Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??
Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...
Add MS 36684
- Record Id:
- 032-002055160
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002055160
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000039.0x000092
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 36684
- Title:
-
Book of Hours, use of St Omer
- Scope & Content:
-
This Book of Hours was produced in either Saint-Omer or Thérouanne between approximately 1318-1325, and is distinctive for its unusual marginal decoration. The date of 1318 is given in a colophon on f. 78r, and the manuscript was likely produced for a woman of Saint-Omer named Marguerite (Stones, Gothic Manuscripts (2013), no. III-130). The second part of this manuscript is New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M 754 (contents: Book of Hours fragment (ff. 1r-114r); life of St. Margaret (ff. 114r-132v)). This part was published by Mme Théophile Belin in a partial facsimile edition of 1926, entitled Les Heures de Marguerite de Beaujeu, but this identification of the patron has subsequently been rejected.
Contents:
ff. 1v-13v: Calendar.
ff. 14r-59v: Hours of the Virgin (imperfect), with 4 folios missing, probably with the miniatures for Matins (after f.13), Lauds (after f. 30) and None and Vespers (2 folios after f. 50).
ff. 60r-75v: The seven Penitential Psalms and Litany.
ff. 75v-82v: Hymns and prayers, some with rubrics in French, including a Prayer of Pope John XXIII, dated 1318 (one leaf missing at the end).
ff. 83r-124v: Office of the Dead.
ff. 125r-155v: Prayers and Psalms, beginning with a Commendation of the soul to the angels, incipit 'Sancti dei occurrite angeli domini'.
Decoration:
24 bas-de page calendar miniatures in colours with gold (ff. 1v-13r). 10 historiated initials on blue and rose grounds in gold frames with borders (ff. 39r, 43v, 46v, 49r, 56r, 60r, 77v, 78v, 83r, 125r). One framed miniature in colours with gold (f. 155r). Full or partial bar borders on every page (except ff. 79-81), with hybrid creatures, animals and human figures. Numerous inhabited or zoomorphic initials in colours with gold. Initials in gold on blue and rose grounds with decoration. Line-fillers in gold, blue and rose with penwork decoration in white.
The subjects of the historiated initials are:
f. 39r: The Nativity;
f. 43v: The Shepherds;
f. 46v: The Adoration of the Magi;
f. 49r: The Presentation in the Temple;
f. 56r: The Flight to Egypt;
f. 60r: The Harrowing of Hell;
f. 77v: Figure with a halo;
f. 78v: The Virgin and Child;
f. 83r: Two robed figures before a coffin, one with a book;
f. 125r: Three monks singing before a coffin.
Perhaps from the workshop responsible for the Sellers Hours (Dallas, Southern Methodist University, Bridwell Library MS 13), produced in St Omer c. 1325 (see McQuillen, 'Thomas of Lancaster (2004), p. 5) or the workshop that produced Additional MSS 10292-10294, a copy of the French Prose Lancelot dated 1316 (Stones, Gothic Manuscripts (2013), no. III-130).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002055160", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 36684: Book of Hours, use of St Omer" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002055160
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002055160
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex.
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_36684 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1313
- End Date:
- 1325
- Date Range:
- c 1318-1325
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.
Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.
Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.
This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.
- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 155 x 105mm (text space: 90 x 55mm).
Foliation: ff. i + 155 (+ 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf and 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Post-1600. Brown leather with gold tooling.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: France, N. (Saint-Omer or Thérouanne).
Provenance:
The Calendar contains a dedication of the Church of St Omer ('Sancti audomari', 17th October) on f. 11 and a prayer attributed to Pope John XXIII (r.1316-1334) and dated 1318 in the rubric: 'En lan del incarnation que Ihesus soffri passion mil iii.ccc. et xviii. ans fist ceste orison pape iehans et tant de fois que on le dira ccc. iours de pardons on aura' (f. 78r). Stones has suggested the manuscript was made for a lady of Saint-Omer named Marguerite, given the Vie de Sainte Marguerite in French verse in the manuscript (now in the Morgan Library, MS M.754) (Stones, Gothic Manuscripts (2013), no. III-130).
John Ruskin (b. 1819, d. 1900), art critic and bibliophile, his bookplate, 'Ex Libris John Ruskin Brantwood' on the inside upper binding (b. 1819, d. 1900).
Bought by the British Museum from Denham and Co., London, 17 June 1902.
- Administrative Context:
- France, N. (Saint-Omer or Thérouanne).
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1900-1905 (London: British Museum, 1907), p. 190.
George Frederick Warner, Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, II (London, 1907), pl. xxi.
James S. Dearden, 'John Ruskin, the collector: with a catalogue of the illuminated and other manuscripts formerly in his collection', The Library, 5th series, 21 (1966), p. 140, no. 33.
Illuminated Manuscripts Exhibited in the Grenville Library (London, British Museum, 1967), no. 46.
Lilian M. C. Randall and others, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery, 3 vols (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989-1997), I: France, 875-1420, n. 49, 54.
Alison Stones, 'Le Ms. Troyes 1905, le recueil et les enlumineurs' in Wace, La Vie de Sainte Marguerite, ed. by Hans E. Keller (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1990), 196 n. 34, 213.
Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (London: Reaktion, 1992), p. 11-12, pl. 14.
Paula Gerson, 'Margins for Eros', Romance Languages Annual, 5 (1993), 47-53.
Alixe Bovey, Monsters and Grotesques in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002), p. 53, pl. 44.
F. O. Büttner, ‘Ce sera moy: Realitätsgehalt und Rhetoric in Darstellungen der Toten- und Vergänglichkeitsikonographie des Studengebetbuchs, in ’Als Ich Can’: Liber Amicorum in Memory of Professor Dr. Maurits Smeyers, ed. by Bert Cardon (Paris: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2002), pp. 243-315 (pl. 16).
Manfred Kern, 'Der verhunte Falke. Anmerkungen zu einer möglichen Ästhetik der spätmittelalterlichen Liebeslyrik', Neuphilologus, 86.4 (2002), 567-86, pl. 1.
Christina Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem: A Study and a Catalogue of the Manuscript Sources, Bibliotheca Victorina, 16 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), p. 122.
John T. McQuillen, 'Who was Thomas of Lancaster? New manuscript evidence', Fourteenth Century England, 4 (2004), 1-25 (pp. 5, 7-9).
Judith Steinhoff, 'Pregnant Pages: Marginalia in a Book of Hours (Pierpoint Morgan Library Ms. M.754 / British Library, Ms. Add. 36684)', in Between the Picture and the Word: Manuscript Studies from the Index of Christian Art, ed. by Colum Hourihane (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2005), pp. 180-86.
Jean Wirth, Les marges à drôleries des manuscrits gothiques (1250-1350) (Geneva: Droz, 2008), pp. 69, 132, 144, 179, 207,209, 216, 248, 278-79, 293-93, 297-98, 302, 310, 316-17, 319, 329, 349, 356.
Alison Stones, 'L'enluminure au temps du Jeanne de Constantinople et de Marguerite de Flandre', in Jeanne de Constantinople, comtesse de Flandre et de Hainault, ed. by N. Dessaux (Lille and Paris: 2009), 177-89 (p. 187).
Elizabeth Moore Hunt, 'The Naked Jongleur in the Margins: Manuscript Contexts for Social Meanings' in The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art, ed. by Sherry C. M Lindquist (Farnham : Ashgate, 2012), pp. 85-103 (pp. 90, 97 n. 8).
Derek Pearsall, Gothic Europe: 1200-1450 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), p. 162.
Kathleen Walter-Miekle, Medieval Pets (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2014), p. 58, n. 24, pl. vi, fig. 7.
Alison Stones, Gothic Manuscripts 1260-1320, Part 1, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in France (London: Harvey Miller, 2013), vol. 2, no. III-130, ills. 822-826.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)