‘Dangerous Devotion’– the Secret Life of a

Robert Weaver

Sitting within the Archives at Dulwich College, some five miles south of the Cathedral, lies a seemingly innocuous little volume of prayers which can comfortably be held within the palm of one hand; let us play detective, for with a little examination it can yield insights into a world very different from and as equally challenging as our own 21st century, yet with a common shared humanity which can unite us with its original makers and owners across half a millennium.

What does it look like? For a start it is very different from modern books in appearance, being only 4 by 3 inches in size and handwritten by a medieval scribe based in Flanders (modern Belgium) in gothic script about 1460 (already a time of challenge with the revolution of printing from moveable type in 1455) on 172 sheets, called folios, of vellum calfskin (each hide furnishing some nine double sheets for folding into quires to be stitched together on a spine); vellum is durable and tough as a surface and it is salutary that this little volume is a survivor across the centuries and will probably outlast us, as it has all the turmoil, religious and political of the last five centuries.

Opening it up we meet a calendar of saints in Latin, and for December the first indication that this was a potentially dangerous volume to own in the 16th century, for the word pape for pope has been erased, although the entry for the 29th for St Thomas of Canterbury, equally suspect to reformers, has oddly survived intact. Next we encounter a series of memorials of ten saints, each accompanied by an initial within which is a small miniature (so called from the red dye minium used to outline the underdrawing) of the saint and an identifying symbol – e.g., Barbara with her tower, Margaret with a rather tame dragon, Christopher carrying Christ, and significantly for us, St Thomas of Canterbury being murdered by four knights in medieval armour (nothing anachronistic about that to the 15th century mind). Here the plot thickens, for the saint’s name is lined out and below the image his set text reading Gaude lux londiniarum (Rejoice, Light of Londoners) is also crossed, but very lightly so - why? The family or individual owning this book were obeying the ordinance of King Henry VIII in November 1538 that no mention should be made of Thomas as saint in religious books, the most common of which were books like this one, called Hours (enabling lay people to follow the eight monastic services each day Prime to Compline). Henry resented in his reforms that here was a cleric who had stood against another King, Henry II and, through martyrdom, won. The lightness of the erasure indicates that the owners were sympathetic catholics, but obeying the letter of the law to escape punishment. The book thus must have been in England by this time, having been produced across the Channel in a place like Bruges or Ghent, major centres for export.

Liturgically it follows Sarum use, i.e., that for Salisbury Cathedral, which covered books for the south of the country; here we have indications of links with the Continent and a vibrant export trade. Its production would have involved not just a scribe but up to perhaps twenty different processes, from preparing the surface vellum, mixing the vegetable dyes, laying the gold leaf which sparkles around haloes and in the delicate filigree naturalistic borders surrounding significant text, with painting the miniatures being assigned to the most skilled craftsmen and women. Most are anonymous, but our artist has been termed ‘the Master of the Beady Eyes’ (you can see why if you glance closely) and also painted a similar Book of Hours now at Clare College, Cambridge.