb1.12. Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.
(3) Rudy, Kathryn. “Patterns of Desire.” Piety in Pieces: How Medieval Readers Customized Their Manuscripts.1st ed., Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK, 2016, pp. 327–338. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1g04zd3.10. Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.
(4) Rudy, Kathryn. “The Modular Method.” Piety in Pieces: How Medieval Readers Customized Their Manuscripts. 1st ed., Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK, 2016, pp. 15–58. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1g04zd3.6. Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.
Images
(5) Master of the Dark Eyes workshop, Marciana Group, van
Ommeren of Guelders. Hours, miniature, column, fol. 131v, Miniature. c. 1500.
Artstor, library-artstor-org.proxy-bloomu.klnpa.org/asset/PRINCETON_MANUSCRIPTS_1031320308
(6) Book of Hours (for Female Use). mid-15th century. Artstor,
library-artstor-org.proxy-bloomu.klnpa.org/asset/AWSS35953_35953_29388287
(7) Master of the Vitae Imperatorum, Milanus Burrus, (scribe),.
Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum, initial R, fol. 150r, Whole Page. 1433. Artstor,
library-artstor-org.proxy-bloomu.klnpa.org/asset/PRINCETON_MANUSCRIPTS_1031321159
(8) Book of Hours., whole page, Folio/Page #: fol. 121v. 15th century, third quarter. Artstor, library-artstor-org.proxy-bloomu.klnpa.org/asset/BODLEIAN_1039910712
(9)Master of the Harley Froissart. Hours, miniature, three-quarter page, arched, margins, fol. 15r, Whole Page. 1450 - 1460. Artstor, library-artstor-org.proxy-bloomu.klnpa.org/asset/PRINCETON_MANUSCRIPTS_1031322023
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