This richly illuminated Book of Hours survives as a compelling example of pre-Eyckian book illumination from a subgroup called the Pink Canopies Group, of whose work only eight codices survive, including four in public collections. One of the finest of the group, the present manuscript has been considered “lost” since 1937. The bold expressive figures set beneath pink architectural canopies are rendered with the subtle plasticity of Pre-Eyckian realism and are typically set against highly decorative backgrounds.

1. Made in Bruges for export to England. The presence of a miniature of St. Edmund (of Bury St Edmunds) and a calendar entry for St. Fremund both point to an East Anglian destination for this manuscript. Fremund was a relative of Edmund and both were martyred by the same band of Vikings, for which reason John Lydgate paired them in his Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund. A related manuscript in Cambridge University Library (see Illustration, below) also has early East Anglian connections and may be the work of the same artist.

2. An unidentified fifteenth-century English owner has inscribed in the calendar page for September, in which the feast of the “Exaltatio” of the Holy Cross (14 September) is in red, “Encq’[?] on the morn affore holle ruddaye [i.e. Holy Rood Day, 14 September] / et sant Regaud evyne [i.e. and St. Rigaud’s even(ing)?]” (f. 5, lower margin).

3. This manuscript was still in England at the time of the Reformation, perhaps in recusant hands. This possibility is suggested by the curious treatment of this book’s contents: references to the pope have been erased from the calendar and the Canon of the Mass (f. 115), indicating that the book was in England and subject to Henry VIII’s decree, and yet the miniature of Becket, the prayers addressed to him, and his entries in the calendar all remain intact.

4. Offered by J. J. Leighton in 1915; item 151 in his Catalogue of Manuscripts, Mostly Illuminated, Many in Fine Bindings, London, 1915 (with plates on pp. 166-167).

5. Belonged to Lt.-Col. William Edward Moss (1875-1953) of the Manor House, Sonning-on-Thames. Sold in his sale at Sotheby’s, 5 March 1937 (lot 834).

6. Bought in the 1937 sale by Maggs for Major Sir Alan Lubbock (1897-1990); Lubbock’s armorial bookplate and pencil inscription with two comparanda, “Westminster Abbey Lib. f.47 (Liber Regalis) / & Trin. Coll. (Cant) MS.B.II.7 f.20,” on the back pastedown.

7. Private European collection.