The Psalter-Hours of Isabelle of France

Script and Textual Contents

Description and Contents

The manuscript is written in Latin in Gothic bookhand (textualis).

fols. Iv-VIr Prefatory cycle of six full-page miniatures

fols. VIIr-XIIv Calendar (for use at the Sainte-Chapelle)

fols. XIIIv-162r Psalter

fols. 162r-177v Canticles, Te deum, Quicumque vult

fols. 177v-226v Hours of the Virgin (use of Paris, ends imperfectly), with suffrages to saints inserted at Lauds

fols. 227r-233r Penitential Psalms (begin imperfectly)

fols. 233r-240v Litany with collects

fols. 240v-241r Prayer Suscipere digneris domine

fols. 241r-242r Prayer O intemerata (ends imperfectly)

fols. 242r-271r Office of the Dead (use of Paris, begins imperfectly)

fols. 271r-284v Collects, sermons and lessons for the Nativity of the Virgin, Annunciation, Purification and Assumption

fols. 284v-289r Song of Songs 1-5 (read on Saturdays)

fols. 289r-291r Antiphons for the Psalms recited at Vespers on double feasts, for the Magnificat and the Benedictus in the Hours of the Virgin on Saturdays and during the period from Advent to the Purification

fols. 292r-296r End of an Office of the Holy Spirit and Mass of the Holy Spirit (14th-century addition)

The verses of Psalm 1 begin with one-line initials (versals) in alternating blue and gold leaf with red or blue pen flourishing. Psalm 2 at the bottom of the page opens with a larger, pink initial Q, filled with foliage and an orange dragon on gold leaf ground, set against an outer blue ground within a gold leaf frame, and extending into spiky foliage which supports a rabbit. This initials and the line fillers, painted in the same style, are the work of the same assistant (Hand 1).