Status and the Sacred

Introduction

Books, in a common sense, are pages placed inside of a cardboard or paper cover. However, it can also be said that a famous dress or suit is just threads that have been stitched together. A book, just like other objects, always has a story to tell. Their texts can reveal what trends have come and gone in societies over time, and can illustrate changes in what is considered culturally “acceptable” at a given moment. Plates within their binding reveal the status of who owned them. Scribblings in the margins tell us what a previous reader thought. And the wear or preservation of a volume illustrates how high or low it was held in esteem by its last custodian. Books, in this way, are like mini-archaeological digs. They tell stories about those who have come before us when those people can no longer tell us themselves. Sometimes, the details they reveal can be very intimate. Other times, however, a work can illuminate less personal but no less important evolutions within a group of people. That is very true when it comes to “books of hours.”

General Information

Books of hours “were the most popular books of the late Middle Ages”, and “survive in significantly greater numbers than any other genre of manuscript” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 208). They were a means by which lay men and women could “participate for themselves in the daily round of prayer and worship that typified the lives of monks and priests” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 208). There were two main factors which led to a growth in the popularity of books of hours as a text. The first was a desire among the laity, during a period of increasing secularization within their world, to imitate the clergy (Wieck, 1988, p. 27). The second was “the cult of the Virgin,” referring to an increase in the reverence in which Mary, the mother of Jesus, was held during that time (Wieck, 1988, p. 27). The “Hours of the Virgin,” a devotion which had previously been added to the breviary, was extracted from that text and made the central feature of the book of hours (Wieck, 1988, p. 27).

Construction Process

The production of books of hours, like the books themselves, was unique and non-uniform. Plain manuscripts without illustrations were likely available at bookstores in larger settlements, while “lavish versions with texts and pictures selected for a particular owner were commissioned (often at great expense) from the very best artists of the day” (Hindman, 2020). The books were usually written in Latin (the liturgical language of the Roman Catholic Church at the time), and buyers had many choices as to how they wanted their book constructed, such as “support (paper or parchment), color of ink, number and size of pictures…how much blue and gold leaf…borders…and type of binding” (Hindman, 2020). Although books of hours were produced in several European countries, France led the production of them during the entirety of their popularity. As the thirteenth century was ending, “illuminators in Paris and northern France, heirs to the spare but refined Court Style of St. Louis, applied themselves to the decoration of Books of Hours, then just coming into fashion” (Wieck, 1988, p. 28).

What Were the “Hours?”

The “hours” referenced in the name “book of hours” are in fact “the hours of the monastic divine office, the times of day at which monks gathered in church to pray” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 208). “There were eight of these hours: matins, for which monks rose from their beds at about two a.m., and which was immediately followed by lauds; prime, marking the first hour of the day, around six am; terce, sext, and none, respectively marking the third, sixth, and ninth hours (nine a.m., noon, and three p.m.) vespers, marking the onset of evening; and compline, which brought the day to a close” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 208).

After these lessons would come two prayers addressed to the Virgin Mary. They were known by their opening words: Obsecro te (I beseech thee) and O intemerata (O Spotless one) (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 212). Both are “Impassioned prayers that seek to secure the Virgin’s intercession on behalf of the one praying. Obsecro te “movingly commemorates the joys that Mary experienced in bringing Christ into the world and her sorrow at the Crucifixion; the prayer then petitions for her assistance in all that devotee does and requests that she may reveal herself to the devotee at the moment of death” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 212). The other prayer, O intemerata, invokes “the Virgin and St. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who, with Mary, witnessed the crucifixion. The prayer requests Mary and John to watch over the devotee throughout life and to intercede on his or her behalf before God, ‘because you can immediately obtain whatever you want from God” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 212).

Contents of a Book of Hours

While the exact texts contained in a book of hours often varied, there were certain core writings which could generally be found in every book of hours. One was a calendar which contained the information necessary to discern the various saints’ days and holy days of the Christian liturgical year (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 194). Among this was a listing of what days the kalends, ides, and nones fell in a given month under the Roman calendar system. There was also a listing of so called “golden numbers” and dominical letters, which are essential in determining the dates of certain moveable feasts such as Easter and Pentecost (Clemens/Graham, 2007, pp. 199-200). Commemorative days were divided into two categories on the calendar: the less important days were denoted in regular (black) ink, while the more important days were written in red ink (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 196). This is the origin of the term “red letter day” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 196). Also listed were the hours of daylight and number of lunar days in each month (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 196).

After the calendar came lessons from the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). First would come the opening passage of John, “describing the mystery of the Incarnation” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 210). This is then followed by “St. Luke’s account of the Annunciation…telling of how…Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce that the Savior would be born to her” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 210). Then would come a selection from Matthew’s Gospel which describes the Nativity of Christ, “his adoration by the Three Magi, and the angel’s command to Joseph to take Mary and the Christ child to Egypt” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 210). The final reading was from the end of Mark’s Gospel, and narrated “Christ’s final appearance to the disciples after the Resurrection and his ascension, which brought to a close his sojourn on Earth” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 210). These four extracts were the Gospel lessons which were read at Mass on four of the Church’s main holidays: Christmas, the Annunciation, Epiphany, and the Ascension (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 210). Some books also included the account of Christ’s Passion from John as a fifth reading (Clemens/ Graham, 2007, p. 212).

Following the Hours of the Virgin were two shorter devotions known as the Hours of the Cross and the Hours of the Holy Spirit (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 213). The Hours of the Cross would typically begin with a depiction of the crucifixion, while the Hours of the Holy Spirit is typically preceded by a Pentecost scene “showing the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove on the gathered apostles and the Virgin” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 213). “When present, these two texts normally follow the Hours of the Virgin, but in some manuscripts they are integrated: matins and lauds of the Hours of the Virgin are followed by the matins of the Cross and then by matins of the Holy Spirit, prime of the Hours of the Virgin by prime of the cross and prime of the Holy Spirit, and so on” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 213). These hours were followed by two texts found in most books of hours: the seven penitential psalms and the litany (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 217).

The Penitential Psalms, “(Nos. 6, 31, 37, 50, 101, 129, and 142 in the vulgate numbering), which acknowledge guilt for sin and request God not to chastise but to have mercy, were held to be especially efficacious for obtaining forgiveness for sins” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 217). During the Middle Ages, a common belief was that the penitential psalms had been written by King David as a manner of penance for his sins (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 217). Among those sins was the time he lusted after Bathsheba while she was taking a bath, which led him to arrange for the death of her husband, Uriah, so King David could marry her (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 217). The litany included a number of elements such as an invocation of the Christian Trinity, a long list of saints, a set of peitions requesting deliverance from perils, and a further, very long invocation of the Virgin Mary, archangels, angels, John the Baptist, apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 217).

Following the Penitential Psalms and the litany would be the Office of the Dead, one of the longest texts in a book of hours (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 217). It was believed that “reciting the Office would help reduce the time that the soul of the departed would spend in purgatory” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 217). Laypeople who possessed the text of the Office as part of their book of hours were “encouraged to recite it on major feast days and whenever else they could, to speed the entry of their dead family members into heaven” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p 217). Readings from the Office at vespers and lauds included many of the same types of texts as those in the Hours of the Virgin, as well as nine additional readings from the Book of Job (Clemens/Graham 2007, p. 217).

Often, the last section within a Book of Hours would the Suffrages of the Saints (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 218). These suffrages are short devotions that invoke individual saints and consist of an antiphon, versicle, response, and “a prayer that highlights one or more aspects of the saint’s life and seeks (their) intercession and help in obtaining some benefit from God” (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 218). The number of included suffrages could be six, seven, twenty, thirty, or in some cases as many as a hundred (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 218). “The first suffrages were addressed to God or to the three persons of the Trinity, the Virgin, the archangel Michael, and John the Baptist; the saints who followed were in hierarchical order…”(Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 220). In addition to the common texts, “most books of hours include(d) a selection of ‘accessory’ texts, of which the most common are the Fifteen Gradual Psalms…the Psalter of St. Jerome…and the Joys of the Virgin” (Clemens/Graham, 2007 p. 209). Other additional texts include the Seven Requests to Our Lord, the Seven Prayers of our Lord, and the Stabat mater (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 220).

Textual Variations

There was often variation in the exact wording of the Hours of the Virgin. This was due to the text being altered to fit the traditions of a certain diocese or parish (De Hamel, 1994, p. 178). These textual variations are called “uses” (De Hamel, 1994, p. 178). The presence of a certain “use” can often indicate where the text was produced (De Hamel, 1994, p. 178). However, this cannot always be guaranteed, as sometimes a book was produced in one place for use in another (De Hamel, 1994, p. 178). Among the known uses are Salisbury, Rome, and Utrecht (De Hamel, 1994, p. 178). In determining the use of a book of hours, the easiest method is to find the antiphon and capitulum of the Prime and None hours and examine their exact wording (De Hamel, 1994, p. 180). The differences between them can identify uses such as Paris, Rouen, Sarum, Besancon, and Poitiers (De Hamel, 1994, p. 180). Once again, these can be deceptive, both for the reasons already mentioned, as well as the fact that scribes would often copy from exemplars of different regions (De Hamel, 1994, p. 184).

Non-Religous Roles and Illumination

Beyond their obvious religious purpose, books of hours have filled several roles over the years, both contemporaneously and afterwards. While it has been remarked that books of hours were made for “ordinary people”, and their ownership expanded to include what we today would call the middle class, the books first became popular among the aristocracy of Europe during the 1200s (Stein, 2017). As such, it was very common for the upper class to use books of hours as vehicles to display their wealth. This display took the form of lavish illuminations (hand drawn illustrations) found within the pages (De Hamel, 1994, p. 168). Among the books of hours famous for their illuminations are the Tres Riches Heures (illustrated by the Limbourg Brothers) and Tres Belle Heures of John of Berry, a well-known bibliophile of the 1300s and 1400s (De Hamel, 1994, pp. 168, 170, 173, 184). Prior to the existence of books of hours, the text of choice for private devotion was the Psalter, a copy of the Book of Psalms from the Old Testament detached from the rest of the biblical text (Rudy, 2016, p. 15).

It was this illumination that set books of hours apart from other medieval texts as not just texts or trophies, but as true works of art. Extremely ubiquitous works of art, as a matter of fact, given how “the enchanting miniatures in Books of Hours are often reproduced now for Christmas cards and postcards: we all take delight in the scenes of shepherds singing under a festive sky…the Flight into Egypt by starlight past fairytale castles and fantastic landscapes, and in borders of flowers and animals sparkling with gold and colour” (De Hamel, 1994, p. 168). This art also heavily contributes to a book of hour’s value as a collector’s item. Hundreds of thousands of manuscript books of hours or more must have been produced during the centuries when they were popular (Hindman, 2020). In this way, books of hours, in a relative sense, are not rare (Hindman, 2020). However, they are still often very expensive to buy, especially when it comes to illuminated examples. It is true that, without pictures, a book of hours can still retail for a lot of money: approximately $8,000-$10,000 (Hindman, 2020).

However, as one author wrote, “as a rule of thumb, the manuscript was worth the sum of its parts” (Hindman, 2020). “Therefore,” as they further elaborate, “if each miniature was valued at $10,000 then a book with ten miniatures was valued at $100,000” (Hindman, 2020). Certainly, this rule did not always hold fast. Books of hours that contain just five illustrations have been known to be sold for anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 (Hindman, 2020). On the opposite end, some books have gone for far higher. One book of hours, the Rothschild Prayerbook, which contains sixty-seven miniature illustrations, sold for more than $13 million at Christie’s auction house in 2014 (Hindman, 2020). So prized are these illustrations that it was not uncommon in the past for books of hours to have their illuminations cut out for the purpose of being displayed as individual pieces, as was the case with what happened to the hours of Etienne Chevalier, which was cut up in 1790 (Hindman, 2020). Books of hours have frequently set the record for the most expensive manuscript ever sold, such as when the Bedford Hours was sold in 1929 for an amount that surpassed that of the Gutenberg Bible (Hindman, 2020).

Other Remarks

Certainly then, it can be said that books of hours are an instance of size not being reflective of value. This is due in no small part to the talented artists who drew the illuminations found within books of hours. These artists enjoyed the patronage of “the immensely rich nobility” who “(gave) a great boost to the fashion for owning illuminated manuscripts” (De Hamel, 1994, p. 168). As previously mentioned, there were the Limbourg Brothers, illuminators of the famous Tres Riches Herus of John of Berry (De Hamel, 1994, p. 172). There was also Jan Van Eyck, one of the illuminators of the Turin-Milan Hours (though his involvement has been disputed by some art historians), another manuscript once owned by Berry (Chatelet, 1993, pp. 39, 194). Then there was Giulio Clovio (arguably the last great manuscript illuminator of Europe), who drew the illuminations within the Farnese Hours as a commission for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (Carney, 2001, pp. 88-89). There was also Jean Pucelle, “the dominant artistic personality of the first half of the fourteenth century,” who worked on the Savoy Hours (Wieck, 1988, p. 28). Indeed, books of hours were sometimes valued only for their art. In this way, they were “intended to be held in the hand and admired for their delicate illumination rather than put on a library shelf and used for their text” (De Hamel, 1994, p. 168). Instead of being put on shelves, they were often “wrapped up in velvet or precious textile and stored in boxes like jewelry, to be taken out on special occasions, shown to family and friends, or carried about in the pocket to church or on pilgrimage” (Hindman, 2020).

In addition to being pieces of aesthetic design, the illuminations also served a more practical purpose. The modern notion of numbering a book’s pages was something that only developed gradually during the Middle Ages (Lemeneva). At first, words were used instead of numbers (Lemeneva). Often, “catchwords” would be included on the bottom right hand corner of a page at the end of a “quire” (Lemeneva). A quire was a “booklet of which a book is formed” (Lemeneva). These catchwords would also be the first word in the top left hand corner of the following page (Lemeneva). However, this was more for the benefit of a bookbinder than its reader (Lemeneva). When numbers were eventually added, it was still for solely for the benefit of bookbinders (Lemeneva). Without page numbers to guide readers, the illuminations, which could often be found at the beginning of each section of a book of hours, served as signposts to help owners find the proper place in their manuscript (Stein, 2017).

Illuminated or not, books of hours also served as links between otherwise disparate cultures. This is illustrated though a case study of the unique connection between women and books of hours. Many books of hours were owned by women (Clemens/Graham, 2007, 208). This was reflective of a growth in literacy among the female population of Europe during the high and late middle ages (Bell, 1982, p.743). Said growth was indicative of how the opinions of male Europeans toward the female sex were changing during that time. One of those changes was that women were being increasingly viewed as cultural ambassadors for their respective countries (Bell, 1982, p.763). Among such ambassadors were Judith of Flanders, Anne of Bohemia, Isabelle of France, Yolande of France, Valentina Visconti, Giovanna di Medici, Anna Sforza, and Hypolita Sforza (Bell, 1982, pp. 764-765). Anne of Bohemia wound up playing an important (albeit indirect) role in the translation of the Bible into English. Clergyman John Wycliffe, whose translation work was considered heretical by the Catholic Church, remarked “…since the Germans wish in this matter reasonably to defend their own tongue, so ought the English to defend theirs” (Bell, 1982, p.766).

This wish to translate the Bible into common languages was one of the principal causes behind the Protestant Reformation (Encyclopedia Britannica). This in turn had a great effect on women, who in turn had a great effect on the church (Bell, 1982, p.767). As one author wrote: “the translation of the scriptures into the vernaculars and their dissemination through the printing press stimulated literacy and the will to read” (Bell, 1982, p.767). This strongly suggests that women played a large role in starting the reformation by being collectively involved in heretical behavior and by involving themselves with religious texts in the preceding years on an individual level (Bell, 1982, p.767). After all, there is general agreement within the scholarly community that “one of the key issues in reformist movements throughout the late middle ages was the publics greater familiarity with the teaching of the New Testamant” (Bell, 1982, p.767).

Books of hours also served as a means of record keeping. Long before the modern practice of births, marriages, and deaths being recorded by a local bureaucracy, it was not uncommon for such things to be recorded within a book of hours by its owner if the book had some blank pages to spare (De Hamel, 1994, p. 176). In this way, they were very similar to the later “family bibles” of the Victorian period (De Hamel, 1994, p. 176). Marriages were often recorded in the books by virtue of many of them being commissioned to commemorate the occasion of a marriage (Clemens/Graham, 2007, p. 208). Books of hours were also given to young children to serve a “primer,” that is, a text meant to serve as the first book a child reads (De Hamel, 1994, p. 178). In fact, the word primer is itself derived from the prayer office of Prime (De Hamel, 1994, p. 178). Isabelle of Bavaria commissioned a book of hours for her daughter Jeanne in 1398, as well as an alphabet and psalter for her younger daughter Michelle in 1403 (De Hamel, 1994, pp. 176-178).

Conclusion

Books of hours, it seems, are many things. It is true that, in their original, intended purpose, they were no more than simple prayer books. However, they grew to play many different roles, both in medieval times and in the present day. Books of hours are collectibles whose value can reach astronomical heights. They are works of art that are not carved from marble or painted on canvas. They are symbols of the rising status of Western European women during the middle ages. They are signposts which reflect the cultural geography of a given place and time. They served as mechanisms to diffuse the culture of one country into that of another. They are evidence of a type of opulence which no longer exists. They tell the story of a rise in religious fervor long before the First Great Awakening in the 18th century. They played a role, albeit indirectly, in bringing about the Protestant Reformation. They contradict the myth that books in medieval times were only accessible to the extremely wealthy. Perhaps, most importantly, they are relics.

When people hear the word relic, they tend to think of a necklace, or spear, or even a plate: something that was left behind by those who came before us, and lay buried in the dirt until someone came and put it on a pedestal in a museum. However, a relic doesn’t have to be something that you can put on display. It can also be something you can put on a personal bookshelf. Archaeology is the study of the past informed by physical objects our predecessors have left behind. A book of hours can convey a great deal of information far beyond the prayers it contains. The wear on a page, the fading of ink, the type of ink used, the handwriting on a page, the style of an illumination: these are all things which tell a story. It is not a complete story. There will be gaps and holes that must be filled in by guesswork. A story that is up to us to piece together.

List of References:

Bell, S.G. (1982). Medieval women book owners: arbiters of lay piety and ambassadors of culture. Signs, 7(4), 742-768.

Carney, J. Eldridge. (2001). Renaissance and reformation, 1500-1620: a biographical dictionary. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Chatelet, A. (1980). Early dutch painting, painting in the northern netherlands in the fifteenth century. Montreux, Lausanne.

Clemens, R., & Graham, T. (2007). Introduction to manuscript studies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

De Hamel, C. (1994). A history of illuminated manuscripts. 2. ed. rev., enl. and with new ill. London: Phaidon Press.

Encyclopedia Britannica. Reformation causes and effects. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/summary/Reformation-Causes-and-Effects Hindman, S. (2020, March 17). Books of hours: collecting treasures from the medieval past. Art & Object. https://www.artandobject.com/articles/books-hours-collecting-treasures-medieval-past

Lemeneva, E. The structure of the text of medieval manuscripts. Medieval Manuscript Manual. http://web.ceu.hu/medstud/manual/MMM/frame12.html

Rudy, K. M. (2016). The modular method. In Piety in Pieces: How Medieval Readers Customized their Manuscripts (1st ed., pp. 15–58). Open Book Publishers.

Stein, W.A. (2017, June). The book of hours: a medieval bestseller. The Met. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hour/hd_hour.htm

Wieck, R. S. (1988). Time sanctified: the book of hours in medieval art and life. New York: G. Braziller in association with the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore