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Description: | Called the 'Stowe Breviary' because it was in the collection at Stowe House, this prayerbook may have belonged to a member of the clergy in the Diocese of Norwich. The exceptional quality of its handwriting and decoration suggest that the original owner was an important person. Two artists painted the pictures within letters (historiated initials) and another artist created the decoration. Their work resembles other East Anglian art, showing the superb skills of the region's 14th-century scribes and artists. Several parts, however, are lost from it, and a section at the end was added later in the 14th century. It has the prayer services used in much of England after the Norman invasion (Sarum usage).
The breviary gives hymns, prayers and readings, along with instructions, for the prayer services called the 'divine office' which were said several times each day, and provided the material appropriate to feasts and saints' days. On this page, prayers and hymns are given commemorating St Germanus, a 6th-century bishop of Paris (28 May), and the chains of St Peter (1 August). Historiated initials give a conventional portrait of a bishop and the figure of St Peter as a bishop holding up the chains which held him when imprisoned, considered powerful relics. | License: | http://www.bl.uk/services/copy/permission.html | Rights holder: | British Library | Source: | Collect Britain | Identifier: | http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personal... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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