THE FRENCH BOOKS OF HOURS
In the course of the fourteenth century the Hours of the Blessed
Virgin superseded the Psalter as the popular book of devotions for lay
use. Throughout the fifteenth century magnificently illuminated
manuscript copies were produced in France in great numbers, and it is
thus not surprising that it was in illustrated editions of this book
that French printers and publishers achieved their most noteworthy
success.
Each of the Hours, we are told, had its mystical reference to some
event in the lives of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord. Lauds referred
to the visit of Mary to Elizabeth, Prime to the Nativity, Terce to the
Angels' Message to the Shepherds, Sext to the Adoration by the Magi,
Nones to the Circumcision, Vespers to the Flight into Egypt, Compline
to the Assumption of the Virgin. The subsidiary Hours of the Passion
naturally suggested the Crucifixion or, less frequently, the Invention
or finding of the Cross by the Emperor Constantine, and those of the
Holy Spirit the Day of Pentecost. We have here the subjects for nine
pictures, which were almost invariably heralded by one of the
Annunciation, and might easily be increased by a representation of
the Adoration by the Shepherds, of the Murder of the Innocents, and
the Death of the Virgin. Moreover, the contents of Books of Hours were
gradually enlarged till they deserved the title, which has been given
them, of the Lay-Folk's Prayer-Book. A typical Book of Hours would
contain--
(i.) A Kalendar (one picture).
(ii.) Passages from the Gospels on the Passion of Christ. (One to
three pictures.)
(iii.) Private Prayers.
(iv.) The Hours themselves--Horae intemeratae beatae Mariae
Virginis--with the subsidiary Hours of the Passion and of the
Holy Ghost. (Nine to thirteen pictures.)
(v.) The Seven Penitential Psalms. (One or two pictures.)
(vi.) The Litany of the Saints.
(vii.) The Vigils of the Dead. (One to four pictures.)
(viii.) Seven Psalms on Christ's Passion.
The Kalendar usually contained poetical directions for the
preservation of health, and was therefore preluded by a rather ghastly
anatomical picture of a man. The passages from the Gospel, which began
with the first chapter of S. John, were illustrated by a picture of
the evangelist's martyrdom, and the Passion by one of the Kiss of
Judas, or of the Crucifixion. To the Penitential Psalms were sometimes
prefixed pictures of Bathsheba bathing on her housetop, and of the
death of Uriah, or, more rarely, of an angel appearing to David with
weapons in his hand, signifying the three punishments between which he
must choose for his sin in numbering the people. The Litany of the
Saints offered too wide a field for full-page cuts to be assigned it,
but was often illustrated by smaller ones set in the text. To the
Vigils of the Dead the commonest illustrations at first were those of
'Les Trois Vifs et Les Trois Morts,' three gay cavaliers meeting their
own grinning corpses. 'Dives and Lazarus' was first joined with these
and afterwards superseded them. We also find pictures of the Day of
Judgment, the Entombment, and in one instance of a funeral. Two
illustrations in honour of the Eucharist are also of common
occurrence--one of angels upholding a chalice,[19] the other of the
Vision of S. Gregory, when he saw the crucified Christ appearing on
the altar. If we add to these a picture of the Tree of Jesse, and
another of the Church in heaven and on earth, we shall have exhausted
the list of subjects which appear with any frequency, though pictures
of the Creation and Fall, of David and Goliath, of the Descent from
the Cross, and perhaps one or two others may occasionally be found. It
should be mentioned that the illustrations to the Psalms on the
Passion are usually repeated from others previously used, but putting
these on one side, it will be found that we have accounted for the
subjects of some five-and-twenty pictures, and this is in excess of
the number found in any one book, which varies from six to twenty-two.
In some of the earlier _Horae_, as we shall see, the printers
contented themselves with these large illustrations, and in others
surrounded the text with purely decorative borders of flowers and
birds. But in a typical edition the borders consist of a number of
small blocks or plates, the figures in which reinforced the teaching
of the main illustrations. In an edition printed by Jean Du Pr['e] in
February 1488-9, five pages are devoted to an explanation of these
vignettes, and it will not be a waste of space to quote a few lines:
[P]Cest le repertoire des histoires & figures de la bible tant du
vieilz testame_n_t q_ue_ du nouueau _con_tenues dedens les
vignettes de ces presentes heures imprimees en cuyure. En
chascune desq_ue_lles vignettes so_n_t contenues deux figures du
vieilz testame_n_t signifia_n_s une vraye histoire du nouueau.
Co_m_me il appert par les chapitres cottez et alleguez au propos
tant en latin que fra_n_coys en chascune desd_its_ figures et
histoires. [P]Et premierement en la pagee [_sic_] ensuyuante
listoire de lannu_n_ciation est p_re_figuree la natiuite nostre
dame. com_m_e il appert par les deux figures de iesse et balaan.
prouue par le liure de isaye, xi chapitre et des no_m_bres
xxiiii. chap. [P]Item en lautre pagee ensuyua_n_te p_ar_ Rebecca
et Sara est ente_n_du co_m_me nostre dame fut espousee a ioseph.
ai_n_si q_u_'on lit en genese xxiiii. c. & tho. vi.
Thus we see that, as first planned, the border vignettes formed a
continuous series illustrating historically the teaching of the
_Horae_ by reference to Old Testament types, with chapter and verse
for their significance. It will be noticed also that it is distinctly
stated that the vignettes in this edition were 'imprim['e]es en cuyvre,'
printed on copper. Two months later, in an edition published by
Antoine V['e]rard (April 5, 1489), the same table was reproduced with
very slight alterations. The words 'en cuyvre' were then omitted, but
'imprim['e]es' was left in, awkwardly enough. There can be no doubt that
the omission was deliberate, and we have thus two statements which
reinforce the opinion of the best experts, that both wood and copper
were employed in engraving different editions of these designs.
These Old Testament types do not appear to have long retained their
popularity, and were soon superseded by a less continuous form of
illustration. The Calendar offered an excuse for introducing one
series of vignettes of the sports and occupations of each month,
another of the signs of the zodiac, and a third giving pictures of the
saints in connection with the days on which they were commemorated.
The Gospels of the Passion were illustrated by vignettes on the same
subject; the Hours themselves by a long series on the lives of Christ
and of the Blessed Virgin. The Dance of Death was brought in to
illustrate the Vigils of the Dead, and relief was given by some
charming scenes of hunting and rural life, which formed the border to
the Private Prayers and the Litany of the Saints. In addition to
these, we have representations of the Prophets and Sibyls, of the
Cardinal Virtues, and the Lives of the Saints, and an admixture of
purely decorative or grotesque designs. Between the vignettes spaces
were often left, which were filled in, sometimes with illustrative
texts, sometimes with a continuous prayer or exhortation, either in
French or Latin. Thus in the preliminary leaves of some of the _Horae_
the text read:
Tout bon loyal et vaillant catholique qui commencer aucune euure
ymagine doit inuoquer en toute sa pratique premierement la
puissance diuine par ce beau nom iesus qui illumine tout cueur
humain & tout entendement. Cest en tout fait ung beau
commencement:
and when we turn to the Gospels of the Passion we find a prayer
beginning 'Protecteur des bons catholiques donne nous croire tellement
les paroles euangeliques,' &c. In V['e]rard's earlier editions the book
would have to be turned round to read the words on the lower border,
but in Pigouchet's this defect was remedied, so that we are left free
to imagine that the prayer was meant for devotional use, and not
merely as a decoration.
The chief firms employed in the production of these beautiful
prayer-books during the fifteenth century were (i.) Jean du Pr['e];
(ii.) Antoine V['e]rard; (iii.) Philippe Pigouchet, working chiefly for
Simon Vostre, a publisher, but also for De Marnef, Laurens Philippe,
and occasionally on his own account; (iv.) Thielman Kerver. The
proportion of dated and undated editions is about equal, and with
careful study it ought to be possible to trace the career of each of the
important firms, noting when each new illustration or vignette makes its
first appearance. Unfortunately great confusion has been introduced into
the bibliography of _Horae_ by the presence in them of calendars, mostly
for twenty years, giving the dates of the moveable feasts. All that
these calendars show is that the edition in which they occur must have
been printed before, probably at least five or six years before, the
last year for which they are reckoned. The fact that, _e.g._, the
editions printed by Pigouchet in August and September 1498 have the 1488
to 1508 calendar is by itself sufficient to prove that they cannot do
more than this. Unluckily a connection has often been assumed between
the first year of the calendar and the year of publication--_e.g._
undated _Horae_ with the calendar for 1488-1508 are frequently ascribed
on that ground only to 1488, or with perverse ingenuity to 1487; as if a
calendar of the moveable feasts were like an annual almanac, and must
necessarily be printed in readiness for the new year. Great confusion
has thus been caused, so that it is impossible to trust any conjectural
date for an _Horae_ unless we know the grounds on which it is based.
The earliest dated French _Horae_ was finished by Antoine V['e]rard on
August 21, 1486, and followed by another the next year dated July 7,
1487; but the cuts in both of these are small and rude, mere guides to
an illuminator, and as V['e]rard's later editions bring him into
connection with other publishers, it will be convenient to consider
first three editions by Jean Du Pr['e], all of which are of great
interest. The one which we must rank as the earliest is an undated _Hore
ad vsum Romanum_, signed 'Jo. de Prato' (_i.e._ J. Du Pr['e]) which can
be shown to have been issued some little time before Feb. 19, 1488-9,
the date of a Psalter printed by Antoine Cayllaut in which one of the
cuts appears in a more worn condition. The text measures 4-1/2 in. by
3-1/4. This is the only one of the three which was known to Brunet,
whose list of _Horae_ in the fifth volume of his _Manuel du Libraire_,
long as it is, is very incomplete. Its text, including the borders,
measures 5-5/8 in. by 3-5/8, and in addition to Du Pr['e]'s mark and the
anatomical man is illustrated by nineteen engravings. Nine of these are
the usual illustrations to the Hours themselves, and the subsidiary
Hours of the Passion and of the Holy Ghost. The Penitential Psalms are
illustrated by David's Bathsheba and the Death of Uriah, and the Vigils
of the Dead by a figure of Death. In addition to these we have the Fall
of Lucifer, Descent from the Cross, with emblems of the four
evangelists, a figure of the Trinity, the Virgin and Child in glory, S.
Christopher, S. Mary Magdalen, and the Vision of S. Gregory, with small
pictures from the life of Christ and figures of the Saints. The borders
carry out the plan of the table of vignettes, containing three scenes
from the Bible and three heads, with explanatory text, on each page
throughout the greater part of the book. Towards the end these are
replaced by figures of saints and angels. The artist's designs have been
rather spoilt by the engraver, whose strokes are frequently much too
black.
The second of Du Pr['e]'s editions is a very interesting book, for the
illustrations are printed in three colours--blue, red, and green. It
is dated 1490, but without the mention of any month. It has some
unusual illustrations--_e.g._ the three Maries with the body of
Christ, David and Goliath, Lazarus in Abraham's bosom and Dives in
torment, and S. Christopher. Many of the pages are without vignettes,
and where these occur they are not joined neatly together to form a
continuous border, but set, rather at haphazard, about the margin.
Pictures and vignettes are printed sometimes in the same, sometimes in
different colours. The page of text measures 5-1/2 in. by 4, or
without borders, 4 by 2-1/2.
The last edition known to me by Du Pr['e] is undated, and has a Latin
title-page, _Hore ad usum Romanum. Jo. de Prato._ The text with
borders measures 4-1/2 in. by 3-1/2. Its borders are similar to those
of the large folios of the period, having a floral groundwork, into
which birds, figures of men and women, angels and grotesques are
introduced. To make up for the lack of vignettes there are seven small
illustrations of the Passion set in the text. For the larger
illustrations, which appear to be woodcuts, Du Pr['e] again varied his
subjects, introducing for the only time in these three editions _Les
Trois Vifs et Les Trois Morts_, reduced reproductions of which are
here given.
[Illustration: _Les Trois Vifs._
From a _Horae_ of Jean Du Pr['e]. (Reduced.)]
[Illustration: _Les Trois Morts._
From a _Horae_ of Jean Du Pr['e]. (Reduced.)]
It was not to be expected that so enterprising a publisher as V['e]rard
would rest content with the very unpretentious _Horae_ he produced in
1486 and 1487, but the precise date at which he first made a more
ambitious essay is not easy to fix. The undated edition of his
_Grandes Heures_ for the use of Rome is constantly assigned to 1488,
for no other reason than that it contains the 1488-1508 Almanac,
though the breaks in the borders suffice to show that this was not the
first appearance of the blocks. At the library at Toulouse there is
said to be a V['e]rard _Horae ad usum Romanum_ dated April 3, 1488, that
is, as the French year at this time began, at Easter, 1489, and this
may be the first of V['e]rard's new editions. This was followed the next
year by the first edition of his _Grandes Heures_, with thirteen
woodcuts and a frontispiece. I have not been fortunate enough to see a
copy of either of these editions, but three undated _Horae_ in the
British Museum, printed by V['e]rard, seem to belong to the same type as
the _Grandes Heures_. In addition to a poorly cut Vision of Heaven,
the Anatomical Man, and the Chalice, they contain, in varying order,
fourteen large woodcuts--(i.) The Fall of Lucifer; (ii.) the history
of Adam and Eve; (iii.) a double picture, the upper half showing the
strife between Mercy, Justice, Peace, and Reason in the presence of
God, and the lower half the Annunciation, which followed the triumph
of Mercy; (iv.) the Marriage of Joseph and Mary; (v.) the Invention of
the Cross; (vi.) the Gift of the Spirit; (vii.) a double picture of
the Nativity and the Adoration by the Shepherds; (viii.) the Adoration
by the Magi; (ix.) a double picture of the Annunciation to the
Shepherds and of peasants dancing round a tree; (x.) the Circumcision;
(xi.) the Killing of the Innocents; (xii.) the Crowning of the Virgin;
(xiii.) David entering a castle, with the words 'Tibi soli
peccavi,'--against Thee only have I sinned,--issuing from his mouth;
(xiv.) a funeral service, the hearse standing before the altar. The
cut of the Message to the Shepherds here shown will give a fair idea
of the characteristics of this series, as well as of the borders by
which they were accompanied.[20] A full list of the larger subjects
has been given because some of them often occur in later editions
joined with other pictures of the school of Pigouchet, and it is
useful to be able to fix their origin at a glance.[21] Six of them
form the only large illustrations in the little _Horae_, printed for
V['e]rard, April 5, 1489, in which, as we have already noted, the words
'on copper' appear to have been deliberately omitted from the table of
the vignettes. The size of the _Grandes Heures_ is 8 in. by 5, that of
the edition of April 1489, 6 in. by 4. Brunet enumerates altogether
thirty editions of _Horae_ printed by V['e]rard, the last of which
bearing a date belongs to the year 1510. So far as I am acquainted
with them these later editions have few distinguishing
characteristics, but are mostly made up with illustrations designed
for other firms.
[Illustration: From a _Grandes Heures_ of Antoine V['e]rard.]
We come now to the most celebrated of all the series of _Horae_, those
printed by Pigouchet, chiefly for Simon Vostre. Brunet in his list
rightly discredits the existence of an edition by this printer dated
as early as January 5, 1486. He accepts, however, and briefly
describes as if he had himself seen, one of September 16, 1488, and
mentions also an edition printed April 8, 1488-9. No copy of either of
these editions has come to light during the twenty years in which the
present writer has been interested in _Horae_, and it seems fairly
certain that Pigouchet's first illustrated work is to be found in an
edition _Ad usum Parisiensem_, dated December 1, 1491. The large cuts
in this are fairly good, but a little stiff; the small border-cuts
include a long set of incidents in the life of Christ with Old
Testament types after the manner of the _Biblia Pauperum_. A _Horae_
of May 8, 1492, substitutes floral borders for these little pictures.
In another set of editions in which Pigouchet was concerned,
apparently between 1493 and 1495, the borders are made up of vignettes
of very varying size, which may be recognised by many of them being
marked with Gothic letters, mostly large minuscules. Sometimes one,
sometimes two, vignettes thus lettered occur on a page, and we may
presume that the lettering, which is certainly a disfigurement, was
intended to facilitate the arrangement of the borders. In these
_Horae_, also, the designs are comparatively coarse and poor. Some of
the large illustrations are divided into an upper compartment,
containing the main subject, and two lower compartments, containing
its 'types.'
[Illustration: Dives and Lazarus, from Pigouchet's _Horae_, 1498.
(Reduced.)]
Certainly by 1496, and possibly in earlier editions which I have not
seen, Pigouchet had arrived at his typical style, of which a good
specimen-page is given in our illustration from the edition of August
22, 1498. His original idea appears to have been for editions with a
page of text measuring 5-1/2 in. by 3-1/2, such as he issued on April
17, 1496, and January 18, 1496-97. But at least as early as November
4, 1497, he added another inch both to the height and breadth of his
page by the insertion of the little figures, which will be noticed at
the left of the lower corner and on the right at the top. The extra
inch was valuable, for it enabled him to surround his large
illustrations with vignettes, but the borders themselves are not
improved by them, for they mar the rich effect of the best work in
which the backgrounds are of black with pricks of white.
These same dotted backgrounds, which we have already noticed as present
in some of the finest of the printers' marks, appear also in three
plates, which are found in the 1498 editions, and thenceforward, but, as
far as I can ascertain, not earlier. These three plates illustrate (i.)
the Tree of Jesse; (ii.) the Church Militant and Triumphant; (iii.) the
Adoration of the Shepherds. All three plates are of great beauty, and
the last is noticeable for the names--'Mahault,' 'Aloris,' 'Alison,'
'Gobin le Gay,' and 'le beau Roger'--which are assigned to the shepherds
and their wives, and which are the same as those by which they are known
in the French mystery-plays. The artists who used these dotted
backgrounds evidently viewed the _Horae_ rather from the mystery-play
standpoint. They cared little for the 'types' which V['e]rard and Du
Pr['e] so carefully explained in their early editions, but delighted in
the Dance of Death and in scenes of hunting and rural life, or failing
these in grotesques. They placed their talents at the disposal of
religion, but they bargained to be allowed to introduce a good deal of
humour as well.
The best French _Horae_ were all published within about ten years.
During this decade, which just overlaps the fifteenth century, the
only serious rival of Pigouchet was Thielman Kerver, who began
printing in 1497, and by dint of close imitation approached very near
indeed to Pigouchet's success. With the lessening of Pigouchet's
activity about 1505, there came an after-flood of bad taste, which
swept everything before it. The old French designs were displaced by
reproductions of German work utterly unsuited to the French types and
ornaments, and along with these there came an equally disastrous
substitution of florid Renaissance borders of pillars and cherubs for
Pigouchet's charming vignettes and hunting scenes. Thielman Kerver,
who had begun with better things, soon made his surrender to the new
fashion, and his firm continued to print _Horae_, for which it is
difficult to find a good word until about 1556. His activity was more
than equalled by Gilles Hardouyn, who with his successors was
responsible for some seventy editions during the first half of the
sixteenth century. Guillaume Eustace, Guillaume Godard, and Fran[c,]ois
Regnault were less formidable competitors, and besides these some
thirty or forty editions are attributable to other printers.
On January 16th (or to use the affected style of the colophon itself,
'xvii. Kal. Febr.'), 1525, Geoffroy Tory, the scholar, artist, and
printer, in conjunction with his friend Simon Colines, brought out a
_Horae_, which is certainly not open to the charge of bad taste. The
printed page measures 6-1/4 in. by 3-3/4, the type used is a delicate
Roman letter with a slight employment of red ink, but no hand work,
the borders are in the most delicate style of the Renaissance. The
illustrations number twelve, of which one, that of the Annunciation,
occupies two pages. There are no unusual subjects, except that in the
picture of the Crucifixion Tory displays his classical pedantry by
surrounding the central picture with four vignettes illustrating
Virgil's 'Sic vos non vobis' quatrain, on the sheep, the bees, the
birds, and the oxen, whose life enriches others but not themselves. In
the picture of the Adoration by the Magi, here given, Tory obtains an
unusually rich effect by the figure of the negro. He repeats this, on
a smaller scale, in the black raven, croaking _Cras, Cras_, in the
picture of the Triumph of Death. The tone of the other illustrations
is rather thin, and the length of the faces and slight angularity in
the figures (effects which Tory, the most affected of artists, no
doubt deliberately sought for) cause them just to fall short of
beauty. Compared, however, with the contemporary editions of other
printers, Tory's _Horae_ seem possessed of every beauty. We know of
five editions before his death or retirement in 1533, and of some
seven others before the close of the half century. After 1550 the
publication of _Horae_ in France almost entirely ceased, but some
pretty editions were issued at Antwerp by the French printer
Christopher Plantin in 1565 and 1575, and perhaps in other years. The
decree of Pope Pius V. making the use of the Office no longer
obligatory on the clergy seems to have been preceded by a great
falling off of the popularity of the Hours among the laity, in whom
the booksellers had found their chief customers, and after 1568 a very
few editions sufficed to supply the demand of those who were still
wedded to their use.
[Illustration: From Tory's _Horae_, 1525. (Reduced.)]
* * * * *
[19] I join this with the other illustration as having a Eucharistic
significance, but in one of V['e]rard's editions the full explanation is
given: 'Cest la mesure de la playe du coste de notre seigneur
iesucrist qui fut apportee de Constantinople au noble empereur Saint
Charlemaine afin que nulz ennemys ne luy peussent nuire en bataille.'
[20] The defects in this reproduction appear also in the original,
from which it is reduced.
[21] _e.g._, in an edition printed by Jean Poitevin, May 15, 1498, the
illustrations for Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Compline are from
V['e]rard; the others, including the printer's device, were imitated
from Pigouchet.