Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Legacies of Early European Art In Australian Collections
- 2 Heaven and Earth: the Worlds of the Rothschild Prayer Book
- 3 The Rothschild Prayer Book As Political, Social and Economic Agent Through the Ages
- 4 ‘Women Who Read Are Dangerous’: Illuminated Manuscripts and Female Book Collections In the Early Renaissance
- 5 Medieval Parchment: Two Glossed Bible Books In Context
- 6 Beginnings and Endings: the Shaping of the Book of Hours
- 7 An Associate of the Jouvenel Master and the Breviary of Prior François Robert
- 8 Chrysalis to Butterfly: An Aspect of the Evolution of the Book of Hours From Manuscript to Print
- 9 The Sorbonne Press and the Chancellor’s Manuscript
- 10 Thielman Kerver’s Book of Hours of 10 September 1522 In The Kerry Stokes Collection
- 11 An Accessory of Intellect: A Renaissance Writing Casket From The Kerry Stokes Collection
- 12 ‘A Very Rich Adornment’: A Discussion of the Stokes Cassone
- 13 The Dormition of the Virgin Altarpiece From the Kerry Stokes Collection
- 14 Through the Son: Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s Crucifixion
- 15 The Kerry Stokes Schembart Book: Festivity, Fashion and Family In The Late Medieval Nuremberg Carnival
- Index
6 - Beginnings and Endings: the Shaping of the Book of Hours
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Legacies of Early European Art In Australian Collections
- 2 Heaven and Earth: the Worlds of the Rothschild Prayer Book
- 3 The Rothschild Prayer Book As Political, Social and Economic Agent Through the Ages
- 4 ‘Women Who Read Are Dangerous’: Illuminated Manuscripts and Female Book Collections In the Early Renaissance
- 5 Medieval Parchment: Two Glossed Bible Books In Context
- 6 Beginnings and Endings: the Shaping of the Book of Hours
- 7 An Associate of the Jouvenel Master and the Breviary of Prior François Robert
- 8 Chrysalis to Butterfly: An Aspect of the Evolution of the Book of Hours From Manuscript to Print
- 9 The Sorbonne Press and the Chancellor’s Manuscript
- 10 Thielman Kerver’s Book of Hours of 10 September 1522 In The Kerry Stokes Collection
- 11 An Accessory of Intellect: A Renaissance Writing Casket From The Kerry Stokes Collection
- 12 ‘A Very Rich Adornment’: A Discussion of the Stokes Cassone
- 13 The Dormition of the Virgin Altarpiece From the Kerry Stokes Collection
- 14 Through the Son: Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s Crucifixion
- 15 The Kerry Stokes Schembart Book: Festivity, Fashion and Family In The Late Medieval Nuremberg Carnival
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This paper focuses on the relationship between the Rothschild Prayer Book and the Book of Hours, the most popular and best known prayer book of the medieval period, especially in France, Italy and the Netherlands. The paper discusses how the origins of the Rothschild Prayer Book are based on a liturgical format which persisted in a variety of ways throughout the life of the Book of Hours. They may be discerned quite clearly in the Rothschild Prayer Book (which represents one of the latest stages of the illuminated prayer book).
Keywords: Rothschild Prayer Book; Book of Hours; Medieval; France; Italy; Netherlands
The acquisition in January 2014 by Kerry Stokes AC of the splendid Netherlandish manuscript familiarly known as the Rothschild Prayer Book has had a number of positive consequences for medieval manuscript studies in Australia. As well as its great beauty and excellent state of preservation, the Rothschild Prayer Book represents the peak of development of one of the most popular types of Western medieval illuminated manuscripts: the Book of Hours. This personal prayer book takes its name from the traditional ‘canonical hours’ of prayer – Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. Throughout its history the Christian Church has used this system – which goes back to ancient Roman times – to describe the schedule of one of its main forms of public worship: the Divine Office. The service involves the solemn chanting of select Psalms at the canonical hours for each of the feasts of the year. Short verses or antiphons accompany these psalms, and sung responsories highlight the relevant readings, usually taken from the Scriptures or the Fathers of the Church. These are read at Matins, the longest hour of the Office. Hymns relating to the theme of the feast are also part of the service.
Originally, these texts were contained in a number of separate books, but from the eleventh century on, they were also sometimes compiled in one comprehensive liturgical book called the Breviary. By the time the Rothschild Prayer Book was made – probably in Bruges and Ghent in the first decade of the sixteenth century – extracts from certain Breviary Offices, along with a number of other personal devotions, had been incorporated in a prayer book known as the Book of Hours.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Antipodean Early ModernEuropean Art in Australian Collections, c. 1200–1600, pp. 111 - 132Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018