Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex Book of Hours (Use of Sarum) written in the Low Countries for the English market, mid 15th century. Now lacking the section of Memoriae to be expected after item (2) (presumably quire “c”) removed for the sake of its pictures, along with all but two elsewhere in the book. One error or change of plan occurred in the course of producing the book, in item (3) at the end of Prime. Order of (3)-(17) as Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum MS.1055-1975.
Parchment, flesh and hair sides indistinguishable. Outer edges cropped. Lower margin of f.32 cut off. Some pages stained (f.60v-61r) or soiled. Repair strip on f.79v.
16, 28 (wants 1 and 2 stubs), 38 (wants 5 stub after f.16), 48 (wants 6 after f.24), 58 (wants 2, 6 and 8 after f.27, 30 and 31), 68 (wants 2 after f.32), 78, 86 (wants 6 blank?, stub after f.51), 98 (wants 1 before f.52), 108 (wants 5 after f.62), 118, 126, 13? (wanting two after f.79), 148, 15? (two + f. 90 narrow), 168 (wants 1 before f.91), 178
Prickings in outer margins, some cropped away. Written space 92 or, quire 14, 93-95 x 59 mm; ruled in violet. 20 long lines.
Written in textura, expertly, by at least four hands, changing for quires 10 (f.52), 14(f.60) and 16 (f.91).
Text-capitals lined with red. Initials: (i) 1-line, alternately blue with red flourishing and gold with deep violet-blue flourishing; (ii, iii) 2- and 3-line, gold, on a ground of blue and deep pink embellished with white penwork; (iv) 4-, 5- or 6-line (f.29r Sext, and to items (3), (15), and (17), f.95), in blue or deep pink, decorated with white, on a ground of gold decorated with leaves in blue, orange and deep pink with white highlights. “KL” for each calendar month 3-line gold on pink ground and filled with blue, both decorated with white lines.
Pictures. Nine removed (see collation); two remain, both round-headed with a plain gold frame, to Sext in item (3) (Christ carrying the cross and turning towards an onlooker who is neatly cut out, with B.V.M., St John [?], and two men, one holding reed with sponge, behind) and to item (17) (central seated [?] figure of Jerome cut out, an open book on a wooden desk standing on a squared perspective floor in pink, cardinal's hat on a pole against a carmine background divided into 5.5 mm squares with gold decoration). None now at the start of item (3), perhapsoriginally a full-page picture on the verso of a leaf before f.12 that is now missing.
Borders. On pages with type (iv) initials or pictures, 15-20 mm wide above, below and to right of text, with an almost identical design on each page of ink tendrils with teasels blobbed with gold, and fruit, flower-heads and leaves in blue, orange and pale green, with a plant at each corner, and a short spray to left of text: as found also in two books of Sarum hours probably of Bruges manufacture sold at Sotheby's, one on 23 June 1987 lot 121 and again 6 December 2001 lot 87, with miniatures from the workshop of the Master of Otto van Mordrecht; the other on 17 June 2003, lot 91; see several illustrations in the catalogues. Nicholas Rogers reports that our borders are by the same artist as those in The Hague, Rijksmuseum Meermanno-Westreenianum 10.F.11, Sarum hours, the calendar of which has the spellings Ryquardi/Riquardi as found in item (1). The first of the Sotheby books includes a Carrying of the Cross not identical with that in our manuscript, which is less peopled but with more lively expressions.
Corrections: marginal supplies by main hands
Brown grained morocco Tuckett binding, mid 19th century (Charles Tuckett, binder to the British Museum, rebound many Durham manuscripts in the 19th century) with four parchment endleaves, four double bands, one bronze clasp.
Written for the English market in the Low Countries, mid 15th century.
Memoria of Thomas of Canterbury defaced in item (3), but “pape” and feasts of Thomas of Canterbury not cancelled in item (1). Black lombard capitals added in margins of f.77r-v. Scribbles, by one 16th century legal hand: “Thomas Hyde John Hyde Antony Ingram is”; f.32v head; “Anthony Inggratham is a veri knave and that I wyll proue before the kynges Iusticis of Westmuster of ?Lext”, upside-down f.48v foot and offset on f.49r; “Hyde Richard Williamson”, f.65r; both latter rubbed but partly legible under blue-green and ultra-violet lights. Inscription: “Liber Bibliothecae Episcopalis Dunelm V.5”, turn of 17th/18th century, f.1r, in the hand of Thomas Rud. “1663” in pencil, f.1r, probably record of inscription by George Davenport lost on rebinding.
Written in red and black. Feasts in red include “Niquaerdi epi” for Richard, “Translatio riquaardi” (3 April, 16 June), “Translacio edmundi” (9 June), “Anne matris marie” (26 July). No David or Chad (March), Visitation, Transfiguration or Swithin (July). Spellings include “Exmundi” for Edward (18 March), “Aldelini” for Aldhelm (25 May), “Ediche” (16 September), “Leonaerdi” (6 November). In each month except May two dies mali are indicated by a red D to the right.
Lacks most of the first. “vera libertas” follows “celestis medice”. The cue “pater noster” in red after each prayer.
Sarum use. With Hours of the Cross incorporated. Single leaves cut out before f.17, 25, 28, 31, 32 and 33 contained the beginning of each Hour except Sext. Lauds followed by the common set of memoriae: Holy Spirit, Trinity, Cross, Michael, John the Baptist, Peter & Paul, Andrew, Lawrence, Stephen, Thomas of Canterbury (defaced; antiphon: “Tu per thome sanguinem ...”), Nicholas, Mary Magdalene, Katherine, Margaret, All Saints, and peace.
Omission of the first versicle, “Virgo mater ecclesie ...”, supplied in the lower margin of f.35r, by the main (?) hand.
RH, 7687, followed by Salve regina, written in red, farced in twenty-eight sections with RH, no. 18318, and then a final prayer. As Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum McClean MS.89, f.65-69, and MS.1055-1975, f.39r-42v.
masculine forms
masculine forms
The last six-line verse of each Joy written in red. The opening rubric is written in black.
The "words" are written in red. Opening rubric marked 'ua - cat' in the margin, in a contemporaneous textura (the hand of f.91r and following section?, cf. (17) below)
Beginning imperfectly at Psalm xxxi:7
Psalms cxix-cxxxiii, cues only of cxix-cxxx
Includes Swithun, Birin and Edith; omission of Thomas and Philip among apostles supplied by the hand of f.91 and following.
Begins imperfectly at end of Psalm cxxix.
Addition, filling rest of space on page
Beginning imperfectly in Psalm xxi:17, and ending with cue for doxology after Psalm xxx:6. Cues only of Psalms 22--24 and 20, and, added in margin, of 26.
Customarily attributed to St Jerome. Opening rubric marked `ua - cat' in the margin, cf. (10).
Added in an English hand, mid/late 15th century
Catalogi veteres librorum Ecclesiae cathedralis
dunelm. Catalogues of the library of Durham cathedral, at
various periods, from the conquest to the dissolution, including
catalogues of the library of the abbey of Hulne, and of the mss.
,
Surtees Society 7, (London: J.B. Nichols and Son, [1838]).
Chevalier, U., Repertorium hymnologicum: Catalogue de chants, hymnes, proses, sequences, tropes en usage dans l'église latine depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours, (Louvain: Imprimerie Lefever, 1892-1920)
Leroquais, V., Les livres d'heures manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Nationale , (Paris: Macon, 1927)
Wilmart, André, Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du moyen âge latin: études d'histoire littéraire , (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1971)