Book of Hours, Use unidentified — 15th century, early; Flemish (French Flanders)

Title

Book of Hours, Use unidentified — 15th century, early; Flemish (French Flanders)

Shelfmark

MS. Buchanan e. 11

Place of origin

Flemish (French Flanders)

Date

15th century, early

Language

Latin

Middle French (ca. 1400-1600)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment; the margins around the text frequently marked, as if by attempted washing.

Physical extent

iii (paper, the first marbled, originally conjoint with the pastedown) + i (parchment, apparently added, 16th-century(?)) + 83 + i (parchment, apparently added, 16th(?)-century) + iii (paper, the last marbled, conjoint with the pastedown).

Hands

Written in a spiky Gothic bookhand; item 9 in a near-contemporary more rounded Gothic bookhand, text items 10–12 in 15th- & 16th-century lettre bâtarde scripts

Decoration

Headings in red.

Five large miniatures of mediocre quality, gently arched, above five lines of text, within a gold framing line, above a four-line initial, and surrounded by a four-sided border (see below): (fol. 8r) Hours of the Cross. Crucifixion, with the Virgin and John. (fol. 11r) Hours of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost; depicted as if seen through the doorway of a building with two arcades of arches to each side. (fol. 14r) Hours of the Virgin. Annunciation; the border incorporating a lily-pot, peacock, and crown. (fol. 48r) Penitential Psalms. Last Judgment. (fol. 60r) Office of the Dead. Funeral Service, with the bier before an altar, three grey-clad mourners, and two clerics at a lectern. Four-sided borders surrounding miniatures and other pages with a four-line initial, of gold ivyleaf, stylized and naturalistic foliage, occasional animals and birds e.g. a rabbit(?) (fol. 11r), a crane(?) (fol. 21v), a peacock (fols. 31v, 43r), a cat with a mouse (fol. 48r), and a crown (fols. 14r, 60r); four-line foliate initials at the start of the main texts and each hour in the Hours of the Virgin; two-line initials in gold against blue and red grounds with white tracery, to psalms, canticles, lessons, the KL monograms in the calendar, etc.; similar one-line initials to verses and other minor divisions; line-fillers in the litany.

Binding

Sewn on five cords (some sewing stations of a previous binding visible), with endbands; bound in 19th-century brown leather over pasteboards, the covers, edges, and turn-ins of the boards roll-tooled in blind all over with foliate wave-patterns and geometric designs; the body of the book detached from the binding at the upper joint; the pastedowns and their conjoint leaves marbled; fol. ii with a bunch of grapes as a watermark; one green silk bookmark; the edges of the leaves gilt. At some time after the book had had its excised leaves re-inserted, rough holes were crudely stabbed through the gutter margin-presumably rudimentary stab-stitching for a previous binding.

Acquisition

Given to the Bodleian in 1939 by his widow,Mrs. E. O. Buchanan, when it was accessioned as MS. Lat. liturg. e. 32; re-referenced as MS. Buchanan e. 11 in 1941.

Provenance

Unidentified original owner: the Picard(?) French and some of the saints in the calendar (Aldegund, Hubert, Livin, etc.) suggest that the book was made for use in French Flanders, perhaps for someone with Dominican interest (Peter Martyr, Dominic); text item 9 was added for a woman, who may have been the original owner.

Anthoine Hanvbeel, Ghent, 16th century; inscribed (fol. 1r): 'A dieu Lhonneur | 1570 [the date erased but visible under U.V. light] | Antoine Hanvbeel [read by van Dijk as Hautbeel] | advocat au conseil | de Flandres | A Gand'; below this, in another hand, six lines mentioning '... Mr Floreins Hanvbeel ...'; also inscribed with the start of another 16th-century ownership(?) inscription in another hand 'Le present [ ]' (fol. 85v).

Unidentified English bookseller, 19th century; inscribed in the top left corner of the last flyleaf (fol. 88r) with a price-code(?) in pencil: 'h v m', vertically, each letter separated from the next by a horizontal line; other pencil notes erased, but including (fol. i verso): '[Interesting?] early MS' and '£4 11s 6'; inscriptions in pencil in English (now largely illegible) identify the major texts, e.g. fols. 8r, 11r, etc.

John Buchanan: inscribed in pencil with the 'Descriptive list' number, '11.', in the top left corner of fol. i verso.

Rt. Hon. T. R. Buchanan (1846–1911).