The Book of Hours was a 'best-seller' in medieval and early modern Europe. This interdisciplinary study offers a full account of how it was used as a book - how it was read to guide prayer and teach ...literacy and what it meant to its owners as a personal possession.
Image and the Office of the Dead in Late Medieval Europe explores the Office of the Dead as a site of interaction between text, image, and experience in the culture of commemoration that thrived in ...the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Office of the Dead was a familiar liturgical ritual, and its perceived importance and utility are evident in its regular inclusion in devotional compilations, which crossed the boundaries between lay and religious readers. The Office was present in all medieval deaths: as a focus for private contemplation, a site of public performance, a reassuring ritual, and a voice for the bereaved. Examining the images at the Office of the Dead and related written, visual, and material evidence, this book explores the relationship of these images to the text in which they are embedded and to the broader experiences of and aspirations for death.
The Brazilian National Library has in its collection a luxurious book of hours from the Royal Library of Portugal. For a long time, it was believed to have been made by the Italian painter Spinello ...Spinelli for King Fernando I (1345-1383) in 1378. This is due to the information in its colophon and the presence of a coat of arms of the Portuguese crown on the opening folio. According to recent studies, this is an example of a rare group of Flemish books of hours from ca. 1460 to English use – raising questions about the codex origin, dating, recipient, and route. To collaborate in this investigation, a material characterization study was proposed using non-invasive analyses, such as optical microscopy (OM), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and fiber optics reflectance spectroscopy (FORS). The following pigments and materials were identified: lead white, minium, vermilion, lead-tin yellow, azurite, malachite, brazilwood lake, iron gall inks of different compositions and metals in foil or powder, namely gold and silver; moreover, the identification of lapis lazuli, Armenian bole and a different red organic lake in the colophon was decisive in corroborating the thesis of art historians, confirming the production period of the original body of the manuscript to the 15th century and that the colophon and coat of arms are later additions. Additionally, it was revealed that the coat of arms was superimposed on a previous shield.
Das lateinische Stundengebet des regulierten Klerus, dessen Texte ab dem hohen Mittelalter im Brevier versammelt wurden, breitete sich schon im 14. Jahrhundert in paraliturgischen Formen in weitere ...Kreise aus und fand hauptsächlich im Stundenbuch seinen Niederschlag. An diese Tradition schliessen in einer hier erstmals untersuchten Weise die mittelhochdeutschen Tagzeitentexte an, Texte unterschiedlichen Umfangs in Vers und Prosa, die nach den Horen des Stundengebetes gegliedert sind. Die vorliegende Untersuchung leistet einerseits eine literaturwissenschaftliche Typologisierung der überlieferten Tagzeitentexte. Andererseits stellt sie Fragen nach ihrem Sitz im Leben, ihrer Stellung in und zu der Liturgie, nach ihrem Verhältnis zum Stundenbuch sowie nach ihrer Bedeutung für spezifische Gruppen wie religiöse Laien, Novizen und Nonnen. Das Buch leistet daher nicht nur in der germanistischen Mediävistik Grundlagenforschung, sondern kann ebenso mit Ergebnissen für angrenzende Disziplinen der Theologie, Geschichte und Kunstgeschichte aufwarten.
Books of hours were the medieval best-seller. Imitating the model of liturgical books and intended for the faithful, these devotional manuscripts contain a common core of offices and texts, and they ...seem to have a standardized content. However, the order of the main sections as well as, within the offices, the choice and the order of the chants, readings and orations, vary according not only to the liturgical source, but also to the place of production and certainly to the market targeted and the choices of the client. This contribution analyses networks of manuscripts and of texts. At the level of texts and liturgical uses, we highlight that geographical proximity or farther-reaching communications produced textual commonalities (e.g. Germany and Southern France for the Hours of the Virgin, Flanders and Scandinavia for the office of the Dead). At the level of the manuscript, patrons could not only juxtapose texts for different uses, but also modify the expected contents. Codes specific to one institution may be reproduced faithfully, but also give way to hybridization. This phenomenon is characterized, for example, by switches between pieces, by insertions of pieces from another use into a well-identified set, or by the implementation of textual variants.
In this work, microspectrofluorimetry was for the first time applied to the identification of the red organic lakes that are characteristic of the lavish illuminations found in 15th century books of ...hours. Microspectrofluorimetry identified those red paints, ranging from opaque pink to dark red glazes, as brazilwood lakes. An unequivocal characterization was achieved by comparison with reference paints produced following recipes from the medieval treatise The Book on How to Make Colours, and was further confirmed by fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS). For these treasured cultural objects, microspectrofluorimetry and FORS proved to be the only techniques that could identify, in situ or in microsamples, the chromophore responsible for the pinkish hues: a brazilein-Al3+ complex. Additionally, a multi-analytical approach provided a full characterization of the color paints, including pigments, additives, and binders. Microspectroscopic techniques, based on infrared and X-ray radiation, enabled us to disclose the full palette of these medieval manuscripts, including the elusive greens, for which, besides malachite, basic copper sulfates were found; Raman microscopy suggested a mixture of brochantite and langite. Infrared analysis proved invaluable for a full characterization of the additives that were applied as fillers or whites (chalk, gypsum, and white lead) as well as the proteinaceous and polysaccharide binders that were found pure or in mixture.
Medieval Christianity in Practice provides readers with a sweeping look at the religious practices of the European Middle Ages. Comprising forty-two selections from primary source materials--each ...translated with an introduction and commentary by a specialist in the field--the collection illustrates the religious cycles, rituals, and experiences that gave meaning to medieval Christian individuals and communities.This volume of Princeton Readings in Religions assembles sources reflecting different genres, regions, and styles, including prayer books, chronicles, diaries, liturgical books, sermons, hagiography, and handbooks for the laity and clergy. The texts represent the practices through which Christians conducted their individual, family, and community lives, and explores such life-cycle events as birth, confirmation, marriage, sickness, death, and burial. The texts also document religious practices related to themes of work, parish life, and devotions, as well as power and authority. Enriched by expert analysis and suggestions for further reading, Medieval Christianity in Practice gives students and general readers alike the necessary background and foundations for an appreciation of the creativity and multiplicity of medieval Christian religious culture.
Estas páginas estudian el sentido y contexto de la inscripción en letra humanística del sepul-cro de Luís da Silveira (1483-1534), en la capilla familiar de la Iglesia Matriz de Góis (Coimbra), ...inscripción presente en un libro esculpido abierto frente a la efigie del difunto en posición orante de rodillas y que aquí se edita. Se observa la relación, iconográfica y gráfica, del libro-escultura con los Libros de Horas, aun cuando esta inscripción se presenta con grafía a la antica. Por otro lado, se señalan ciertas afinidades con los sepulcros renacentistas italianos y peninsulares, en particular el sepulcro del llamado Doncel de Sigüenza. Además, se explica en qué medida la grafía a la antica responde a la educación humanística de Silveira en la corte de D. Manuel, y cómo la localización en Góis se ajusta al alejamiento de la corte al final de su vida.
This article considers the major cycles of illumination in two Books of Hours belonging to Thomas Butler, seventh Earl of Ormond (c.1424–1515). The article concludes that the iconography of the two ...manuscripts reflects the personal and familial piety of the patron and was designed to act as a tool in the practice of devotion.
Undoubtedly, the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg brought about a profound paradigm shift, transforming both the late medieval book markets and the general reading culture. However, as ...with many paradigm shifts, we need to differentiate in this regard more than scholarship has acknowledged so far. First, many medieval narrative motives, topics and themes continued to be rather popular well into the seventeenth century, if not beyond. Second, manuscript culture did not simply disappear. Instead, as this article outlines, in many areas and especially among the upper social classes, luxury items in the form of manuscripts remained critically important. A closer analysis also indicates that many times practical knowledge (fencing, horse training, medicine, etc.) and personal observations were copied down by hand and thus passed on to the specific audiences without the printing press involved. The manuscript did not disappear at all; instead, it assumed a more specialized function in terms of knowledge, autobiographical reflections and social representation.
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