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“THE MURTHLY HOURS”: ART, ARISTOCRACY, AND THE ILLUMINATED BOOK

MATTHEW REEVE Queen’s University, Canada

Higgit, John. The Murthly Hours: Devotion, Literacy, and Luxury in Paris, England, and the Gaelic West. The British Library Studies in Medieval Culture, eds. Michelle P. Brown et al. Toronto ON, London, and Edinburgh: University of Toronto Press and the British Library in asso- ciation with the National Library of Scotland, 2000. Pp. xxii + 362 + 151 illustrations + 5 tables + 1 CD-ROM. $80.00 cloth.

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his long-awaited study brings to light an important illuminated man- Tuscript (Edinburgh NLS, Ms. 21000), commonly known from the surname of its nineteenth-century owners as “The Murthly Hours.” Illuminated in the later thirteenth century for aristocratic patrons, the Murthly Hours was in a private collection from the time of its sale in 1871 until its rediscovery in the 1980s (in part due to the assiduous researches of the author, John Higgit). It was then sold to the National Library of Scotland. The rarity of high quality illumination from the period, and the even greater paucity of pre-1300 books of hours makes this a most welcome addition to the growing corpus of late thirteenth- century illuminated manuscripts, including the recently rediscovered Burdett Psalter. The Murthly Hours is a monographic appraisal of the manuscript, aim- ing to account for its provenance, style, possible ownership and patron- age, and its place within later thirteenth-century painting in Northern Europe. The composite nature of the manuscript, comprised of at least three different sections including two different illuminated cycles, one of which may not have been originally attached to the manuscript, makes this a daunting task indeed. Higgit’s study is divided into nine chapters, including a comprehensive set of appendixes, which deal with the codi- cological aspects of the book as well as transcriptions of the texts and the later additions and annotations. Throughout, the plates are in black and white, with the exception of eight color plates. Yet this lack of color

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plates is brilliantly balanced by the inclusion, slipped into the back cover, of a CD-ROM facsimile of the entire manuscript with commentary. The CD itself is well worth owning, and represents a growing trend in pub- lishing to include inexpensive high quality digital images rather than expensive color illustrations. Following a brief introduction in the first chapter, the second chapter provides an account of the composition of the manuscript and its history from its inception to the present day. Through a discussion of the obit- uaries in the calendar (f. 24r-29v), Higgit shows that it followed the litur- gical use of Worcester Cathedral, and was undoubtedly an original part of the manuscript. It is also clear that the Murthly Hours was intended for an aristocratic woman. This is evidenced by her portrait in f. 149v (reproduced in color plate IIA), a common form of owner portrait, and by an inscription in a cursive anglicana hand on f. iiv indicating an intended female reader/user. The Murthly Hours joins an extensive number of early books of hours written for female patrons or users. Higgit constructs an elaborate argument (based on an equal mixture of conjecture and historical fact) to propose a possible female candidate for the ownership of the manuscript: Joan de Valence, daughter of William de Valence, the half-brother of King Henry III of England (1216-1272). A series of later obituaries in the manuscript indicate that the book trav- eled to Scotland in the fourteenth century, where it was in the owner- ship of the MacDougall family. The MacDougall’s were not only a well-established family in Scotland by this time, but also had a long his- tory of service to the English court during the protracted wars between England and Scotland during the reigns of the English Kings Edward I and II. As Higgit notes, the MacDougall’s “were moving in just the right kind of circles” (19) to provide the conduit by which the Murthly Hours could come to Scotland. The possibility that Joan de Valence was the intended user of the manuscript is suggested by her marriage to the Scottish lord, John Comyn of Badenoch, and by the fact that the Valence family held extensive lands in Worcestershire. All of this is, of course, informed speculation, but the evidence as Higgit presents it cre- ates an interesting context in which to understand the creation of the book; it likewise points in the general direction of Joan de Valence or a related aristocratic woman in the 1280s or 1290s. The third through eighth chapters deal at length with the illumination of the manuscript. Chapters Three to Five concern the illuminations in the Book of Hours itself, namely the christological scenes detailing the life and passion of Christ. (In Murthly, these are found in nine remain- ing historiated initials, including the Hours of the Virgin, of which Matins and Prime are now missing; the Hours of the Holy Spirit; the

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