Resources

Foundational texts on books of hours:

  • Backhouse, Janet. Books of Hours. London: British Library, 1985.
  • Backhouse, Janet. Illumination from Books of Hours. London: British Library, 2004.
  • de Hamel, Christopher. A History of Illuminated Manuscripts. Oxford: Phaidon, 1986.
  • Delaissé, L. M. J. “The Importance of Books of Hours for the History of the Medieval Book.” In Gatherings in Honor of Dorothy E. Miner, 203–25. Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1974.
  • Wieck, Roger S. Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art. New York: George Braziller, 1997.
  • Wieck, Roger S. Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life. New York: G. Braziller in association with the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1988.

Interdisciplinary analyses of single, deluxe books of hours:

  • Meiss, Millard, and Elizabeth H. Beatson. The Belles Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry. New York: G. Braziller, 1974.
  • Sandler, Lucy Freeman. Illuminators and Patrons in Fourteenth-Century England: The Psalter and Hours of Humphrey de Bohun and the Manuscripts of the Bohun Family. London, Toronto: The British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2014.
  • Smith, Kathryn A. The Taymouth Hours: Stories and the Construction of Self in Late Medieval England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.

On regional variations among books of hours:

  • Bousmanne, Bernard, and Thierry Delcourt. Miniatures Flamandes: 1404-1482. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2012.
  • Dogaer, Georges, James H. Marrow, and Anna E. C. Simoni. Flemish Miniature Painting in the 15th and 16th Centuries. Amsterdam: B.M. Israël, 1987.
  • Duffy, Eamon. Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers, 1240-1570. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
  • Hans-Collas, Ilona, and Pascal Schandel. Manuscrits Enluminés Des Anciens Pays-Bas Méridionaux. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2016.
  • Reinburg, Virginia. French Books of Hours: Making an Archive of Prayer, c.1400-1600. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  • Smeyers, Maurits. Flemish Miniatures from the 8th to the Mid-16th Century: The Medieval World on Parchment. Leuven: Brepols, 1999.

On illuminations by particular artists or workshops:

  • Dückers, Rob, and Pieter Roelofs. The Limbourg Brothers: Nijmegen Masters at the French Court, 1400-1416. Nijmegen, Holland: Ludion, 2005.
  • Husband, Timothy. The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008.
  • Meiss, Millard. French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry, Part 1: The Late Fourteenth Century and the Patronage of the Duke. New York: The Pierpont Morgan Library, 1967.
  • Meiss, Millard. French Painting in the Time of Jean De Berry, Part 2: The Boucicaut Master. New York: The Pierpont Morgan Library, 1968.
  • Meiss, Millard. French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry, Part 3: The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries. New York: The Pierpont Morgan Library, 1974.

On groups of books of hours collected by institutions or families:

  • de Hamel, Christopher. The Rothschilds and Their Collections of Illuminated Manuscripts. London: British Library, 2005.
  • Pierce, Charles E., William M. Voelkle, and Susan L’Engle. Illuminated Manuscripts: Treasures of the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. New York: London: Abbeville Press, 1998.
  • Randall, Lilian M. C. Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery. Vol. I: France, 875-1420. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press in association with the Walters Art Gallery, 1989.
  • Randall, Lilian M. C. Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery. Vol. II: France, 1420-1540. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press in association with the Walters Art Gallery, 1992.
  • Randall, Lilian M. C. Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery. Vol. III: Belgium, 1250-1530. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press in association with the Walters Art Gallery, 1999.
  • von Euw, Anton, and Joachim M. Plotzek. Die Handschriften Der Sammlung Ludwig. 4 vols. Cologne: Schnütgen-Museum, 1979.

Feminist approaches to books of hours:

  • Adams, Jenny, and Nancy Mason Bradbury, eds. Medieval Women and Their Objects. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017.
  • Bennett, Adelaide. “Making Literate Lay Women Visible: Text and Image in French and Flemish Books of Hours, 1220-1320.” In Thresholds of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Spaces, edited by Elina Gertsman and Jill Stevenson, 125–58. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2012.
  • Bennett, Adelaide. “Issues of Female Patronage: French Books of Hours, 1220-1320.” In Patronage: Power & Agency in Medieval Art, edited by Colum Hourihane, 233–56. Princeton, NJ: Index of Christian Art and Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University, 2013.
  • Caviness, Madeline Harrison. Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle, and Scopic Economy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
  • Hamburger, Jeffrey F. The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany. New York: Zone Books, 1998.
  • Hand, Joni M. Women, Manuscripts, and Identity in Northern Europe, 1350-1550. Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013.
  • Morrison, Elizabeth. “Marriage, Death, and the Power of Prayer: The Hours of Denise Poncher.” Getty Research Journal 6 (2014): 143–50.
  • Miner, Dorothy Eugenia. Anastaise and Her Sisters: Women Artists of the Middle Ages. Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1974.
  • Smith, Kathryn A. Art, Identity, and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England: Three Women and Their Books of Hours. London; Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 2003.

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