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Medieval Books of Hours and their Readers
Hannibal Books
Accompanying the exhibition Pride & Solace – Medieval Books of Hours and Their Readers at the Groeningemuseum in Bruges until 7 October 2025.
If, like me, you need a reminder of the definition, a book of hours is a devotional manual designed for personal prayer. It takes its name from the use of the word hours to refer to the specific time of day designated for prayer, and in medieval times, it had best-seller status.
One of the hubs for producing books of hours was Bruges in Belgium, which until October hosts an exhibition that takes us beyond merely marvelling at the pious faces, bright red stigmata and mischievous monkeys bounding through the gilded margins whose significance we can only guess at.
With the help of this companion volume, at once academic and accessible, the books of hours are taken out from behind the protective glass of museum cabinets and placed in the hands of the supplicants, the craftsmen who created them and the Flemish painters who endowed them with symbolism and social status.
For monastic societies, the times for prayer were rigid. For everyone else, less so and the book of hours took its place in daily life to become, we’re told, “a companion, a talisman, a textbook, a time machine”.
The time machine refers to the births, deaths, marriages and anything else the owner of a book of hours chose to record alongside the religious text. The books were also adapted and extended over time as politics clashed with religion and saints such as Thomas Becket, under Henry VIII, became taboo.
We know most about the most sumptuous books owned by the aristocracy, but cheaper versions using paper rather than parchment existed for the less well to do.
The scant evidence that poorer people owned books of hours includes a legal record from 1500 concerning Avis Godfrey, a pauper woman in London who was accused of stealing a book of hours belonging to Elizabeth Sekett, a maidservant.
Women also played their part in producing books of hours.
Given their special relationship with Mary, the main interceder between a supplicant and God, women were not necessarily inferior, although they tended to be paid less than the men involved in dividing up the work of writing, illustrating and binding.
In 1457, Bruges’ aldermen mandated that all book-related trades join the Guild of Book Producers and Merchants of St John the Evangelist, one of the few surviving primary sources on the Bruges book trade. Women accounted for around a quarter of the membership, working as apprentices, collaborators in family businesses and as independent professionals. They were also educated, especially in Flanders, although again the pattern was that privileged, aristocratic men dominated the less than 2.5% of the population who made it as far as university.
For medieval artists, a book of hours was often an essential prop for the characters they painted, and the trope of the Annunciate Mary with a book became normalised between the ninth and twelfth centuries.
Books of hours and other volumes were also incorporated in non-religious work, such as Quinten Metsys’ “The Money Changer and His Wife” (1514), in which a smattering of books stands on the shelves behind as the wife has an open book before her.
In our virtual world, we have to wonder if we shall leave behind anything as tangible as a family tome to be handed down the generations.
True to its title, “Books of Hours, Books of Hope” places the emphasis on continuity with the account of present-day Benedictine monk and academic Br. John Glasenapp.
He links the medieval books of hours with his near-death experience when he was driving along in an advancing storm. His car overturned but he emerged unscathed. He was rescued and arrived back at his abbey in time to lead the prayers and reflect that books of hours are manuals for seeking to understand our lives as part of a greater whole and for giving thanks for every precious hour.
Now as then, whether or not we have faith, the prime concerns are love, health, happiness and the human need for hope.
Books of Hours, Books of Hope
Medieval Books of Hours and their Readers
Hannibal Books
Accompanying the exhibition Pride & Solace – Medieval Books of Hours and Their Readers at the Groeningemuseum in Bruges until 7 October 2025.
If, like me, you need a reminder of the definition, a book of hours is a devotional manual designed for personal prayer. It takes its name from the use of the word hours to refer to the specific time of day designated for prayer, and in medieval times, it had best-seller status.
One of the hubs for producing books of hours was Bruges in Belgium, which until October hosts an exhibition that takes us beyond merely marvelling at the pious faces, bright red stigmata and mischievous monkeys bounding through the gilded margins whose significance we can only guess at.
With the help of this companion volume, at once academic and accessible, the books of hours are taken out from behind the protective glass of museum cabinets and placed in the hands of the supplicants, the craftsmen who created them and the Flemish painters who endowed them with symbolism and social status.
For monastic societies, the times for prayer were rigid. For everyone else, less so and the book of hours took its place in daily life to become, we’re told, “a companion, a talisman, a textbook, a time machine”.
The time machine refers to the births, deaths, marriages and anything else the owner of a book of hours chose to record alongside the religious text. The books were also adapted and extended over time as politics clashed with religion and saints such as Thomas Becket, under Henry VIII, became taboo.
We know most about the most sumptuous books owned by the aristocracy, but cheaper versions using paper rather than parchment existed for the less well to do.
The scant evidence that poorer people owned books of hours includes a legal record from 1500 concerning Avis Godfrey, a pauper woman in London who was accused of stealing a book of hours belonging to Elizabeth Sekett, a maidservant.
Women also played their part in producing books of hours.
Given their special relationship with Mary, the main interceder between a supplicant and God, women were not necessarily inferior, although they tended to be paid less than the men involved in dividing up the work of writing, illustrating and binding.
In 1457, Bruges’ aldermen mandated that all book-related trades join the Guild of Book Producers and Merchants of St John the Evangelist, one of the few surviving primary sources on the Bruges book trade. Women accounted for around a quarter of the membership, working as apprentices, collaborators in family businesses and as independent professionals. They were also educated, especially in Flanders, although again the pattern was that privileged, aristocratic men dominated the less than 2.5% of the population who made it as far as university.
For medieval artists, a book of hours was often an essential prop for the characters they painted, and the trope of the Annunciate Mary with a book became normalised between the ninth and twelfth centuries.
Books of hours and other volumes were also incorporated in non-religious work, such as Quinten Metsys’ “The Money Changer and His Wife” (1514), in which a smattering of books stands on the shelves behind as the wife has an open book before her.
In our virtual world, we have to wonder if we shall leave behind anything as tangible as a family tome to be handed down the generations.
True to its title, “Books of Hours, Books of Hope” places the emphasis on continuity with the account of present-day Benedictine monk and academic Br. John Glasenapp.
He links the medieval books of hours with his near-death experience when he was driving along in an advancing storm. His car overturned but he emerged unscathed. He was rescued and arrived back at his abbey in time to lead the prayers and reflect that books of hours are manuals for seeking to understand our lives as part of a greater whole and for giving thanks for every precious hour.
Now as then, whether or not we have faith, the prime concerns are love, health, happiness and the human need for hope.
Barbara Lewis © 2025.
By Barbara Lewis • books, exhibitions, history, religion, year 2025 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, books, exhibitions, religion