Calendar, Use of Sarum, in Latin [Flanders, 15th century]

five leaves, c.205×140mm, vellum, a leaf with January and February lacking, doubtless from an early date, as old ownership inscriptions are on the present first page, some staining and creasing, and tears in the last leaf, inserted with modern endpapers into a 17th-century morocco binding with gilt panels

 

Provenance: (1) Produced in Flanders for the English market, with English saints (e.g. Cuthbert, 20 March; Guthlac, 11 April; Dunstan, 19 May), and mis-spellings typical of scribes who were unfamiliar with such saints (e.g. ‘Fredezwiche’ for Frideswide, 19 October). St Sophie (15 May) is an anomaly: she was normally venerated in Germany, Poland and Hungary. (2) Signed ‘Gilbert North’, perhaps the same man who owned New York, Morgan Library MS M.4 (Lydgate, Siege of Thebes) and Manchester, Rylands Library, MS. Fr.7 (Regime de Santée). (3) Priv. coll., UK (the same as lots 52 and 56).