PRAYERBOOK WITH SEQUENCES AND HYMNS, IN DUTCH WITH SOME LATIN RUBRICS [NORTHERN NETHERLANDS (DELFT), C.1460-80]

c.160x110mm, vellum, iii+235+iii, COMPLETE, collation: i6-1 (first blank cancelled), ii-xxix8, xxx6, foliated in modern pencil, prickings survive, 20 lines, c.95x63mm, decorated with 60 HISTORIATED AND 26 FLOURISHED INITIALS accompanied by three-sided penwork borders, with minor cockling, and some smudging of ff.13v–14r but generally clean and in very good condition throughout, sewn on five bands and attractively bound in 18th-century red gilt leather over pasteboards, somewhat scuffed, the spine worn

A LAVISHLY ILLUMINATED COPY OF A VERY RARE CLASS OF VERNACULAR TEXT PROVENANCE

(1) Made for a woman probably living in, or near, the female convent of Franciscan tertiaries of St Barbara, Delft: the Calendar has the seven feasts in red (Pontian, Pancras, Odulf, Lebuin twice, the translation of Martin, and Willibrord) indicative of the diocese of Utrecht, while Hippolytus and Jeroen both in red narrow it to the Delft-Leiden area (see A. Korteweg in Books of Hours Reconsidered, 2013, p.236); the illumination also indicates a Delft origin; St Barbara is, unusually, in red in the calendar (4 Dec.), and her translation appears twice in the main text. (2) In England by the mid-18th century (binding), with a note on the back flyleaf ‘58 [sic] miniatures, 90 borders’. (3) With a clipping from an unidentified 19th-century English catalogue, recording ‘upwards of 50 miniatures’ (f.i v), and an erased name (f.iir). (3) EDWARD HAILSTONE (1818-90), Yorkshire bibliophile (‘In 1871 Hailstone moved from Horton to Walton Hall, near Wakefield, where he lived as a recluse, savouring his library, which occupied the whole of the upper floor’, see ODNB), with his gilt leather bookplate; his sale in our rooms, 23 April 1891 and seven following days, lot 950, bought by Maggs for £11 11s. (4) Aaltje Colijn-van de Poll (1892-1988), of The Hague and California, with loosely inserted letters and notes dated 1950 addressed to her from Dr Bonaventura Kruitwagen (d.1954), OFM, Dutch codicologist and bibliographer; thence by descent.

ARTISTS

The style of border decoration belongs to the so-called Delft ‘block group’ of c.1460-80 (on which see The Golden Age of Dutch Manuscript Painting, 1989, p.186, cat.no.59 and col.pl.59; Kriezels, Aubergines en Takkenbossen, 1992, nos.32, 33; and Tuliba Collection: Catalogue of Manuscripts and Miniatures, 2014, MSS 5 and 6, cat.nos.8, 9), as Anne Korteweg kindly informs us. The historiated initials are perhaps by the same artist as the initials in Tuliba MS 5, but the remarkable three-faced Trinity is apparently by a second, finer, artist.

TEXT AND ILLUMINATION

Desplenter, The Latin Liturgical Song Subtitled: Middle Dutch Translations of Hymns and Sequences (2008) studies what he calls ‘lay breviaries’ and ‘vernacular mass and office books’ which, like Books of Hours in Dutch, grew out of the Devotio Moderna movement, and provided female Franciscan tertiaries from the western diocese of Utrecht with vernacular books, for private devotion instead of attending liturgical services.

Calendar with an entry for every day (f.2r); Hymns, sequences, mass prefaces, etc. for the year (f.14r), from Advent to the Common of Saints, including rubrics mentioning priests, processions out of and back into a church, the translation of St Barbara (ff.126r, 198r), ‘sinte franciscus ons heilighen vaders’ (f.162r), and ‘sint franciscus dach patroen’ (f.165r); the 11 Great ‘O’ Antiphons (f.201r) and Advent hymns (f.204r); the Office of the Virgin for Candlemass (f.207r); Mass introits, from Advent to the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost (f.213v); prefaces for major feasts (f.227r).

The subjects of the historiated initials are: (1) The Temptation of Adam and Eve (cf. Tuliba Catalogue, ill. on p.77), with full border incorporating Christ, half-length, holding an orb and scroll (f.14r); (2) St Andrew (f.15v); (3) St Barbara (f.16v); (4) St Nicholas (f.18r); (5) the angel appearing to Joseph (f.19v); (6) St Lucy (f.22v); (7) Nativity (f.24v); (8) Annunciation to the Shepherds (f.27v); (9) John the Evangelist (f.31v); (10) Flight into Egypt (f.33r); (11) Christ Child with Instruments of the Passion (f.34v); (12) The Three Magi (f.36v); (13) St Agnes (f.41r); (14) St Paul holding a girdle-book and blessing a man (f.43v); (15) The Virgin and Child before the Presentation (f.45v); (16) St Matthias (f.49r); (17) Annunciation (f.56v); (18) Entry into Jerusalem (f.59r); (19) Chalice (f.71v); (20) Agony in the Garden (f.72v); (21) Priest with aspergillum and situla (f.84r); (22) Noli me tangere (f.94v); (23) Crown of Thorns (f.101r); (24) John the Evangelist in the vat of boiling oil (f.120v); (25) Ascension (f.107r); (26) Pentecost (f.108v); (27) Trinity: Christ with three faces (f.113r); (28) Monstrance containing a Host (f.114v); (29) John the Baptist (f.117v); (30) Sts Peter & Paul (f.120r); (31) Visitation (f.121v); (32) St Martin (f.124r); (33) St Margaret (f.128v); (34) Apostles wandering about a landscape (f.131r); (35) Mary Magdalene (f.133v); (36) St James (f.135v); (37) St Anne, The Virgin, and Child (f.136v); (38) Transfiguration (f.138r); (39) St Laurence (f.139v); (40) Assumption (f.141v); (41) St Jeroen with sword and falcon (f.143v); (42) St Bartholomew (f.146v); (43) St Augustine (f.147v); (44) St John the Baptist’s head on a platter (f.150v); (45) Nativity of the Virgin (f.152r); (46) Cross and candelabra on an altar (f.153v); (47) St Matthew (f.156v); (48) St Michael (f.158v); (49) St Francis (f.165r); (50) Sts Victor, Gereon, and other soldiers (f.167r); (51) St Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins (f.168v); (52) All Saints (only their haloes visible) before the Agnus Dei (f.172r); (53) Charity of St Martin (f.173v); (54) St Elizabeth (f.175v); (55) St Cecilia (f.178r); (56) St Katherine (f.181v); (57) Church (f.185v); (58) Christ Child appearing in the sky to King David and prophets (f.201v); (59) Candles on an altar (f.207r); (60) Monks singing at a lectern (f.213v).