The Madresfield Hours
Produced in England, ca. 1320–30
Madresfield Court, Earl Beauchamp, MS M
This little-known Book of Hours contains illumination executed at different time periods. The first part was written and decorated in the early fourteenth century, and the last part was added during the fifteenth. Its miniatures were painted on separate vellum bifolia and then inserted into the book. While they illustrate the canonical hours of the Hours of the Virgin, most of the images themselves represent themes taken from the legendary Miracles of the Virgin.
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Open at folios 31v–32r, for Lauds, with scenes from the story of “the clerk with roses.” On the left, the prayers uttered by a young monk are miraculously transformed into flowers. On the right, the monk crowns the Virgin with the flowers, as the Christ Child blesses him.
Detail of fol. 31v, depicting the clerk as his prayers are turned into flowers.
Detail of fol. 32r, depicting the Virgin Mary being crowned with the clerk's flowers.
Facsimile: Janet Backhouse, The Madresfield Hours: A Fourteenth-Century Manuscript in the Library of Earl Beauchamp (Oxford: The Roxburghe Club, 1975)
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