The Hurault Hours, Use of Rome, in Latin and French [France (Paris) c.1510–20]

c.155x100mm, vellum, i-iv(iii-iv old vellum)+116 (including ff.17 and 100 twice)+iv (old vellum as ff.115, 116) leaves, two blanks now foliated as ff.17b and 100b, lacking 4 leaves with miniatures, leaf after f.70 misbound as f.76, 24 lines (c.125x75mm), 11 LARGE MINIATURES within full-page Renaissance frames, 16 SMALL MINIATURES, 1 HISTORIATED INITIAL, by the MASTER OF PHILIPPA OF GUELDERS, contemporary but slightly later ONE HALF-PAGE MINIATURE WITH COAT OF ARMS (f.10v), many illuminated initials and line-fillers in black and gold, added prayers at front and back in 16th- and 17th-century hands, some water damage to first two Calendar leaves, painted borders cropped throughout, miniatures in fresh condition with only occasionally small pigment losses, 19th-century French vellum binding with gilt fillets and title ‘Heures / Manuscrit / du / XV. Siecle.’, blue endpapers, gilt edges

Provenance

(1) Perhaps Raoul II Hurault (d.1527), seigneur of Cheverny, La Grange, Vibraye, Cour-sur-Loire, Baron d’Huriel, and Général des Finances, who was married to Marie (d.1567), daughter of Jacques de Beaune, seigneur of Semblançay, vicomte of Tours, chambellan du roi, and Surintendent des Finances of François Ier, who possibly offered it as as a wedding present to their son Jacques in 1539. (2) Jacques Hurault (c.1514–1588), seigneur de Vibraye, secretary to the King, and Grand Audiencier of France, who married on 5 July 1539 Marguerite Poncher (daughter of Jean Poncher, seigneur of Esclimont and of Brétaucourt, War Treasurer of François Ier, and Catherine Hurault, daughter of Jean Poncher and Perine Briçonnet); she inherited from her brothers the estates of Limours, Esclimont, Brétaucourt, la Tremblay, and Chanfrau, and died at Vibraye on 28 November 1580 (Anselme, Histoire génlogique et chronologique de la maison royale de France …, VI (1730), p.451). Their arms added in a blank space (f.10v) and on the opening of the Hours of the Virgin (f.18r). (3) Rose and François Guyné, with records of the births and baptisms of their daughter Françoise Marie in September 1650, and of their son Louis in 1653 (fol.iiir). (4) Perhaps the Vicomte de Mézières: ‘Ce beau manuscrit du 15e siècle … est de la bibliotheque / de M. le V^te de Meziéres’ (fol.iir). (5) Unidentified English 19th-century owner, whose penciled name has been erased (it appears to have been something like ‘R. R[..re?] Lane[?]’): responsible for pencil notes and ‘No. 6’ in ink (fol.i verso). (6) Helmut Teppler, his MS 12; sold in our rooms, 20 June 1995, lot 99, with two ills., as ‘the property of a well-known private library in Germany, assembled principally in the 1980s, and remarkable for its range of types and classes of the medieval and illuminated book’.

Text and Illumination

Calendar, in French, with an entry for every day (f.1r), feasts in gold include Denis and Marcellus, bishops of Paris; Gospels extracts (f.7r); the Passion according to St John (f.11r); the Hours of the Virgin, Use of Rome, with the Hours of the Cross and of the Holy Spirit intermixed, with Matins (f.18r), Lauds (f.25v), Cross-Matins (f.33r), Spirit-Matins (f.34r), Prime (f.35r), Terce (f.39v), Sext (f.43v), None (f.47r), Vespers (f.50r), Compline (f.55r); prayer to the Virgin ‘Salve regina’ (f.59v); the Penitential Psalms (f.61r), litany (f.67v); the Office of the Dead, Use of Rome (f.72r); Suffrages (f.101r).

The subjects of the large miniatures are: (1) St John blessing the poisoned chalice (f.7r); (2) Agony in the Garden (f.11r); (3) Annunciation (f.18r); (4) Visitation, (f.25v); (5) Crucifixion (f.33r); (6) Pentecost (f.34r); (7) Nativity of Christ (f.35r); (8) Annunciation to the Shepherds (f.39v); (9) Adoration of the Magi (f.43v); (10) Coronation of the Virgin (f.55r); (11) Trinity (f.101r).

The subjects of the small miniatures are: (1) Luke (f.8r); (2) Matthew (f.9r); (3) Mark (f.10r); (4) Michael (f.103v); (5) John the Baptist (f.104r); (6) John the Evangelist (f.104v); (7) Peter & Paul (f.104v); (8) Nicholas (f.105r); (9) Claudius of Besançon (f.105v); (10) Lawrence (f.106r); (11) Anne (f.106v); (12) Mary Magdalene (f.107r); (13) Catherine (f.107v); (14) Margaret (f.108r); (15) Geneviève (f.108r); (16) Apollonia (f.108v). 

The subject of the historiated initial is: (1) Virgin on the Crescent Moon.