Part IV: Complicated interventions and complete overhauls
© Kathryn M. Rudy, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0094.04
As the examples above demonstrate, people changed their books, adding physical material where necessary, in order to update older books to new situations. Scribes fitted texts into existing spaces. They wrote new texts on added quires. And owners were probably also able to buy quires of texts off the shelf to add. Of course, owners could also add images, largely in the form of single-leaf miniatures. Many of the manuscripts in the previous section had been introduced earlier in the current study, indicating that they had not one, but several different kinds of interventions.
Some books underwent complete overhauls and were changed structurally. Above I mentioned the Murthly Hours, which a late medieval owner had supplemented with a series of full-page miniatures, probably harvested from a psalter. Other ways of breaking up older books and redeploying their parts resulted in new book forms altogether. In this section, I consider bookish Frankensteins, pieces that have been stitched together into a new beast.
Building a book out of disparate quires
When it first catalogued its collection, the Royal Library in Brussels assigned each “booklet” within a composite volume a separate signature. This is why, for example, Brussels, KB, 4459–70, a miscellany made at the Cistercian monastery of Villers in the early fourteenth century, constitutes a manuscript within one set of covers but has a range of signatures. The cataloguer who assigned these signatures in the nineteenth century counted twelve distinct parts or modules within the binding and reflected that number in the new compound signature.1
Most libraries do not number composite volumes in this way, which means that scholars are much more likely to treat composites erroneously as single entities. Many prayerbooks, which at first glance seem to be homogenous volumes, in fact defy a single-stranded origin narrative. In this section I examine a few surprising examples. Of course the line between “a manuscript with some leaves or quires added later” and “a composite” is thin indeed. Regardless of what they are called, seeing them as stratified products can yield stories about layers of time and how medieval people treated, manipulated, and rescued the past.
A. An atelier in Bruges
Bruges in the fifteenth century had an advanced book-making culture. Whereas in the Northern Netherlands, convents played a significant role in manuscript production (including the Delft convents that loom large in this study, as well as convents in Gouda, Haarlem, Amsterdam, and elsewhere), in the Southern Netherlands, the organized and efficient production of manuscripts seems to have been in lay hands. Or at least, a large number of the resulting manuscripts do not reveal allegiance to a particular patron saint, particular confessor or rule and have not been “branded” by a convent. Important in Bruges instead were the rhetoricians’ guilds, which produced all kinds of texts, including plays and personalized rhyming prayers. These played a role in book culture of late-fourteenth and fifteenth-century Bruges and stemmed partly from fashion at court, which had favored rhyming texts in the vernacular, because reading such texts aloud formed an integral part of courtly entertainment. Moreover, the strong court culture resulted in plenty of money for experimentation in the arts.
I have shown above that centers of manuscript production in the Southern Netherlands were early adopters of the single-leaf miniature and also of the modular method. Not only could they make new manuscripts out of component parts, but they could overhaul existing manuscripts by applying the same techniques. In this section I analyze one example: BKB, Ms. 19588.2
Upon first flipping through this manuscript, I thought it was homogenous, as if it were the product of a single organizing mind. But it is not. It begins with a calendar and has the look and feel of a book of hours, but it is rather a complicated object made in at least three campaigns of work, which I treat in turn.
Dating from 1410–15, the oldest part contains a calendar and some highly unconventional rhyming prayers and apotropaic texts primarily written in Dutch.3 Their scribe is identical with one of the scribes of the Gruuthuse manuscript, a book made in Bruges that contains early rhymed vernacular texts in Middle Dutch.4 In the early decades of the fifteenth century this city had a culture of advanced literacy stimulated by the court and chambers of rhetoricians, the rather high-falutin predecessors of poetry slam competitions. It appears, therefore, that this part of Ms. 19588, which contains dozens of rhyming prayers, was probably composed and copied in Bruges. Among these prayers, for example, one finds a versified vernacular prayer to Mary on fol. 68r, which was an avant-garde prayer, an attempt to rephrase an old sentiment in the mellifluous rhyming language of the Bruges literati (fig. 201). These oldest parts of the manuscript also contain talismanic texts, such as the prayer interspersed with crosses that ends on the same folio. These texts are written on quires of 16 lines per page, ruled in red, but with irregularly sized text blocks, as if the scribe were ruling the quires as he went. He used a rather thick parchment that has a velvety quality, which differs from the finer, thinner, more crumply parchment on which books of hours were usually copied. These qualities give the Dutch sections an experimental feel.
In the stratigraphy of this manuscript, the next layer comprises two modules of texts plus two loose images. These sections, which date from the 1440s, comprehend two of the texts that define a book of hours: the Hours of the Virgin (fig. 202) and the Seven Penitential Psalms (fig. 203). The parchment in these parts is fine, thin, and smooth, and the folios are ruled in brown for 18 lines per page. Thus, they are of a different campaign of work than the Dutch components. Whereas the Dutch parts are strange and unique, the Latin components are quite standard.
The scribe must have made these quires in collaboration with one or more artists called the “Masters of the Gold Scrolls” in modern literature, as the openings of the two modules each have column-wide miniatures painted by these masters. These artists worked in West Flanders and are known for recreating simple figurative and narrative miniatures with plain backgrounds enlivened by tendril-like geometric designs.5 Dozens of books with their illuminations survive, and it is clear that they were several artists working in a common style in loose relationships with scribes.6 This particular scribe-illuminator team in BKB, Ms. 19588 worked partly the old-fashioned way (with the illuminator painting directly on text pages for column-wide initials) and partly in the newer modular method (with full-page miniatures with blank backs prefacing texts produced in discreet packets). This suggests that while these masters made loose leaves for insertion into books of hours, they also worked with scribes to produce such pages. They were using some lessons gleaned from the Masters of the Pink Canopies (who preceded them by 50 years) but could also take specialty commissions as well. These artists were active in the post-Eyckian period in Bruges (and possibly in Ghent as well), from the 1440s. In total, Ms. 19588 contains four miniatures by these artists: two column-wide miniatures painted directly on the page (the Annunciation, the Last Judgment) and two full-page miniatures (Crucifixion, Christ as Man of Sorrows). The manuscript also contains two full-page miniatures by these artists, which appear to be contemporary with these sections. Someone seems to have harvested these two modules—the Penitential Psalms and the Hours of the Cross—plus the two full-page miniatures from an existing book of hours. That person did not want the rest of the offices, but selected a range of peculiar and specific texts instead.
BKB, Ms. 19588 has been described as the product of collaboration between two scribes in the second decade of the fifteenth century.7 But such a description does not really capture what is going on: two scribes did not set out to make this particular book. Two scribes indeed wrote the body of the text, but their labor did not overlap in time. In its current state this volume is the product of assembly, with 25 or 30 years separating the creation of the two components. A Dutch-speaking scribe in Bruges copied a number of obscure prayers, many of them rhyming, on parchment that he ruled as he went. He made a highly experimental object, not a standard commission. A patron could not have ordered the particular compendium of texts, because he would not have known they existed. In a totally separate process, scribes and illuminators worked together to make a boilerplate book of hours in Latin around 1440. Perhaps it was used until it fell apart, and someone salvaged some of the pieces to integrate them into what is now Ms. 19588. A few quires of texts, and two full-page miniatures were spared, and were applied to some existing quires of oddball Dutch texts. The scribe working in Latin was contemporary with the Masters of the Gold Scrolls, who post-date Jan van Eyck, and therefore the Latin section could not have been made in the 1410s.
However, when the textual components were put together, a new layer of adjustments took place. I think that the components only came together around 1480, decades after the texts were copied and the miniatures painted. The new owner of these disparate materials restructured and enhanced the fragments at hand. In all likelihood the miniature depicting the Crucifixion had prefaced the Hours of the Cross for the first forty-or-so years of its life before the new owner rebound it near the beginning of the manuscript (fig. 204).
It now prefaces a confession, which the patron apparently wanted to emphasize, for she or he put it first, immediately after the calendar, and flagged it with a colorful miniature. Although the confession mentions Jesus (as most Christian prayers do) and could therefore be deemed relevant for the Crucifixion miniature, accompanying a confessional formula with an image of this subject is highly unusual. Its importance is further made visible by signs of wear. An owner of the image, perhaps the owner responsible for inserting it here, was extremely attached to this miniature. One can see this because Christ’s face and torso have been rubbed repeatedly. Since no other part of the miniature is damaged, it was therefore, in all likelihood, damaged from veneration rather than from general wear. Furthermore, Christ’s torso seems to be overpainted, and someone has added extra blood to Christ’s wounds in a shade of red that is not part of the original artist’s palette. In addition to the Crucifixion image, the new owner has placed an image of Christ as Man of Sorrows in the book so that it “illuminates” a text from the other campaign of work (fig. 205). The resulting organization reveals the owner’s desire to draw attention to this text.
The late fifteenth-century owner who commissioned these changes may have been Yolente Doosterlinck, who inscribed her name in a shaky hand on the inside back cover, which is the manuscript’s final medieval rebinding. It was possibly she who, in ca. 1480, placed the two loose miniatures before texts she wanted to emphasize. On the red background behind the Crucifixion (BKB, 19588, 13v) the letters WK are repeated in blue, yellow, and white all over the back. This forms a variation to the Gold Scrolls Masters’ normal approach to constructing backgrounds. A similar background with the same letters appears behind the Annunciation (fig. 202). The letters may refer to the original patron who ordered the image.8 With the letters literally in the background, Yolente Doosterlinck was not bothered to have her own initials added during what may have been her campaign to overpaint the body of Christ and give him more blood.
She (or the late medieval owner, if not Yolente Doosterlinck) did, however, have the borders overpainted. Not only did she give the Crucifixion a prime position in the manuscript, kiss the body, enhance it with painted blood, but she may have been the one who upgraded the hairspray decoration on the openings with the miniatures and turned them into thickly painted flowers, a decorative style that had become popular in Ghent, Bruges and beyond by the end of the fifteenth century. Around all of the pages with illumination, one can see the old “hairspray” borders peeking out from under the newer opaque designs that (mostly) cover them. Overpainting the borders in the new style updated the book in terms of taste, brought visual coherence to it, and made it more colorful and sumptuous. The new owner lavished attention upon the book, as the new painted borders have been worn hard and have been considerably rubbed, suggesting that the person who went to all the trouble to salvage these fragments, upgrade, repaint, and rebind them, also handled the resulting manuscript and used it hard.
It may have been Yolente Doosterlinck who brought the disparate elements together, had the margins of the miniatures and some of the text folios repainted, and made for herself a personalized book upclycled from parts more than a half century old. At least she was the person who inscribed her name on the inside back cover of the new binding, as if laying claim to the binding job and to all the contents contained therein (fig. 206).
This discussion has shown that fifteenth-century book owners had a variety of choices to make for their books: what texts to include, how many images, and what kinds of borders, to name a few. They could change their minds about these choices even when their books were complete. They were also keen to re-use older book parts, and to take old books apart and upcycle their contents. They seemed to do so selectively, however. Saving some components means omitting others. When they made a new book out of pre-existing parts, they did not simply take all the components from A and follow them with all the components from B, and bind it all together. Instead, they selected and arranged carefully. In other words, they treated the broken-up books as modules that they could arrange according to their interests and desires.
B. Unica
Of course all manuscripts are unique, but some break severely with patterns and traditions. In this section I treat unica that are the results of complicated rearrangements and recombinations of physical material. A manuscript now in Heidelberg is the result of a Biblia pauperum that has been broken apart so that its folios could become full-page miniatures interleaved with a psalter and then stitched back together (Heidelberg, UB, Cod. Pal. Germ. 148).9 The backs of the folios of the Biblia pauperum were blank, and most of them remain blank in the new hybrid; however, fol. 61 has Biblia pauperum on the recto and psalter on the verso, which demonstrates that the psalter scribe had the broken-up leaves of the Biblia pauperum when he began to write. A clue about the manuscript’s origin appears at the front of the manuscript: a calendar for the bishopric of Eichstätt (in Bavaria). All the components were made there around 1430–50, with the Biblia pauperum slightly preceding the psalter.
A Biblia pauperum presents a typology, that is, stories from the New Testament explained as fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy and precedent. This book type originated in the thirteenth century in a southern German monastery. Imagery is central to its endeavor. Each page serves as a “stand alone” unit, in which a New Testament story is depicted at the very center of the page, flanked by Old Testament prefigurations. Fol. 16v, for example, presents the story of Mary bringing the Christ child to the temple (fig. 207).10 Four Old Testament prophets, who each wave a banderol bearing a textual reference to his respective prophecy, foresee this story. Further framing the image are two images depicting Old Testament events depicting mothers bringing their children to priests. Labels surround all of these images, so that each figure remains unambiguously named. These images and labels make the events clear, legible and didactic. Prose texts that nearly engulf the images form a further level of framing; they constitute explanations, showing how the Old Testament relates to the New Testament.
By taking this Biblia pauperum apart and integrating its leaves into a psalter, the binder was performing another act of exegesis. In effect, she or he was framing the psalter—the Old Testament text with the greatest currency as a devotional text—within a series of units that make the Old Testament relevant within the newer religion. Thus, the rebinding constituted an act of reframing and of interpretation. Bringing the two books together, the binder had to trim the Biblia pauperum down to the quick, as it had been copied onto larger folios than the psalter. Integrating the parts meant guillotining them, as the action of the knife forced them into a uniform page size. Imposing a new structure on the book asserted that the New Testament and the Old Testament were literally sewn together through prophecy. Not only did the book maker cut the Speculum apart and sew it into a new form, as full-page miniatures within a psalter, but an early user also sewed curtains to the tops of all of the Speculum folios. Although the curtains are no longer present, rows of needle holes at the tops of these folios attest to their former presence. Having to lift curtains in order to view the images must have given the owner an added layer of ritual, and allowed him or her to produce an act of revelation akin to the revelation depicted on the folios themselves: that the Old Testament is “revealed” in the New.
Such acts of reframing took place in other contexts. A group of disparate quires was brought together by a late medieval owner in France to create an unusual manuscript prayerbook (’s-Heerenberg, HB, Ms. 2, inv. no. 259).11 The manuscript is a composite containing pieces of a calendar, parts of at least two different books of hours (from the fifteenth century), a single leaf with a prayer text probably copied in the sixteenth century, and two bifolia with full-page miniatures. All of these elements were bound together around 1500. Fanned open, the resulting volume reveals its filthy pages, its margins that were trimmed for rebinding, and the edges of the sixteenth-century binding (fig. 208). The owner who gathered these elements and bound them together may have been identical with the one who filled the blank space with more prayers. This book provides an example of one that was heavily used and severely altered. Those two activities often go together.
One unusual item that the owner has affixed is a module with images (fol. 40–43; fig. 209). I suspect that this packet circulated separately as a small picture book before it was integrated into the composite volume around 1500. Formed of two nested bifolia, its top and bottom surfaces were left blank so that it served as a natural cover to the booklet. (These spaces later provided writing surface for an enthusiastic owner.) These outer folios protected the contents, which consisted of images only and no words. Was this a book for the illiterate? Although that is unknowable, what is clear is that the booklet presented a non-textual, images-only form of piety.
The images painted on the internal surfaces present the idea of the Body of Christ in three different ways, each according to a different miraculous vision. The first image in the module is a Mass of St. Gregory in which the diminutive pope sees the body of Christ before him (fig. 210). This emphasizes the body at the center of the image, framed by an angel. With all the clothing and the bright blue background, Christ’s naked body, spattered with blood, holds the center. Turning the page reveals a different manifestation of the body: Christ as a red-winged angel coming to impress his stigmata onto St. Francis. The third image shows the Nativity, the birth of the physical manifestation of Jesus on earth, according to the vision of St. Bridget of Sweden (fig. 211). This particular combination of images is unusual. Is it possible that the booklet was made for someone with a Franciscan confessor, who wanted to remember taking the Eucharist, celebrate a Corpus Christi feast, or otherwise commemorate an event centered on the body of Christ?
Several different people have added prayers to the blank space comprising the booklet’s “covers.” One wrote a Marian prayer in a fine late fifteenth-century hand on the back of the Nativity, choosing this location in order to be as close to Mary as possible (fig. 212). Another person, writing in a quick bookhand of the sixteenth century, added another prayer to the rest of this formerly blank opening. But this was not the first addition made to fol. 43r. A row of needle holes along the outer edge, and a circle of needle holes near the modern folio number “43” suggest that two objects were formerly stitched to this folio: a tall rectangular object, and a small round object. Did they date from a time when the picture booklet was still loose and unbound to a book of hours?
This volume—the entity now known as ’s-Heerenberg, HB, Ms. 2 (inv. 259)—comprehends the picture booklet, as well as a number of other sections that were made in distinct campaigns of work:
- Flyleaves made parchment of ca. 1500, which are contemporary with the binding (fig. 213);
- Part of a book of hours in Latin, copied in France, possibly in Troyes, which consists of a calendar (fol. 1–12), the beginning of the Gospel of St. John, the Hours of the Virgin, and other prayers, some of them rhyming (fol. 44r-153v), in a production made in France c. 1400–25, with illuminations painted directly on the folios. This campaign of work includes a column-wide miniature depicting a secular family, who appears kneeling before John the Baptist (fig. 214). Their dress suggests that this part of the book was made in the 1420s. They may represent the family that commissioned this campaign of work. (The calendar was copied by a different scribe, but all these parts are ruled the same way, and have the same kinds of initial decoration, and therefore belong to the same layer in the book’s stratigraphy);
- A single leaf with prayers (fol. 13; fig. 215);
- Part of a book of hours in Latin, copied in France, c. 1425–75 (fol. 14–39, 154–65) (fig. 216);
- The picture booklet, with three full-page miniatures, made in France c. 1425–50, discussed earlier (fol. 40–43) (figs. 209–211);
- An illustrated Passion tract in Latin, with nine miniatures painted directly on the folios, made in France c. 1475–1500 (fol. 166–207; fig. 217). This is ruled for a text block of 85x65 mm, 15 lines, littera hybrida.
The calendar (Item 2) has feasts in red including St. Sabiniani (March 2), St. Helena (April 4), the Translation of St. Lupus (May 10), the Translation of the Crown (August 11); these feasts are appropriate to Troyes and indicate that Item 2 was either made or used there. This section also contains a family portrait, likely the donors. Of course these observations about possible origins do not extend to the origins of the other parts.
What follows is one scenario that accounts for the elements in this volume. Before 1500 someone in France acquired or inherited a number of well-worn and rather broken prayerbooks made earlier in the fifteenth century. He or she took these apart, and made a selection of the quires they contained, choosing a calendar from this one, a group of quires from that one, and an entire Passion tract of recent vintage that formed a booklet on its own. This person also incorporated a thin booklet of just two bifolia, which contained three images to commemorate the Eucharist. Either this collector of objects, or an earlier owner, stuck an image of Christ’s face on Veronica’s towel into the book, where there was some blank parchment (fig. 218). The collector then assembled these modules, together with a single sheet of prayers, and brought them to a binder, who bundled them together and bound them in the binding that currently protects them. This blind-stamped brown leather binding was made around 1500. In this binding the modules continued to receive hard wear in the sixteenth century, and the owner, or series of owners, filled much of the blank parchment with short prayers. This was accomplished over time, as the owner(s) took the book to various scriveners who executed these additions in various hands. The book was made in layers over the course of a century, with physical material from multiple campaigns of work, and additional texts written in even more campaigns of work. The book, as it has survived in its binding, is a serendipitous encounter between many hands and many desires over a century.
The two cases just analyzed have revealed unique products cobbled together out of disparate parts for a particular set of circumstances. The Bavarian experiment in illustrating a psalter with typology may have been a one-off, and the French book of hours resulted from someone’s collecting a particular group of parts. Owners and binders responded to specific, received sets of physical material units as springboards for new and experimental books. In these examples, and in many examples discussed above, owners also responded to blank parchment by succumbing to the desire to fill it.
While these examples were one-offs, other refurbishings followed a more general taste. In the late fifteenth century certain ateliers tapped into people’s desire to overhaul older books and specialized in just that. Each of these transformations was unique and based on the available material at hand. Many such ateliers may have existed, but here I want to concentrate on two monastic ateliers plus one that was probably secular and staffed by urban professionals. I will revisit in greater detail Netherlandish workshops I briefly introduced above, to explore in more detail how they operated.
C. The convent of St. Ursula
In the second half of the fifteenth century, convents in the Northern Netherlands not only made manuscripts but began specializing in updating older manuscripts in order to make them more relevant to their users. Convent sisters used sophisticated methods of adding modules to both new and used manuscripts, and could vary the degree of illumination according to an owner’s budget. At least two convents (the Franciscan convent of St. Ursula and the Augustinian convent of St. Agnes, both in Delft) specialized in restructuring old manuscripts. I have identified three books of hours that the scriptorium of Franciscan tertiary sisters of St. Ursula augmented: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawl. Liturg. E.9*; HKB, Ms. 132 G 38; and Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, Ms. C 517 k, which I treat here in turn. Those from the Augustinian convent I treat later in this section. Whereas the Franciscan convent specialized in adding new, indulgenced prayers to plain prayerbooks, the Augustinian convent specialized in adding lavish decoration to them.
1. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawl. Liturg. E.9*
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawl. Liturg. E.9* (hereafter: Rawlinson) is a book of hours that originally came from North Holland, to judge by its particular brand of rather coarse penwork (fig. 219).12 Writing on thick parchment of low quality, the scribe copied the most basic offices from Geert Grote’s translation: a calendar, Hours of the Virgin, Hours of the Holy Spirit, Hours of the Cross, Hours of Eternal Wisdom, the Seven Penitential Psalms and Litany, and the Vigil for the Dead. The North Holland scribe wrote only a few extra prayers as quire filler after the Short Hours of the Cross (63r-68r). These quire fillers (fol. 68v-70v) comprise a prayer to the Wounds of Christ, to St. Francis, to Mary, to one’s personal angel, and to St. Sebastian (fig. 220).13 There are no prayers before and after taking the sacrament, and no extra collects in the Vigil for the Dead for friends and family, and no indulgences to fill out this book. This was a basic, bare-bones construction.
Either the original owner ordered the book of hours in North Holland, or else this person bought the rather generic book of hours there already complete. Its original decoration has no personalizing features that would suggest a bespoke product. The crudeness of the decoration makes it difficult to date, but the third quarter of the fifteenth century is a reasonable guess. One of the manuscript’s subsequent owners wrote his name on the flyleaf in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century: Pieter Willemsz of Goeree. He might have been the one who brought the manuscript to an atelier in Delft to have more prayers added to it.
Treating the manuscript structurally reveals its phased genesis and shows how the original parts of the manuscript interact with the added parts. Rawlinson and many other books of hours made after ca. 1450 were constructed using the modular method. As the collation diagram reveals, each major text has been copied onto a number of discrete quires. The scribe would begin each major text on a fresh quire, fill as many quires as needed to inscribe the entire text, and then often leave the rest of the quire blank. Often he or she would use a final quire of two, four, or six leaves rather than the usual eight if he perceived that the end of the text was near, so as to reduce wasted, uninscribed parchment. He would then begin the next text on its own fresh quire. Thus the individual texts were produced in units, which could then be assembled into books of hours with the texts in any order. This system also enabled a stationer or binder to add full-page miniatures to preface the major texts, as these could be inserted to the front of a module. One of the consequences of this method was that it often left some blank but ruled parchment at the end of each module.
Physical composition |
Textual contents |
|||||
quire |
structure of quire |
includes folios |
physical material from Phase I (North Holland) or Phase II (Delft-Ursula convent) |
folios added or removed |
contents |
Written by Hand from North Holland (NH) or Delft-Ursula convent (DU)? |
I |
6 |
ff. 1–6 |
I |
calendar |
NH |
|
II |
6 |
ff. 7–12 |
I |
NH |
||
III |
8 |
ff. 13–20 |
I |
NH |
||
IV |
8 |
ff. 21–28 |
I |
NH |
||
V |
8 |
ff. 29–36 |
I |
NH |
||
VI |
8 |
ff. 37–42 |
I |
NH |
||
VII |
8 |
ff. 43–50 |
I |
Hours of the Holy Spirit (43r-51v); |
NH |
|
VIII |
2 |
ff. 51–52 |
I |
quire filler added by DU (51v-end of quire) |
NH + DU |
|
IX |
8 (-1) |
ff. 53–59 (catchword on 59v) |
II |
fol. before 53 cut out probably because it had a decorated initial |
Verses of St. Gregory; Prayers for the Sacrament, etc. |
DU |
X |
2 (+1) |
ff. 60–62 |
II |
DU |
||
XI |
8 |
ff. 63–70 |
I |
Short Hours of the Cross (63r-68r); NH hand added quire filler 68v-70v |
NH |
|
XII |
8 |
ff. 71–78 |
I |
Hours of Eternal Wisdom (71r-86v) |
NH |
|
XIII |
8 |
ff. 79–86 |
I |
NH |
||
XIV |
8 (-1) |
ff. 87–93 |
I |
fol. before 87 cut out probably because it had a decorated initial |
NH |
|
XV |
4 |
ff. 94–97 |
I |
NH |
||
XVI |
8 (-1) |
ff. 98–104 |
I |
fol. before 98 cut out probably because it had a decorated initial |
Vigil of the Dead with 9 lessons (98r-123v) |
NH |
XVII |
6 (+1) |
ff. 105–111 |
I |
NH |
||
XVIII |
10 |
ff. 112–121 |
I |
NH |
||
XIX |
2 (+1) |
ff. 122–124 |
I, II |
NH + D |
||
Key |
Original physical material from North Holland |
|||||
In Rawlinson, the later scribe from Delft has topped up Quire VIII with text, and then added Quires IX and X. These added texts are:
Verses of St. Gregory (nine-verse version)
Prayers to the sacrament (The folio containing the rubric that would have prefaced the prayers to the Sacrament has been cut out, probably because it was decorated)
Prayers to be read in front of the Virgin’s image for 30 days
Prayer to the Virgin in the Sun, with an indulgence of 11,000 years
Prayer to St. Erasmus to prevent sudden death, with a post-script rubric promising an indulgence of 140 days
Prayers and privileges of St. Anne.14
One can see from this list that most of the prayers added to the manuscript provided indulgences, promised to prevent sudden death, or, in the case of the privileges of St. Anne, guaranteed riches. These privileges demanded that the reader look upon an image of St. Anne and perform “honor” by giving alms or lighting a candle, presumably in front of her image. It is no wonder that the manuscript’s owner would have gone to great lengths to have his book taken out of its binding, have extra folios added to it, and have it rebound.
A close look at the structure of the added material reveals a great deal about the Delft scribe’s method. Original parts of the manuscript (those written in North Holland) are inscribed in a littera textualis, ruled for a text block of 102x70mm. The North Holland scribe only ruled the block, and not the individual lines, but wrote 19 lines per folio using some other type of guide system. However the Delft scribe was not used to writing in an unlined text block. She took the manuscript out of its binding, then ruled the blank parchment at the bottom of fol. 51v and the recto and verso sides of fol. 52 (fig. 221).15 When doing this, she matched the size of the new text block as closely as possible to the existing one. She also matched the script size as closely as possible, although she wrote in a textualis, which was the “corporate” style of the convent of St. Ursula.
Some features of the added sections make it possible to connect this manuscript to a group of books of hours made for and/or by the Franciscan tertiary sisters of St. Ursula in Delft, a house that formed in 1454 or 1457, which produced many surviving manuscripts.16 Several different scriptoria in Delft, which can be associated with various convents in that city, wrote manuscripts and decorated them with distinctive red and blue penwork, which is also present in the added sections of Rawlinson, such as on fol. 53v (fig. 222).17 The convent sisters of St. Ursula probably listed Ursula as the first virgin in the litany in the books of hours they produced, and they also featured St. Ursula in red in the calendar. Many of the manuscripts in this group have ruling similar to that found in the added parts of Rawl. Liturg. e. 9*. Manuscripts I have localized to the convent of St. Ursula have catchwords that are written in script the same size as the text itself, and placed just to the right of the vertical ruling in the lower margin. An example appears in a book of hours now in The Hague (HKB, Ms. 135 E 18, fol. 107v; fig. 223).18 Among manuscripts made in Delft, only those connected to the convent of St. Ursula (as determined by the calendar and decoration) contain these distinctive catchwords. A similar catchword appears on fol. 59v of Rawlinson, which connects the added parts of the manuscript to the St. Ursula group (fig. 224).19
It is also possible that this convent had a relationship with a particular binder. When the scribes from Delft—possibly sisters of St. Ursula—finished their augmentations and reassembled the quires of this manuscript, they added a protective leaf to the end, which would become the back paste-down (it was lifted later when the spine was repaired). A scribe had obviously discarded the leaf after making an unrecoverable error (fig. 225).20 Only one side is inscribed, and the copyist binned the leaf before writing on the other side or adding the initials in red and blue. This workshop for manuscript updates, which, after all, recuperated every line and every centimeter of space on the written surface to convey prayers, simply did not waste parchment. Instead, someone in the atelier used this mistake page as binding material.
Salvaged from the garbage heap, the protective leaf is inscribed in a controlled textualis of the variety that the convent of St. Ursula produced and is close in style to the leaf from HKB, Ms. 135 E 18, the one with the distinctive catchword mentioned above. That the stub of the leaf wraps around to the front of the previous quire indicates that the leaf was integrated into the structure of the book at the time of rebinding. Perhaps the convent of St. Ursula had its own bindery. Perhaps they sold or gave their scraps to the bindery. Perhaps the scribes were not members of the house of St. Ursula at all, but belonged to a professional atelier in Delft that wrote and bound manuscripts then sold them to the convent of St. Ursula. This third option, however, is unlikely, since several of the manuscripts in this group have collects in the Vigil for the Dead “for those who give us alms,” a statement that strongly suggests that the manuscripts originated in a monastic context.
Nevertheless, the scribe has used a male noun “arm sondaer” in a rubric added to Rawlinson, which suggests that the added prayers were commissioned by a man, or that the sisters were updating an older manuscript to be sold in the open market, and therefore used the generalized male pronouns. This is also consistent with the note of ownership inscribed at the beginning of the book, indicating that it belonged to Pieter Willemszn of Goeree. Perhaps he wanted a book of hours with the latest prayers, but rather than buying a new one from scratch, he chose a much less expensive option, namely, buying a used, homely, no-frills book of hours, then having it augmented and rebound.
2. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Ms. 132 G 38
A book of hours originally made in South Holland (HKB, Ms. 132 G 38) contains two layers of additions. Likely made in Delft around 1480, it has an Utrecht calendar with feasts in red including St. Hippolytus (13 August, who was venerated in Delft) and St. Jeroen (17 August, venerated in parts of South Holland). Although the manuscript may have been produced in Delft, it was not originally made in the convent of St. Ursula, for the first confessor in the litany is St. Martin, and the first virgin is St. Agnes. Where exactly within South Holland it was created remains unclear. Following its completion, one layer of changes was executed by the same monastic scriptorium that updated the Rawlinson manuscript—that of St. Ursula in Delft. The other layer was added in Leiden. Both Leiden and Delft are in South Holland, so all three stages of production occurred in close proximity. These layers of additions, worked into the fiber of the original manuscript, attest to an owner’s (or two owners’) desires to make the book more colorful and to fill it with new prayers, including indulgenced texts. An atelier in Leiden added more decoration, as well as full-page miniatures, and subsequently the convent sisters added numerous prayer texts to the book and decorated some of them. Below I have included a chart providing an overview of these two campaigns of work. The changes wrought at the Ursula convent were similar to, but far more complicated than, the interventions in Rawlinson and require some explanation.
HKB, Ms. 132 G 38 originally contained the normal texts associated with a book of hours: a calendar, the Hours of the Virgin, the Seven Penitential Psalms, the Short Hours of the Cross, the Verses of St. Gregory (five-verse version), and the Vigil for the Dead, along with a few suffrages and texts associated with St. Francis. Like Rawlinson, this manuscript was also constructed in modular units, but they are arranged somewhat differently here. (The Hours of the Virgin and the Seven Penitential Psalms, for example, comprise one unit, and the offices are organized in a different sequence.) This original part of the manuscript dates from about 1480 and was written somewhere in South Holland, possibly Delft. For the sake of abbreviation, I have called these sections “SH” (for South Holland) in the chart below. All of these original folios were written in a rather loose hybrida script and have quire notations in a small Gothic script on the recto side of the first four folios of each quire. Some simple penwork decoration appears on the original folios (although these were largely overpainted).
Even though this book of hours was originally copied with extra texts, suffrages and some indulgences, its early owner was not completely satisfied with it and commissioned a series of full-page miniatures for it. This was easy to do, since most new texts began on the first folio of a new quire: the manuscript was made according to the “modular method” described above. The five added full-page miniatures now comprise fol. 13v (Annunciation), fol. 52v (Last Judgment), fol. 74v (Crucifixion), fol. 83v (Mass of St. Gregory), and fol. 106v (Mass for the Dead). Adding full-page miniatures therefore involved taking the manuscript out of its binding and slipping the edges of the painted folios around the back of these quires. Artists working in Leiden (the so-called Masters of Hugo Jansz. Van Worden) produced the miniatures, and the particular kind of painted border decoration associated with them is known as “Leiden blue acanthus.”21 The painters who provided these miniatures also supplied the incipit text folios with painted borders, so that the openings would form visually coherent ensembles.
For example, the original manuscript, copied somewhere in South Holland, contained the Five Verses of St. Gregory (fig. 226). A rubric and incipit for this text appear on fol. 84r, in the loopy hybrida of the original South Holland scribe. A painted four-line initial, alternating red and blue one-line initials, and penwork decoration, were also included in the original production. When the owner had it upgraded with miniatures in Leiden, he or she ordered images for the major text openings and for this indulgenced text. The loose single-leaf miniature had painted border decoration characterized by thin blue acanthus, typical of Leiden in the second half of the fifteenth century. These would have clashed with the simple penwork flourishes on the text pages. To give the opening a harmonious unity, the owner therefore added analogous blue border decoration painted onto the facing text page. (I have shown several examples above where adding miniatures meant also adding decoration to the facing page.)
The owner evidently asked the Leiden illuminator to add decoration throughout the book. On other folios, the illuminator painted over the top of existing penwork decoration (fig. 227). He or she did this to raise the hierarchy of decoration by an increment, as four-line initials under the new scheme should have painted borders, not penwork borders, which belong to a lower echelon. This painted decoration was apparently added in Leiden, probably by a professional artist who specialized in “Leiden blue acanthus” decoration.22
Next the owner then had yet another set of additions made, this time textual. Some of these involved adding more physical material, and some exploited areas of parchment left empty in the first phase of execution. These added texts can be easily distinguished from the original texts in the manuscript written elsewhere in South Holland. I believe that the same atelier that added prayers to Rawlinson inscribed these additions: the Franciscan convent of St. Ursula in Delft. In order that no blank parchment would remain, the scribes there delighted in filling up the ends of quires with short texts. A St. Ursula scribe did just this, for example, on fol. 50r (fig. 228), where she squeezed in a text of “Onser liever vrouwen lof” (Regina celi) to be read on Easter day. In order to add this, she first re-ruled the bottom of the folio in dark brown ink, with condensed lines so that she could fit in more text. She wrote in the neat textualis that was the house style of the Ursula convent and did not try to match the script of the existing book. She has also given the two-line initial a red and blue flourish in a style unmistakably from Delft, which typify production at the Ursula convent.
Likewise, a scribe from the Ursula convent could not bear to leave nearly a folio’s worth of empty lines on fol. 136v, which precedes some Marian prayers (fig. 229). Instead, she copied a short, indulgenced prayer into the space. It has a rubric that declares:
rub: Pope Sixtus IV has given anyone who reads this prayer 11,000 years’ indulgences. inc: Hail, most holy mother of God, Mary, queen of heaven…
rub: Sixtus die vierde paeus heeft gegeven all den genen die dit gebet lesen xim iaer oflaet. inc: Wes gegruet alre heilichste Maria moeder gods coninghine des hemels. [HKB, Ms. 132 G 38, fol. 136v]
This scribe from St. Ursula’s convent thereby updated the book of hours with a prayer that she carefully chose for this location: it relates to the Marian theme of this section of the book, is short enough to fit into the remaining space on the page, and it carries an enormous indulgence.
The scribe from the Ursula convent filled several more blank but ruled original folios with additional texts. Several folios had been left blank by the original scribe at the end of the Penitential Psalms and litany in Quire XI. These blank but ruled folios begin at the bottom of fol. 71v (fig. 230). The Ursula scribe filled these blank lines with several prayers, beginning with one to be read while looking at the Face of Christ, This prayer is a corrupted version of the Salve Sancta Facies, whose prayer text has drifted into a fiery emotional outburst, which I transcribe here in full. Prefatory and postscript rubrics, each promising different results for the devotion, top and tail the prayer:
rub: Whoever looks upon that image of the Veronica with devotion will have 300 days’ indulgence from the pope of Rome. Moreover, he will not die within 10 days from an unforeseen or sudden death. You should also read the following prayer with devotion. inc: I greet you, blessed face of our lord Jesus Christ. O, lord, I beg you from the depths of my heart that you look at me [literally: throw your blessed eyes on me], and protect me from the enemy from hell and from all evil people and from wild ferocious beasts, and from all the evils that may hinder me, body and soul. After this miserable life, give me the joy and rapture of everlasting life. Amen. rub: Item, any woman in labor who looks upon that image of the Veronica will be gladdened and comforted in her time of need. [HKB, Ms. 132 G 38, fol. 71v-72r]
That the image returns the viewer’s gaze is implied by the prayer; by extension, the image would protect the votary by keeping an eye on her. The prayer both addresses Jesus directly in a dialogue, and acknowledges his presence in the conversation through the image. Several promises about the technical benefits of looking at the image are made by the prefatory rubric, and the post-script rubric claims that looking at the image will help a woman in childbirth. The prayer text itself positions the reader to ask for several other benefits, mostly involving protection from hellhounds and the like. Both a spiritual benefit redeemable in Purgatory for a shortened sentence, as well as an earthly and analgesic benefit, are promised by the rubrics.
Plenty of space remained at the end of this quire for the St. Ursula scribes to fill (fig. 231). Some more opportunistic inclusions were invited by the blank folios, and one scribe has copied two short texts in red at the top of fol. 73v. A St. Ursula scribe has left a respectful distance and copied another indulgenced prayer, with this rubric:
rub: A person shall read this prayer every day three times with devotion in his heart. He shall know for certain that he will never again be damned. The more often a person reads this, the more benefit he shall earn from our lord, and especially during his final days. If he is not able to read this himself, he can just think it, or another person shall pray it for him, that another person will pray it for him in the case of mortal peril. Prayer: O, lord, you have unbound the chains of my sins with your holy sheddings of blood…[HKB, Ms. 132 G 38, fol. 72v-73v]23
Even this prayer did not fill all of the available space, and four lines remained at the end of fol. 73v (fig. 232). A very short text, a prayer attributed to St. Augustine, was used by the St. Ursula scribe to fill these lines, so that no blank lines remained. In short, the scribe used the open spaces from fol. 71v-73v opportunistically. One of the core values at the convent of St. Ursula must have been to leave no blank parchment. Such choices were not completely random; rather, the St. Ursula scribe selected by theme and by length, as she copied the prayer to the “blood sheddings of Christ” so that it would immediately precede the Crucifixion. The sisters must have also had a selection of short texts available on an exemplar that they could copy into small spaces of parchment.
The Sisters of St. Ursula left only one area of parchment blank: that on fol. 124v (fig. 233). Someone had stitched small round objects to the bottom of this folio. Needle holes are still visible in the parchment, arranged in circles, and the round, toothed offsets of these objects appear on fol. 125r, indicating that they were made of metal that bit into the soft parchment. Given that the sisters of St. Ursula held as one of their values the filling up of parchment, I conjecture that the owner had already sewn in the badges before she brought the manuscript to the convent for textual updates. By turning it into a repository for small, round badges, the owner had already amended her book in her own amateurish way; now she was commissioning professional updates to it. Rather than remove the badges, the sisters simply avoided writing on the same page, as the badges would have formed obstacles to the scribe.
Three kinds of interventions were made in HKB, Ms. 132 G 38 by the sisters at the Ursula convent. First, as I have shown, they added texts to the blank but ruled spaces in the manuscript, thereby making use of otherwise wasted rulings. Second, they added some single leaves of text, specifically fol. 85 and 87, in order to extend existing prayers. I want to look at more closely at the section of the manuscript that contains these folios, because they reveal this scribe’s modus operandi. Third, they added several quires to the manuscript (quires XIV, XV, and XX). These were not simply added to the end of the manuscript, but were worked into logical places in the middle and at the end. In this way, these added quires resemble the one in Rawlinson. I treat these below.
How and why the single leaves were added? Physical evidence can help to answer this. The opening fol. 83v-84r (fig. 226) has an original text page with the Adoro te in cruce pendentem in Dutch, plus one of the added full-page miniatures showing the Mass of St. Gregory, designed to accompany this prayer. A simple rubric prefaces the prayer:
rub: Anyone who reads this on his knees in front of this figure and is free of mortal sin will earn 20,000 years’ indulgence and 14 days’ indulgence from Callistus. [HKB, Ms. 132 G 38, fol. 84r-84v]
Presenting the five-verse version of the prayer, the prayer text finishes at the bottom of fol. 84v. But the owner was not satisfied with this short version of the prayer. Like the owner of the Tongeren/Tienen manuscript (HKB, Ms. 75 G 2) discussed above, the owner wanted the longer, later version of the prayer with the more munificent indulgence. Owners sometimes added the text of the Adoro te as well as the image that would activate it, inscribed on a separate quire. They then inserted these new modules into books that were already complete (although in its owner’s opinion, deficient). In this case, the scribe has added an extra leaf, fol. 85, in order to add four more verses to the prayer, thereby turning the five-verse Adoro te into the nine-verse version (fig. 234). Not only that, but the scribe has given the prayer a second rubric, this one at the end of the prayer, which promises even more indulgences:
rub: Anyone who speaks nine Pater Nosters and nine ave Marias with contrition in his heart before the arma Christi, will earn 92,024 years and 80 days’ indulgence. Really. [HKB, Ms. 132 G 38, fol. 85v; fig. 235]24
By adding a leaf, the scribe was able to turn a prayer worth 20,000 years’ indulgence into one worth more than 92,000 years. Although careful inspection reveals that fol. 85 is written in a different hand than fol. 84, the scribe has gone to some effort to work this added text seamlessly into the pre-existing book. For example, she has ruled the additional pages for 19 lines to match the original text pages, and she has used the same sized text block. However, the penwork applied to the added sections reveals its Delft origins and contrasts with the nondescript South Holland penwork in the original sections.
Fol. 87 also comprises a singleton added to the manuscript. A diagram overlaying fol. 86v-87r shows how the scribe added the material but also integrated the new text and decoration with the old (fig. 236). Continuing writing right where the previous text ended, she used the existing space, and added even more physical material, to make room for prayers to the sacrament, which fill fol. 87r/v.
Furthermore, the atelier at St. Ursula’s in Delft added entire quires of parchment to expand the text-writing area. These are quires XIV, XV and XX and they are written in the neat corporate textualis that I associate with the convent of St. Ursula in Delft. The red and blue “block” penwork that has been associated with Delft manuscript production appears on the opening folio of quire XIV (fol. 94r); I believe this was executed at the convent of St. Ursula in Delft (fig. 237). There is a gap in the decoration, however, which has surely been left open for a figure, probably one bearing a blue scroll.25 However, this has not been filled in. I suspect that the convent of St. Ursula did not have a painter who could add figures, but that the sisters only copied texts and added penwork decoration. In this case the sheet was never sent to the painter to be completed.
Another codicological feature reveals quires XIV and XV as products of the St. Ursula convent. Just as in Rawlinson and in most of the manuscript production from the convent of St. Ursula, the scribe used a large catchword where she produced entire quires (in this case, on HKB, Ms. 132 G 38, fol. 101v; fig. 238). None of the original leaves of HKB, Ms. 132 G 38 has catchwords.
Texts in the added quires further point to the convent of St. Ursula as the place where this manuscript was augmented. Quires XIV and XV, both added, contain a prayer to the Virgin (94r-101r); a prayer to St. Erasmus (101r-102v); a prayer to St. Christopher as well as his “privileges” (102v-103v); and prayers to Sts. Ursula, the Eleven Thousand Virgins, Katherine, and Barbara (104r-105v). Because the St. Ursula was the patron of the convent where I believe the work was carried out, the choice of these added female saints is significant. The other, older convent of female Franciscans in Delft was dedicated to St. Barbara, a convent of which St. Ursula may have formed a satellite, though one with a larger footprint and presumably a scriptorium. Moreover, within this section of prayers to saints, the prayer to St. Ursula receives extra decoration, with penwork on three sides of the page (fig. 239). This emphasis on St. Ursula strengthens my hypothesis that these manuscript updates in HKB, Ms. 132 G 38 and Rawl. Liturg. e. 9* were made in the convent of St. Ursula in Delft.
Moreover, the scribe from St. Ursula’s has also inscribed the Privileges of St. Anne into HKB, Ms. 132 G 38 at the very end of the manuscript (fol. 139r/v). She had to add an extra bifolium of parchment—a blank sheet possibly salvaged from the scrap heap—to the end of the book (now fol. 139–140) in order to make room for the privileges of St. Anne.26 I have only found this text in two other manuscripts: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawl. liturg. e. 9*, fol. 61v-62v, discussed immediately above, and BKB, Ms. IV 312, fol. 97v-98v, which also belongs to the same group of books of hours written in Delft, probably at the convent of St. Ursula.27 BKB IV 312 also shares a similar layout and decoration as the others in the “Ursula” group. While BKB IV 312 only partially survives and is missing its calendar, its litany lists Ursula as the first virgin and Martin as the first confessor, making it likely that this manuscript also originated at the convent of St. Ursula in Delft.
Evidence I have presented in this section suggests that book owners would bring their books of hours to the convent of St. Ursula in Delft to have their manuscripts updated with highly beneficial prayers, including indulgenced prayers and the Privileges of St. Anne, which promised health and riches. While the scribe who added the prayers to Rawlinson may not be the same as the scribe who added prayers to HKB 132 G 38, they write in a very similar corporate hand, that is, a house style designed to smooth over individual scribes’ personal hands and replace them with something interchangeable. One of the values the sisters of St. Ursula exhibited was frugality. In manuscripts they made from scratch, they filled every available line of parchment with prayers. They likewise filled up the books of hours they updated by filling all of the spaces that had been left blank during the original production. As I have show earlier, ateliers that used the modular method would often leave parts of quires unfinished. The sisters of St. Ursula filled these up with richly useful prayers. They squeezed more texts into the blank areas of the book. They sometimes added single leaves, or even entire quires in order to accommodate desired texts. Whereas the leaves added in Leiden accommodated full-page images, those added at the Ursula convent only contained text. One might surmise that the convent did not have an artist, but only scribes who could copy text and add pen flourishes. They “branded” their products by inscribing prayers to their patron saint, Ursula.
For whom did the sisters of St. Ursula update manuscripts? The two examples I have examined above started out as quite different objects. Whereas the Rawlinson manuscript was of low quality and was quite humble, HKB 132 G 38 was a large illuminated book of hours with images and painted borders. One possibility is that lay sisters brought these books with them when they entered the Ursula convent, and then the conventual scriptorium brought the disparate books into a common form by adding certain texts. More likely however is that private lay owners brought their used manuscripts in for refurbishing. Evidence for this appears in two notes of ownership at the end of HKB 132 G 38, from a woman named Diewer Goes and another named Josina van Sijdenburch.28 Neither identifies herself as zuster.
While I suspect that they refurbished the books of hours for lay customers outside the conventual walls, they also revamped books for their own use, which is the subject of the next section.
3. Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, Ms. C 517 k
The sisters of St. Ursula may have offered a service to laypeople to update their manuscripts, but they may also have taken older manuscripts and updated them for their own use. A case in point is Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, Ms. C 517 k, a lay breviary in Dutch with added components, where the core of the manuscript consists of a psalter (fol. 35r-115v), Canticles (fol. 115v-123v); Litany and Collects (fol. 124r-128r); Office of the Dead (fol. 128r-132v); Office for the Dedication of a Church (fol. 132v); Office for Good Friday (fol. 139v); Prayers for Communion and to Mary (fol. 144r-150v); Offices of the Trinity (fol. 150v), prayers to St. Augustine (fol. 160r) and St. Francis (fol. 167v); Common of Saints (fol. 173v-216r); Offices of various saints (fol. 216v-322v; fig. 240); Office of the Crown of Thorns (fol. 323r-330v). All of these parts were written by a single hand (or several people working in a corporate style), probably in Utrecht in the mid-fifteenth century.
The original parts of the manuscript were also decorated in Utrecht, in a ho-hum style of the mid-fifteenth century. For example, a historiated initial with David playing his harp marks the beginning of the psalter (fig. 241 and 242). Modest red and blue penwork was applied to the initial at that time, in a style associated with Utrecht, marked by rows of little circles. Perhaps someone used the manuscript in or around Utrecht for some time.
It may have been in a bad state of repair after several years of use when someone brought it to Delft, where it was renewed and updated. Specifically, textual and penwork evidence suggest that it was brought to the Franciscan convent of St. Ursula in Delft, where various things were done to it. Blue and red decoration in a style typical of Delft were added it to the initials that were already there. For example, the historiated initial with David has a border made of blue and red penwork in a Delft style on the upper, lower, and right sides, and a Utrecht border on the left border. Similarly, the Delft illuminator added penwork decoration to the existing Utrecht penwork on several folios, including fol. 49v (fig. 243) and fol. 71r (fig. 244). The decorator in Delft has applied the additional decoration carefully, extending it from the existing penwork in order to blend it in. He (or more likely she) has also adjusted the hierarchy of decoration so that four-line initials (which alternate in red and blue and in Utrecht had merely received a small amount of penwork in the opposite color) are elevated in Delft so that they receive two colors of decoration that spills into the border. Apparently, “updating” the book not only meant imposing some local color, but also adding more decoration to a modestly decorated book. Four-line initials suddenly received decoration that filled a margin and spilled out at the top and bottom (as on fol. 49v, 71r), and five-line initials with some gold were elevated so that they received red and blue “block” penwork on three sides (fig. 245). In addition to augmenting the existing penwork with more penwork in a Delft style, the atelier in Delft also added entire quires to the manuscript. I summarize these additions in this table:
The original “Utrecht” part of the manuscript begins on fol. 35r, with the psalter. Because the original scribe foliated this section, the psalter begins with a Roman numeral (ii). The Delft atelier added 34 folios of front matter, including an unusual calendar and several offices (fol. 12r-34v). Whether the manuscript had a calendar when it traveled from Utrecht to Delft is unknowable but likely, as calendars formed an important part of the breviary. The new owners in Delft must have found it easier to begin afresh rather than to add some saints and scrape out others from a received, foreign calendar. They therefore added five quires to the beginning of the book. These quires contain the following texts:
fol. 2r: The bull of Pope Sixtus IV (1481) describing an indulgence for Franciscans who visit the Seven Principal Churches in Rome, physically or virtually (rub: Dit is die bulle vanden nagescreven oflaten. In den iaer ons heren M.CCCC. ende lxxxi des xv. dages inden wintermaent des morgens vroe ter sevender uren, so heeft onse alre heilichste vader in Christo paeus Sixtus die vierde inden namen om beden wille des eerliken broeder engel van Clanasio [sic: Clavasio] ter tijt een geemeen vicarious den mynre brueders oorden vanden observancien heft verleent ende gegeven den mynre borders, den claren, ende den broderen ende den susteren vander derder rugulen sinte Franciscus volcomen oflaet van allen sonden in sonderlingen steden als die comen so sellen si alleen dencken op die kercken te romen ende bidden watsi willen. Ende verdienen daer mitten oflaet recht of sit e roem waren. rub: Aldus selmen daer in treden. Item, alle die geen die hem tot desen oflaet vogen willen die sellen ten eersten tot eenre tijt spreken xv pr nrn drie warf. Die eerste xv pr nosteren selmen offeren god ter eren ende te love voorden geesteliken vader den paeus sixto die vierde die dit oflaet gegeven heft. Die ander xv pr nrn selmen offeren gode te love ende ter eren voor die dit oflaet verworven hebben. Die derde xv pr nosteren selmen offeren voor alle die geheel kerstenheit ende dit gebet selmen niet dan eens doen tot eenre tijt als wanneerment eerst beginnen sel...;
fol. 2r-5r: How to visit the Seven Churches of Rome (rub: Hoemen die kercken visitieren sel). Het is te weten dat binnen romen syn iiii.c kerken ende liiii. daermen alle dage misse in doet, van welker kercken sijn seven principael kercken boven alle den anderen geprivileert mit gracien ende heilicheden...);
fol. 5v: Key to the letters in the calendar, and how they correspond to the churches of Rome (rub: Dit is die bedudenisse vanden letteren ende vanden crucen. Item, die letteren die voor die seven kercken staen, als A.B.C., Daer selmen bi vinden inden kalendier in wat kercken men die heiligen eren sel alsmen dat oflaet verdienen wil dat op die heiligen haer dagen geteykent staet...)
fol. 6r-11v Calendar for the bishopric of Utrecht, with letters A-G that refer to the Seven Principal Churches of Rome and indulgences associated with each station (fig. 246). Entries in red include Agniet ioncfrou (January 21), Maria Magdalena (July 22), Marien inden snee (August 5), Ipolitus maertelaer (August 13), Jeroen priester (August 17), Franciscus confessoor (October 4), Die xi.m maechden (October 21), and Kathrina ioncfer (November 25). These dates are consistent with production at the convent of St. Ursula in Delft.
fol. 12r-34v Various offices. Office of the Purification of the Virgin (12r), the Visitation (17v), the Birth of the Virgin (23v) and Mary Magdalene (29r)
The added texts strongly reveal the interests and identity of the convent that added them. The texts copied on fol. 2r-5v, which describe the Stations and Indulgences of the Principal Churches in Rome (Indulgentiae urbis Romae),29 are specifically designated for Franciscans, and the added calendar is specific to Franciscan sisters dedicated to St. Ursula in Delft. The added offices represent those that were celebrated by the Franciscan sisters that did not appear in the original part of the manuscript acquired from Utrecht.
It is clear codicologically that the five quires comprising the front matter were added in Delft, not imported from Utrecht. First, the decoration in these first five added quires was entirely executed in a Delft style, not layered over an Utrecht style. Second, the added calendar closely resembles the calendars made at this convent of St. Ursula in Delft. It is very close to Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawl. liturg. f. 8; and also to Leiden, University Library, Ltk 287. Third, the front matter is written in the corporate style of the convent of St. Ursula in Delft. Its features include a textualis that is not overly fussy, with barbed ascenders. Fourth, it has a codicological particularity of St. Ursula in Delft, namely large catchwords inscribed in full size at the right side of vertical bounding line (fol. 19v, 27v); they are fairly high on the page, so that they frequently survive trimming (fig. 247). Such catchwords can be associated with the convent of St. Ursula in Delft, but are not a feature of manuscripts made in Utrecht.
The litany of the saints, which is in the original (Utrecht) part of the manuscript, lists Martin as the first confessor and Mary Magdalene as the first virgin. These are the “neutral” choices for a litany made within the diocese of Utrecht, where St. Martin was the patron saint of the cathedral in Utrecht. Nearly all of the manuscripts that originated at the convent of St. Ursula in Delft have a litany that features Martin as first confessor and Ursula as first virgin. However, the convent in Delft did not deem it essential to excise the existing litany and replace it with a more familiar one, despite its rather extensive overhaul of the manuscript’s textual and decorative program.
The three manuscripts analyzed in this section (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawl. Liturg. e.9*; HKB, Ms. 132 G 38; and Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, Ms. C 517 k) were all made in disparate regions of the Northern Netherlands. All three manuscripts were brought to the convent of St. Ursula in Delft, where they were further embellished, and updated with textual additions made to the existing parchment, and with more parchment added to make room for even more textual additions. As the Franciscan sisters apparently used the breviary as part of their daily ritual of prayer, the breviary was probably made for the Franciscans’ own use. Likewise, the books of hours could have been made for a sister within the convent. Perhaps sisters from Amsterdam and Leiden entered the Delft convent, and brought books with them, which were deemed lacking. They performed book surgery on them in order to bring them in line with the corporate norm, as it were. Alternatively, laypeople outside the convent could have brought their older, used book of hours, including items they had bought second hand or had inherited, to the Franciscans in Delft to have them updated and embellished. Part of this procedure meant adding extra indulgenced texts, prayers to the sacrament, and other desirable prayers that were beyond the bare-bones book of hours. The sisters also left their stylistic marks in these books, writing and applying penwork decoration in their highly recognizable corporate style. This must have been much cheaper than ordering a new book to be made from scratch.
In sum: the sisters at the convent of St. Ursula expressed their values of saving parchment when they undertook to recycle the manuscripts analyzed in this section. At the close of the fifteenth century Christians were demanding prayers that offered them indulgences; these were frequently prayers that were to be read in the presence of images. Other prayers, such as those to Anne, promised riches. All three manuscript witnesses to the Privileges of St. Anne came from Delft, probably from the same scriptorium at the convent of Franciscan tertiaries. It is possible that these privileges were connected to a brotherhood or cult image of St. Anne that was in Delft, and that the sisters offered a service to readers to augment their existing prayerbooks with items that would make them rich.30 They might have told customers that St. Anne’s ministrations would offset the costs of the scribal adjustments and rebinding.
D. The convent of St. Agnes in Delft
The convent of St. Ursula was not the only convent in Delft that updated older manuscripts. I argue here that the convent of St. Agnes in Delft, which was across the street from the Ursula convent, also engaged in this practice, with even more astonishing results. A prayerbook with extensive decoration in conflicting styles (HKB, Ms. BPH 148; hereafter: BPH 148) tells the story of multiple phases of execution, including a later phase undertaken at the Agnes convent. When the manuscript came up for sale, dealer Heribert Tenschert described it as “ein rätselhaftes Hauptwerk der holländischen Buchmalerei” (a puzzling masterpiece of Dutch book painting).31 According to Tenschert the text was written and the border decoration was applied in a scriptorium in Delft. I disagree with this view, and analyze the book’s stratigraphy in order to propose a different and more complicated etiology. This manuscript, including the calendar, was copied by one hand (except for some much later additions made on the blank parchment near the end of the codex). Several codicological features suggest that this took place around 1440 in the Southern Netherlands. Its unusual calendar does not firmly localize it. Heribert Tenschert described the calendar as “Utrecht(?).” Likewise, Charlotte Lacaze saw that the manuscript contained different styles of decoration, but assigned the entire production to Delft, including the calendar.32 This view is too simple. Anne Korteweg was correct when she stated that the manuscript was copied in the Southern Netherlands (probably in Bruges) and partly decorated there, using miniatures painted by the Masters of Zweder from Culemborg who were active in Utrecht, and that additional decoration was added in Delft.33 Below I unpack this.
Although the calendar contains entries in red for Utrecht saints, including the translation of St. Martin, patron of the cathedral of Utrecht (11 November), which is one of the defining features of a calendar for Utrecht, it also contains many entries in black for many saints from the Southern Netherlands and France that do not appear in Utrecht calendars (fig. 248).34 Which is more likely? That a scribe from Utrecht would copy a local exemplar but include minor southern saints? Or that a scribe from Bruges would copy a local exemplar but include important northern saints? The latter, of course. As the calendar and the rest of the manuscript (except fol. 166, which I discuss later) were copied by one hand, this evidence suggests that the manuscript was copied in the Southern Netherlands, possibly in Bruges, for a Northern Netherlandish client. In this way, the scribe used a local model but adjusted it slightly by including the most important saints from the bishopric of Utrecht in red.
In other ways, the manuscript is much more consistent with a production in Bruges than in Utrecht. Its script, a version of littera hybrida, is much more at home in the southern Netherlands, as littera textualis was the norm for devotional books made in Utrecht in the 1430s and 40s. In fact, this script owes some of its qualities to a bâtarde that one might associate with Francophone Burgundian court culture. The fact that it is in Latin also points to the Southern Netherlands, as the majority of prayerbooks made in the North were in the vernacular. Some of its painted decoration also hails from the Southern Netherlands (fig. 249). One-line initials alternate between blue and gold and fall anywhere in the text line. Larger initials are more ornate and are always pushed to the left edge of the text block. In other words the original decoration, applied in the Southern Netherlands, is internally consistent.
While the scribe was writing in the Southern Netherlands, he incorporated 12 full-page miniatures painted by the Masters of Zweder of Culemborg as part of the original planning. Because the manuscript is a prayerbook and not a book of hours, it lacks Passion and Infancy cycles that would accompany the standard Hours. Instead the Zweder Masters supplied it with iconic rather than narrative imagery (fig. 250). The Masters of Zweder van Culemborg, a group of illuminators associated with the city of Utrecht, take their name from a missal they illuminated that belonged to Zweder van Culemborg, bishop of Utrecht, who died in 1433 at Basel (Bressanone/Brixen, Seminario maggiore, Ms. C 20).35 Miranda Bloem has convincingly attributed the miniatures in BPH 148 to the Bressanone Master within the Zweder group. Perhaps the Northern Netherlandish client transported these miniatures from Utrecht to Bruges, which was a well-travelled route.36
At a time when miniatures were largely being made as singletons that were blank on the back and were only slipped into place before binding, this manuscript, unusually, displays a different way of constructing the book. Namely, the miniatures are integral with the quire structure and inscribed on the back. In other words, the illuminators painted on bifolia rather than on singletons. Additionally, two of the Zweder miniatures (fol. 19v and 55v) were worked in as singletons, although these, too, were inscribed on the back by the original hand and were therefore planned from the beginning; they may have begun as bifolia that the scribe for some reason trimmed down.
I propose, therefore, that the scribe had a stack of bifolia with illuminations, and then ruled their backs and integrated them into the manuscript as he was writing. In every case, the image is on the left side of the opening. This means that the bifolia supplied by the Zweder Masters each had an image on the left side of the centerline, on one side of the parchment. The scribe could fold these bifolia so that the image was either on the inside of the bifolium (if the image fell in the first half of the quire), or the outside (if the image fell in the second half of the quire). Either way, the image would always fall on the left side of the opening. No bifolium contains more than one miniature; however, the Zweder Masters did execute border decoration on one folio: the angel border on fol. 139r (fig. 251). Borders such as this are typical of the work of the Zweder Masters, who often painted sorrowing angels around text folios opposite Passion iconography, for example, in HKB, Ms. 79 K 2 (fig. 252).37 This opening in BPH 148 (138v-139r), with its dramatic and sorrowful paratext, is formed of a single bifolium at the center of the quire, with Christ as Man of Sorrows on the left of the fold, and a text page with an angel border on the right, all painted by the Masters of Zweder van Culemborg. It is clear that the border around BPH 148, fol. 139r was executed by North Netherlandish artists, because the angel in the lower border holds a banderol inscribed in small, neat textualis letters that typify Northern scribes and contrast sharply with the large script of the body of the page, written in a form of bâtarde that typifies the Southern Netherlands. Moreover, the palette of the angels, including the one with the soft green garment, matches that in the Zweder miniature, which includes an angel with an analogous robe, but this color contrasts with the border around the miniature on 138v, which uses a darker kelly green. That the miniatures and one of the borders were painted first, and that the work of the scribe came second, marks an experimental reversal of the normative processes of book production.
This was a book project led by the illuminator rather than the scribe. The images in BPH 148, plus the border of fol. 139r, were probably painted in the 1430s in the Northern Netherlands (in Utrecht), but then must have travelled to the Southern Netherlands, where they were inscribed and integrated into this prayerbook. Alternatively, the Bressanone Master may have executed the miniatures while he was in or around Bruges. Either way, the bifolia, furnished with miniatures, were handed to a scribe in the Southern Netherlands, who built the rest of the manuscript around these images. The scribe then supplemented this parchment with many more bifolia, which he ruled with upper, lower, and lateral bounding lines that conformed to the size of the miniatures. In other words, the miniaturist dictated the size of the text block. This situation is fundamentally different from the older method of making a manuscript, which began with a scribe copying a text and leaving room for miniatures and initials. BPH 148, on the other hand, began with the images, onto and around which the scribe wrote.
What challenged the scribe was to cause incipits of texts to fall opposite their relevant images. This involved making some adjustments. For one, he had to make sure that the image of Christ as Man of Sorrows, with the angel border, fell at the center of a quire so that the two halves of the sheet would face each other. To do that, he wrote the preamble to the litany on fol. 131r-138r, but stopped short of actually listing the saints, so that the sorrowing Christ opening could fall at 138v-139r. Elsewhere in the book he made further accommodations, as one can see around the O Intemerata (fig. 253). This text was written to accompany a miniature depicting the Virgin and St. John. The previous text finished near the top of fol. 55r. The scribe was therefore confronted with considerable blank space on the rest of the page. He filled much of it by writing a long rubric to preface the O Intemerata (fig. 254). These adjustments became more intense around the suffrages of the saints, the most densely illustrated section of this prayerbook. As I showed earlier, some book makers in Bruges interleaved singletons containing prayers with singletons containing miniatures. This generated undesirable blank space and caused waste. Contrariwise, the scribe of BPH 148 obviated this problem by using the backs of the miniatures as surfaces for text. For example, the suffrage to St. Erasmus (fol. 112r; fig. 255) is inscribed on the back of the image depicting St. Lawrence (fol. 112v, fig. 256). And the suffrage to St. Lawrence is written on the back of the full-page illumination depicting St. Christopher (fol. 113v, fig. 257). Into the interstices between these images, the scribe wrote suffrages to the minor saints, those without full-page images. For example, the suffrage to St. Stephen (lacking a miniature) has been copied onto fol. 111v, squeezed between two saints—Peter and Lawrence—who do receive full-page miniatures. All of this indicates that the scribe began with bifolia prepared with the full-page paintings when he began to write, and he elected to write on the inviting surfaces of the backs of the miniatures. It also means that the arrangement of the images, rather than the importance of the saints, determined their sequence in the suffrages.
After the scribe copied the texts around the miniatures and onto the supplementary bifolia, he sent most—although not all—of the bifolia to an illuminator in the Southern Netherlands (probably Bruges) who applied the gilt and painted two-, three-, and four-line initials. These are done in gold and opaque paint in a South Netherlandish style. He also sent most—although not all—of the Zweder master’s bifolia to this atelier, where painted border decoration was also applied to the full-page miniatures and facing text pages.
Some of the folios, for one reason or another, were not sent to the Bruges decorator. Twenty years later, around 1460, the manuscript was still incomplete: the St. George miniature and other folios lacked borders, and some of the large initials were not painted. By this time the manuscript was in the Northern Netherlands. Its owner decided not only to complete the missing decoration, but to have the manuscript’s decorative program upgraded on nearly every page. This involved taking the manuscript to Augustinian convent of St. Agnes in Delft, where the sisters were known to have written and illuminated manuscripts.38 They must have disbound the book and worked on it intensively with a variety of techniques, including penwork, painting, and gilding. They completely overhauled the decorative program.
One folio that the Agnes sisters embellished was a full-page miniature that had been added as an afterthought: that depicting St. George fighting the dragon, painted by the Masters of the Gold Scrolls. These artists were associated with the city of Bruges in the 1440s through the 1460s, and it is likely that this miniature was added when the manuscript was still in Bruges and before it returned to the Northern Netherlands. Because the image was added later, after the text was inscribed, the book maker was not able to work this image logically next to the suffrage to St. George and merely appended this image at the end of the manuscript (fol. 165v; fig. 258). It is clear that the accompanying prayer was added as an afterthought. It must have been added after the Bruges decorator had already finished embellishing the folios. The Agnes sisters painted the border with bold forms and copious gold. They favored designs with radially symmetrical flowers, and bulbous botanical forms. They also applied another kind of decoration to the bottom of the folio: vines with green leaves and red and gold balls. This motif appears in their work throughout the 1450s and 1460s, for example, in the Fagel Missal, fol. 192r.
Most notably, the sisters added penwork decoration to nearly every text folio of BPH 148. They globally adjusted the hierarchy of decoration so that the one-, two-, and three-line initials received pen work flourishes. For the one-line initials buried within the text block, this meant that the penwork artist had to extend the decoration through the interlineal space and out to the margin. Such flourishes, quite unusually, creep among and between the words before erupting in the margin.
Painted border decoration was also part of the sisters’ repertoire. In the opening on fol. 24v-25r one can also see that the initials four lines and higher also received painted flourishes (fig. 249). Examples appear on fol. 24v, 29r, 32r. The canonesses also employed marginal figures, often birds, with banderols, or short religious aphorisms in the margins, usually inscribed in blue ink. One of these appears in the lower margin on fol. 24v, and another at the side margin of the St. George miniature (fig. 258 above). Such figures with banderols became a hallmark of Delft illumination and typify Delft manuscript manufacture.39 Most distinctively, they included a severed chicken’s head among the marginal embellishments (fig. 259). Such a chicken head also appears in the Fagel Missal, but does not appear outside the atelier of the sisters of St. Agnes.
Illuminators in Delft, including the sisters of St. Agnes, often used their signature form of penwork, applied in red and blue. Various convents in Delft adopted variations of the red-blue penwork, as if to capitalize on the successful brand that the Augustinian sisters had developed. One of the most astonishing folios in BPH 148 is one of the few folios that had been blank when the sisters received it (fig. 260). They filled it with penwork. Whereas penwork normally emanates only from an initial and reiterates the hierarchy of the page by presenting the appropriate degree of decoration for the size of the initial, here the penwork is untethered to script altogether. It presents a radially symmetrical design in red and blue penwork and green wash. One might consider it a piece of independent abstract art.
The other penwork borders, executed on every text page, are in a style that typifies Delft in mid-century; the motifs are identical to those known to have been executed at the St. Agnes convent in Delft. These include the birds and fantastical creatures bearing messages inscribed on unfurling banderols (fig. 261). Manuscripts that the sisters of St. Agnes are known to have illuminated contain analogous imagery. One such bird, painted in a book of hours now in Krakow, has a banderol in its beak announcing “Iste liber scriptus et perfectus est in monasterio vallis iozaphat” [This book was written and perfected (embellished) in the monastery of the Valley of Iosaphat] (fig. 262). They called themselves the sisters of St. Augustine, dedicated to St. Agnes, and lived in a monastery they dubbed “the Valley of Josaphat” (even though their monastery was in the center of Delft). The bird is clearly announcing that the book was written and illuminated in this monastery. The sisters applied penwork to the BPH 148 that is closely analogous to the penwork they signed in Krakow. For example, the penwork on fol. 17v-18r (fig. 263) closely resembles that applied to the book in Krakow. One difference, though, is that the Krakow book of hours only has penwork that emanates from initials, whereas BPH 148 has penwork on all four sides, and extra painted decoration on folios with an initial.
On the opening with a full-page miniature depicting St. James, they added the most astonishing embellishment (fig. 264). While the Zweder masters painted the central miniature, the border can be none other than the work of the sisters of St. Agnes. The design is based on abstracted, fleshy flowers arranged on a gold bar armature, with banderols winding around the armature. The same motif appears in the Fagel Missal, a manuscript signed by the sisters of St. Agnes. They wrote and illuminated the Fagel Missal in 1459 and 1460. They exhibited a wide range of illuminating styles in this manuscript, but reserved this style to the embellishment around their patron saint, Agnes, on fol. 192r (fig. 265). They also used this same kind of decoration around the opening of the book of Matthew, the first of the Gospels, in a large manuscript now in Copenhagen (Ms. Thott 11 folio; fig. 266). They reserved this form of corkscrewing painted and gilt decoration for the most important folios, to heighten their importance with gold and a burst of color. It is possible that the book’s original owner singled this saint out for special treatment, but it is more likely that the bifolium (fol. 106–107) was simply not sent to the Bruges decorator. Evidence for this appears on the back of the St. James leaf (fol. 106r; fig. 267). Whereas the Bruges decorator painted the initials on fol. 105v, the sisters of St. Agnes painted those on fol. 106r. Apparently it fell to the sisters to apply all the minor decoration to the bifolium 106–107.
Finally, the sisters of St. Agnes applied painted decoration to text folios. One of these has the incipit of a prayer to the heart of the Virgin (fig. 268). This folio may have had an underwhelming blue initial, like the one the sisters left untouched on fol. 69r (fig. 269). For the heart prayer the sisters have raised the level of decoration by filling the border with painted and gilt decoration, even though it does not surround or face a miniature. They were therefore registering their esteem for this prayer, or responding to the patron’s request to add more decoration here. They have painted monumental versions of the succulent flowers with cones, which appear at a smaller scale on fol. 109r (above).
They may have also repainted other initials, such as one that appears on the folio opposite the Pietà (fig. 270). A sinuous magenta dragon, whose body erupts in acanthus, fills the interior of the letter D. Such dragons are a well-known symbol of Utrecht and embellish many manuscripts made there.40 Several other features are odd about this initial: its blue paint is flaking off, it juts into the left margin, and there is a curious blank margin immediately above the frame of the D. Here is a scenario that explains these particularities: fol. 22r was inscribed in the Southern Netherlands, where it received a nine-line initial D, similar to the O on fol. 69r (fig. 269). Such a plain initial did not satisfy the owner, who wanted to raise the decorational level of fol. 69r to befit a folio facing a full-page miniature. Either the sisters of St. Agnes, or a painter in Utrecht, built a gold frame around the letter, but this frame had to be shifted to the left to cover up the mediocre penwork on the left side of the initial; they also scraped out the penwork immediately above the letter, leaving behind a clean strip between the letter and the border decoration. They filled the interior of the initial with a dragon and covered the blue D with white tracery, fragments of which remain. Perhaps because of the particular mixture of blue paint, it didn’t adhere to the parchment very well. Since such dragons do not form part of the repertory of imagery made by the Bruges illuminator, nor by the sisters of St. Agnes, this and the related initials in this manuscript point to yet another atelier where localized work was carried out on this manuscript over a course of several decades. This is a complicated explanation, but indeed, the potpourri of imagery in this opening calls for some layered thinking.
The manuscript reveals again that it was the product of stages of production. I have proposed here that the miniatures, made as bifolia by the Masters of Zweder van Culemborg in Utrecht in the 1430s, travelled to the Southern Netherlands, expressly for a book destined for a client in the bishopric of Utrecht. A scribe in the Southern Netherlands, possibly in Bruges, carried out the copying, and sent many of the bifolia to a local painter to be embellished with initials and border decoration. Two decades later, when the manuscript and possibly its owner had returned to Utrecht or its environs, the book received additional embellishment, possibly in two different workshops. One of those workshops was that of the convent of St. Agnes in Delft, where the entire manuscript received extensive penwork decoration and a variety of painted decoration. In its complicated career, the manuscript had owners that cared deeply about the amount and extent of decoration. As the additional decoration was so extensive, it could only have been applied with the book apart. Prayerbook owners who sought upgrades to their books had a variety of choices about whom to hire. They had at least two choices in Delft for upgrades, the convents of St. Ursula and St. Agnes, with the latter providing much more lavish and gilt decoration.
Interventions of the kind seen in the manuscripts discussed above receive their most complicated and advanced manifestation in the work of the Masters of the Dark Eyes, a discussion of whom is taken up in the next section.
E. The Masters of the Dark Eyes
In the discussion above regarding HKB, Ms. 132 G 38, I showed that an atelier in Leiden and the sisters of St. Ursula in Delft both made changes to the manuscript: they added new texts in the available spaces; added decoration and raised the hierarchy of the decoration (by elevating areas of penwork only to areas of painted decoration); added single leaf-miniatures to preface certain texts and added text leaves in order to augment prayers, namely, the Verses of St. Gregory, turning it from a five-verse version into a nine-verse version); and added entire quires full of texts. I proposed that the convent of St. Ursula in Delft had executed some of these changes, and that the sisters there specialized in updating older books to make them appropriate for continued use. The Masters of the Dark Eyes, whom I introduced above, seem to be professional artists unconnected to a religious house, who similarly made interventions to existing manuscripts, including adding single leaves and entire quires. They also took manuscripts apart, made major structural and cosmetic changes, and then reassembled them. Whereas the Sisters of St. Ursula specialized in adding texts and modest decoration, and the sisters of St. Agnes specialized in supplying elaborate penwork, painted, and gilt decoration, the Masters of the Dark Eyes specialized in adding both texts and images, plus exuberant painted border decoration in saturated colors.
1. Alongside the Master of Gijsbrecht van Brederode
One of the most dramatic examples of manuscript augmentation appears in a book of hours, which was made in two distinctive campaigns of work that were executed over a half-century (HKB, Ms. BPH 151).41 The core of manuscript was made in Utrecht around 1465, at which time it was complete and viable as a vehicle for private devotion. It contained only standard texts for a book of hours: a calendar, the Hours of the Virgin, the Hours of the Holy Cross, the Hours of the Holy Spirit, some suffrages, the Seven Penitential Psalms, Litany, and the Vigil for the Dead. Shortly after these core texts were copied, the Master of Gijsbrecht van Brederode executed the decoration for them. This painter probably worked in Utrecht.
A half-century later, however, the manuscript’s new owners desired to possess new prayers that would reflect the changing fashion and taste in prayer. The Masters of the Dark Eyes, a group of artists active in the decades surrounding 1500 possibly based in South Holland, wrought these changes.42 These artists, none of whom can be identified by name, can however be identified by their style. They specialized in applying copious amounts of colorful illumination to books of hours and prayerbooks and apparently represented good value per square centimeter of applied decoration. In addition to illuminating new prayerbooks, they may have even specialized in updating existing manuscripts, as several prayerbooks with their augmentations survive.43 Analyzing these updates reveals the extent to which devotion had changed in the course of the second half of the fifteenth century. The added prayers are precisely those devotions that had become fashionable at the end of the century, and were generally added to manuscripts made two, three, or more decades earlier. (See the chart below for a summary of the changes to the manuscript.) The manuscript’s second or third owner apparently commissioned a stationer who had access to parchment, scribes, binders, and illuminators—namely, the Masters of the Dark Eyes—to supply the additional images.
Whereas the interventions discussed in the previous section were probably made at the convent of St. Ursula in Delft, the interventions discussed below were probably made in a professional, that is, non-monastic atelier.44 While the Masters of the Dark Eyes sometimes worked with monasteries or monastic books, they appear overwhelmingly to have worked for private secular patrons, and the manuscripts they produced (largely books of hours and prayerbooks) reveal no allegiance to any particular saint, order, or religious community. Unlike the various sisters and nuns updating manuscripts in Delft, the Masters of the Dark Eyes were apparently secular professionals.
As the table shows, two distinctive campaigns of work appear in this book. Openings for the major texts reveal the old and the new work, side by side. At the opening for the Hours of the Holy Spirit (HKB, Ms. BPH 151, fol. 71v-72r; fig. 271), for example, the original campaign of work appears on the right side of the opening, and the work of the Masters of the Dark Eyes on the added parchment on the left. Original parts include historiated initials painted by the Master of Gijsbrecht van Brederode, who executed the Pentecost initial. This painter, working with delicate brushstrokes and a minute brush, gave each apostle different facial features to convey a range of psychological responses to the descent of the Holy Spirit. As the borders are somewhat unusual and are encrusted with red, blue, green, and pink paint as well as leaf gold, one can see that the painter applied pigment directly to the text folios and coordinated decoration carefully with the text block.
The style, palette and subject matter of the Master of Gijsbrecht van Brederode clash quite severely with what has been added to the left side of the opening: a full-page miniature depicting the Coronation of the Virgin. While the Master of Gijsbrecht van Brederode probably completed his illumination around 1465, one of the Masters of the Dark Eyes completed the Coronation around 1500 or shortly thereafter. In comparison to the earlier illumination in the initial, the full-page miniature has been executed much more quickly, with a thicker brush, and very little attention to differentiating the faces. The Masters of the Dark Eyes completed the full-page miniature with a border painted with liquid gold applied over a ground treated first with gesso, which provides a three-dimensional ground for the gold. It also provides an entirely different visual effect from the more labor-intensive gold foil that the Master of Gijsbrecht van Brederode used in the original sections of the manuscript. More research into these materials is necessary, but I suspect that the gold paint of the Masters of the Dark Eyes was cheaper than the gold foil of the Master of Gijsbrecht van Brederode.
The Masters of the Dark Eyes transformed all of the major text openings in a similar way, so that they are visually loud and brash and call attention to the beginning of each incipit. For example, they have added a full-page miniature depicting the Annunciation to the opening of the Hours of the Virgin (fig. 272). They have tried to match the borders in size and chromatic intensity by duplicating the thick gold and bold painted colors, dominated by blue flowers, from the earlier part of the production.
Even without the interventions executed around 1500, the manuscript would have been complete.45 Expanding the imagery in the book—adding more pictures—meant finding alternative themes for some of the openings. For the Vigil for the Dead, the original artists had supplied an image of the Mass for the Dead in the historiated initial (fig. 273). Therefore, the Masters of the Dark Eyes chose an alternative subject for the added full-page miniature, specifically, the Raising of Lazarus.
Because the original parts of the manuscript contained no indulgenced prayers, the person who bought or inherited the book at the end of the fifteenth century deemed its texts and images insufficient, and felt compelled to make a number of adjustments to it. The additional texts, which will be discussed more fully below, consist overwhelmingly of indulgenced prayers and prayers that were to be read in conjunction with images. They were able to create images by painting them on full-page sheets, which could then be bound together with the existing manuscript to books of hours and prayerbooks.
Given the intricacies of the amendments, one might assume that a planner, or libraire, oversaw them. This libraire had to come up with a new program based on what was already present in the manuscript and what the new owner desired. He had to coordinate the work of both the copyists and the illuminators, who were also closely integrated with each other, since many of the added textual sections also contain small miniatures. Someone at the atelier, such as a libraire, might have begun by taking the manuscript apart and ruling the blank folios. In planning the additions, the planner attempted to smooth the seams between the old and the new, for example, by ruling the additions with the same dimensions as the original parts.
The scribes making additions to the already-complete manuscript inscribed the new prayers on bits of the parchment left at the end of a quire; when that parchment was exhausted, they added additional sheets of parchment and inscribed those. The same holds true in BPH 151. For example, the Short Hours of the Cross—one of the original texts—filled an entire quire of the original book, plus part of the next quire; the fifteenth-century scribe left the rest of the quire unwritten. The sixteenth-century scribe filled that blank space at the end of the quire, beginning on fol. 65r, with a new prayer—an indulgenced prayer to be read before a crucifix—where he found a bit of ruled parchment, then continued copying this text onto the verso side of the folio, but then added several more folios to accommodate the rest of the prayer (fig. 274). In this way, nearly all of the older ruled parchment is filled, and the new parts are interdigitized with the old parts. Furthermore, the added text about the cross fits thematically with the text to which it was appended, the Hours of the Cross. Added physical material made space for new texts. The contents of those texts is extremely revelatory for understanding the sixteenth-century patron’s desires. Two main texts fill the quire: a prayer to be read “in front of an image of the crucifix,” for which the reader would earn as many days’ indulgence as Christ had wounds on his body; and a prayer that yielded 100,000 years’ indulgence and 90 quadragenes and ensured that its reader would not die without the sacrament.46 The later scribe found some space at the end of Quire XII (fol. 95r/v), and added to it an indulgenced prayer worth 80,000 years.47
The sixteenth-century studio also added entire quires, such as fol. 120–128. This quire contains, among other items, a copy of the 10-verse version of the Adoro te along with a full-page miniature depicting the Mass of St. Gregory (fig. 275 and 276). This text and miniature have been slotted in just after the Seven Penitential Psalms and Litany of the Saints, which fill two fifteenth-century quires (BPH 151, fol. 105–111, 112–119). The sixteenth-century scribe ruled the otherwise blank back of the miniature of the Mass of St. Gregory and planned to inscribe the prayer’s rubric on the back of the image. But he must have realized that the long rubric would not fit on a single folio. He therefore found a single text page from the earlier part of the manuscript on which the end of another prayer had been written but which still had several ruled but blank lines. He appended this fifteenth-century leaf (fol. 120) to the beginning of the sixteenth-century quire, and used these blank spaces to start the rubric, which is then continued on the back of the miniature. In this way, the fifteenth century parchment is integrated with the sixteenth-century additions; the back of the miniature (BPH 151, 121r) has been ruled so that it has the same ruling dimensions as the rest of the book; a minimum of new material has been added; and the blank spaces in the original sections of the manuscript have been filled with text; and the sixteenth-century scribe who added the rubric attempted to imitate the earlier script. Those scribes and artists who made amendments to this book, in other words, went to great lengths to integrate their work with what was already there. But they also went to great lengths to add indulgences and new devotional images that had come into vogue.
The additions supplied the newest, most highly indulgenced versions of the prayers circulating around 1500. For example, the added rubric accompanying the 10-verse version of the Adoro te reads:
rub: Item, Pope Julius II doubled all of the indulgences that his forefathers had given to the nine little prayers with the nine Pater Nosters and nine Ave Marias to anyone who will read this tenth prayer with its Pater Noster and Ave Maria in front of the arma Christi, kneeling with contrition for his sins. This is a sum of 184,048 years and 160 days of indulgence. [BPH 151, fol. 120v-124v]
rub: Item, paeus Julius die tweede heeft verdubbelt alle die oflaten die sijn voorvaderen hebben ghegeven tot die ix gebedekens mit die ix Pater noster ende ix Ave Maria allen den ghenen die daer toe lesen dit tiende gebet mit sijn Pater noster [121r] ende Ave Maria voer die wapenen ons liefs heren, knielende mit berou van sijn sonden. Ende dan is die somme hondert ende lxxxiiii dusent jaer xlviii jaer ende c ende lx daghen aflaets. [BPH 151, fol. 120v-124v]
Not only is the new rubric-prayer-image added to the older manuscript, but the rubric itself is about accretions, both the growth of the prayer, from nine to ten verses, and also the concomitant accretion in indulgences. One of the most indulgenced prayers in the later Middle Ages was the Verses of St. Gregory. This prayer accompanies a large, clear, full-page miniature depicting the Mass of St. Gregory, with the arma Christi filling the space around the altar. It has been made to match the text block and border of the incipit of the prayer, which indicates that the illuminators and the copyists of the added parts of the manuscript were highly coordinated. The mention of Pope Julius also provides an indication for the date of these additions. Julius II was pope from 1503–1513, so these additions could not have been made before 1503.
Immediately after winning an indulgence for 80,000 years, the reader can go on to the next heavily indulgenced prayer:
BPH 151, fol. 124v: rub: Item, Pope Julius II changed the Prayer for the conception of our dear Lady and doubled the indulgence, so that anyone who reads it in front of an image of Our Dear Lady in the Sun, kneeling, who is in a state of grace, earns 22,000 years.
124v: rub: Item, paeus Julius die twede heeft dat Gebedeken van die ontfangenis van onser liever vrouwen dus verandert ende heft die aflaten verdubbelt. Soe wie dat leest voer dat beelt van onser liever vrouwen in die sonne, knielende, staende in state van gracien xxiim jaer. inc: Weest ghegruet alre heylichste joncfrouwe…
Older versions of this prayer carried an indulgence of only 11,000 years. Julius II was probably the reigning pope when these additions were made. The illuminators and the scribes with whom they worked were in this way underscoring the novelty of their wares.
In summary, the Verses of St. Gregory initiate an entire section of indulgenced prayers added in the sixteenth century. These fill three added quires (fol. 120–141), which contain the following:
- the 10 Verses of St. Gregory, with an indulgence for 84,068 years’ and 160 days’ indulgence and a full-page miniature to accompany it, depicting the Mass of St. Gregory (120v-124v);
- the prayer to the Virgin of the Sun, with an indulgence doubled by Julius II to 22,000 years’ indulgence for reading the prayer in the presence of the image, accompanied by a miniature depicting the Virgin and Child in the sun and standing on the sliver of moon (124v-125v; fig. 277);
- another indulgenced prayer to the Virgin, promising that she will appear to the reader before his death to tell him when he will die, which is also accompanied by an image of the Virgin and Child, who are wearing an enormous string of coral beads (fol. 125v-129r; fig. 278);
- a prayer attributed to St. Bernard, which is accompanied by a miniature depicting the Virgin squirting breast milk into the saint’s mouth (fol. 129r-130v; fig. 279);
- a translation of the O intemerata, with an image depicting Christ appearing to his mother after his resurrection (fol. 130v-133v; fig. 280);
- a prayer to be read while kneeling in front of the image of St. Anne three times, which yields an indulgence of 10,000 years of mortal sin and 20,000 years of venial sin, which accompanies a contrafact of the Ave Maria adjusted for St. Anne, and a miniature depicting the female trinity (fol. 133v-134r; fig. 281);
- another prayer to St. Anne (134r-135r)
- a prayer to one’s personal angel, with an image of an angel (fol. 135r; fig. 282);
- illustrated suffrages to St. Sebastian (fol. 136r/v), St. Erasmus (fol. 137r; fig. 283), St. Anthony (fol. 138r), St. Margaret (fol. 138v), and St. Dorothy (fol. 139v);
- and finally, to fill the quire, a rubric promising 1000 days’ indulgence to anyone who reads a short prayer in front of the cross.
This list contains all that had become fashionable between 1465 and 1510: prayers that connected images with indulgences, prayers to St. Anne and to the personal angel, and suffrages to saints associated with bodily protection.
2. Leeds, Brotherton Ms. 7 with an added booklet
The sixteenth-century atelier made one last important addition, which was separate from the additions listed above. Working together with a different artist but one within the circle of the Masters of the Dark Eyes, a scribe produced an independent illustrated booklet with a devotion to the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows. This written part of the booklet comprises an entire quire of six folios (BPH 151, fol. 97–102) that was probably added to the manuscript in the early sixteenth century at the same time the other image-centered and indulgenced prayers were added.48 These folios were ruled differently from the rest of the additions, namely, with reddish brown ink, and single upper, lower, left and right bounding lines (whereas the rest of the manuscript has no horizontal boundary lines). A different copyist inscribed this booklet.
In addition to the six folios of text, the booklet is prefaced by an image depicting the Seven Sorrows (BPH 151, fol. 96v; fig. 284). This image differs from the other full-page illuminations in the book. It is based on a diagrammatic organization of the page, with Mary at the center surrounded by roundels recounting the events of her Sorrows. It is the only image in the book not framed by a rectilinear border. It was made in a separate campaign of work, by one of the Masters of the Dark Eyes, but not necessarily one coordinated in the larger image campaign of the book.
A second, very similar sixteenth-century booklet has survived within another book of hours which was also written in the fifteenth century, then similarly updated by the Masters of the Dark Eyes in the early sixteenth century (Leeds, Brotherton Ms. 7). Like BPH 151, the Brotherton manuscript contains added prayers and full-page miniatures that have been integrated into an existing manuscript in order to augment it with new and fashionable devotions. The Seven Sorrows booklet in the Brotherton manuscript contains a nearly identical prefatory image (Leeds, Brotherton 7, fol. 142v; fig. 285). In both manuscripts, the Seven Sorrows booklet has been written by a scribe different from the one who produced the other sixteenth-century additions. In their content and structure, the similarity of these two booklets, suggests that the booklets were made by an atelier in series, as a marketable product, which consumers could then integrate into a book of hours. In fact, the booklet in BPH 151 was only glued in, not sewn, and it has now come loose (fig. 286). If this is the case, then such booklet-makers must have worked closely with illuminators working in the circle of the Masters of the Dark Eyes, who produced the relevant imagery depicting the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin.
Perhaps the booklets were originally sold in such a way that the painted image remained unconnected from the textual packet. Close examination of the structure of the manuscript supports this hypothesis. In the Leeds manuscript, the image depicting the Seven Sorrows is wider than the other miniatures; so wide, in fact, that the outer edge has been trimmed severely so that it would fit into the manuscript. The Seven Sorrows images in both manuscripts have no trace of border decoration, and both are bound in such a way that they have a very small inner border so that the image extends nearly to the gutter. The dimensions suggest that the leaf was not designed to be inserted into a manuscript at all, but rather that votaries were meant to mount their image of the Seven Sorrows on the wall or to hold it in their hands while they followed the Virgin through her sorrows outlined in the text. In this way, votaries could have an inexpensive replica of a full-sized painted altarpiece, such as the one found in the church of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw in Bruges.
The two paintings on parchment depicting the Seven Sorrows share with the panel what might be termed an “altarpiece aesthetic,” whereby individual scenes are arranged around a central devotional image within the framework of fictive microarchitecture. At the level of production, it is possible that the Masters of the Dark Eyes drew their compositional model from a monumental altarpiece; and analogously, at the level of reception, it is possible that owners treated these paintings on parchment as private altarpieces, rather than as manuscript illuminations. Perhaps the supplicant read the prayer while continually referring back to the unbound image, which was held apart from the text and formed a miniature parchment altarpiece.
Although the booklet in Leeds has a rubric, which does not appear in the BPH manuscript, the prayer text in both booklets is otherwise identical. Did patrons have to pay extra for the version with the rubric? In the Leeds manuscript it reads:
rub: A very devout meditation and exercise about the seven sorrows or lamentations of our dear lady Mary, which is very good and rewarding for obtaining special grace from her and her blessed son, so that anyone who contemplates these following seven sorrows or lamentations each day with compassion and pity and contrition for his sins, he shall without a doubt be consoled from all the pain, tumult and tribulation in this life. After his death he shall without a doubt be released from all sorrows or lamentations. The first sorrow of our dear Lady. [Leeds, Brotherton Ms. 7, fol. 143r]
The rubric weaves a parallel relationship between the life of the votary and that of Mary, so that contemplating Mary’s sorrows will relieve the votary of his or her own sorrows. The prayer itself leads the reader through the Seven Sorrows, in chronological order, beginning with the circumcision that is pictured at the lower right of the accompanying image. The structure of the image is reminiscent of images for the rosary devotion, in which a prayer text is structured around a series of images, and each image receives sustained contemplation in turn. The difference, however, is that the rosary structures the recitation of a short prayer that the votary had committed to memory and could therefore repeat while looking at the image, while the votary probably did not memorize the text of the Seven Sorrows, and would have to toggle between the cognitive fields of reading and seeing.
* * *
The Masters of the Dark Eyes formed a loose group of anonymous illuminators who worked in a similar style. The discussion above suggests that they must have collaborated with a group of scribes. Their very large output in the decades around 1500 provides some indication of the size of the group of scribes and illuminators. They created books of hours and prayerbooks from scratch, and this at a time when copying texts was increasingly separated from making images. This is not to say that individual masters worked both as scribes and illuminators, but rather that the group included scribes as well as illuminators. They must have also offered a service to update existing prayerbooks. In this they may have been copying a business model from two convents in Delft, the Augustinian convent of St. Agnes, and later the Franciscan convent of St. Ursula, which moved in across the street. Just as both conventual and secular (professional) workshops made books of hours for the growing literate market, they also repaired and updated manuscripts.
The Southern Netherlands and Northern France also had advanced book-making cultures in the fifteenth century, but they were dominated by secular professionals rather than by female monastics. They not only produced books, but also performed extensive upgrades. The owners of BKB, Ms. 19588, and ’s-Heerenberg, HB, Ms. 2, treated existing components as building blocks for a new book.
One can imagine that updating older manuscripts was lucrative and in demand, as patrons could modify an heirloom with all the new devotions they desired. Bookmakers such as the Masters of the Dark Eyes and the convent sisters of St. Ursula in Delft apparently supplied modular units. It is not clear whether they worked with certain binders, as an insufficient number of original (or second) bindings has survived to ascertain this. They were more than happy to comply with the desires of patrons, who wanted the newest prayers imported from the south, the prayers with the largest indulgences, prayers that were image-centered, and plenty of images. They wanted, in short, to be fashionable, free of pain in the afterlife, and surrounded by color and gold. Their motivations were multifold, and I provide an overview of them in the next and final part.
1 These parts could be termed booklets. See Robinson, “The ‘Booklet:’ A Self-Contained Unit in Composite Manuscripts,” pp. 46–67. For the manuscript, see Jean Baptist Gessler, Jezus’ Lijden en Zijdewonde in Woord en Beeld Verheerlijkt: Een Folkloristische Bijdrage tot de Kennis van de Godsvrucht Onzer Voorouders (Leuven: Sint-Alfonsusdrukkerij, 1939), esp. pp. 13–22.
2 For a description, see Maria Meertens, De Godsvrucht in de Nederlanden. Naar Handschriften van Gebedenboeken der xve Eeuw, 6 vols. ([n.p.]: Standaard Boekhandel, 1930–1934), vol. VI, no. 24.
3 Johan Oosterman, “Om de Grote Kracht der Woorden: Middelnederlandse Gebeden en Rubrieken in het Brugge van de Vroege Vijftiende Eeuw,” in Boeken voor de Eeuwigheid: Middelnederlands Geestelijk Proza, ed. Th Mertens, Nederlandse Literatuur en Cultuur in de Middeleeuwen (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1993), pp. 230–44, 437–44, esp. p. 440, no. 28; Johan Oosterman, De Gratie van het Gebed: Middelnederlandse Gebeden, Overlevering en Functie: met Bijzondere Aandacht voor Produktie en Receptie in Brugge (1380–1450), 2 vols, Nederlandse Literatuur en Cultuur in de Middeleeuwen 12 (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1995), vol. II, no. 2, 10, 29, 45, 66, 74, 77, 80, 93, 102, 110, 126, 137, 143, 148, 154, 175, 176, 190, 194, 202, 208, 209, 219, 244, 264, 269, 272, 273, 277, 289, 294, 339, 341, 359, 374; and Werner Verbeke, “‘O Soete Cruce...’ Een Berijmd Gebed in Handschrift Brussel, K. B, 19588,” in Serta Devota in Memoriam Guillelmi Lourdaux II: Devotio Windesheimensis, ed. Werner Verbeke, et al., Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series I / Studia xxi (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1995), pp. 297–313, have discussed some of the unique rhyming texts in this manuscript.
4 I owe this observation to Johan Oosterman. For the Gruuthuse manuscript (HKB, Ms. 79 K 10), see https://www.kb.nl/themas/middeleeuwen/het-gruuthusehandschrift
5 Friedrich Winkler, Die Flämische Buchmalerei des XV. und XVI. Jahrhunderts; Künstler und Werke von den Brüdern van Eyck bis zu Simon Bening (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1925), pp. 25–27 coined the name, the “Master of the Gold Scrolls” to describe a style of painting executed from ca. 1415–1460, probably in Bruges. The large size of the oeuvre quickly made it clear that multiple hands, rather than a single master, were painting miniatures in a similar style. For further studies about this group of artists, see Cardon, “The Illustrations and the Gold Scrolls Workshop;” Dogaer, Flemish Miniature Painting in the 15th and 16th Centuries, pp. 27–31; Bernard Bousmanne, Thierry Delcourt, and Ilona Hans-Collas, Miniatures Flamandes, 1404–1482 (Paris; Brussels: Bibliothèque nationale de France; Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, 2011), pp. 140–42.
6 For an overview of workshop practices in the Southern Netherlands in this period, consult van Bergen, De Meesters van Otto van Moerdrecht.
7 Oosterman, De Gratie van het Gebed, p. 12.
8 Cf Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.239, fol. 13v, a Crucifixion, which has letters L and A repeated among a wall of wounds on the painted backdrop; these same letters appear on fol. 59v. On this manuscript, see Farquhar, “Manuscript Production and Evidence for Localizing and Dating Fifteenth-Century Books of Hours: Walters Ms. 239,” pp. 44–88.
9 I thank Thomas Lentes for bringing this manuscript to my attention and for sharing his thoughts about it. See also: Werner, Cimelia Heidelbergensia: 30 illuminierte Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, cat. 13, pp. 48–50; Maurus Berve, Die Armenbibel: Herkunft, Gestalt, Typologie; Dargestellt Anhand von Miniaturen aus der Handschrift Cpg 148 D. Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Kult und Kunst (Beuron: Beuroner Kunstverlag, 1989); Siegfried Hofmann, Der Ingolstädter Psalter: ein deutscher Psalter des Spätmittelalters aus der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, 1. Aufl. ed. (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2010); for an introductory study of the Biblia pauperum, based on a different manuscript, see Avril Henry, Biblia Pauperum: A Facsimile and Edition (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1987).
10 Biblia pauperum and psalter, interleaved. Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Pal. germ. 148, fol. 16v-17r. http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg148
11 Korteweg, Catalogue of Medieval Manuscripts and Incunabula at Huis Bergh Castle in ’s-Heerenberg, cat. 49, pp. 98–100.
12 Opening in a book of hours at the incipit of the Hours of the Holy Spirit, with penwork from North Holland. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawlinson Liturgical e.9*, fol. 43r.
13 Folio in a book of hours that falls at the end of a module, which was filled by the original scribe in North Holland for prayers to one’s personal angel and to St. Sebastian. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawlinson Liturgical e.9*, fol. 70r.
14 These unusual prayers are nearly identical to those inscribed in BKB, Ms. IV 312, fol. 97v-98v.
15 Opening in a book of hours with the last 6 lines of the Hours of the Holy Spirit written by scribe from North Holland, and the rest of fol. 51v and 52r ruled and written by scribe from Delft, to fill the quire. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawlinson Liturgical e.9*, fol. 51v-52r.
16 Until a fuller study of manuscripts from this convent appears, consult: Kathryn Rudy, “De Productie van Manuscripten in het Sint-Ursulaklooster te Delft,” Delf: Cultuurhistorisch magazine voor Delft 12, no. 2 (2010), pp. 24–27.
17 Folio in a book of hours inscribed by a Delft scribe, with typical red and blue penwork from Delft. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawlinson Liturgical e.9*, fol. 53v.
18 Folio in a book of hours with Delft decoration and a catchword, which is a codicological feature associated with manuscripts from the convent of St. Ursula in Delft. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Ms. 135 E 18, fol. 107v. http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_135e18%3A107v
19 Opening with a catchword in a book of hours whose core was made in North Holland before extensive additions were made in Delft. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawlinson Liturgical e.9*, fol. 59v-60r.
20 The inside back cover and the last folio of a book of hours (formerly a paste-down), which may have been waste material from the St. Ursula scriptorium in Delft. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Rawlinson Liturgical e.9*, fol. 124v and inside back cover.
21 Added miniatures and border decoration like these are closely related to painting in Berlin, SBB-PK, Germ. qu. 18, a book of hours in which the miniatures are integral, rather than being tipped in.
22 The artists who work in this style have been called the Masters of Hugo Jansz. van Woerden. Related examples of this style appear in approximately 30 other manuscripts. For an overview of the style, see Defoer et al., The Golden Age of Dutch Manuscript Painting, pp. 287, 297.
23 HKB, Ms. 132 G 38, fol. 72v-73v: rub: Dit ghebet sel een mensche alle dage driewerven lesen mit ynnicheit sijns herten. Ende hi sel des seker we[73]sen dat hi nymmermeer verdoemt en sel worden. Ende hoe een mensch dit dicker leest, hoe hi meer loons sel van onsen heer verdienen ende sonderlinge in sinen lesten eynde, ende en vermach hi des niet self te lesen, soe sel hi dat dencken, of een ander mensche selt enen anderen bidden, dat hi dat lesen wil voor hem in des dootsnoot. Gebet. inc: O, heer, du hebste mit dijnre heiliger bloetstortinge ontbonden die banden mijnre sonden.
24 HKB, Ms. 132 G 38, fol. 84r-85v, 5 Verses of Saint Gregory (in original hand from South Holland), augmented with 4 more verses (in hand from Delft), rub: Soe wie op sinen knien dit gebet leest buten doit sonden, die verdient xxm jaer ende xiiii dage oflaets voir dese figuer van Calixtus. inc: O, heer Jhesu Christe, ic aenbede di inden cruce…. [85v] rub: So wie mit berou des herten spreect voort wapen ons heren ix Pater nosteren ende ix Ave Marien, die verdient xciim jaer xxiiii jaer ende lxxx dagen oflaets. Waerachtich.
25 Kathryn M. Rudy, “Margins and Memory: The Functions of Border Imagery from a Delft Manuscript,” in Manuscript Studies in the Low Countries. Proceedings of the ‘Groninger Codicologendagen’ in Friesland 2002 (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 2008), pp. 216–38.
26 Fol. 139 (the added, final folio) has only 18 lines, whereas the rest of KB 132 G 38 has 19 lines, suggesting that this final folio was taken from another manuscript.
27 For the texts and localization of this manuscript, see the BNM (http://www.bibliotheek.leidenuniv.nl/bijzondere-collecties/handschriftenarchievenbrieven/bnm.html#database).
28 The notes of ownership, written on the last flyleaf, read: “Diet bock hoert toe Diewer Goes. Diet vint die brnttet weder ter recten hant,” and: “Dit bock hoort toe IJosina van Sijdenburch aensien doet ghedencken sijt gheduerich ijn liefden vierich.” For a full description, see Asperen, Pelgrimstekens op Perkament, cat. 46, pp. 327–28.
29 See Nine Robijntje Miedema, Die ‘Mirabilia Romae:’ Untersuchungen zu ihrer Überlieferung mit Edition der Deutschen und Niederländischen Texte, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur Deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1996).
30 There was also a convent dedicated to St. Anne in Delft; this convent was Augustinian after 1468, and the manuscripts associated with this house are usually in Latin and quite distinct in terms of parchment type, layout, script, and decoration. It is unlikely that the three manuscripts presented here with the “Privileges of St. Anne” originated from that convent.
31 This manuscript does not appear in MMDC or on the website of the KB. The dealer Heribert Tenschert sold the manuscript in 1990 to the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (Amsterdam), where it had the signature BPH 148. In 2010 most of the manuscripts from this collection, including BPH 148, were transferred to the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. For a manuscript description, consult H. Tenschert and E. König, Leuchtendes Mittelalter III: Das Goldene Zeitalter der Burgundischen Buchmalerei 1430–1560, Sammlung Carlo de Poortere U.A, Katalog / Antiquariat Heribert Tenschert (Rotthalmünster: Heribert Tenschert, 1991), no. 27, pp. 311–25. Miranda Bloem, De Meesters van Zweder van Culemborg: Werkplaatspraktijken van een Groep Noord-Nederlandse Verluchters, ca. 1415–1440 (PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2015), pp. 361–69 and passim, places the manuscript in the corpus of the Zweder Masters.
32 Charlotte Lacaze, “A Little-Known Manuscript from the Workshop of Master Pancraz,” in Masters and Miniatures: Proceedings of the Congress on Medieval Manuscript Illumination in the Northern Netherlands (Utrecht, 10–13 December 1989), edited by K. van der Horst and Johann-Christian Klamt (Doornspijk: Davaco, 1991), pp. 255–63, treats the manuscript in an article-length study, but I question several of her conclusions.
33 Helen Wüstefeld and A. S. Korteweg, Sleutel tot licht: Getijdenboeken in de Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 2009), cat. 7, pp. 110–11 (written by Korteweg).
34 According to Hermann Grotefend, Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung des Deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1960) [hereafter: GTZ], saints in BPH 148 that do not appear in calendars for Utrecht include: Macharius, whose relics were in Ghent (9 May); Quiricus and Julitta, martyrs (16 June) [GTZ: Paris]; Vincent, confessor (14 July) [GTZ: Cambrai]; Christopher, martyr (24 July) [Paris, Bruges, but usually on 27 July]; Timothy and Apollinaris martyrs (23 August) [Paris, Bruges]; Genesius, martyr (25 August) [Paris]; Bertin, abbot, confessor (5 September) [GTZ: northern France]; Theodard, bishop (of Maastricht), martyr (10 September) [GTZ: Liège]; Gengulf, martyr (10 December) [GTZ: Tournai]; Caprasius, martyr (20 October) [GTZ: Trier, Liège, France]; Rumoldus, bishop, martyr (27 October) [GTZ: Liège].
35 Defoer et al., The Golden Age of Dutch Manuscript Painting, pp. 12, 98, 104, 106, 109; Miranda Bloem, De Meesters van Zweder van Culemborg, pp. 321–29 and passim. Bloem identifies the hand of the artist in BPH 148 as the Bressanone master, who was active in Utrecht.
36 For a discussion of another manuscript containing painting from both Bruges and Utrecht (HKB, Ms. 77 L 45), see Rudy, Postcards on Parchment, pp. 29–33. Van Bergen, De Meesters van Otto van Moerdrecht, discusses at greater length manuscript illuminators who moved from Utrecht to Bruges, where labor conditions in the book industry were more favorable in the mid-fifteenth century.
37 Opening in a book of hours, with a full-page miniature depicting the Deposition from the Cross opposite a text page with sorrowing angels, painted by the Masters of Zweder van Culemborg. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Ms. 79 K 2, pp. 170–171, http://manuscripts.kb.nl/show/images/79+K+2
38 For the convent of St. Agnes and illumination in Delft, see Defoer et al., The Golden Age of Dutch Manuscript Painting, pp. 185–97.
39 Until a more complete study is written, consult C. W. de Kruyter, “The Emblematic Character of the Border Ornaments in Delft Codices,” Quaerendo 3 (1973), pp. 211–16.
40 As-Vijvers, Beeldschone Boeken: De Middeleeuwen in Goud en Inkt, pp. 36–39.
41 The manuscript was in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam (Ms. 151) until 2011, when most of the manuscripts from that collection were deposited at the National Library (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) in The Hague.
42 Broekhuijsen, The Masters of the Dark Eyes: Late Medieval Manuscript Painting in Holland.
43 The Masters of the Dark Eyes also added sections to Liège, UB, Wittert 34 (discussed below); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 381; Dublin, Trinity College, Ms. 81, fol. 186 (the Fagel Missal, with an added Mass for St. Anne, discussed above); Rome, Bibliotheca Casanatense, Ms. 4216, fol. 221; London, British Library, Harley Ms. 2887, fol. 3 (a Salvator Mundi added into an older book of hours); and London, British Library, Harley Ms. 1892 (with several interventions by the Masters of the Dark Eyes). These are listed in Ibid., p. 271 and point to a larger pattern in which these masters were hired to augment existing books. These artists and the copyists with whom they worked therefore made adjustments to far more manuscripts than I can treat here.
44 It should be noted, however, that the boundary between “monastic” and “professional” production may be a permeable one, considering that the convent of St. Ursula, for example, may have also taken private commissions to create new manuscripts and update old ones, and secular urban illuminators may have supplied illuminations for manuscripts inscribed in monastic ateliers. At the very least, more research is needed to explore the relationships between monastic and non-monastic manuscript ateliers in the fifteenth century.
45 In fact, the original parts of The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Ms. BPH 151 are very close to those in Liège, UB, Ms. Wittert 34. Both manuscripts have historiated initials and border decoration in the same style. BPH 151 would have looked very much like Wittert 34 before it received its augmentations.
46 BPH 151, fol. 65–67v: rub: Dese bedinge salmen lesen voer een beelt des crucifix. Ende so wiese mit devocien leest, verdient also veel daghen af[65v]laets als Cristus menighe wonde had in sinen lichaem in sijnre passien. Welcken aflaet heeft ghegeven die paus Gregorius die derde uut beden eenre koninginne van Ingelant. inc: Ic bidde di alre beminste here Jhesu Criste om der over groter liefden wil daer ghi dat menschelike… 68v-70v: rub: Die dit navolgende gebet leest verdient cm jaer aflaets ende xc karenen. Daer toe seit sint Jan Guldemont, so wie dat dagelix leest, en sal niet sterven ongebiecht noch sonder dat heilige sacrament. inc: In die tegenwoordicheit dijns heiligen lichaems ende dijns heiligen dierbaren bloets…
47 BPH 151, fol. 94v-95v: Indulgenced prayer, rub: Die dit navolgende gebet lesen mit berou van sijn sonden, die verdient [95r] lxxxm jaeren aflaets. inc: O here Jhesu Criste levende gods soen…
48 This booklet was formerly glued into the book between fol. 95 and fol. 104 (which is how I found it in 2009). It was apparently removed for the BPH exhibition of 2009–2010 so that it could be displayed separately, and it is now tucked into the book loosely.