The Hours of Isabella Stuart

Physical Description

Description and Contents

Parchment, i early modern paper flyleaf + i contemporary parchment flyleaf + 232 fols. + i contemporary parchment flyleaf, 250 x 183 mm (120 x 76 mm), 15 long lines, ruled in red ink, catchwords. The text was written in iron-gall ink and the rubrics in ultramarine blue.

St Radegund, the 6th-century Frankish queen, is seen kneeling before the resurrected Christ in the main image and extending her healing touch to three invalids in the margin. She received seven images and suffrages (fols. 224v-230v), more than any other saint honoured in the volume. The manuscript’s patron must have been particularly devoted to her.

This is the last page of quire 28 and the lower margin preserves a catchword which indicates the opening words on the first page of quire 29.