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Book of Hours: MS 81

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Current Location: In storage

Titles

Book of Hours

Entities

Categories

Description

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Parchment, ii paper flyleaves + 139 fols. + ii paper flyleaves, 179 x 127 (112 x 62) mm, 15 long lines, ruled in brown ink, catchwords.

BINDING: 19th century, gold-tooled red leather over pasteboards

CONTENTS: fols. 1v – 2v Hymns Veni Creator, Deus qui corda (16th century addition); fols. 3r – 14v Calendar in French; fols. 15r – 16r Gospel Sequence of St John; fols. 18r – 41v Passion according to St John; fols. 43r – 90v Hours of the Virgin; fols. 91r – 107v Penitential Psalms and Litany; fols. 108r – 113v Suffrages; fols. 115r – 139r Office of the Dead (incomplete).

DECORATION: Eleven full-page framed miniatures with three-sided floral bar borders and full acanthus, floral and gold ivy leaf borders on plain parchment including birds and dragons, at major text divisions:
fol. 17v Passion according to St John, Agony in the Garden; Fol. 19v Carrying of the Cross, with St Veronica; fol. 23v Christ crowned with thorns; fol. 27v Flagellation; fol. 30v Pilate washing hands; fol. 32v Crucifixion with two thieves, Longinus piercing Christ’s side, Virgin supported by St John, St Mary Magdalene, soldiers on horseback, and skull below Cross; fol. 36v Deposition; fol. 38v Entombment with two women and St John; fol. 40v Resurrection; fol. 42v Hours of the Virgin, Matins, Annunciation; fol. 114v Office of the Dead, soul borne by angels to God in heaven.

ORNAMENTATION: Blue or pink initials [4 – 6 ll.] with floral infill on gold grounds with borders facing and matching those for the full-page miniatures at major text divisions; gold initials [1 – 3 ll.] on blue and pink white-patterned grounds with one-sided gold ivy leaf borders; red initials [1 – 2 ll.] on fols. 1v – 2v; blue and pink white-patterned bar linefillers with gold balls; capitals highlighted in red.

Notes

History note: Motto ‘15M52 De myeulx en myeulx Bourgogne’ (fol. 16r); ownership inscription recording that the book was given to sister Anne Teresse Drouhot of the convent of St Quirin at Huy by her grandmother ‘de Neufville’ who died aged 98 in September 1664 (fol. 16v); Richard, seventh viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion (1745 – 1816), acquired in 1789; his bequest, 1816.

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1816) by Fitzwilliam, Richard, 7th Viscount

Dating

15th Century, Mid
Production date: circa AD 1450

People, subjects and objects depicted

Project

  • Cambridge Illuminated

Materials used in production

Gold

Components of the work

Support composed of parchment
Text Height 112 mm Width 62 mm
Page Height 179 mm Width 127 mm

Techniques used in production

Penwork
Illumination

Inscription or legends present

  • Text: [ha]bitavit in nobis
  • Location: Fol. 16r
  • Type: Secundo folio

References and bibliographic entries

Identification numbers

Accession number: MS 81
Primary reference Number: 169721
Project ID: 330

Audit data

Created: Saturday 6 August 2011 Updated: Friday 10 October 2025

Associated departments & institutions

Owner or interested party: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department: Manuscripts and Printed Books

Citation for print

This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:

The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025) "Book of Hours" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/169721 Accessed: 2025-12-05 06:36:26

Citation for Wikipedia

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{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/169721 |title=Book of Hours |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-12-05 06:36:26|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

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