- Title
- Book of Hours
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- Date of Original
- 1470-1475
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- Notes on Dating
Dating of Gregory Clark.
A MS note "Ce livre ma est donne lan milles quatre cent et dix" (f. 217r) was once interpreted as suggesting that the manuscript had been produced in 1410--the date that also appears on the spine of the manuscript's nineteenth-century binding. Later, it was identified that the MS note had been produced in the early seventeenth century. Toward the bottom of the same leaf there is another statement: "Ce livre ma este vendu lan 1706." Given that the arms belong to Le Louchier-De Buillemont family and include the insignia for the Croquevilain family, the manuscript was probably produced after the marriage of Robert Le Louchier (born c. 1407) and Anne Croquevilain of Tournai (b. ca.1416; d. 1503) in 1435. Furthermore, the inclusion of the feast day of St. Bernardine of Siena (d. 1444) on the calendar (May 20th), and of the honor and the suffrage, "De Saint Bernardin," appearing on folios 202r-202v, suggests that the manuscript was produced after the saint's canonization in 1450.
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- Place of Production
- Ghent or Tournai, France.
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- Notes on Place of Production
- For use in Tournai, France.
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- Author
- ["The Master of the Privileges of Ghent and Flanders","The Ghent Gradual Master"]
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- Format of Original
- ["Illuminated manuscripts"]
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- Binding
- 20 x 15 cm. Bound in nineteenth-century green morocco binding; decorative gilt frame on front and back covers; five raised bands; gilt star decorations in four compartments on the spine; two red labels with "Heures Antiques 1410" and "Latin et Francois" stamped on the spine; "Manuscrit sur velin" stamped in the lower spine compartment. Edges gilt.
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- Material
- Parchment.
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- Foliation
- ff. 223.
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- Notes on Foliation
- In pencil, in modern hand.
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- Contents
ff. 2v-14: calendar;
ff. 15v-19v: Hours of the Cross;
ff. 20-23v: Short Hours of the Holy Spirit;
ff. 24v-100: Hours of the Virgin;
ff. 101-117v: Long Hours of the Holy Spirit;
ff. 117v-120v: 15 Gradual Psalms;
ff. 122-143: Penitential Psalms; Litany;
ff. 144-191v: Office of the Dead;
ff. 192-193: Seven Verses of Saint Bernard;
ff. 193-199v: Seven Last Words of Our Lord, other prayers and texts;
ff. 199v-206v: Suffrages;
ff. 209r-216v: added texts, possibly completed 25 years later;
ff. 217-222: family records and ownership notes.
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- Notes on Contents
- The two sets of folios, ff. 105r-120v and ff. 181r-191v, share similar border decoration. That in addition to the fact that the text is incomplete for ff. 181r-191v, may be indicative that ff. 105r-120v and ff. 181r-191v should have appeared together but were later misbound.
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- Provenance
Armorial bookplate on front pastedown: "Edward Hailstone".
Bookplate on f. 1r: "Syracuse University Library Rare Book Department | Gift of: | John M. Crawford | Manuscript (in pencil:) No. 2"
Two modern printed catalog descriptions attached to the inside of the front cover.
F. 25r, lower margin: an escutcheon that has been identified as belonging to the Le Louchier-De Buillemont family, who most probably commissioned the manuscript.
MS note on f. 217r: "Ce livre ma est donne l’an milles quatre cent et dix".
MS note in a later hand on f. 217r: "Ce livre ma este vendu l’an 1706."
The last six leaves in the manuscript: MS records of Du Questnoy Family, dated from 1521-1595.
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- Notes on Provenance
It is not certain if the book was made for Robert Le Louchier (born c. 1407), his wife, Anne Croquevilain of Tournai (born c.1416; married c.1435 to Robert, died 1503) or their daughter, Marie Le Louchier.
The Maggs Brothers of London had the MS for sale in 1924.
Edward Hailstone (1818–1890) was a solicitor in Bradford, UK, whose rare books and manuscripts collection was auctioned off by Sotheby's in 1891.
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- Incipit
- [Immediately after calendar:] "Domine labia mea aperies…"
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- Script
- Gothica textualis formativa.
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- Layout
- Eighteen prick-holes, aligned one on top of the other to the extreme right of the verso page have been used to line up the 17 rows of text on the pages in the calendar. The calendar is also ruled in ink with 18 horizontal, 2 full-length vertical lines, and 6 vertical lines extending to the same length as the height of the text. The folios for the main text show 16 prick holes stacked vertically on the verso, centered in the right margin although some folios show evidence of prick holes lined horizontally along the top (e.g. f. 24). The main text is ruled in ink with 16 horizontal lines and 2 vertical lines, allowing for 1 column and 15 rows of text. Rubrics range in color from pale to deep red and the ink for the text ranges from medium brown to black.
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- Language
- ["Latin","French"]
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- Notes on Language(s)
- Rubrics and partial calendar are in French.
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- Use
- Use of Rome.
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- Short Description
Known as the Syracuse Hours or Le Louchier Hours, MS 2 is a book of hours, most probably produced for use in Tournai, France, sometime after 1450. Books of hours are considered the most ubiquitous type of medieval books. Made for ordinary people (with means to commission a book like that), they were meant to be read by their owners in private several times a day, at each of the canonical hours of the day.
The manuscript was most probably made either for Robert Le Louchier (born c. 1407) or his wife Anne Croquevilain of Tournai (b. c. 1416; d. 1503) after their marriage in 1435. In the sixteenth century, it belonged to the Du Questnoy family. The last several pages of the manuscript are filled with entries, recording births and deaths of the members of the family from 1521-1595.
The intricate borders heavily embellished with gold indicate that the artist behind the illuminations in the manuscript may have been the Master of the Privileges of Ghent and Flanders. Gregory Clark attributed a number of illuminations in the manuscript to the successor of the Master of the Ghent Privileges, the Ghent Gradual Master.
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- Illustration(s)
The four full-page illuminations appear on the versos of their respective folio following a blank recto of the same folio. For the first three miniatures, the recto on the folio facing the full-page illumination is a text highlighted by a large decorated initial and framed by an elaborately ornamented border which complements the miniature. Borders often use burnished gold, blue, green, pink, orange, and yellow for colors. The first miniature (f. 15v), portraying the Crucifixion, depicts Christ on the cross between two thieves sentenced to the same death. A soldier pierces his side with a lance. A crowd of people on foot and horseback and dressed in medieval clothing surround the foot of the cross and the nearby area. St. John the Apostle comforts Mary, Mother of Christ, and another woman, presumably Mary Magdalene, stands by them and gazes up at Christ. A very ornamental border of vines, acanthus leaves, and flowers is complemented by a border on the facing recto (f. 16r). The miniature of the Madonna and Child (f. 24v) shows the Virgin seated while holding the Christ Child. The ground appears to be grass covered with blooming flowers and matches the throne upon which the Virgin is seated. The background is a tile-like design, which combines a diaper or checkerboard pattern and a diamond-shaped pattern design. The border includes the usual vine foliage and acanthus leaves along with pink flowers. The facing folio (f. 25r) includes strawberries in its border ornamentation and also bears the escutcheon indicating for whom the manuscript was made or commissioned. The scene of the Resurrection of the Dead and Christ in Judgment (f. 121v) depicts Christ bearing a cruciform halo, appearing in a mandorla with his feet on the globe of the world, making a two fingered gesture with his right hand, and with the wounds of his passion displayed. On the flowered-covered earth, two angels blow horns and the dead rise from the ground. The border is covered with intricate and detailed designs and includes pink flowers, strawberries, and other fruits and flowers. The border of the facing page (f. 122r) illustrates flowers, strawberries, and a peacock. The final illuminated miniature portrays St. Francis of Assisi receiving the Stigmata from the seraphim, which bears the image of Christ crucified and is adorned with four red wings (f. 205v).
Different parts of the office are indicated not only by full-page miniatures, but also by decorative borders largely consisting of vines intermixed with acanthus leaves, flowers, and strawberries (and the rare occasion of an animal such as the long-tailed bird on f. 144r) which frame the text to indicate a different part of the office, as well as large initials with a gold burnished background and margin decoration, which extend into the margins from an initial, resembling a vertical margin guide. Various decorative capitals of different sizes use colors of gold, blue, red, and white in their design and may be ornamented with flourishes and floral decoration, some which may extend upward and downward in the margins with floral work invading the marginal space. Other decoration includes end of line space fillers, located within a row of text, in blue and gold design. Folios 213r-216r have additional decorative letters, flourishes, and marginal decoration extending from capitals that are quite distinct from those found elsewhere in the manuscript.
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- Selected Bibliography
Clark, Gregory. Made in Flanders: The Master of the Ghent Privileges and Manuscript Painting in the Southern Netherlands in the Time of Philip the Good. Turnhout: Brepols, 2000.
Everson Museum of Art of Syracuse and Onondaga County, Medieval Art in Upstate New York, pp. 107-108. Syracuse, NY: Everson Museum of Art of Syracuse and Onondaga County, 1974.
Gil, Marc. "Du manuscrit enlumine au livre imprime: le Maitre de la Vita Christi de Cambrai, successeur du Maitre des Privileges de Gand." Bulletin de bibliophile (1997): 7-32.
Maggs Bros. Catalogue no. 456: Books, Manuscripts, and Bindings Remarkable for their Rarity, Beauty, and Interest. London: Maggs Bros, 1924: no. 206 & plate XLIX (p. 201).
Van Buren, Anna. "Review of Die illuminierten Handschriften und Inkunabeln der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek. Flämische Schule, by Otto Pacht, Ulrike Jenni, and Dagmar Thoss." The Art Bulletin 67, no. 2 (June 1985): 328.
Werner, Sarah. "Identifying a leather bookplate." The Collation: Research and Exploration at the Folger, July 9, 2014. Read here.
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- Featured Exhibitions
- Medieval Art in Upstate New York. Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY (April 1, 1974--May 31, 1974).
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- Data Contributors
- Jennifer Casten and Irina Savinetskaya. Additional data contributed by Gregory Clark, Marc Gil, and Dominique Vanwijnsberghe.
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- Source Collection
- ["Rare Book and Printed Materials Collection"]
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- MMS ID
- 991495853408496
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- Catalog Record Link
- View the catalog record
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- Rights Status
- ["Copyright Not Evaluated"]
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- Quartex ID
- medieval_manuscripts_ms-2
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