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Detailed record for Egerton 2781
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| Title |
Book of Hours, Use of Sarum (The 'Neville of Hornby Hours') |
| Origin |
England, S. E. (London?) |
| Date |
2nd quarter of the 14th century, possibly the 4th decade |
| Language |
Latin and French |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Decoration |
3 full-page miniatures in colours and gold (f. 1v, 190, 190v). 2 full-page miniatures in two registers within a border, in colours and gold (f. 8r-v). Numerous large rectangular miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 9v-20v; 29, 35, 36, 36v, 37v, 42, 44, 45, 45v, 46v, 49, 50v, 71, 71v, 72v, 73, 73v, 74, 75, 75v, 76v, 77, 78v, 79, 80v, 88, 101v, 112). Numerous large historiated initials in colours and gold. 24 roundels of the labours and signs of the months, in colours and gold (ff. 2-7v). 12 'KL' letters in red and blue on gold grounds with three-sided bar borders in colours and gold (ff. 2-7v). Partial and full bar borders, with leaves and knots, some with hybrid creatures or faces or dragons in the bar borders (ff. 44, 45v, 46v, 51, 125v, 138, 15v, 166v, 174v). Marginal figures in colours around the bar borders (ff. 53, 85v, 88v, 119, 125v). Large initials in colours and gold with foliate decoration. Small initials in gold on red and blue grounds, with whilte filigree. Initials in colours and gold. Words in red, blue, or gold. Line-fillers in combinations of red, blue, and gold. Some figures unfinished. |
| Dimensions in mm |
170 x 110 (115 x 70) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 190 ( + 4 unfoliated parchment flyleaves at the beginning and at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Brown leather signed by Hardy, 1855; gilding signed by Marius Michel; gilt edges. |
| Provenance |
? Isabel de Byron, wife of Robert I de Neville (1324) of Hornby manor in Melling parish, Lonsdale Hundred, north Lancashire: perhaps her portrait as a widow, with banners bearing the arms of Neville of Hornby, argent, a saltire gules (on the dexter side) and perhaps the Byron arms or, a bend gules three bezants (on the sinister side) (f. 190) (see Smith pp. 33-34).
Dufresne family: their book-plate (f. [ii]); probably re-bound for them in 1855.
Purchased at a sale in Paris, 15 March 1893, by the British Museum, using the Bridgewater fund (£12,000 bequeathed in 1829 by Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (b. 1756, d. 1829). |
| Notes |
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
Egerton 2781 is closely related in style and iconographic content to the Taymouth Hours (Yates Thompson 13) and the Smithfield Decretals (Royal 10 E IV). |
| Select bibliography |
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1888-1893 (London: British Museum, 1894), no. Eg. 2781.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 231 n. 4.
[J. A. Herbert], British Museum: Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 2, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1923), pl. 15.
[J. A. Herbert],Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (London: British Museum, 1923), no. 30.
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1928), p. 83.
A Guide to the Exhibition of Some Part of the Egerton Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1929), no. 16.
Guide to an Exhibition of English Art (London: British Museum, 1934), no. 124.
Rossell Hope Robbins, 'The Arma Christi Rolls', Modern Language Review, 34 (1939), 415-21 (p. 419 n. 3)
Lilian M. C. Randall, Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), p. 31.
Janet Backhouse, Books of Hours (London: British Library, 1985), fig. 46.
Lynda Dennison, 'The Fitzwarin Psalter and its Allies': A Reappraisal', in England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by W. M. Ormrod (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1986), pp. 42-66 (pp. 46, 60-61, 65).
Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 5 (London: Harvey Miller, 1986), no. 115.
Christopher Norton, David Park, and Paul Binski, Dominican Painting in East Anglia: The Thornham Parva Retable and the Musée de Cluny Frontal (Woodbridge: Boydell: 1987), pp. 51 n. 99, 76.
Francis Wormald, Collected Writings, ed. by J. J. G. Alexander, T. J. Brown, and Joan Gibbs, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1984-1988), II: Studies in English and Continental Art of the Later Middle Ages, pp. 91, 96, pls 94, 95.
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. 2).
Nigel Morgan, 'Texts and Images of Marian Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England', in England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1991 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by. Nicholas Rogers (Stamford: Watkins, 1993), pp. 30-53 (p. 49).
Kathryn A. Smith, 'Canonizing the Apocryphal: London, British Library MS 2781 and its Visual, Devotional and Social Contexts', (unpublished PhD thesis, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1996).
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 99.
Kathryn A. Smith, 'The Neville of Hornby Hours and the Design of Literate Devotion', Art Bulletin 81 (1999), 72-92 (pls 1-5, 8-19, 22, 26-27).
Mary Coker Joslin and Carolyn Coker Joslin Watson, The Egerton Genesis (London: British Library, 2001), p. 176.
Alixe Bovey, ‘A Pictorial Ex Libris in the Smithfield Decretals: John Batayle, Canon of St Bartholomew's, and his Illuminated Law Book’ in Decoration and Illustration in Medieval English Manuscripts, English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700, 10 (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 67-91 (pp. 73, 75-77, pl. 13).
Nigel Morgan, 'Patrons and Devotional Images in English Art of the International Gothic c. 1350-1450', in Reading Texts and Images: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Art and Patronage in honour of Margaret M. Manion, ed. by Bernard J. Muir (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2002), pp. 93-122 (pp. 96-97).
Kathryn A. Smith, Art, Identity and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England: Three Women and their Books of Hours, (London: British Library, 2003), passim, pls. 6-8, figs 4-9, 30, 57, 61, 63, 67, 73, 87, 89, 91, 95-106, 109-12, 116-19, 121-23, 128-29, 134-39.
Janet Backhouse, Illumination from Book of Hours (London: British Library, 2004), fig. 102.
Deirdre Jackson, 'The Influence of the Theophilus Legend: An Overlooked Miniature in Alfonso X's Cantigas de Santa Maria and its Wider Context', in Under the Influence: The Concept of Influence and the Study of Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. by John Lowden and Alixe Bovey (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 75-87 (pp. 82-83, fig. 5).
Deirdre Jackson, Marvellous to Behold: Miracles in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007), p. 67, pl. 56..
Margaret Scott, Medieval Dress & Fashion (London: British Library, 2007), p. 100, pl. 56.
Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Nigel F. Palmer, The Prayer Book of Ursula Begerin, 2 vols (Dietikon-Zurich: Urs Graf Verlag, 2015), I, p. 148.
Wounds in the Middle Ages, ed. by Anne Kirkham and Cordelia Warr, (London and New York: Routledge, 2014), p. 3.
Kathryn A. Smith, ‘Found in Translation: Images Visionary and Visceral in the Welles-Ros Bible’, Gesta 59: 2 (2020), 91-130 (pp. 103, 110 n. 95). |
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f. 1v
The earth |
f. 1v
Spheres |
f. 2
January |
| |
f. 8
Noah; Sacrifice of Issac |
f. 8v
Isaac; Jacob |
f. 9
Decorated initial |
| |
f. 9v
Birth of the Virgin |
f. 10
Presentation of the Virgin to the Temple |
f. 11v
The Visitation |
| |
f. 12v
Virgin and Child |
f. 13
The Nativity |
f. 13v
The Adoration of the Magi |
| |
f. 14
The Flight into Egypt |
f. 15
Christ teaching |
f. 15v
Wedding at Cana |
| |
f. 17
Ecclesia |
f. 18v
The Virgin |
f. 20v
The Coronation of the Virgin |
| |
f. 24
Miracle |
f. 24v
Miracle |
f. 25v
Virgin and Child |
| |
f. 29v
The Virgin blessing |
f. 36
Cross |
f. 36v
Christopher |
| |
f. 44
The Betrayal |
f. 44v
Illuminated initial |
f. 45
Flagellation |
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f. 49
The Crucifixion |
f. 50v
The Deposition |
f. 51
Hybrid |
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f. 53
The Annunciation |
f. 58v
Illuminated initial |
f. 62
The Visitation |
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f. 71
The Annunciation |
f. 71v
Pentecost |
f. 72v
The Trinity |
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f. 76v
Andrew |
f. 77
Lawrence |
f. 78v
Catherine |
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f. 80v
Suffrage |
f. 85
Decorated initial |
f. 85v
The Presentation |
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f. 88
Heads |
f. 88v
Miracle |
f. 91v
Christ and the Doctors |
| |
f. 91v
Christ and the Doctors |
f. 94v
Christ |
f. 97
Christ |
| |
ff. 101v-102
The Virgin |
f. 103v
Litany |
f. 108v
Allegories |
| |
f. 112
The Adoration of the Magi |
f. 121v
Illuminated initials |
f. 125v
Woman |
| |
f. 132v
Text page |
f. 133v
Judas |
f. 134v
The Last Supper |
| |
f. 136v
The Agony |
f. 138
The Betrayal |
f. 140
Annas |
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f. 141
Caiaphas |
f. 143v
Pilate |
f. 146v
Flagellation of Christ |
| |
f. 146v
Flagellation of Christ |
f. 147v
Pilate |
f. 149v
Pilate |
| |
f. 151v
Mocking of Christ |
f. 153v
Christ carrying the Cross |
f. 155
Christ |
| |
f. 156
The Raising of the Cross |
f. 157v
The Crucifixion |
f. 159
The Crucifixion |
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f. 161v
The Crucifixion |
f. 162v
The Crucifixion |
f. 164
The Deposition |
| |
f. 165v
Annointing |
f. 166v
Pilate |
f. 167v
The Resurrection |
| |
f. 169v
Text page |
f. 170
The Empty Tomb |
f. 171
The Resurrection |
| |
f. 172
Joseph |
f. 172
Joseph |
f. 173
City |
| |
f. 174v
Soldier |
f. 177v
Caiaphas |
f. 178v
The Ascension |
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f. 181
Nicodemus |
f. 182v
Joseph, Caiaphas and Annas |
f. 185
Joseph |
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f. 186v
Empty tombs |
f. 188
Writers |
f. 189
Converts |
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