Book and Scribe: Taking a Closer Look

The SUNY Stony Brook leaf shows many of the characteristics of the script used throughout the manuscript. Close examination revelals biting letters, inconsistent use of minims, and varied letter forms, particularly for the letter "R."

The Lilly Library folio (verso) shows clearly the mounting tape (top and bottom, left) used by Otto Ege when he assembled and matted the folios prior to hs death in 1951. The tape on the verso tells us that he intended the recto to be the display page.

The Denison University leaf is a good summary for several features found throughout the extant leaves of FOL 48: illuminated initials throughout, color-filled enhanced smaller initials integral in the text (lines 8, 12, 16, 18), and bright red ink rubrication.

Sewing holes are evident on this University of Toronto leaf, as is a piece of thread. However, the thread looks recent, possible evidence of rebinding at some point before Ege took the manuscript apart.

This Rochester Institute of Technology leaf displays the characteristic inconsistency in the use of minims in the Gothic Textura script found in instances throughout the extant leaves of this manuscript. It is specifically closer to a Textualis Semi-Quadrata, a style common to scribes associated with Flanders. This is in keeping with other evidence that this Book of Hours reflects a Use for Châlons-sur-Marne, in northern France. Note the joined, biting letters in "domine" throughout, and the elaborate "s" at the end of "tradideris" (line 15).