![]() They might read the Hours of the Cross in the week before Good Friday, the Hours of the Holy Spirit to prepare for Pentecost, and the Penitential Psalms during Lent. Users would dip into the texts that were appropriate for the moment, reading, for example, just the litany in one sitting, or just the vespers of the Hours of the Virgin. In contradistinction to that, the book of hours contained many different texts, intended to be read on an as-needed basis. Just as the psalter might be read completely from beginning to end, it was also written in the same way, from beginning to end. Texts developed coevally with cycles of imagery-including infancy and passion cycles-which differed regionally and in which there was plenty of latitude. 1390, the book of hours was often made as a bespoke product, with a planner mapping out the entire book as one unit. In the early years of production, say, until ca. Books of hours became increasingly widespread in France, England and the Netherlands in the mid- to late fourteenth century. Furthermore the book of hours usually contained other texts as well, such as the popular prayers O Intemerata and Obsecro te. They often appeared in this order, but their sequence was by no means fixed. Books of hours contained some standard texts: calendar, Little Office of the Virgin, Penitential Psalms and Litany, and Office of the Dead. Psalters, of course, continued to be made, and combination books, such as the Liège Psalter-Hours, featured below, provided a transitional form. Because of the canonical status of the psalms, and the longevity of the physical book, the process of change was slow. Although psalters continued to be made and used for the duration of the Middle Ages, beginning around 1260, the book of hours gradually replaced the psalter as the predominant book for private devotion. Psalters contain the 150 psalms, which a supplicant would read in fixed groups over the course of days or weeks, and thereby work through the entire text from cover to cover. 1260, the psalter was the main text for private devotion. This had serious implications for the ways in which book owners could make augmentations to their books.Īlong with a shift in production methods came a shift in book type. In the late fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth centuries, book makers created their wares increasingly with what I call the modular method, an approach to construction that takes into account a division of labor and a need for efficiency, and that presupposes an owner who would expand the book later. Toward the end of the fourteenth century, the manner in which manuscripts were made changed dramatically. Senior Lecturer in Art History and Medieval Studiesįrom Piety in Pieces: How Medieval Readers Customized their Manuscripts Introduction Special Collections of the Universiteitsbibliotheek van Amsterdam ![]() Modular book of hours, opened at the beginning of the Vigil for the Dead.
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