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Add MS 48985

Record Id:
032-001958777
Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
032-001958777
MDARK:
ark:/81055/vdc_100000000035.0x0003dc
LARK:
SLARK:
Format:
ISAD(G)
Reference (shelfmark):
Add MS 48985
Title:

Book of Hours, Use of Sarum ('The Salvin Hours')

Scope & Content:

This manuscript was created in England in approximately 1270 (perhaps in the diocese of Lincoln) and is notable for its elaborate decoration and size, which is unusually large for the era.

Contents:

ff. 1v-45v: Hours of the Virgin;

ff. 46v-92r: Hours of the Holy Spirit;

ff. 93r-128v: Hours of the Trinity.

Decoration:

2 full-page historiated initials with foliate, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic decoration in colours and gold (ff. 1v, 46v). 17 large historiated initials (approximately 9 lines tall) in colours and gold (ff. 29r, 32v, 35r, 37r, 40r, 43v, 66v, 74r, 77v, 80v, 84r, 88v, 95v, 99r, 111r, 117v, 124v). 3 medium historiated initials (6 lines tall) with foliate, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic decoration in colours and gold (ff. 2r, 7r, 10v). 3 small historiated initials (4 lines tall) with foliate, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic decoration in colours and gold (ff. 2r, 10v, 29r). Partial borders with foliate, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic decoration in colours and gold throughout. Line fillers in colours and gold throughout. Numerous marginal decorations (some of which has been erased) throughout. Notes for the illuminator and rubricator.

The subjects of the full-page initials are:

f. 1v: Initial 'D' preceding the start of the Hours of the Virgin, decorated with the Tree of Jesse, which grows from the groin of the sleeping Jesse. The ancestors of Christ are represented in the vertical axis, made up of vesica-shaped openings in the tree's branches, and to either side ten prophets holding books gaze at the central figures. The prophets are flanked by small narrative scenes illustrating the Nativity.

f. 46v: An inserted leaf with an initial 'D' preceding the start of the Hours of the Holy Spirit, divided into four parts showing the Disciples in scenes after the Resurrection: Mary Magdalene and Christ ('Noli me tangere'), doubting Thomas, the Ascension with the Virgin flanked by Sts Peter and John, and Pentecost.

The subjects of the historiated initials are:

f. 2r: Medium initial: the Betrayal; small initial: a priest whipping a penitent;

f. 7r: Christ before Annas;

f. 10v: Three clerics singing, with a female bell-ringer attached to the initial;

f. 29r: Large initial: Christ before Caiaphas; small initial: Pentecost;

f. 32v: Christ before Pilate, with Pilate washing his hands in the margin;

f. 35r: Peter's Denial and the Mocking of Christ, with Peter weeping in the margin;

f. 37r: The Flagellation;

f. 40r: The Crucifixion, including the nailing to the Cross, the giving of the Sponge and the spearing of Christ's side;

f. 43v: The Resurrection;

f. 54r: The Martyrdom of St Andrew;

f. 66v: The Martyrdom of St Paul;

f. 74r: St John drinking from the poisoned cup before the Emperor;

f. 77v: The Martyrdom of St John the Baptist;

f. 80v: The Martyrdom of St Bartholomew;

f. 84r: St James with Hermogenes and Philetus (?);

f. 88v: The Martyrdom of St Laurence;

f. 95v: The Martyrdom of St Edmund;

f. 99r: The Martyrdom of St Thomas Becket;

f. 111r: St Nicholas giving a purse to the three daughters of the poor man;

f. 117v: The Martyrdom of St Catherine;

f. 124v: The Martyrdom of St Margaret.

The illuminations were done by two different artists: Artist 1, who demonstrates characteristics of the de Brailes workshop, is responsible for the images to up to folio 29, and Artist 2, who exhibits the influence of the Bible of William of Devon group, is responsible for the remaining decoration (Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts (1988), n. 158).

Collection Area:
Western Manuscripts
Project / Collection:
Additional Manuscripts
Hierarchy Tree:
[{ "id" : "032-001958777", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 48985: Book of Hours, Use of Sarum ('The Salvin Hours')" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
Hierarchy Record Ids:
032-001958777
Is part of:
not applicable
Hierarchy:
032-001958777
Container:
not applicable
Record Type (Level):
Fonds
Extent:

A parchment codex

Digitised Content:
Languages:
French
Latin
Scripts:
Latin
Start Date:
1265
End Date:
1275
Date Range:
c 1270
Era:
CE
Access:
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Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment codex.

Dimensions: 325 x 220mm (text space: 210 x 150mm).

Foliation: ff. 128 + iii-v (+ 1 unfoliated modern paper flyleaf at the end); ff. iii-v are foliated modern paper flyleaves, of which ff. iii-iv occur at the beginning and v at the end; there are 40 unfoliated blank parchment leaves at the end of the manuscript; ff. 111-116 were removed from their original position and rebound following f. 128 in this order: ff. 113-14, then ff. 111-112, and the written section concludes with ff. 115-116.

Script: Gothic.

Binding: Post-1600. Late 17th-century dark blue morocco with gold tooling; marbled endpapers.

Custodial History:

Origin: England, N. (Lincoln?).

Provenance:

Inscribed, early 15th century: 'Iste liber pertinett (?) Gregoreus W.'? (f. 1r).

Jarrard Salvin of Croxdale, County Durham (17th century): note of ownership in his hand, stating the manuscript was in his possession by 1685: 'This book was y'gift of my uncle Nicholas Salvin 1685 [signed] Jarrard Salvin' (f. iv r).

William Thomas Salvin (d. 1842) of Croxdale, County Durham: his armorial bookplate (f. iv r).

Henry Yates Thompson (b. 1838, d. 1928), collector of illuminated manuscripts and newspaper proprietor: inscription of purchase (inside upper cover) from the Misses Salvin through Bickers & Son, 12 July 1904, numbered MS LXXX in his collection; a pencilled note in his hand (f. v r); his sale, Sotheby's [London], 23 March 1920, lot 35, purchased by Beatty.

Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (b. 1875, d. 1968), mining engineer and art collector: purchased from Yates Thompson; numbered MS W. 60 (f. iii v); given by him to the British Museum in 1955.

Publications:

M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of Twenty Illuminated Manuscripts in the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson (Cambridge: 1907), pp. 39-44.

Illustrations from one hundred Manuscripts in the library of H. Y. Thompson [Sixth series]: Consisting of ninety plates illustrating seventeen MSS. with dates ranging from the XIIIth to the XVIth century (London: Chiswick Press, 1916), pp. 15-16, pls. xxiv-xxviii.

Eric G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth century (Paris and Brussels: Van Oest, 1926), pp. 64-65, pls. 97 and 98.

Sidney Cockerell, The Work of W. de Brailes (London: Roxburghe Club, 1930), p. 6.

Eric G. Millar, The Library of A. Chester Beatty: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930), II, pp. 70-75, pls. cxxiii-cxxvi and frontispiece.

T. J. Brown, 'The Salvin Horae', British Museum Quarterly, XXI (1957-1959), 8-12, pl. i.

Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages (Baltimore and London: Penguin, 1954; 2nd edition, 1965), pp. 237-38.

Derek Turner, Early Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts (London: British Museum Press, 1965), pp. 29-30, pl. 15.

The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1951-1955 (London: The British Library, 1982), no. 48985.

Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1982-1988), II: 1250-1285, no. 158 [with additional bibliography].

Claire Donovan, 'The Mise-en-Page of Early Books of Hours in England' in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. by Linda L. Brownrigg, Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1988 (Los Altos Hills, California: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), pp. 147-61 (p. 150, fig. 3).

Claire Donovan, The de Brailes Hours: Shaping the Book of Hours in Thirteenth-Century Oxford (London, British Library, 1991), pp.188-89, p. 205 no. 42.

Nigel Morgan, ‘The Decorative Ornament of the Text and Page in Thirteenth Century England: Initials, Border Extensions, and Line Fillers’, in Decoration and Illustration in Medieval English Manuscripts, ed. by A. S. G. Edwards, English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700, 10 (London: British Library, 2002), 1-33 (pp. 6, 27-28, pl. 7).

Michael Kauffmann, Biblical Imagery in Medieval England 700-1500, Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History, 34 (London: Harvey Miller, 2003), pp. 162-63, fig. 117.

Debra Higgs Strickland, Saracens, Demons, & Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 109-11, fig. 43.

Anthony Bale, Feeling Persecuted: Christians, Jews and Images of Violence in the Middle Ages (London: Reaktion Books, 2010), pp. 70-75.

Material Type:
Archives and Manuscripts
Legal Status:
Not Public Record(s)
Names:
Beatty, Alfred Chester, Knight, mining engineer and art collector, 1875-1968 (Former owner)
Salvin, William Thomas, of Croxdale, d 1842 (Former owner)
Thompson, Henry Yates, manuscript collector, 1838-1928 (Former owner)
Related Material:

From The British Library Catalogue of Additions (1982), no. 48985:

'SALVIN HOURS. Hours of Sarum use, in Latin with occasional rubrics in French, written and illuminated in England, probably in the diocese of Lincoln, possibly at Oxford; circ. 1275-1280.

A detailed description of the manuscript, by M. R. James, is printed in A Descriptive Catalogue of Twenty Illuminated Manuscripts in the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson , 1907, pp. 39-44, and, with some additions, in E. G. Millar, The Library of A. Chester Beatty: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts , ii, 1930, pp. 70-75, pls. cxxiii-cxxvi and frontispiece. See also Illustrations from One Hundred Manuscripts in the Library of Henry Yates Thompson , iv, 1914, pp. 15-16, pls. xxiv-xxviii; E. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth century , 1926, pp. 64, 65, pls. 97, 98; S. C. Cockerell, The Work of W. de Brailes , Roxburghe Club, 1930, p. 6; P. Brieger, English Art 1207-1316 , 1957, pp. 221-222, pls. 82a, 87; T. J. Brown, 'The Salvin Horae', Brit. Mus. Quart. , xxi, 1957-1959, pp. 8-12, pi. i; M. J. Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages , 2nd ed., 1965, pp. 237-238; Reproductions from Illuminated MSS. , Series V, 1965, no. xiv; D. H. Turner, Early Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts , 1965, pp. 29-30, pi. 15.

Exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts , 1908, no. 46, pl. 43; in the Victoria and Albert Museum, English Mediaeval Art. 1930, no. 182; and in the British Museum, Illuminated Manuscripts Exhibited in the Grenville Library , 1967, no. 15.

Independent Books of Hours for English use are very rare at so early a date; for a handlist of those dating from before circ. 1350 see Janet Backhouse, The Madresfield Hours , Roxburghe Club, 1975, pp. 30-33.

Contents:- (1) Hours of the Virgin (Sarum use). Slightly defective at the end of Compline. The memorials of the saints in Lauds (ff. 13-28), given in full by M. R. James, op. cit. , 1907, p. 40, and Millar, The Library of A. Chester Beatty , 1930, p. 71, include the following English names: Thomas [Becket] of Canterbury, Eadmund [Rich, d. 1240, canonized 1246], Eadmund King and Martyr, Robert [Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, d. 1253, see Brown, op. cit. , p. 10], Richard [of Chichester, d. 1253, canonized 1262], Cuthburga, Edtheldrida ( sic ) and Edith. ff. 1b-45b.

(2) Hours of the Holy Ghost. A leaf of text is missing between ff. 52 and 54 (a stub remains). ff. 46b-92.

(3) Hours of the Trinity. The opening words are missing from f. 92b, together with the illuminated initial which originally introduced the office (see below), and a leaf is missing between ff. 92 and 93 (a stub remains). Ends imperfectly. ff. 92b-128b.

Vellum (ff. i-v paper); ff. v+128. Forty leaves of blank vellum have been added to make up the thickness of the book. 322 mm. × 217 mm. Circ. 1275- 1280. Regular gatherings of ten leaves except v 12 (7 cancelled, 8 missing), vi 10 (4 missing), x 10 (4 missing). The last two gatherings are bound out of order. After f. 108 four leaves of the twelfth gathering, ff. 109, 110, 117 and 118, are followed by the thirteenth gathering (ff. 119-128) in its entirety, and then by ff. 113, 114, 111, 112, 115 and 116. Ruled and written twenty-two lines to the page, in single columns. Sec. fol.: 'mater munere'. Occasional quire marks, instructions to the rubricator etc. in plummet.

The decoration consists of full-page and large historiated initials, smaller historiated and decorative initials, partial borders and line-fillers. All are executed in gold and colours. Two full-page historiated initials remain, preceding main sections of the text, and there is evidence of the existence of a third, viz.:- (1) Hours of the Virgin. Initial D filled with a composition representing the tree of Jesse. Jesse lies at the bottom of the initial, the tree springing from his body and containing figures of David, two kings, the Virgin and Christ in five medallions. These are flanked by ten Apostles with books. The composition is surrounded by eight scenes of Christ's Infancy (bottom left to bottom right), viz.:-(a) Joseph and Mary with a group of seven men;-(b) the Annunciation;-(c) the Nativity;-(d) the Angel and the Shepherds;- (e) the Adoration of the Magi;-(f) the Magi in bed;-(g) the Presentation;-(h) the Flight into Egypt. f. lb. (2) Hours of the Holy Ghost. Initial D containing four scenes, viz.:-(a) the Ascension, top;-(b) Pentecost, bottom;-(c) Noli me tangere, left;-(d) the Incredulity of Thomas, right. This initial seems to be the work of a less polished hand than the preceding one. The leaf on which it is painted has been inserted, as a substitute leaf 6, into the centre of an otherwise regular gathering of ten. It is followed by two stubs, with the first of which it is conjoint. The second stub represents the original leaf 6 of the gathering, which has been excised. This original leaf presumably carried the last lines of Compline from the Hours of the Virgin, now missing. It was no doubt intended that the missing lines should be transcribed onto the blank recto of the substitute leaf, but this was never done. f. 46b. (3) Hours of the Trinity. The faint off-set of an initial D is visible. This was apparently painted on a very fine sheet of vellum and pasted onto the leaf. The subject is indecipherable but seems to have included a number of small medallions within a foliated scroll structure. f. 92b.

Smaller historiated initials introduced individual hours in all three offices and also some important parts of their texts, viz.:- (1) Matins of the Virgin. The Betrayal. f. 2. (2) Venite. A scene of penance. f. 2. (3) Lauds. Christ before Herod(?). f. 7. (4) Cantate, Three clerks singing at a desk. To their left a woman pulling the ropes of two bells in a tower. f. 10b. (5) Prime. Christ before Caiaphas. f. 29. (6) Veni creator. Pentecost. f. 29. (7) Tierce. Christ before Pilate; in the left-hand margin Pilate washing his hands. f. 32b. (8) Sext. Christ mocked. On the left Peter's denial. In the left-hand margin Peter weeps and, above him, the cock crows, f. 35. (9) None. The flagellation of Christ. f. 37b. (10) Vespers. The Crucifixion, with Longinus and Stephaton. Three figures nail Christ to the cross. f. 40. (11) Compline. The Resurrection. f. 43b. (12) Matins of the Holy Ghost. Martyrdom of St Andrew,. f. 54. (13) Prime. Martyrdom of St Paul, f. 66b. (14) Tierce. St John the Evangelist drinking poison. f. 74. (15) Sext. The Decollation of St John the Baptist. f. 77b. (16) None (mistitled Tierce). Martyrdom of St Bartholomew. f. 80b. (17) Vespers. St James the Great as a pilgrim. f. 84. (18) Compline. Martyrdom of St Lawrence. f. 88b. (19) Compline of the Trinity. Martyrdom of St Edmund. f. 95b. (20) Matins. Martyrdom of St Thomas Becket. f. 99. (21) Lauds. St Nicholas dowering the three poor maidens. f. 111. (22) Prime. Martyrdom of St Katharine. f. 117b. (23) Tierce. St Margaret and the dragon. f. 124b.

The MS. also contains some 293 purely decorative initials. The larger initials are sometimes extended into partial borders. Particularly noteworthy amongst the marginal decoration is a peacock with a gold and silver tail, f. 2. Line-fillers are mostly decorative patterns in lines of red, blue and gold, but on ff. 58b, 59 we find animals and grotesques, perhaps by another hand.

Late 17th-cent. binding of dark blue morocco, tooled in gold. An early ownership inscription on f. 1, partially erased, reads 'Iste liber pertinett (?) Gregoreus W ... et' in a hand of circ. 1500. On the flyleaf is written 'This book was y'gift of my uncle Nicholas Salvin 1685 [signed] Jarrard Salvin', f. iv. Armorial bookplate of William Thomas Salvin, Esq., of Croxdale, d. 1842, f. ii. Purchased by Henry Yates Thompson, 12 July 1904, from the Misses Salvin through Bickers and Son, and numbered MS. LXXX in his collection. His bookplate, with a note recording the number and the transaction, f. i. A pencilled note in his hand, f. v. Purchased by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty through Quaritch at the Yates Thompson sale, Sotheby's sale-cat., 23 Mar. 1920, lot 35. Chester Beatty MS. W. 60 (numbered on f. iiib). Presented by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, F.S.A., Hon. LL.D., Hon. D. Sc.'

Liturgies LATIN: The Salvin Hours, written in England: circ. 1275-1280.

Bindings ENGLISH: Blue morocco, gold-tooled: late 17th cent.

Art. Illuminations and Drawings ENGLISH: The Salvin Hours: historiated and decorated initials, etc.: circ. 1275-1280.

includes:

  • f. i Henry Yates Thompson, manuscript collector: Bookplate: 1904.
  • f. i Bookplates and Book-stamps: Thompson (Henry Yates): 1904.
  • f. ii William Thomas Salvin, d 1842 of Croxdale: Armorial bookplate: early 19th cent.
  • f. ii Heraldry: Armorial bookplate of W. T. Salvin d.1842.
  • f. ii Bookplates and Book-stamps: Salvin (William Thomas): early 19th cent.
  • f. v Henry Yates Thompson, manuscript collector: Note by: n.d.