Book of Hours, Use of Sarum, illuminated manuscript, in Latin, on vellum [southern Netherlands (presumably Bruges) for English use, c.1430, with later fifteenth-century additions made in England]

134 leaves (plus original endleaves), 120 x 82mm., wanting a leaf or two from the end of the supplementary text, else apparently complete, 17 lines in black or brown ink in a late gothic hand, capitals touched in red, rubrics in red, one-line initials in blue or liquid gold with contrasting penwork, larger initials in gold on blue and pink grounds heightened with white penwork (six with coloured and gold text frames extending on three sides, pp.52, 78, 80, 94, 98, 102), one 5-line initial in blue enclosing a sprig of coloured foliage on burnished gold grounds (p.200), with full border of coloured flowers and gold ivy-leaves and prickly gold foliage, six full-page miniatures within rectangular gold frames (approximately 70mm. by 50mm., (i) p.23, the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket; (ii) p.27, St. George killing the dragon; (iii) p.31, St. John the Baptist in the wilderness; (iv) p.37, the Virgin and Child; (v) p.115, Judgement Day; (vi) p.151, a funeral service; that on pp.31 and 37 rubbed and the latter partly cut away), the original volume ending on p.227, pp.228-69 an addition of the late fifteenth century with 15 lines  and initials similar to previous but with floral extensions with tri-lobed green flowers in margin, additions of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century throughout (see below), somewhat scuffed and rubbed throughout with small losses to edges of a few leaves and one or two rubbed to point of becoming thin and with small holes, overall fair condition, limp vellum binding with cloth tags

provenance

(1) Written and illuminated in the southern Netherlands for English use, perhaps for Bennett Nellson, who signs the famous fifteenth-century inscription on the flyleaf. The volume had passed to William Parker by the sixteenth century (identified by P. Raes, 'He that Stelles Thes Boke', p.184, as the last abbot of St. Peter's, Gloucester, who died in 1540): inscription on first leaf of Calendar.

(2) Freeman Clarke Samuel Roper (1819-1896), botanist, his sale in our rooms, 31 March 1887, lot 71.

(3) Captain William Alfred Cragg, of Threekingham, Norfolk, by descent to his son William Gilliat Cragg (1883-1956, High Sheriff of Lincolnshire), and grandson, Major William John Rollo Cragg, ADC to the governor of Hong Kong;  his sale, in our rooms, 10 December 1962, lot 145, to Alan Thomas; his cat.11, 1963, no.15.

(4) June O'Donnell (1898-1979), of Guildford, and by descent to her son, Peter E. Raes (1924-2010).

text

The inscription at the front of this volume "he that stelles thes boke he shal be hanked [ie. hanged] apon on hoke behend the kechen dor" (see frontispiece to this catalogue) is among the most well-known anathemas in any book from late medieval England, appearing in Ker's Parochial Libraries, de Hamel's History of Illuminated Manuscripts, and in the Alan Thomas festschrift (see below). This little volume evidently ranked among the chief possessions of Bennett Nellson. The book's charm, as well as that of the inscription, has endeared it to a number of later owners and, as Raes noted, any "collector can sympathize with the emotion here expressed".

The volume contains: a Calendar (p.10), with SS. Wulfstan, Cuthbert, Aldhelm, Edmund, the translation of Swithun (Swichun) and Oswald; suffrages to SS. Thomas Becket (p.24), George (p.28), John the Baptist (p.32) and Catherine (p.34); the Hours of the Virgin [Use of Sarum], with Matins (p.38), Lauds (p.52, incorporating further suffrages, as commonly in English use), Prime (p.78), Terce (p.86), Sext (p.90), None (p.94), Vespers (p.98) and Compline (p.102); the Seven Penitential Psalms (p.110) with a Litany; the Office of the Dead [Use of Sarum] (p.152), the Commendatio animarum (p.200); to which a late fifteenth-century English hand has added prayers to Christ and on his Passion.

literature

J. Varley, Lincolnshire Archives Committee, Archivist's Report, no.9 (1957-8), pp.17-18; N.R. Ker, The Parochial Libraries of the Church of England, (1959), p.2, facing the title-page; Fine Books and Book Collecting, A.G. Thomas festschrift (1981), p.1; C. de Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts (1986), p.185; P.E. Raes, 'He That Stelles Thes Boke', På sporet af Gamle Bibler (1995), pp.180-88; C. de Hamel, review of Duffy, Marking the Hours, in New York Review of Books, LIV, 15 February 2007, p.44