Marking the hours: English people and their prayers 1240-1570

Abstract

"In this richly illustrated book, religious historian Eamon Duffy discusses the Book of Hours, unquestionably the most intimate and most widely used book of the later Middle Ages. He examines surviving copies of the personal prayer books which were used for private, domestic devotions, and in which people commonly left traces of their lives. Manuscript prayers, biographical jottings, affectionate messages, autographs, and pious paste-ins often crowd the margins, flyleaves, and blank spaces of such books. From these sometimes clumsy jottings, viewed by generations of librarians and art historians as blemishes at best, vandalism at worst, Duffy teases out precious clues to the private thoughts and public contexts of their owners, and insights into the times in which they lived and prayed. His analysis has a special relevance for the history of women, since women feature very prominently among the identifiable owners and users of the medieval Book of Hours."--From source other than the Library of Congress

Contents

A book for lay people -- Devotional intimacy : a book of remembrance -- Devotional isolation? -- A book for an aristocrat : the Talbot Hours -- The Roberts Hours : piety off the peg -- Sanctified whingeing? -- The prayers of Thomas More -- The impact of print -- The break with Rome -- Marginality and eclipse.