Medieval Devotion in a Midwest Collection: Establishing Production and Provenance

Abstract

Abstract: Without provenance or place of production, isolated manuscripts and orphaned leaves dot library and museum collections around the world. The College of Wooster houses an exquisite and complete book of hours of Sarum use about which almost nothing is known. Using formal analysis and the most limited of documentary sources, this essay proposes London, ca. 1430–1450, as the place of production for this little illuminated codex. Firmly linking this horae to known and researched prayer books such as the British Library's Burney MS 334, Harley MS 210, and especially the Harley MS 2887—also known as the Hours of the Earls of Ormond—this article provides an inlet to existing historiography on the codex's milieu of production. Moreover, this analysis supports the probability that this book survived the notorious fire in Sir Robert Cotton's library at Ashburnham House, with telltale signs of water and smoke damage apparent on the parchment pages. A previously overlooked and unresearched horae , the Wooster Hours now has a provenance and historiography.