Hours of the Virgin with Psalter

Title

Hours of the Virgin with Psalter

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 82

Associated place

London

Place of origin

Flanders for English use

Date

s. xv2

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (FSOS/FHHF).

Physical extent

Fols. iv + 286+ i (numbered fol. v).

Hands

Written in gothic textura quadrata . Punctuation by point and punctus elevatus; in some portions, by point and medial point.

Decoration

Headings in red throughout.

In item 2, a 6-line initial capital, blue on violet and gold leaf, with vine and flower design.

Individual prayers introduced by 2-line alternate violet and blue champes with vine and flower infills and floral sprays in the margins.

In item 4 and the remainder, an 8-line introductory capital like that for item 2.

The same 2-line champes with floral sprays at major divisions.

One-line lombards, alternate blue on red flourishing and gold on black to introduce individual prayers; red-slashed capitals within some texts, blue and gold leaf line-fillers.

graded programme of illustration.

At the top of the hierarchy are unified full openings, with borders on both pages and full-page illuminations on the versos, often single leaves blank on their rectos and inserted into the quires.

The borders include leaves, flowers, and fruit, as well as birds and drolleries.

These illustrations include: Christ as alpha and omega, in a deer-park standing on the orb of the earth (fol. 13v, introducing ‘the fifteen ooes’; for iconographic parallels, see Scott, 2:301); the Annunciation (fol. 29v, introducing the Hours proper and Matins); Christ in majesty and the damned being drawn to hell below the clouds of heaven (fol. 70v, the Psalms and litany); the raising of Lazarus, with black-hooded monks in the border (fol. 85v, the Office of the Dead); an aristocratic David with a harp kneeling outside a city while looking up to an angel holding three arrows, musicians in the border (fol. 125v, the Psalter).

Important subsidiary divisions are marked by single pages with borders and either full- or half-page (with some text material) illuminations.

These include: a wayfaring Christian with bag (the incipit verse on a scroll by his head), above him angels raising souls in a bag to a judging God (fol. 105v, the Psalm of commendation); and Christ posed as if in Gethsemane (although depicted in a deer-park outside a beautiful city, the incipit verse in a scroll by his head, fol. 116v, the Psalms of the Passion).

Similar illustrations mark the nocturns of the Psalter; these depict actions relevant to the Christian’s imitation of the Passion, as indicated by the relevant Psalm and the action of David in the illustration.

The Passion subjects correspond to the historiated initials which introduce the Hours of the Virgin, with one minor transposition: David in the foreground pointing at his eye (‘Dominus illuminatio mea’) and looking to God in heaven while Jesus is betrayed in the background (fol. 148); David resisting demonic temptation and the buffeting (fol. 162v); David lecturing a fool and Jesus before Pilate (fol. 176); David praying naked in the waters and the way to Calvary (fol. 189v); David playing a range of bells with mallets and the crucifixion with Mary and John (fol. 206v); clergy with a choir-book and the deposition (fol. 222); Christ and the Father, holding an open book, between two trumpeting angels, with a dove, and the entombment (fol. 238v).

Finally, there are twenty-three historiated initials, all of six or seven lines, within blue or violet champes on gold leaf. Fifteen of these introduce the suffrages (text 3) with an image of saint and his or her emblem: the trinity, father holding son as pietàwith hovering dove; Michael triumphant over the devil in a garden; John the Baptist with a book and nimbed lamb; John the evangelist, with his sign, an eagle, writing; the assassination of Becket; George slaying the dragon, with a praying woman in the background; Christopher carrying the baby Jesus across a river; Antony before a hermit’s hut, with a bell and a boar; Roche with pilgrim staff and bag meeting an angel; Sebastian’s martyrdom; Anne holding on her lap the Virgin, who is holding baby Jesus on hers; Mary Magdalen outside an orchard holding a blue pot and receiving stigmata; Katherine holding an open book with wheel and sword; Margaret praying in the prison with a cat-like devil; Barbara by her tower.

Seven historiated initials occur at the head of the individual Offices of the Virgin; each depicts an event of the Passion, paralleling the nocturns of the Psalter, but here Jesus before Pilate precedes the buffeting (fols. 47, 50, preceding Prime and Tierce respectively). The Virgin holding her child, imposed on sun and moon, precedes the devotion to the joys of the Virgin (fol. 64).

See AT, no. 814 (81) and plate liv (fols. 13v, 29v).

Binding

A modern replacement. Sewn on five thongs. At the front, a marbled paper leaf one modern paper flyleaf, and two medieval vellum flyleaves (a bifolium); at the rear, another marbled leaf (v).

Acquisition

Sum liber ?CollegiiSancti Joannis Baptistae Oxon’ ex dono Thomae Knyvettmilitis Baronis de Escricke 1607 ex rogatu Guillielmi PaddeiEquitis’ (fol. 1, upper margin).

Provenance

Additions to the Calendar: ‘Obitus Elizabeth Regine anno 1502’ (11 February); ‘Obitus princeps Arthur Anno 1502’ (3 April); ‘Bellum Blakheth in Kent anno 1494’ (16 June); ‘anno domini M 1vcxxij. Ista die natus fuit Elizabeth Heton’ (3 October).

Agricultural accounts (fol. iii, s. xvi in.).

‘Regina Elizabetha’ (fol. iiiv, upside down on the lower edge, s. xvi ex.).

An old shelfmark ‘B.44.’. (fol. iv, upside down).