Ffeil NLW MS 23388B [RESTRICTED ACCESS]. - Horae (use of Paris),

A Book of Hours of the use of Paris, in Latin and French, second half of the fifteenth century, apparently of Breton provenance, containing a Calendar in French (ff. 1-12 verso); Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary (ff. 13-70), incorporating the Hours of the Cross and of the Holy Ghost from the end of Lauds onwards; 'Obsecro te' (ff. 70 verso-5 verso); 'O intemerata' (ff. 75 verso-8 verso); part of the Gospel of St John (ff. 78 verso-80); suffrages of SS Sebastian, Michael, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul the Apostle, Christopher, Nicholas, Julian, Mary Magdalen, Catherine and Margaret (ff. 80 verso-8); penitential Psalms (ff. 89-103 verso); Litany (ff. 104-10 verso); and Office of the Dead (ff. 111-52 verso). Illuminated initials, mainly one-line and two-line in text, mostly four-line in illuminated borders of coloured foliage and flowers, dominant colours red, blue, pink and gold. Eight polychrome miniatures in arched compartments above four-, three- and two-line illuminated initials with four or five lines of text, all within full borders of same style as before; subjects are the Annunciation (f. 13), Crucifixion (f. 38), Pentecost with Virgin Mary (f. 39 verso), Martyrdom of St Sebastian (f. 80 verso), St Christopher carrying Christ child (f. 83 verso), St Margaret and dragon (f. 87 verso), King David at prayer (f. 89) and funeral scene (f. 111). The Calendar includes St Yvo of Brittany and St Mellon of Llaneirwg, Monmouthshire, and Plomelin, Brittany, and the Litany the Breton Saints Yvo, Maglor of Dol and Armel. Added on f. 154 by a late fifteenth-century hand is a hymn to the Virgin, in French, by Guillaume Alexis (fl. 1451-86) (see Piaget, A. & Picot, É. (eds): Poétiques de Guillaume Alexis (Paris, 1908), pp. 199-200); the same poem is attested in at least two other late fifteenth-century manuscripts of Breton provenance (London, BL Add. 18838 and Paris, BN lat. 1369; Långfors, Arthur: Les Incipit des poèmes français antérieurs au XVIe siècle (Leipzig, 1971), p. 149). Traces of another, unidentified poem in French, in a different but perhaps contemporary hand, are visible on f. 154 verso.