The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
This small Book of Hours, made for use in the diocese of Cambrai ca. 1300-10, is especially interesting for its profusion of humorous drolleries. Humans, animals, and hybrids are featured in the margins of each page of the book. Small scenes record a variety of activities, such as cooking, playing games, climbing, fishing, making music, and dancing. Heiner Gillmeister has argued that two of these scenes depict the earliest known images of tennis being played. These drolleries amused the faithful during their prayers, while showing scenes that work as metaphors for the soul fighting the vices. The original female owner seems to have been established in the diocese of Cambrai, judging from the use of the Office of the Dead. A number of signatures on the leaves at the beginning and end of the manuscript provide the book with a rich provenance. A priest in the sixteenth century wrote a message in code on fol. 1v asking that the book be returned to him if lost. Members of the ducal house of Savoy owned this book in the seventeenth century, as evinced by the gilt armorial shield of Charles Emmanuel II (1634-75), duke of Savoy, stamped on the covers.
Prayers written in sixteenth-century cursive minuscule; Roman capitals for the poetic composition
Principal cataloger: Randall, Lilian M.C.
Cataloger: Valle, Chiara
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Copy editor: Dibble, Charles
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Schuele, Allyson
Contributor: Sedovic, Katherine
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Contributor: Wiegand, Kimber
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
De Ricci, Seymour, and W. J. Wilson. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935; p. 783, cat. no. 165.
Chaucer's World, compiled by E. Rickert and edited by C.C. Olson and M.M. Crowillus. New York, 1948; illustration opposite p. 27, after p. 28, 346.
Janson, H.W. Apes and Ape Lore in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. London: Studies of the Warburg Institute, 1952; pp. 171, 187, 188 (n. 10), 189 (n. 23, 25), 190 (n. 32), 192 (n. 46), 193 (n. 60), Pl. XXXIXc.
Randall, Lillian M.C. Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Berkeley University Press, 1966; p. 38 and pasisim, figs. 138, 189, 237, 343, 450, 469, 476.
Verdier, P. "Woman in the Marginalia of Gothic Manuscripts." In The Role of Women in the Middle Ages, 121-160. Papers of the Sixth Annual Conference for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 6-7 May 1972. Albany, NY, 1975; p.134 (n. 76).
Schulize-Busacker, E. "Eléments de culture populaire dans la littérature courtoise." La culture populaire au moyen âge. Etudes présentés au quatrième colloque de l'Institut d'études médiévales de l'Université de Montréal 2-3 April 1977. Montreal, 1979; p. 93, illustration.
Smith, S. "'Game in myn Hood': The Tradition of a Comic Proverb." Studies in Iconography 9 (1983); p. 5, fig 2.
Davidson, Clifford, ed. Early Drama, Art, and Music: Word, Picture, and Spectacle. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications. 1984 (fols. 39r, 86v, 106r, 157r; pp. 2, 7, cover, cat. 3, 7, 21)
Randall, Lillian M.C. Illuminated Manuscripts: Masterpieces in Miniature, Highlights from the Collection of the Walters Art Gallery. Baltimore: Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 1984; PL. 17.
Wendersdorf, K.P. "The Symbolic Significance of Figurae Scatologicae in Gothic Manuscripts." Word, Literature, and Picture, edited by C. David. Kalamazoo, 1984; p. 7, fig. 21, cover.
Owens, M.B. "Musical Subjects in the Illumination of Books of Hours from Fifteenth-Century France and Flanders." Ph.D. diss, University of Chicago, 1987; p. 368.
Oliver, J.H. Gothic Manuscript Illumination in the Diocese of Liège (c. 1250-1350), Vol. 1. Louvain, 1988; p. 94 (n. 14).
Wieck, Roger S. Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life, exhibition catalogue. Baltimore, MD: Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 1988; pp. 51, 54, 158, 208: cat. no. 80, figs. 21, 25.
Gillmeister, H. Kulturgeschichte des Tennis. Sonderausgabe fur den Deutschen Tennis-Bund. Munich, 1990; pp. 25-26, figs. 11a, b.
Neaman, Judith S. "The Mystery of the Ghent Bird and the Invention of the Spectacles". Viator Medieval and Renaissance Studies 24 (1993):189-214; pp. 208-209, fig. 4.
Śnież-Stolot, E. "Das Ptolemäische Weltbild und die Mittelalterliche Ikonographie." Winer Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 46.47 (1993/1994: 669-713; pp. 879-880, figs. 1, 4.
Gillmeister, Heiner. Tennis: A Cultural History. London: Leicester University Press, 1997; pp. 15-16 (fig. 10), 67, 76, 436.
Randall, Lillian, M.C. Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery. Vol. 3, Belgium, 1250-1350. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press in association with the Walters Art Gallery, 1997; pp. 67-72, cat. no. 222.
Henisch, Bridget Ann. The Medieval Calendar Year. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999; pp. 29 (as fig. 8-4), 33 (as fig. 7-12), 34 (as fig. 7-1), 43 (as fig. 7-12), 45 (as fig. 7-12), 115 (as fig. 7-1), 170 (fig. 7-1), 177 (as fig. 7-8) , 179 (fig. 7-8), 184 (as fig. 7-1), 185 (as fig. 7-12), 186 (fig. 7-12), 200 (as fig. 7-8), 203, (as fig. 8-4), 204 (fig. 8-4), 221 (as fig. 7-8).
Noel, William. "Medieval charades and the visual syntax of the Utrecht Psalter." In Studies in the Illuminated Psalter. Edited by Brendan Cassidy and Rosemary Wright, 34-54. Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 2000; p. 35.
Joslin, Mary Coker, and Carolyn Coker Joslin Watson. The Egerton Genesis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001; pp. 69, 86, 173, 175, 177, 242.
Śnieżyńska-Stolotowa, Ewa. Astrological Iconography in the Middle Ages: The Decanal Planets. Krakow: Jagiellonian University Press, 2003; pp. 38, 76.
Mellinkoff, Ruth. Averting Demons. Los Angeles: Mellinkoff Publications, 2004; p. 151 (fig. VII.7).
Willemsen, Annemarieke. The Game of the Month: Playful Calenders in Ghent-Bruges Books of Hours. In Manuscripts in Transition. Proceedings of the International Congres Held in Brussels (5-9 November 2002). Edited by Brigitte Dekeyzer and Jan Van der Stock, 419-430. Lueven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2005; pp. 427, 430 (n. 26).
Dillon, Emma. "Representing Obscene Sound." In Medieval Obscenities, edited by Nicola McDonald, 55-84. Woodbridge, Suffolk: York Medieval Press, 2006; p. 71.
Mellinkoff, Ruth. "Break a Leg!" In Tributes in Honor of Jonathan J.G. Alexander: The Making and Meaning of Illuminated Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, Art, and Architecture. Edited by Susan L’Engle and Gerald B. Gest, 233-248. Turnhout, Belgium: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2006; p. 243.
Newman, Paul B. Growing Up in the Middle Ages. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2007; p. 89, fig. 22.
Vanwijnsberghe, Dominique. "Moult bons et notables": l'enluminure tournaisienne à l'époque de Robert Campin (1380-1430). Leuven: Peeters, 2007; p. 169 (n. 499 for p. 150).
Wirth, Jean, and Isabelle Engammare. Les marges à drôleries des manuscrits gothiques, 1250-1350. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2008; 133, 134, 207, 212, 215, 219, 233, 246-247, 273, 298, 300, 310, 324, 344, 361.
Dillon, Emma. The Sense of Sound: Musical Meaning in France, 1260-1330. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; pp. 228-231, fig. 6.23 236-239, fig. 6.27.
Leo, Dominic. Images, Texts, and Marginalia in a "Vows of the Peacock" Manuscript (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS G24). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Publishers, 2013; p. 344.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
French Flanders (Cambrai?)
First quarter 14th century CE
book
Non-original Binding
Seventeenth-century brown morocco; front and back cover stamped with gilt armorial shield of Charles Emmanuel II, duke of Savoy, 1634-75, with collar of the Order of the Annunciation; gilt fillet frame with fleurons at corners; spine near-flat with gilt fleurons; gilt edges
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin. The secondary language of this manuscript is French.
Made for the use of diocese of Cambrai, ca. 1300-10; female owner suggested by portrait of a woman praying before Christ resurrected on fol. 100v
Philippe Boudard, canon regular at Augustinian foundation of Saint-Pierre, Tarentaise, Savoy 1543; signed on fols. 1v and 3r: "Johannes boudardus canonicus regularis sancti Petri Tarentasiensis Iohan
Jehan Cedati, Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Grenoble, sixteenth century; his request to return the book if lost written in code assigning the numbers 1 to 5 to the vowels a to u on fols. 1v-2r: "Ces presentes heures sont a messir Jehan Cedati prestre de noustre Dame de Grenoble et qui les trouvea leu rende"
Owned by a member of the ducal house of Savoy, seventeenth century; cross of Savoy in shield on fol. 198r; armorial shield of Charles Emmanuel II, duke of Savoy, 1634-75, on binding
Rebound by Léon Gruel, Paris, end of the nineteenth-early twentieth century; Gruel's slip on front pastedown: "No. 1300"
Henry Walters, Baltimore, purchased from Gruel before 1931
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
French Flanders (Cambrai?)
First quarter 14th century CE
book
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin. The secondary language of this manuscript is French.
Made for the use of diocese of Cambrai, ca. 1300-10; female owner suggested by portrait of a woman praying before Christ resurrected on fol. 100v
Philippe Boudard, canon regular at Augustinian foundation of Saint-Pierre, Tarentaise, Savoy 1543; signed on fols. 1v and 3r: "Johannes boudardus canonicus regularis sancti Petri Tarentasiensis Iohan
Jehan Cedati, Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Grenoble, sixteenth century; his request to return the book if lost written in code assigning the numbers 1 to 5 to the vowels a to u on fols. 1v-2r: "Ces presentes heures sont a messir Jehan Cedati prestre de noustre Dame de Grenoble et qui les trouvea leu rende"
Owned by a member of the ducal house of Savoy, seventeenth century; cross of Savoy in shield on fol. 198r; armorial shield of Charles Emmanuel II, duke of Savoy, 1634-75, on binding
Rebound by Léon Gruel, Paris, end of the nineteenth-early twentieth century; Gruel's slip on front pastedown: "No. 1300"
Henry Walters, Baltimore, purchased from Gruel before 1931
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
This small Book of Hours, made for use in the diocese of Cambrai ca. 1300-10, is especially interesting for its profusion of humorous drolleries. Humans, animals, and hybrids are featured in the margins of each page of the book. Small scenes record a variety of activities, such as cooking, playing games, climbing, fishing, making music, and dancing. Heiner Gillmeister has argued that two of these scenes depict the earliest known images of tennis being played. These drolleries amused the faithful during their prayers, while showing scenes that work as metaphors for the soul fighting the vices. The original female owner seems to have been established in the diocese of Cambrai, judging from the use of the Office of the Dead. A number of signatures on the leaves at the beginning and end of the manuscript provide the book with a rich provenance. A priest in the sixteenth century wrote a message in code on fol. 1v asking that the book be returned to him if lost. Members of the ducal house of Savoy owned this book in the seventeenth century, as evinced by the gilt armorial shield of Charles Emmanuel II (1634-75), duke of Savoy, stamped on the covers.
Prayers written in sixteenth-century cursive minuscule; Roman capitals for the poetic composition
Principal cataloger: Randall, Lilian M.C.
Cataloger: Valle, Chiara
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Copy editor: Dibble, Charles
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Schuele, Allyson
Contributor: Sedovic, Katherine
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Contributor: Wiegand, Kimber
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
De Ricci, Seymour, and W. J. Wilson. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935; p. 783, cat. no. 165.
Chaucer's World, compiled by E. Rickert and edited by C.C. Olson and M.M. Crowillus. New York, 1948; illustration opposite p. 27, after p. 28, 346.
Janson, H.W. Apes and Ape Lore in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. London: Studies of the Warburg Institute, 1952; pp. 171, 187, 188 (n. 10), 189 (n. 23, 25), 190 (n. 32), 192 (n. 46), 193 (n. 60), Pl. XXXIXc.
Randall, Lillian M.C. Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Berkeley University Press, 1966; p. 38 and pasisim, figs. 138, 189, 237, 343, 450, 469, 476.
Verdier, P. "Woman in the Marginalia of Gothic Manuscripts." In The Role of Women in the Middle Ages, 121-160. Papers of the Sixth Annual Conference for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 6-7 May 1972. Albany, NY, 1975; p.134 (n. 76).
Schulize-Busacker, E. "Eléments de culture populaire dans la littérature courtoise." La culture populaire au moyen âge. Etudes présentés au quatrième colloque de l'Institut d'études médiévales de l'Université de Montréal 2-3 April 1977. Montreal, 1979; p. 93, illustration.
Smith, S. "'Game in myn Hood': The Tradition of a Comic Proverb." Studies in Iconography 9 (1983); p. 5, fig 2.
Davidson, Clifford, ed. Early Drama, Art, and Music: Word, Picture, and Spectacle. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications. 1984 (fols. 39r, 86v, 106r, 157r; pp. 2, 7, cover, cat. 3, 7, 21)
Randall, Lillian M.C. Illuminated Manuscripts: Masterpieces in Miniature, Highlights from the Collection of the Walters Art Gallery. Baltimore: Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 1984; PL. 17.
Wendersdorf, K.P. "The Symbolic Significance of Figurae Scatologicae in Gothic Manuscripts." Word, Literature, and Picture, edited by C. David. Kalamazoo, 1984; p. 7, fig. 21, cover.
Owens, M.B. "Musical Subjects in the Illumination of Books of Hours from Fifteenth-Century France and Flanders." Ph.D. diss, University of Chicago, 1987; p. 368.
Oliver, J.H. Gothic Manuscript Illumination in the Diocese of Liège (c. 1250-1350), Vol. 1. Louvain, 1988; p. 94 (n. 14).
Wieck, Roger S. Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life, exhibition catalogue. Baltimore, MD: Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 1988; pp. 51, 54, 158, 208: cat. no. 80, figs. 21, 25.
Gillmeister, H. Kulturgeschichte des Tennis. Sonderausgabe fur den Deutschen Tennis-Bund. Munich, 1990; pp. 25-26, figs. 11a, b.
Neaman, Judith S. "The Mystery of the Ghent Bird and the Invention of the Spectacles". Viator Medieval and Renaissance Studies 24 (1993):189-214; pp. 208-209, fig. 4.
Śnież-Stolot, E. "Das Ptolemäische Weltbild und die Mittelalterliche Ikonographie." Winer Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 46.47 (1993/1994: 669-713; pp. 879-880, figs. 1, 4.
Gillmeister, Heiner. Tennis: A Cultural History. London: Leicester University Press, 1997; pp. 15-16 (fig. 10), 67, 76, 436.
Randall, Lillian, M.C. Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery. Vol. 3, Belgium, 1250-1350. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press in association with the Walters Art Gallery, 1997; pp. 67-72, cat. no. 222.
Henisch, Bridget Ann. The Medieval Calendar Year. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999; pp. 29 (as fig. 8-4), 33 (as fig. 7-12), 34 (as fig. 7-1), 43 (as fig. 7-12), 45 (as fig. 7-12), 115 (as fig. 7-1), 170 (fig. 7-1), 177 (as fig. 7-8) , 179 (fig. 7-8), 184 (as fig. 7-1), 185 (as fig. 7-12), 186 (fig. 7-12), 200 (as fig. 7-8), 203, (as fig. 8-4), 204 (fig. 8-4), 221 (as fig. 7-8).
Noel, William. "Medieval charades and the visual syntax of the Utrecht Psalter." In Studies in the Illuminated Psalter. Edited by Brendan Cassidy and Rosemary Wright, 34-54. Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 2000; p. 35.
Joslin, Mary Coker, and Carolyn Coker Joslin Watson. The Egerton Genesis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001; pp. 69, 86, 173, 175, 177, 242.
Śnieżyńska-Stolotowa, Ewa. Astrological Iconography in the Middle Ages: The Decanal Planets. Krakow: Jagiellonian University Press, 2003; pp. 38, 76.
Mellinkoff, Ruth. Averting Demons. Los Angeles: Mellinkoff Publications, 2004; p. 151 (fig. VII.7).
Willemsen, Annemarieke. The Game of the Month: Playful Calenders in Ghent-Bruges Books of Hours. In Manuscripts in Transition. Proceedings of the International Congres Held in Brussels (5-9 November 2002). Edited by Brigitte Dekeyzer and Jan Van der Stock, 419-430. Lueven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2005; pp. 427, 430 (n. 26).
Dillon, Emma. "Representing Obscene Sound." In Medieval Obscenities, edited by Nicola McDonald, 55-84. Woodbridge, Suffolk: York Medieval Press, 2006; p. 71.
Mellinkoff, Ruth. "Break a Leg!" In Tributes in Honor of Jonathan J.G. Alexander: The Making and Meaning of Illuminated Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, Art, and Architecture. Edited by Susan L’Engle and Gerald B. Gest, 233-248. Turnhout, Belgium: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2006; p. 243.
Newman, Paul B. Growing Up in the Middle Ages. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2007; p. 89, fig. 22.
Vanwijnsberghe, Dominique. "Moult bons et notables": l'enluminure tournaisienne à l'époque de Robert Campin (1380-1430). Leuven: Peeters, 2007; p. 169 (n. 499 for p. 150).
Wirth, Jean, and Isabelle Engammare. Les marges à drôleries des manuscrits gothiques, 1250-1350. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2008; 133, 134, 207, 212, 215, 219, 233, 246-247, 273, 298, 300, 310, 324, 344, 361.
Dillon, Emma. The Sense of Sound: Musical Meaning in France, 1260-1330. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; pp. 228-231, fig. 6.23 236-239, fig. 6.27.
Leo, Dominic. Images, Texts, and Marginalia in a "Vows of the Peacock" Manuscript (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS G24). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Publishers, 2013; p. 344.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
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