The Hours of Boussu (Part 2)

This is the second set of images from the Hours of Boussu, an extraordinarily rich illustrated book of Hours, also called the Hours of Isabelle de Lalaing, after its original owner, made sometime after 1490 by an anonymous artist known as the Master of Antoine Rolin. The first part was published on Thursday; this second part contains the images which accompany the Office of the Holy Cross (or ‘of the Passion’), the Penitential Psalms, the Athanasian Creed, the Suffrages, and the Office of the Dead.  

The Office of the Holy Cross is a Little Office similar in conception to that of the Virgin Mary, but much shorter. Each Hour consists of a brief hymn (two or three stanzas), an antiphon, but no psalmody, a versicle, and a prayer. (There does exist a longer version which includes psalms, readings at Matins, etc., but it never caught on.) In this particular version, there is no antiphon, but there are two prayers per Hour. Much more notable is the highly elaborate and detailed repertoire of pictures that come with it. At Matins, we have the prayer in the garden, with the sleeping apostles in the foreground, and in the background, the soldiers coming from Jerusalem to arrest the Lord.

The beginning text block of each Hour includes not just a further image of the Passion, but also the instruments or symbols thereof in the decorative border. Here we see Christ standing before Pilate in the large letter D; in the border, the drops of blood which He shed while praying in the garden (Luke 22, 44), and the Eucharistic symbol of the pelican, feeding its children (as medievals believed) with blood from its own breast.

The Office of the Cross does not have Lauds as a distinct Hour from Matins. Before Prime, the scourging at the column.

In the large letter, Christ blindfolded and buffeted by the soldiers; in the border, the scourges and whips.

Before Terce, the crowning with thorns.

In the large letter, the Ecce homo episode (John 19, 5); in the border, the crown of thorns, and many detached individual thorns. The branches among them seem to be palms, and perhaps this is a reminder of the fact that many of the people who acclaimed Our Lord as the Son of David on Palm Sunday with cries of “Hosanna!” were the same ones crying out “Crucify him!” on Good Friday.

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The Hours of Boussu (Part 1)

Here is yet another magnificent book of Hours from the endless treasure trove that is the Bibliothèque nationale de France, known as the Hours of Isabelle de Lalaing, the noble lady for whom it was made sometime after 1490. It is also called the Hours of Boussu, the town in the county of Hainaut (in modern Belgium) of which her family were the lords; the anonymous artist is known as the master of Antoine Rolin. As with everything on the BnF website, the manuscript can be downloaded as a pdf for free. Here is a selection of images which includes all the large pictures, and some examples of the many different kinds of decoration. This first part goes up to the end of the Little Office of the Virgin, the heart of any books of Hours. A second post will include the other features that come after it, such as the Offices of the Passion and of the Dead.

This book is one of the most richly decorated examples of its genre; literally every page that does not have a sacred picture or more elaborate border has a rectangular section like the ones seen here on the two pages for the calendar in April, filled with birds, sometimes other animals, insects (mostly butterflies), and an extraordinary variety of flowers. A great deal of blank space is left on the pages, which is also a sign of the wealth of the person commissioning the book.

The Virgin Mary kneeling before the Three Persons of the Trinity, with an angel holding a banderole saying, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”

The Lord’s Prayer

The Stabat Mater, which here, unusually, has a decorative border with angels, rather than an image of the Virgin standing by the Cross.

In addition to the floral and animal motifs in the borders, there are a fair number of pictures related to the prayers at their beginnings, such as this one to the Virgin Mary.

Many books of Hours included a group of four Gospels, one from each of the Evangelists: John 1, 1-14, the Gospel of Christmas day; Luke 1, 26-38, the Annunciation; Matthew 2, 1-12, the Epiphany; and Mark 16, 14-20, the Ascension. Here we see St John on the island of Patmos, where he wrote the Apocalypse...

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The Penitential Psalms in Books of Hours

The seven Penitential Psalms are a standard part of the liturgical material incorporated into Books of Hours, along with the Little Office of the Virgin Mary, the Office of the Dead, and the Litany of the Saints. Of course, many Books of Hours are filled with beautiful illustrations, and as a follow-up to a recent post about the Penitential Psalms in the liturgy of Lent, here is a selection of some of the images commonly chosen to go with them.

From the Maastricht Hours, 14th century (Stowe ms. 17, British Library): Mary Magdalene, the penitent Saint par excellence, meets the risen Christ in the Garden; a woman kneels before her confessor, as the hand of God absolves her from above. The bishop on the right is probably meant to signify that the priest can absolve sins only on the bishop’s authority.

The Maastricht Hours are famous for their repertoire of strange and whimsical marginal images, most of which have no relationship to the text and are not religious in character. Here is an exception, a black bird accompanying the words of Psalm 101, “I am like a night raven in the house.”

Book of Hours according to the Use of Ghent, 14th century. (Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, 565, Bibliothèque nationale de France.) Christ in Judgment at the end of the world, with the dead rising from the earth, and a figure representing the mouth of Hell.

Book of Hours according to the Use of Paris, late 14th - early 15th century. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 18014.) The Trinity in Majesty, with the symbols of the Four Evangelists. Below, David, the author of the Psalms, in combat with Goliath, a popular subject with the Penitential Psalms.

The Hours of Brière de Surgy, 14th century. (Bibliotheque Municipale de la Ville de Laon, ms. 243q.) King David as an elderly man in prayer.

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The Hours of Charles of Angoulême (Part 2): The Passion Cycle and Calendar

This is the second set of images from a particularly high quality book of Hours made for Charles, count of the French city of Angoulême (1459-96), and father of King Francis I (r. 1515-47). (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Lat. 1173); the first part was published on Monday. Just under half of the volume, folios 59-115, is taken up with a very long series of prayers and meditations on the Passion, in both Latin and French, interspersed with twelve images that show episodes from the washing of the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper to the supper at Emmaus. These were originally created as engravings by a German printmaker named Israhel van Meckenem, which were then colored in by the main artist, Robinet Testard (fl. 1470 - 1519). Below them I include the twelve pages of the calendar.

As is typical of the late Gothic period, Meckenem’s images are quite complicated, with a lot of figures in a fairly limited amount of space, and very often more than one episode squeezed into the background. Here we see Christ washing St Peter’s feet in the foreground, with the Last Supper inside the building on the right, and in the upper left, the agony in the garden, with the crowd of soldiers entering the garden through the gate. (If you click the image to enlarge it, you can see that the figure of St John in front of the Lord at the table is very imperfectly drawn as the result of trying to compress too many figures into too small a space.)

The kiss of Judas and the arrest of Christ, with St Peter attacking the high priest’s servant at the lower left.

Christ appears before Pilate, who is dressed more or less as a typical urban magistrate of the period; at the lower left, a soldier is seen grabbing St Peter’s collar, as the serving girl looks on, and at the upper left, we see the soldiers mocking the Lord.

The flagellation, and at the upper left, Christ before Herod.

The crowning with thorns, and at the upper left, the soldiers hitting the Lord.

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The Hours of Charles of Angoulême (Part 1)

Here is another wonderful discovery from the endless treasure trove of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, a book of Hours made for one Charles, count of the French city of Angoulême (1459-96), and the father of King Francis I (r. 1515-47). (BnF Lat. 1173) The book contains a large number of full- and half-page images of extremely high quality, most of which are attributed to an artist named Robinet Testard (fl. 1470 - 1519). It also includes several engravings reproduced from works by a German printmaker, Israhel van Meckenem, which were colored in by Testard; these include a series of 12 images of the Passion, which I will post separately.

By the later 15th century, Books of Hours almost always included a set of four Gospel readings, one from each evangelist: John 1, 1-14, from the day Mass of Christmas; Luke 1, 26-38, from the feast of the Annunciation; Matthew 2, 1-12 from Epiphany; and Mark 16, 14-20 from the Ascension. Very often, each is introduced by its own picture of the corresponding evangelist, but here, they are all represented in one image by their traditional symbols, which surround Our Lord. Between them are the original four doctors of the Latin Church, and in the corners, the major prophets.

At the beginning of the Office of Our Lady is this image of the Annunciation. Note the arms of the kings of France on the reading desk, and on the altar, an image of Moses with the tablets of the Law.

The first page of the Office, with Our Lady dressed in blue and holding a prayer book, within the decorative initial.

A decorative page at the end of Lauds.

Books of Hours also routinely include two very brief Offices after that of the Virgin, one of the Cross, and another of the Holy Spirit. The former is introduced by this image of Our Lord as a child holding the Cross...

and the latter by this image of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, set within a church; only eight of the twelve Apostles are included, so as to not make the space too crowded. (One of them is clearly identifiable as St James the Elder from his pilgrim hat.)

Matins of the Holy Spirit, with this beautiful image of the dove, and banderoles chained together with strings of beads, with several liturgical texts from Pentecost written on them.

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The Book of Hours of Étienne Alleaume

We are now in the midst of a period with various feasts of the Virgin Mary: the Immaculate Conception on Monday, Our Lady of Loreto today, and Guadalupe on Friday, plus the ongoing celebration of Rorate Masses, her Votive Mass in Advent, and the Ember days next week, which commemorate the Annunciation on Wednesday and the Visitation on Friday. So here is a look at a manuscript with many very beautiful images of the most important events of Her life, the Book of Hours of Étienne Alleaume. Apart from the date of its production, ca. 1500-30, and the name of the original owner, the website of the Bibliothèque nationale de France gives almost no information about it, or its original owner, nor was I able to dig any up on the internet. The style is clearly very heavily influenced by the art of the Italian Renaissance, but with a strong preference for highly detailed decorative backgrounds which is more typical of the 14th and 15th century International Gothic. The liturgical texts included (the Little Office of the Virgin, the Office of the Dead, the Gradual and Penitential Psalms, the Litany of the Saints etc.) are all standard. Like many people of that era, Étienne Alleaume, lord of the town of Verneuil-sur-Seine, was doing the trendy thing in liturgy at the time, and saying these not according to the local Use, but the Roman.

I ordinarily present all the images from a manuscript in order, but we should start with an image of the Virgin Herself, so I’ve moved this one up. This page introduces a Little Office of the Immaculate Conception with images and titles derived from various parts of the Bible, but especially the Song of Songs (“chosen like the sun”), and the liturgy (“star of the sea” etc.) This Little Office is quite different from the standard one, in that each Hour consists solely of a brief hymn, a versicle and a prayer. Within the manuscript, this Office is placed after the Hours of the Holy Spirit, a similarly brief devotional Office.

Each page of the calendar has above it an image with the sign of the zodiac that begins within the corresponding month, and representations of the ages of the life of man, from youth to old age.

A decorative band with the words “Satiabor cum apparuerit gloria tua. – I shall be sated when Thy glory shall appear,” the last words of Psalm 16. Several others appear in various places within the book to fill spaces between the end of a text and the bottom of a page.

Many books of Hours included a group of four Gospels, one from each of the Evangelists: John 1, 1-14, the Gospel of Christmas day; Luke 1, 26-38, the Annunciation; Matthew 2, 1-12, the Epiphany; and Mark 16, 14-20, the Ascension. This image introduces the Gospel from St John, but there are no concomitant images of the other Evangelists with their Gospels.

They are followed by the full Passion of St John. 

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An Exhibition of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

Our friend Fr Joseph Koczera SJ recently went to the Chateau de Chantilly in Chantilly, France, (about 27 miles north of Paris) to see one of the most important illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, a work that has only been shown publicly three times in the last two centuries. It is currently on display as part of a special exhibition marking the occasion of its comprehensive restoration. The manuscript was created between 1412 and 1416 by a team of three artists, the brothers Limboug (Paul, Jean and Herman) for Jean, the duke of Berry (1340-1416), third son of King Jean II of France, brother of Charles V, and one of the regents during the minority of his nephew Charles VI. Like many men of his position, the duke was a generous patron of the arts, and the exhibition also has several other items of interest, including a few of the other 300 manuscripts that once formed his collection. Many thanks to Fr Koczera for sharing these photos with us.

The manuscript is displayed open to these two images of the Crucifixion of Christ on the left, and His death on the right.

An illustration from the Très Riches Heures depicting the duke as he presides over a New Year’s banquet in one of his palaces.

The duke wears royal blue and a bearskin cap, and receives his guests as they are called forward by the bailiff holding a rod in his right hand, saying «Approche, approche», while tiny dogs eat from the table...

and a larger dog waits below it for scraps to fall.

The calendar page for November, with the names of the Saints written in French, and the most important feasts noted in gold (All Saints and All Souls, Saints Martin, Clement, Catherine and Andrew). In many Books of Hours, especially the more elaborate ones, every day of the calendar has a Saint or feast noted, but though many of them were not celebrated liturgically.

The calendar pages are accompanied by a full page illustration of an agricultural labor appropriate to the month, and the sign of the zodiac that begins that month. This page also shows what the palace of the Louvre in Paris looked like at the beginning of the 15th century; the building owes its current appearance to the radical overhauls of the 16th and 17th centuries.

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A Very Beautiful 16th Century Book of Hours

I recently discovered this very beautiful Book of Hours by the Flemish artist Simon Bening (1483 ca. - 1561), who specialized in the production of richly illuminated manuscripts, and made several prayer books for wealthy patrons such the Emperor Charles V and the Infante of Portugal. This particular example is known as the Flowers Book of Hours, since nearly every page without a large illustration has four different flowers on it, as in the fourth image here. (On many pages, one or more of the flowers is replaced by a bird, insect, or some other animal; an especially good example of this is given below.) It was made around 1520-25, for an unknown patron; by this time, Bening had moved from his native place (either Ghent or Antwerp) to Bruges, where he was an important figure in the bookmakers’ guild. He is regarded as the last major exponent of the tradition that produced this kind of work in the Netherlands, before that region was taken over in the 16th century by the worst and most destructive form of Calvinism; the Beeldenstorm, a famous and particular vicious outbreak of iconoclasm, took place about 5 years after his death.

The book begins with a calendar, and as is very often the case in Books of Hours, each page is accompanied by the sign of the zodiac that begins within that month, and some form of agricultural activity: for the current month, July, the sign of Leo, with the reaping of crops in the background, and a waterfowl hunt in the foreground. In many places in the manuscript, where a line has no text, it is filled with a decorative bar, also very typical of higher quality Books of Hours.

The illustration which introduces a prayer to the face of Our Lord, with Christ as the Pantocrator, two unlabeled prophets in the left margin, and the carrying of the Cross at the bottom.

Each new section of the book begins with the first part of the text arranged like this, with a large single block capital and a border with a colored background full of flowers, birds, and insects. There are just a few pages with some of the more whimsical kind of marginalia often employed in the books, such as the monkey leading a bear on a leash seen below in the margin of the picture of the Visitation.

Most of the pages look like this.

Books of Hours usually include one Gospel reading of a major feast from each of the four Evangelists, who appear in the accompanying images. Here we see St John, and the Gospel of the Mass of Christmas day, John 1, 1-14.

The Gospel of the Annunciation, St Luke 1, 26-38.

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A 15th Century Book of Hours

Since there are two Marian feasts today, Our Lady of Ransom, the patronal feast of the Mercedarian order on the general calendar, and Our Lady of Walsingham, the patronal feast of the Anglican Use Ordinariates, I thought it would be good day to enjoy pictures of a Book of Hours, in which the Little Office of the Virgin is central liturgical text. This example comes from one of my favorite websites, that of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Département des manuscrits. NAL 183), which however provides no information about it other than the fact that it was made in 15th century. (From the style of the pictures, I’d guess much closer to the end of the century than the beginning.) You can click each image to enlarge it.

The 1st part of calendar page for the month of September; each month has the sign of the zodiac that begins within it (Libra in this case), and the representation of an agricultural or domestic labor typical of that month (trodding the winepress here) at the bottom. Literally every page of this book has decorative borders like the two floral sections here, many of which also include birds and other animals (some real, some imaginary); the two seen here are typical of the rest of the book.

The rest of September. Books of Hours often have a Saint noted on every single day of the calendar, even though they were not all celebrated liturgically. The more important are written in gold letters, as here, Ss Matthew the Evangelist and Michael the Archangel.

Books of Hours commonly include a group of four Gospels, one from each of the Evangelists: John 1, 1-14, the Gospel of Christmas day; Luke 1, 26-38, the Annunciation; Matthew 2, 1-12, the Epiphany; and Mark 16, 14-20, the Ascension. This image introduces the Gospel from St John, who is shown in his exile on the island of Patmos.

The beginning of his gospel.

St Luke

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