Some years ago a copy of an edition of the 'Hours of the Blessed
Virgin,' according to the use of Sarum, came into my possession, and I
have since been surprised to learn that it is probably unique. On the
fly-leaf of the little volume is the note: 'This Book I picked up on a
Stall at Venice, in 1741, and had it bound there. It was probably
printed in England (as there are some few English directions in it) some
time before Henry VIII.' The second half of this note has been crossed
through, and the more correct information substituted: 'rather at Paris
for the use of English booksellers, about the year 1500.' A later note
shows that the original purchaser was Mr. Joseph Smith, for many years
British Consul at Venice, most of whose many bargains in early printed
books passed into the library of George III., and thence to the British
Museum. Of this little 'Book of Hours' many of the pages are stained
with damp, so that it probably belonged to the consignment of his
purchases which was wrecked on its way home. Perhaps for this reason,
perhaps because the most esteemed Horae are on vellum and this is on
paper and moreover lacks its first leaf, perhaps because the good king
did not care to collect works of prae-Reformation devotion, this
particular purchase of the energetic consul never found a royal owner.
It possesses, however, not a little interest of its own, and if my
readers will consent to turn over its pages with me, they will disclose
to us a great deal of information as to the compilation and printing of
these books of devotion in the fifteenth century, and their supply for
the use of devout persons in England.
[3] Reprinted from 'The Newberry House Magazine' by leave of
Messrs. Griffith, Farren, Okeden and Welsh.
It is rather surprising that Consul Smith was deceived, even for a
moment, as to the foreign origin of his purchase. The illustrations, as
to which we shall have a great deal to say later on, are unmistakably
French, and appear in many French 'Books of Hours,' both of earlier and
later date. The type also is of a character very common in French books,
and never found out of France. These points, however, require just a
smattering of knowledge about early printing for their appreciation,
while only a little common sense is needed in the present case to
determine the origin of the book. The general printing is excellent, but
the mistakes made in the half-dozen directions in English could have
been made by no Englishman. Thus the words _into the chirche_ appear as
_in thothe chir che_; _hous_ is misprinted _bous_; _begynne_ as
_hegynne_; and the like. Moreover, we note that the printer possessed no
letter _k_ in his fount, but was obliged to represent it by a
combination of _l_ and the old sign for _and_, [sign]. The book,
therefore, was printed neither in England, Germany, nor the Low
Countries, but in a country where the letter _k_ forms no part of the
alphabet, and a good guess might easily have suggested France as its
most likely place of imprint.
A clause in one of the Acts passed by the Parliament of 1483, while
Richard III. was still anxious to pose as a constitutional monarch,
expressly provided for the free importation of books printed abroad, and
for the exemption of foreign printers and booksellers settling in
England from the restrictions usually imposed upon alien traders. The
clause was no doubt prompted by a genuine desire to promote education
and learning, but it is probable that a little protection of a young
industry might have quickened its development without imposing too
serious a tax upon reading. Lettou and Machlinia were already at work in
London when the Act was passed, and Theodoric Rood at Oxford, but no
other printers were attracted from abroad for several years, while the
influx of foreign books made home competition so hazardous that after
Rood disappears Oxford was for many years without a printer, and at
Cambridge no press was set up till 1521. Not only were almost all
classical books imported, but English works were printed in English by
several Dutch firms, the much greater similarity of the two languages in
those days rendering the task easier than it would be at present.
English books were also printed occasionally in France, for Antoine
Vérard among others, not always, however, very intelligently, as indeed
the misprints at which we have just been looking would lead us to
expect.
[Illustration: THE TREE OF JESSE. FROM PIGOUCHET'S 'HORAE']
In addition to the works of poetry and romance, which are now the best
known among the productions of his press, William Caxton issued also
many books of devotion. In the show-case devoted to his publications in
the King's Library at the British Museum, among other unique books are
shown the Latin Psalter, printed by him between 1480 and 1483, and a
volume containing the 'Fifteen Oes,' and other prayers, 'emprented bi
the commaundementes of the most hye and vertuous pryncesse our liege
ladi Elizabeth by the grace of God Quene of Englonde,' and of Margaret
Tudor, the king's mother. Caxton also printed at least four editions of
the Horae, fragments of which survive at the Museum and at Oxford,
though no copy even approaching completeness is now known to exist. As a
rule, however, English liturgical works were printed abroad, for the
most part in France (at Paris or Rouen), but also at Venice, at Antwerp,
at Basel, and elsewhere. Thus of the Sarum Breviary there are at the
Museum six early Paris editions, and one from Antwerp, but no London
edition before 1541. The solitary editions of the Sarum Gradual and
Antiphonal are both from Paris, while of the thirty editions of the
Sarum Missal, five and twenty were printed abroad and only five at home.
It need not, therefore, surprise us to find that of thirty-nine Sarum
Horae in the Museum library, while two were printed at Antwerp, and two
at Rouen, the Paris presses produced twenty-seven, those of London only
eight, and these with some help from France.
It is time now to turn to the contents of our book. These are as
follows:--
i. A Kalendar.
ii. Passages from the Gospels on the Birth, Ascension, and Death
of Christ, viz., S. John i. 1-14; S. Luke i. 20-38; S.
Matt. ii. 1-12; S. Mark xvi. 14-20; S. John xviii. 1-42.
iii. Prayers: On the Trinity: 'Whan thou goest first out of thy
hous'; 'Whan thou entrest into the chirch'; 'Whan thou
beginnest to praye.'
iv. The Hours of the Blessed Virgin--'Horae intemeratae beatae
Mariae Virginis secundum usum Sarum.'
v. The Hours of the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin.
vi. The Seven Penitential Psalms.
vii. The Litany of the Saints.
viii. The Vigils of the Dead.
ix. Seven Psalms on the Lord's Passion.
x. Prayers: Before the Image of the Body of Christ; To the
Blessed Mary and to S. John the Evangelist.
There is thus, as in all editions, a great deal in the volume besides
the Horae, from which the book takes its name. But of the hundred and
sixty pages to which (in addition to the twelve leaves of Kalendar) the
volume extends, upwards of sixty are occupied by the Hours, which are
thus much the most important item in the contents. The antiquity of
these Hours was very great, for they are mentioned as an office as early
as the sixth century. They fell, however, into disuse, but were revived,
and probably rearranged, by Peter Damian just ten years before our
battle of Hastings. Forty years later, in 1096, at the Council of
Claremont, the saying of them, in addition to the canonical hours, was
made compulsory upon all the clergy, and this compulsion continued until
1568, when Pope Pius V., in issuing his revision of the Breviary,
released the clergy from the obligation to say this office, at the same
time that he forbade the use of the vernacular translations of it, which
for at least two centuries had been permitted to the laity. In England,
as we all know, these vernacular versions were called Primers, and their
rendering of the Psalms and Prayers of which the Hours were made up, and
of the additional matter which was joined with them, has formed the
basis of our present English Prayer Book.
Thee God we preise: Thee Lord we knowleche:
Thee endless Fader everi erthe worschipeth:
To Thee alle angels, to Thee hevenes and alle manere powers:
To thee cherubim and seraphim crieth with vois withouten cessinge:
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Ostis:
Hevenes and erthe ben ful of mageste of thi glorie:
Thee the glorious compainie of apostles:
Thee the preisable noumbre of prophetes:
Thee preiseth the white ost of martires.
So began the English version of the _Te Deum_ in a Primer written at
the end of the fourteenth century (British Museum, Add. MS. 27, 592),[4]
and if the beauty of some of these lines has caused us to give them a
preference over other versions a little closer to our own, they serve
none the less well to show whence it was that our Prayer Book obtained
its magnificent rhythms. But who would know more of our old English
Primers must be referred to the third volume of the late Mr. Maskell's
'Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae' (Clarendon Press, 1882). Here
we are concerned with Horae, and that in their bibliographical and
pictorial, rather than their liturgical aspect.
[4] Partially reproduced in photographic facsimile by Mr. Henry
Littlehales. (Rivingtons, 1890.)
Each of the Hours, we are told, had its mystical reference to some event
in the Lives of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord, and these references
are explained in some of the Primers in some rude verses, which, with
correction of some obvious misprints, and modernising the spelling, I
proceed to quote:--
_Ad Laudes_:
How Mary, the mother and virgin,
Visited Elizabeth, wife of Zachary,
Which said, 'Blessed be thou cousin,
And blessed be the fruit of thy body.'
_Ad Primam_:
How Jesu Christ right poorly born was,
In an old crib laid all in poverty,
At Bethleem, by an ox and an ass,
Where Mary blessed His nativity.
_Ad Tertiam_:
How an Angel appeared in the morn,
Singing, 'Gloria in Excelsis Deo';
Saying, 'The very Son of God is born,
Ye Shepherds of Bethleem, ye may go.'
_Ad Sextam_:
How three kings of strange nations,
Of Christ's birth having intelligence,
Unto Bethleem brought their oblations,
Of gold, of myrrh, and frankincense.
_Ad Nonam_:
Simeon, at Christ's circumcision,
These words unto the Jews did tell,
'My eyen beholdeth your redemption,
The light and glory of Israel.'
_Ad Vesperas_:
How Mary and Joseph with Jesus were fain
Into Egypt, for succour, to flee,
Whan the Innocents for His sake were slain,
By commission of Herod's cruelty.
_Ad Completorium_:
How Mary assumpted was above the skies,
By her Son as sovereign lady,
Received there among the hierarchies,
And crowned her the queen of glory.
I have quoted these verses in full, rude though they are, because they
form the keynote to the scheme of illustrations of all Horae and
Primers. The Hours were intended as devotional comments on the subjects
of these verses, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was
thus the most natural thing in the world that each Hour should be
accompanied by an illumination, or, failing that, a woodcut, to
illustrate its special theme. Accustomed as we nowadays are to gain our
information exclusively by reading letterpress, it is only by a visit to
our nurseries that we can recall to ourselves how deeply the need of
pictures was felt in the ages before the printing press made the art of
reading a common acquirement. Of this need the Miracle Plays, with all
their rudeness, all their unconscious profanity, were at once the living
witness and the living fulfilment. In the great cycles, such as those
of York, Wakefield, and Chester, which have come down to us, the history
of the world in its sacred aspects is unrolled from the creation of the
angels to the day of judgment; and the presentment of these plays
probably brought the Bible stories nearer to the people than could have
been possible in any other way. Certainly these plays left a deep mark
upon current ideas of art, and helped to render impossible any attempt
at antiquarian correctness. In the scene of the Adoration of the
Shepherds in some of the finest books of Hours (P. Pigouchet: Paris,
1498, 1502, etc.), underneath the figures of the shepherds and their
wives (by whom they are mostly represented as being accompanied) are
written the names Gobin le gai, le beau Roger, Aloris, Alison, Mahault,
Ysambre, by which they were known in the French plays on the Nativity,
and the shepherds are French Shepherds of the fifteenth century. But
however great their anachronisms, the tableaux in the Miracle Plays and
the pictures in books of devotion were found abundantly helpful, and for
more than a century and a half, first in manuscript and afterwards in
print, the Horae or Primers, the prayer-books of the laity, hold the
first place among illuminated books.
[Illustration: FROM A SARUM HORAE. PARIS: P. PIGOUCHET FOR S. VOSTRE, 1502]
A few years ago Mr. Quaritch possessed a charming 'Book of Hours,' which
at one time belonged to Elizabeth Poyntz, a relative of the Thomas
Poyntz at whose book we were looking a little while back. To this
manuscript Mr. Quaritch in his catalogue assigned the date 'about 1360,'
which, if correct, gives it considerable antiquity among illuminated
Horae. The end of the fourteenth century is the date at which these
first become at all common, and it was during the fifteenth century that
they obtained their greatest popularity, and that the greatest artists
were employed in their production. Numerous and very beautiful examples
of the manuscripts produced during this period form part of the
permanent exhibition in the Grenville Library at the British Museum, and
I hope that many of my readers will go to look at them there. All fine
examples of manuscript Horae possess (i.) beautiful initial letters,
(ii.) borders surrounding every page, formed of leaves, flowers, birds,
grotesques, and the like, (iii.) a number of beautiful miniatures,
filling the whole or the greater part of a page, and representing the
scenes from the life of Christ and His Mother mentioned in the lines
quoted above, with additional illustrations from the Passion, and from
the lives of the saints. Beyond saying this, it is impossible to give
any general description of these manuscript Hours, each one of which
possesses its own delightful individuality. Two or three special
examples, however, may be mentioned to show the estimation in which they
were held and the care which was spent on their decoration. Thus the
late Mr. Charles Elton possessed a charming little 'Book of Hours' which
once belonged to Queen Jeanne II. of Naples (1370-1435). It measures
only 2 5/8 × 1 7/8 inches, and contains one hundred and sixty leaves and
twenty miniatures, nine of which occupy the whole of their page. The
initial letters throughout are in gold and colours, and the borders are
of the ivy-leaf pattern, the scrolls often terminating in grotesques.
Mr. Quaritch, again, when this paper was written, had for disposal (for
the sum of one thousand pounds) a Horae of slightly later date, a
wedding present from the Regent, John, Duke of Bedford, to Lord Talbot
on his second marriage in 1424, when he allied himself to Margaret
Beauchamp, daughter of Richard, Earl of Warwick. The first leaf contains
a miniature showing Talbot and his wife at prayer under the protection
of their patron saints, and many other miniatures are scattered through
the rest of the volume. In 1429 Talbot was captured at the battle of
Patay and remained a prisoner in France till 1433. During this time he
made many entries in the blank leaves of his Hours. Here is a snatch
from one in verse:
Saynt George the gode knyght
Over your Fomen geve you myght,
And holy Saynt Katheryne
To youre begynnyng send gode fyne,
Saynt Christofre botefull (helpful) on see and lond,
Joyfully make you see Engelond.
Twenty years after his release from imprisonment, Talbot was slain (July
20, 1453), fighting against a Breton force at Chatillon. It is possible
that he may have carried his Hours on his person, for it was in the
cottage of a Breton peasant that it was discovered a few years ago, and
it seems likely that a Breton soldier may have found it on the
battle-field, and transmitted it to his descendants as an heirloom. As
an example of another kind of interest, we may instance a Horae at the
Bodleian, on four of whose leaves are drawn most delicate and beautiful
representations of religious processions. The best of these has been
reproduced in the Proceedings of the Palæographical Society, and it is
impossible to overrate the charm of the drawing.
In 1473 Nicholas Jenson printed a Horae at Venice; three years later,
Matthias Moravus followed his example at Naples, and the earliest of
Caxton's four editions was probably printed not much later than 1478.
But these were all ordinary books, with no special beauty about them
except what they might receive from the 'rubrisher,' or illuminator,
after the printer had done his work. It was not till 1487, just a third
of a century after the issue from the press of the first printed
document bearing a date, that any serious attempt was made to supplant
the manuscript Horae by printed editions. The first essay was made by
Anthoine Vérard, of Paris, and is said--I have never seen a copy of
it--to have been a poor production, 'without frontispieces' (whatever
that may mean), or borders to the text. The success, however, with which
it met was apparently sufficient to encourage Vérard to renew his
attempt, and in 1488 or thereabouts he issued his 'Grandes Heures,' a
fine quarto, with fourteen large engravings, and borders in four
compartments to every page. In 1489, he reprinted the book in much
cheaper form, using most of the large engravings which now occupied a
whole page apiece, and devising for the borders smaller figures, in
which scenes from the life of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord were set
forth with their Old Testament types. Meanwhile other publishers had not
been idle, for, in 1488, Jean du Pré, or Johannes de Prato, as he called
himself on his Latin title-pages, issued the first of the few Horae
which proceeded from his press; and in 1491 Philippe Pigouchet printed
his first known edition, and not long afterwards entered into relations
with Simon Vostre, an enterprising bookseller, which resulted in the
publication of at least a score of editions, all extraordinarily rare,
during the next twenty years. Towards the end of this century, and in
the early part of the next, other Paris firms of printers and publishers
joined in the trade. Of these, Thielman Kerver, Gilles and Germain
Hardouyn, Guillaume Eustace, Francois Regnault, and Geoffroy Tory were
the most important, but Horae are extant bearing the imprint of more
than thirty other firms besides these. The demand must have been very
great, for Paris supplied not only the rest of France--and in the
British Museum there are examples of Horae for the use of no fewer than
thirty different French dioceses--but also England. Hence there was
abundance of work for all, and the different publishers copied each
other's editions with a freedom which is not a little embarrassing to
the humble bibliographer.
The subjects of the fourteen full-page illustrations in the little
'Horae secundum usum Sarum,' which we have taken as our text, are as
follows:--
i. The Betrayal of Christ (repeated after xiv.).
ii. The root of Jesse, from whose slumbering body a tree is
springing, its branches being the Jewish kings, and the
Virgin and Holy Child its summit (see page 54).
iii. The Holy Trinity adored by the Saints in heaven and by the
Pope and Emperor and their followers upon earth.
iv. The Annunciation.
v. The Visitation.
vi. The Crucifixion.
vii. The Adoration by the Shepherds.
viii. The Annunciation to the Shepherds.
ix. The Adoration by the Magi.
x. The Presentation in the Temple.
xi. The Flight into Egypt.
xii. The Death of the Virgin.
xiii. S. John before the Latin Gate.
xiv. Dives and Lazarus.
[Illustration: FROM TORY'S 'HORAE.' PARIS, 1525]
These, with the exception of the last, which is not quite so common,
occur in most Horae. Other illustrations, which are frequently found,
especially in earlier editions, represent scenes from the life of David
in connection with the Penitential Psalms, his gazing at Bathsheba, the
consummation of his plan for the murder of Uriah, and his punishment.
His victory over Goliath is also occasionally represented. We also find
in several early editions 'Les Trois Vifs' placed over against 'Les
Trois Morts,' three gay knights on one page and three grinning skeletons
on another, and in Tory's 'Heures à l'usage de Paris' of 1527 we have a
striking picture of Death, on his black horse, riding over the corpses
of his victims to deliver yet another summons. The Calendar, again, is
usually prefaced by a figure of a man, with all the organs of his body
exposed, and lines drawn from them to the celestial bodies, which, in
the popular beliefs, were supposed to influence their health and
sickness. Of all these illustrations five or six different varieties are
found; but from 1495 to the end of the century, the set of designs which
was used for our little Sarum Horae was by far the most popular, and
influenced the editions of all the leading publishers.
[Illustration: FROM TORY'S 'HORAE.' PARIS, 1527]
To trace the history of these border-pieces would require a separate
article. Jean du Pré, Vérard, and Pigouchet, made several experiments in
smaller Horae with designs of flowers and birds for borders; but the
popular taste decided in favour of allegorical and historical figures,
and these were soon multiplied to such an extent that their original
order and significance were lost sight of. In the editions published by
Jean du Pré in 1488, and by Vérard in 1489, several pages are occupied
with an explanation of the small figures in the border. Jesse and Balaam
are shown as types of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, the betrothal
of Isaac and Rebecca as a type of her Espousal, Eve tempted by the
Serpent shows the Fall to which the Annunciation preluded the remedy,
the Burning Bush and Aaron's rod foreshadowed the Nativity. Here all is
clear, but as the demand for variety increased, there were added, in
addition to the 'Dance of Death,' figures of the Saints, Prophets,
Angels, and Virtues, representations of the Sibyls, emblems of the
Fifteen Signs of Coming Judgment, and scenes from the life of the
Blessed Virgin and our Lord, and from the Old Testament.
[Illustration: THE DANCE OF DEATH. FROM PIGOUCHET'S 'HORAE' OF 1498.]
Partly for convenience of printing, but more, we may imagine, for the
sake of producing an appearance of endless variety, these border-pieces
were not cut in a single block, but were detachable, so that they could
be used in different combinations. In several editions, even in one of
that very scholarly and artistic printer Geoffroy Tory, this is effected
at the cost of suggesting that the block had been accidentally broken,
as in the page already shown from his edition of 1527, where at the foot
the pieces do not even fit together. The more general plan, however, was
that exemplified in Tory's edition of 1525, where it is carried out with
unusual precision, the borders being built up by the repetition of
exactly sixteen blocks of each size, fitting respectively into the inner
and outer margin and the head and foot of the page. In earlier editions
the border-pieces are more numerous and not so mathematically
apportioned, the reason being that while Tory's are purely decorative,
and their number therefore fixed at will, in the earlier editions the
cuts are pictorial, and their number decided by the exigencies of the
subjects. Thus in Pigouchet's Paris 'Hours' of 1491 there are in all 147
border-pieces, of which 78 are outer side-pieces, 15 inner side-pieces,
16 cornices, 8 head-pieces, and 30 foot-pieces. The numbers illustrate
the greater importance of the outer side-pieces and foot-pieces, which
have a depth or breadth of twenty-one millimetres against the nine of
the inner side-piece and head-piece. The subjects illustrated in them
are the Creation, the Gospel history from the birth of the Blessed
Virgin to the Last Judgment, and special sets of the Nativity and
Passion with Old Testament types. All these were extensively imitated by
other publishers, and the same honour was paid to the famous set of the
Dance of Death, which Pigouchet began to introduce early in 1496, and
gradually increased in successive editions till in that of 8th August
1497 we find the full number of ten triple blocks of male victims and
twelve of women. A similar succession may be traced in the gradual
changes in the full-page cuts, so that we can often tell within two or
three months the time at which an undated edition was sent to press. In
my own little book there are no large border-pieces, only ledges round
the text, but from its containing the picture of the stem of Jesse
(shown as one of our illustrations) and the Church Militant and
Triumphant, it must be assigned to the year 1498 or a little later.
[Illustration: GRANOLLACHS' 'LUNARE.' FLORENCE: L. MORGIANI FOR P.
PACINI, 1496. IMITATED FROM THE NAPLES EDITION OF 1485]