Book of Hours were prayer books designed for the laity, but modeled on the Divine Office, a cycle of daily devotions, prayers and readings, performed by members of religious orders and the clergy. Its central text is the Hours of the Virgin. There are eight hours (times for prayer ): Matins, Lauds. Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. During the Middle Ages, the leaves making up a Book of Hours were written by hand on expensive parchment and beautifully illuminated with jewel-like pigments and gold leaf. These illuminated manuscripts combined the collaborative efforts of an array of highly skilled craftspeople; requiring the joint labors of the parchmenter, professional scribes to write the text in Gothic script, artists to illuminate the pages with decorations, and masterful binders to complete the process.

Lovely vellum leaf from a Book of Hours created in Normandy, written in regular batarde script. This leaf has magnificent initials on the recto and the verso, in red, blue, white and burnished gold with penwork between the columns of text of vines and flowers in red, blue, green and burnished gold. On the recto, the small initial "Q" at top left is the beginning of Psalm 23: "Quis est iste rex gloriae..." which translates into English as:

Who is this King of Glory? the Lord who is strong and mighty: the Lord mighty in battle.
Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates: and the King of Glory shall enter in.
Who is this King of Glory? the Lord of hosts, he is the King of Glory.

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Condition: A

Marginal soiling.