Description
116 leaves (including 10 blank original endleaves), 180mm. by 130mm., wanting leaves throughout, collation: i5 (endleaves), ii-v6, vi8, vii6, viii6 (ii and iv wanting), ix8, x2, xi6 (wanting a leaf from front of gathering), xii6, xiii7 (i wanting), xiv7, (i wanting), xv-xvii8, xviii2 (wanting all but last 2), xix5 (endleaves), single column, 17 lines in dark brown ink in a fine gothic bookhand, rubrics in red, one- and 2-line initials in gold on blue and pink grounds heightened with white penwork (one on fol.86r filled with royal arms of 3 fleur-de-lys on blue, another on fol.98r extending into a tiny portrait of a tonsured man’s head), line-fillers in scrolls of blue and liquid gold, larger initials in same, enclosing sprigs of foliage, almost every leaf of main text with one or two decorated border panels with sprays of acanthus leaves and single line foliage with leaves, buds and bezants, three large miniatures (fols.31r, 49r and 55r) two borders with drolleries cut from manuscript of c.1500 pasted in on fols.24r and 59v, rubbing to face of angel and some oxidisation at top of miniature on fol.55r, a few spots in places, strip cut from base of fol.21, and thongs split at two places in centre of volume, else good condition, contemporary blind-tooled binding with concentric rectangles of prickly foliage, a running hound, a short inscription beginning with ‘C’ and a five-petalled rose (small holes and scuffs), black leather fitted case; with a leaf from a mid-fifteenth-century English choirbook, with a large initial ‘C’ in blue on gold grounds, extending into border with fern-like tendrils terminating in coloured flowers and golden seedpods, remains of 7 lines of text with music on a 4-line red stave, recovered from a binding and somewhat scuffed and stained
Provenance
provenance
Most probably written and illuminated in Reims (Calendar with St. Remi, patron saint of the city, 13 January and 1 October) in red).
Catalogue Note
text
The book comprises: a Calendar (fol.6r); the Gospel Sequences (fol.18r); the Hours of the Virgin (fol.24r); the Penitential Psalms (fol.60r) followed by a Litany; the Quinze Joyes (fol.72r) and the Sept Requêtes (fol.75r); the Office of the Dead (fol.79r, Use of Reims, cf. Ottosen, Responsories and Versicles of the Latin Office of the Dead, 2008, p.114, 282-3); a suffrage to St. Maurilius (fol.110r, wanting opening) and a prayer O bone Ihesu.
illumination
The miniatures are by an accomplished artist, skilled in conveying emotion in the faces of his figures. The sharp angular jawlines and slightly squinting eyes suggest the influence of the work of the Fastolf Master (fl.1420-60), who worked in Paris and Rouen, and sometime before the surrender of the latter city in 1449, travelled in England (Plummer, The Last Flowering, 1982, nos.21-4, pp.15-17 and pls.21-24). The miniatures are: (1) fol.31r, the Visitation of the Virgin to St. Anne; (2) fol.49r, the Flight into Egypt; (3) fol.55r, the Coronation of the Virgin).
