Few survive in their original bindings due to frequent use. We can imagine it being opened, cradled in the hand, carried about in a pouch suspended from a belt, and wrapped in velvet cloth. Image courtesy of Argosy Book Store from A Masterpiece Reconstructed: The Hours of Louis XIIĮvery Book of Hours gives us a sense of ritual. Some Books of Hours are modest, owned by people who probably had no other book in their household.īathsheba bathing while King David looks on. Other books are big and grand, more fitting to a library or private chapel. Charles VIII’s Book of Hours fits in the palm of one’s hand, and he might well have carried it with him, to parliament and even into battle. David could appear as an author portrait or ogling Bathsheba, one of the sins David committed for which these psalms were suitably remorseful.Ī section called the Office of the Dead might show funeral services, a burial in a churchyard, or other examples of the suddenness of death.īooks of Hours came in all sizes. Readers would also see Seven Penitential Psalms, showing King David, who composed the psalms. King Charles VIII of France actually had few saints in his miniature, personalized Book of Hours although Saints Charlemagne and Louis appear as models of kingship. Image courtesy of Kay Craddock from a facsimileĮvery saint had a function, and someone might choose to order a book filled with saints appropriate to him or her. Saint Apollonia with a tooth, from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, circa 1440. In a certain sense, a Book of Hours tells time before watches, alarm clocks, and cellphones. They remind us of a time when climate, the changing seasons, and local customs governed one’s days and months.īelow is another unusual example vividly illustrated the changing seasons, a calendar that shows an image of a golden sun with red rays low on the page in January and rising until June, after which it sinks lower and lower on the page until December. The accompanying pictures could show seasonal events such as pruning, planting, and harvesting. The text of the calendar lists birthdays of saints and other holidays (these “red letter days” were written in red ink). Lavish Books of Hours included Zodiac signs and the Labors of the Month as illustrations accompanying the calendar that prefaces nearly all examples. At daybreak, or Prime, the Birth of Christ took place in the stable in Bethlehem the Nativity and so forth. Mary went to stay with her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, just before dawn (the hour of Lauds) the Visitation. The canonical picture cycle focused on the experiences of the Virgin Mary, which took place at the same time of day as that specific monastic hour. The Nativity from a Book of Hours in Latin on parchment from southern Netherlands, circa 1500. This picture evokes simultaneously the preciousness of the book and the devotional act of its pious owner. As she reads, she imagines the Virgin and Child in a church. One of the most famous examples of this scene appears in the Hours of Mary of Burgundy which shows Mary seated with her Book of Hours, surrounded by her gold jewelry and her pet dog in her lap. She is shown praying in almost every Book of Hours. According to medieval tradition, the Virgin Mary was interrupted while kneeling in private, reading passages from her prayer book. To understand the Hours of the Virgin, we must go back to the Annunciation (the moment Mary is informed by archangel Gabriel that she will give birth to God’s child). Prime was at daybreak, Terce three hours later, and Sext around midday.Ĭentral to these prayers is the Hours of the Virgin, which gained popularity through devotion to the Virgin. Matins was at approximately 2am and Compline at the end of the day, around 7pm. At least in theory, monks or nuns would gather in chapel from break of day to late at night to pray the canonical hours every day at Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline.īooks of Hours adapt this monastic custom into a set of prayers for lay people at home or going about their daily routines at church or in town. These hours represent the regimented routine of daily prayer in monastic practice. The phrase Book of Hours comes from the eight “hours” of the day. The Annunciation from The Hours of Le Goux de la Berchère in Latin and French circa 1420.
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