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| 7. |
Office of the Dead |
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Last Rites
Hours for St.-Omer use, Northern France, possibly Thérouanne, early fourteenth century (New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.60, f. 63v). |
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Chanting the Office
Masters of the Gold Scrolls
Hours, use of Rome Belgium, Bruges, c. 1420s (Private Collection, f. 163v). |
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Requiem Mass
Hours of Claeise den Hoeghe for Tournai use, Belgium, Ghent, c. 1490 (Private Collection, f. 11v). |
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Absolution
attributed to William Abell
Warwick Psalter-Hours for Sarum use, England, London? 1430s, possibly for Henry Beauchamp, earl (and subsequently duke) of Warwick (New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.893, f. 60r). |
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Burial in a Churchyard
Hours for Rome use, Belgium, Bruges, c. 1480 (Les Enluminures, f. 31v). |
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Three Living and Three Dead, Murderer Killing Two Travelers, Last Rites, and Burial in the Churchyard
Hours of Marie-Antoinette of Naples for Rome use, Northern France (Picardy), c. 1483-98 (Private Collection, f. 120). |
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Job on his Dung Heap
Du Bourg Hours for Tours use, France, Loire Valley, c. 1475-90 (Wheaton College, Wheaton, MA, ND3363A1B66977B, f. 55v). |
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Raising of Lazarus
Group “Betremieu”
Book of Hours for Rome use, Northern France or Belgium, perhaps Valenciennes or Tournai, c. 1470-75 (Les Enluminures, f. 137). |
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Death comes to the Clerics
Master of the Gospels of Saint Goéry
Psalter-Hours of Jean III de Vy and Perrette Baudoche for Metz use, France, Lorraine (Metz?), c. 1340-50 and c. 1440 (Metz, Bibl. de la ville, MS 1598, f. 46). |
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Skeleton Kneeling on his Coffin
“Memento Mori” Hours for Paris use, France, Arras, or possibly Amiens, c. 1485-90 (after 1484) (Private Collection, f. 98). |
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Hell
Master of Catherine of Cleves
Hours of Catherine of Cleves, for Windesheim use, The Netherlands, Utrecht, c. 1440, for Catherine of Cleves (New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.945, f. 168v). |
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| 9. |
Office of the Dead |
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Last Rites
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Among the most common illustrations for the Office of the Dead--the Last Judgment, Raising of Lazarus, Parable of Dives and Lazarus, Three Living and Three Dead, Job on the Dung heap, and Death Personified--the most fascinating are those illustrating the medieval funeral. The various stages of the medieval rituals surrounding death and burial can be found illustrated in Books of Hours. Assembled as a series, they allow the events to unfold scene by scene, in an almost cinematic manner.
The ideal Christian death took place at home, with the dying person in bed, surrounded by loved ones, and, most important, receiving the Last Rites. Upon entering the house, the priest would bless the sick person with holy water and commence to pray; after death, the deceased--a woman here, her eyes closed in death--was blessed again.
This miniature marks the beginning of the Commendatio animae (Recommendation of the Departing Soul to God), prayers recited at the deathbed. The Commendatio, when present, is usually appended to the end of the Office of the Dead; it was especially popular in the fifteenth century in Books of Hours made in England or for English use.
Hours for St.-Omer use, Northern France, possibly Thérouanne, early fourteenth century (New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.60, f. 63v).
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| 9. |
Office of the Dead |
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Chanting the Office
Masters of the Gold Scrolls |
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After the coffin was brought to the church, usually in a funeral procession from home to church, the family or confraternity of the deceased would pay for the Office of the Dead to be recited or sung by monks or priests. This took place on the night before or the morning of the funeral Mass; Vespers, ideally, was prayed on the evening before the funeral Mass, Matins and Lauds in the morning of the day itself. Images of the recitation or chanting of the Office over the funeral bier are among the most frequently found illustrations for the Office in Books of Hours. Here, the coffin covered with a blue pall is flanked by a group of mourners, bowing their heads in prayer, and three priests sing the Office of the Dead from a choir book.
By the Masters of the Gold Scrolls, named for the gold scrolls in the backgrounds of many of their miniatures, this manuscript is also noteworthy for its stencils in the margins, a response to the 1427 edict in Bruges that prohibited foreigners from selling their wares unless they registered their mark with the guild.
Hours, use of Rome Belgium, Bruges, c. 1420s (Private Collection, f. 163v). |
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| 9. |
Office of the Dead |
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Requiem Mass
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The funeral Mass followed the praying of the Office and usually took place in the morning. This miniature (prefacing the infrequent Monday Hours of the Dead) illustrates the service during which the priest elevates the consecrated host (the chalice is visible on the altar). Other details include an altarpiece, the closed wings revealing figures painted in gold tones, and monks in choir stalls singing the Mass. Exceedingly rare is the depiction in the foreground of the people who place their memorial offerings of coins in a collection box that serves as a base for a large cross.
The first owner of the book, Claiese, left her name and that of her husband on a pastedown. Married to Jan Hudevetter, a tanner in Ghent, Claiese is testimony to the fact that “ordinary” people owned Books of Hours. The borders of the strewn flower variety dominated manuscript production in Ghent and Bruges in the last quarter of the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century
Hours of Claeise den Hoeghe for Tournai use, Belgium, Ghent, c. 1490 (Private Collection, f. 11v). |
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| 9. |
Office of the Dead |
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Absolution
attributed to William Abell |
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Immediately after Mass came the Absolution. The priest would leave the altar, change into a black cope, and then approach the bier in order to offer the deceased a final blessing of absolution. Assisted by acolytes who bring a cross and a Ritual (the service book containing the prayers), the priest sprinkles the coffin with holy water and then, as shown in this miniature, censes it with swings of his thurible.
The original illumination in this manuscript is the work of two English artists, one of whom is thought to be William Abell. Abell was a London “lymnour” who, documents tell us, was paid in 1447-48 for the decoration of the founding charter of Eton College (still housed by that institution's library). At least seventeen manuscripts are attributed to Abell, one of the more important English illuminators active in the mid-fifteenth century. Because Henry Beauchamp's motto were written onto the bottom of f. 12, the manuscript is thought to have been commissioned by him between his succession as earl in 1439 and his death in 1446.
Warwick Psalter-Hours for Sarum use, England, London? 1430s, possibly for Henry Beauchamp, earl (and subsequently duke) of Warwick (New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.893, f. 60r). |
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| 9. |
Office of the Dead |
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Burial in a Churchyard
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Interring a corpse in a coffin is basically a modern practice, becoming prevalent only at the end of the eighteenth century. In the Middle Ages, the coffin was a means of transporting the dead from home to church and from church to monastery. Once there, the pall was withdrawn, the cover lifted, and the corpse removed. The shrouded body was then placed directly in the ground. In this miniature, the burial practice is therefore quite unusual, since it shows the closed coffin and the hole dug for it. The mourners and the priest are on the left, the latter holding a book from which he will read the burial service.
Hours for Rome use, Belgium, Bruges, c. 1480 (Les Enluminures, f. 31v). |
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| 9. |
Office of the Dead |
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Three Living and Three Dead, Murderer Killing Two Travelers, Last Rites, and Burial in the Churchyard
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This miniature is interesting because it presents a kind of comprehensive story about death and dying as a solution to the illustration of the Office of the Dead. Popularized in a fourteenth-century French poem and found occasionally in French Books of Hours, the legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead recounts how three carefree young men ride past a graveyard and are accosted by three skeletons who warn them: “We were once as you are now, and what we are you soon shall be.” The margins of this inventive Horae elaborate on the theme of death. Death’s unpredictability is the subject of the lower vignette, where a traveler is stabbed and murdered by thieves. In the upper vignette, he receives the Last Rites, which were administered to secure safe passage for the soul on the journey to God. In the lower vignette, the shrouded corpse, its crude stitching visible, is lowered into the grave.
Made for a woman with a special devotion to the obscure Saint Fursey, enshrined in Péronne, in the diocese of Amiens, this manuscript betrays a colorful and inventive regional style employed in a group of related manuscripts in the last decades of the fifteenth century.
Hours of Marie-Antoinette of Naples for Rome use, Northern France (Picardy), c. 1483-98 (Private Collection, f. 120). |
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| 9. |
Office of the Dead |
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Job on his Dung Heap
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The most remarkable component of the Office of the Dead is a series of moving readings from the Old Testament Book of Job that make up the nine lessons for Matins. The trials endured by Job become an allegory for one’s time on earth—or in purgatory. Pity and mercy are continually asked for throughout the lessons, but through a veil of near despair. Some artists therefore chose a scene from the life of Job to illustrate the Office. In this miniature, the once-prosperous and virtuous Job sits naked on a pile of dung, facing his three friends who visit him during his misfortune and berate him ceaselessly for his sins. The figure of Satan, the cause of Job’s troubles, hovers in the sky next to an image of God. Perhaps the woman elegantly clad in contemporary dress and speaking to Job is his wife, who prompts him to “curse God and die,” but she may also be the patron of the book and the Renaissance chateau in the background may be her home. The ambiguity is possibly deliberate.
Du Bourg Hours for Tours use, France, Loire Valley, c. 1475-90 (Wheaton College, Wheaton, MA, ND3363A1B66977B, f. 55v).
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| 9. |
Office of the Dead |
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Raising of Lazarus
Group “Betremieu” |
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The story of Lazarus defies medieval views of one’s mortality and, as such, was a relatively positive choice, and not an infrequent one, for illustrations of the Office of the Dead. The Gospel of John tells how Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, fell sick, died, was buried and then miraculously raised from the dead by Christ. In this miniature, Lazarus rises from his tomb, clothed only in the burial shroud, to the amazement of the crown gathered to watch in front of the church.
The present charming Book of Hours includes miniatures painted in grisaille accompanied by lively colored borders animated with drolleries. It stands at the center of a relatively coherent group of Books of Hours, sometimes but not exclusively in grisaille, made in Valenciennes and Tournai, that witness the direct influence of Simon Marmion, the “prince of illumination.” The Group “Betremieu” takes its name from the appearance of Bartholomew in Flemish (“Betremieu) in some of the calendars.
Book of Hours for Rome use, Northern France or Belgium, perhaps Valenciennes or Tournai, c. 1470-75 (Les Enluminures, f. 137). |
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| 9. |
Office of the Dead |
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Death comes to the Clerics
Master of the Gospels of Saint Goéry |
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Everything about this Book of Hours is unusual. The Office of the Dead is illustrated with a sort of Dance of Death, in which death takes the form of a skeleton wielding arrows and approaches the prelates, including a pope, a cardinal, a bishop, and a group of monks. Death also comes to the elegant young lady in the margin. She may be Perrette Baudoche, the first patron of the manuscript, who died prematurely in 1400 without children and was buried in the Church of the Celestines in Metz.
Active in the second quarter of the fifteenth century, the Master of the Gospels of Saint Goéry is named for a Gospel Book in the library of Epinal (MS 65), where he painted two large miniatures. He evidently specialized in Books of Hours in the region of Metz.
Psalter-Hours of Jean III de Vy and Perrette Baudoche for Metz use, France, Lorraine (Metz?), c. 1340-50 and c. 1440 (Metz, Bibl. de la ville, MS 1598, f. 46). |
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| 9. |
Office of the Dead |
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Skeleton Kneeling on his Coffin
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Medieval artists let their imaginations run free when it came to depicting images of death. The most notable feature of this manuscript is the so-called “Memento Mori” miniature that prefaces the Office of the Dead. Kneeling on a coffin that is inscribed “1484, 28 September he was buried,” a skeleton prays before his reflection in a mirror that hangs suspended from a tree. The presence behind the tree of a woman who also appears elsewhere in the manucript, in prayer before the Virgin and Child, suggests that she is the donor. Two smartly dressed male figures whisper to each other as they point toward the skeleton. On one level, the miniature conveys how reflection on human transience can be salutary. It functions at the same time as a reminder of death, as an injunction against sin, and as a stimulus to self-examination or reflection. But, on a more immediate level, the praying corpse is meant also to serve as an example to the living who observe it so conspicuously.
“Memento Mori” Hours for Paris use, France, Arras, or possibly Amiens, c. 1485-90 (after 1484) (Private Collection, f. 98) |
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| 9. |
Office of the Dead |
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Hell
Master of Catherine of Cleves |
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This is one of the most frightening hells painted before those of Hieronymus Bosch. Introducing the Office of the Dead, prayers recited for benefit of the dead, this image had a major purpose: to scare the living. From the mouth of the green demon at the bottom, upon whose back the entire framed image weighs, spew scrolls inscribed with the names of the Seven Deadly Sins, the committing of any one of which insured eternal damnation. In the horrible hell above, a battery of sadistic demons push, chase, pull, cart, pitch, and spear struggling naked souls into a huge gaping hell mouth, stretched open to reveal yet another inner, red-hot maw. Within these burning jaws is hell's furnace, supplying the churning fire that incinerates the damned; we see them through the open door in the throat of yet a third hell mouth whose yawning head domes the infernal cathedral of death.
The inventive Master of Catherine of Cleves outdid himself in this creation. Hell is hardly ever depicted in Books of Hours.
Hours of Catherine of Cleves, for Windesheim use, The Netherlands, Utrecht, c. 1440, for Catherine of Cleves (New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.945, f. 168v). |
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