[ILLUMINATED BOOK OF HOURS]

Use of Rheims, Latin and French

      n.p. [Northern France (perhaps Rheims)]: n.p., c. 1480]. Illuminated manuscript on vellum. Small quarto (7 7/8 x 5 3/8 inches; 200 x 135 mm.). 157 leaves, including an inserted preliminary leaf and two leaves which are ruled, but otherwise blank. Lacking a leaf after fol. 54, otherwise complete. Modern pencil foliation 1-156, including the preliminary leaf. Collation: i-ii6 iii5 (of 6, the last leaf cancelled) iv-vii8 viii8 (of 6, the fifth leaf missing) ix-xix8 xx4 xxi8. Vertical catchwords on the verso of the last leaf of most gatherings. Ruled in red for seventeen lines of text. Justification: 4 1/4 x 2 13/16 inches; 108 x 70 mm. Written in brown and dark brown ink in a regular formal gothic liturgical script, with rubrics in red, sometimes in French. Verse initials and line-fillers in gold in a ground of alternating colors: red, blue, red, brown, two-line initials in burnished gold edged with black, on a blue and red ground with white ornament, every page with a two-line initial with an illuminated border the height of the text, with semi-naturalistic foliate and floral ornament, and conventional acanthus, often on geometrically shaped panels such as zig-zags, chevrons, stripes, etc., on grounds of gold, colors, or the plain vellum. Four-line initials under most miniatures, in blue on a gold ground. One small miniature and fourteen large miniatures with full borders, often incorporating birds and sometimes other animals and grotesques.#11;#11;Sewn on five cords and bound in nineteenth-century green velvet over pasteboards. Covers decoratively stamped in blind with a foliate border and a central device incorporating a fleur-de-lis and a crown, all edges gilt and gauffered, pale green silk doublures, parchment flyleaves. Minor worming to the last seven leaves. Generally in very good condition throughout.#11;#11;Provenance: Presumably made for someone living in Rheims in the late fifteenth century. A sonnet on fol. 1v entitled, "Vraye Amour L'Ame nous y alie," in a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century hand, above a cipher in gold within a laurel wreath in green, apparently formed of the letters V, R, A, and Y, possibly intended to spell "VRAYE," in which case this and the title of the sonnet may be clues to the owner's name. A nineteenth-century inscription in French, dated 1820, on fol. 1 refers to the Belles heures and Tr!s riches heures of the Duke of Berry, neither of which had then been identified as extant.#11;#11;Text:#11;#11;Calendar (fols. 2-13v), in French, rather sparse. Major feasts (in red or blue) include Saints Remi and Hilary (13 January), Helen (15 April), Memmius (Menge) (5 August), Firminus (Fruin) (25 September), Denis (9 October), Quentin (31 October), Nicaise (11 October). Feasts in ordinary ink include Regulus (Rieule) (30 March), Thierry (1 July), Aplinus (7 September), Remi (1 October, and Nicaise (14 December); Gospel Extracts (fols. 14-18v); Hours of the Virgin, Use of Rheims, with three lessons at Matins (fols. 19-29v), Lauds (fols. 30-40), Prime (fols. 40v-45v), Terce (fols. 46-49v), Sext (fols. 50-53), None (fols. 53v-56), Vespers (fols. 56v-62v), and Compline (fols. 63-67); a prayer in French rhyming verse, in twelve stanzas: "Ihesucrist a matines fut vostre cher vendue./A prime de crachie en la face batue..." (cf. Leroquais, Livres d'heures, II, p. 290; Sonet, R!pertoire d'incipit de pri!res en ancien fran!ais, no. 934) (fols. 67v-70); Hours of the Spirit (fols. 70v-73); fol. 73v ruled, otherwise blank; Seven Penitential Psalms (fols. 74-85v); Litany (fol. 85v-89), with Alpinus and Claude last among the confessors; fol. 89v ruled, otherwise blank; Office of the Dead, Use of Rheims (fols. 90-128v); fol. 129 ruled, otherwise blank; "Se sont les. xv. ioies de la magdalaine en maniere doroison. O tres saincte dame Magdalaine des dons de dieu en luminee Par penitence et par ta peine. Lassus es cieulx es couronnee..." (not found in Leroquais or Sonet) (fols. 130-134); suffrages (fols. 134-140v) to saints Peter and Paul, Lupus, Sebastian, Nicholas, Christopher (using the masculine forms "famulo tu .N."), Remi ("sancti Remigi confessoris tuis atque pontificis & aliorum quorum relique in presenti continentur ecclesia"), John the Baptist, Stephen, Lawrence, Catherine, Appolonia, and Barbara; the mass prayer Anima Christi (fols. 140v-141); the Seven Verses of St. Bernard (written as eight verses), followed by the usual prayer (fols. 141-142); suffrages to Saints Antony, James, All Saints, and to one's guardian angel (fols. 142-145); two Latin prayers, and a Creed in French: "Mon benoit dieu ie croy de cueur et confesse de bouche tout" (Sonet, no. 1150) (fols. 145-147v); an "Oroison de nostre seigneur saint Joseph patriarche & Mary de la vierge Marie" (fol. 147v-149); fol. 149v ruled, otherwise blank; a Life of Saint Margaret, in French rhyming verse: "Apres la saincte passion./Ihesucrist a l'ascension./Quant il fut ou ciel montes..." (cf. Leroquais, II, pp. 138, 210) (fols. 150-156v); fol. 157 ruled, otherwise blank.#11;#11;Miniatures:#11;#11;The subjects of the large miniatures are as follows: St. John on Patmos (fol. 14); The Annunciation (fol. 19); The Visitation, with the distant city in the landscape possibly intended as a representation of medieval Rheims (fol. 30); The Nativity (fol. 40v); The Annunciation to the Shepherds (fol. 46); The Adoration of the Magi (fol. 50); The Presentation in the Temple (fol. 53v); The Flight into Egypt, with the Miracle of the Cornfield, painted in subtle tones, discernable in the background (fol. 56v); The Coronation of the Virgin (fol. 63); The Betrayal of Christ (fol. 67v); Pentecost (fol. 70v); David and Bathsheba (fol. 74); Job on the Dungheap (fol. 90); St. Margaret emerging from the dragon (fol. 150). One smaller miniature depicts St. Mary Magdalen (fol. 130).#11;#11;Rheims is the Metropolitan See of France, but despite this, manuscripts of the Use of Rheims are rarer by far than those of for example, the Use of Paris or Rouen. Of the hundreds of liturgical manuscripts described by Leroquais in the Biblioth!que national de France, only a handful were made for use in or around Rheims. These include just a single Book of Hours, of the fourteenth century.