Beinecke MS 437                France, s. XV^^4/4
Hours, use of Rome ("Vanderbilt Missal")

1.  ff. 1r-12v  Calendar, rather empty, with important feasts in red; among
original entries are Vedast and Amandus (6 Feb.), Silvinus (17 Feb.), Ursmar (18
Apr.), Quentin (2 May), Servatius (13 May), Boniface (5 June), Remacle
(3 Sept.), Humbert (6 Sept.), Aichard (15 Sept.), Caprasius (20 Oct.).
Approximately 75 feasts added by several later hands, including 18 Franciscan
feasts:  Francis of Assisi (25 May, 17 Sept., 3 Oct. as vigil for feast on
4 Oct. with its octave on 11 Oct.), Antony of Padua (15 Feb., 13 June with its
octave on 21 June), Louis of Toulouse (19 Aug. over an erasure, with its octave
on 26 Aug., 8 Nov.) Bernardinus (20 May with its octave on 27 May), Bonaventure,
in red, in lower margin of f. 7r ("festum sancti bonauenture semper celebratur
prima dominica mensis Jullij [sic]"), Clara (12 Aug., 2 Oct.), Elisabeth of
Thuringia (19 Nov.), Eleazar de Sabran (27 Sept.).  Because of damage and later
repair to the upper margin of f. 1, it is not possible to tell if Berard (16
Jan.) was also added.

2.  ff. 13r-19r  Obsecro te...[Leroquais LH 2. 346-47, masculine forms]; f. 16v
O intemerata...[Wilmart 488-90].

3.  ff. 19v-21v  Suffrages to Sebastian, Adrianus (ending defectively),
Margaret (beginning defectively) and Catharine.

4.  ff. 21v-25v  Prayers added in 4 later hands:  Suffrage to Felix and
Adauctus; f. 22r Suffrage to Francis; f. 23v Suffrage to the Franciscan Saints;
f. 24v Seven Prayers of St. Gregory [Leroquais LH 2. 346].

5.  ff. 50r-78v, 101r-106v, 26r-49v  Hours of the Virgin, probably use of Rome
(although antiphon at None is "Post partum uirgo...," f. 28v); weekly variations
of the Psalms at Matins set into the text before the lessons.  Changed office
for the liturgical year begins abruptly, ff. 42r-49v.  Misbound and with the
opening leaf of most hours missing:  before ff. 50 (Matins), 66 (Lauds), 75
(Prime), 101 (Terce), 104 (Sext), 27 (None), 38 (Compline).

6.  ff. 79r-84v  Hours of the Cross, short form; begins abruptly.

7.  ff. 85r-89v  Hours of the Holy Spirit, short form; begins abruptly.

8.  ff. 90r-95v  Mass of the Virgin.

9.  ff. 95v-100v  Sequences of the Gospels.

10.  ff. 107r-124v  Penitential Psalms, beginning abruptly, and litany; Quentin
(6) among the 9 martyrs; Gaugeric (8), Vedast (9) and Louis King (10) among the
10 confessors; Francis (1), Antony of Padua (3), Louis of Toulouse (5) and
Bernardinus (6) among the 6 monks; Clara of Assisi (8) and Elisabeth of
Thuringia (10) among the 10 virgins.

11.  ff. 125r-164r  Office of the Dead, use of Rome, begins abruptly; completed
by a hand of s. xvi or xvii in lower margin.  f. 164v ruled but blank

     Parchment, ff. ii (parchment) + (paper) + 164 + i (paper) + ii (parchment),
177 x 140 (108 x 68) mm., trimmed.  Written in 17 long lines in Calendar, 16 in
text, ruled in pale red ink; single vertical and horizontal bounding lines, full
length and full across.
     I-II^^6, III^^8, IV^^5 (2 individual leaves, followed by a bifolio and a single
leaf of parchment of lighter weight), V^^8 (-2, after f. 26), VI^^8 (-6, after f.
37), VII^^8 (-3, after f. 41), VIII^^4 (-4, after f. 49) IX^^8 (-1, before f. 50),
X^^8, XI^^8 (-2, after f. 65), XII^^8 (-4, after f. 74), XIII^^8 (-1, before f. 79;
-8, after f. 84), XIV-XV^^8, XVI^^6 (ff. 101-106, originally belonged before
f. 26), XVII^^8 (-1, before f. 107), XVIII^^8, XIX^^8 (-4, after f. 124),
XX-XXIII^^8, XXIV^^4 (4 separate leaves, probably the first half of a quire of 8).
     Written in gothic bookhand.
     Two half-page miniatures, f. 30v Flight into Egypt (Vespers), and f. 90r
Virgin and Child (Mass of Virgin) in arched frames, pink or blue and gold, each
with a 4-line initial, f. 30v blue with white highlights against an irregular
brown ground with gold flowers, f. 90r pink with curling acanthus in gold,
against a brown and blue ground with green and white acanthus.  Both miniatures
with full acanthus and floral borders, red, blue, pink, green, purple and gold,
with grapes and grotesques and a three-quarter bar, pink, blue and gold.  Two
historiated initials [later additions?], f. 19v, 7-line, St. Sebastian
(Suffrage), and f. 20r, 5-line, St. Adrianus (Suffrage), both black with gold
curling acanthus on a black and/or pink ground with gold filigree and
three-quarter bar border, pink, blue and gold, with a full border of flowers and
hair-spray, grapes and birds, and red, blue, pink and green acanthus in corners.
2-line initials, gold, filled with blue or pink on pink or blue grounds with
white highlights, each with floral and hair-spray border as above, versos only,
red bounding lines.  1-line initials and KL monograms as 2-line initials,
important feasts and rubrics in red.  ff. 21v-25v (art. 4), initials, 5- to
2-line, very crude, black on pink grounds with yellow floral filigree, edged
thickly in black.
     Binding:  s. xix.  Black, hard-grained goatskin, gold-tooled.  Bound by H. M.
Coombs and Co. Gilt edges.

Written in Northern France in the fourth quarter of the 15th century.  The
original entries in the calendar suggest the area around Cambrai; added entries
suggest that the manuscript may have belonged to a Franciscan house in the 16th
century.  Signature on third flyleaf recto:  "John B. Bartlett [?] 1846."
Acquired by Cornelius Vanderbilt (no. 194); bequeathed to Yale in his memory by
his daughter Gladys Moore Vanderbilt, Countess Laszlo Szechenyi, in 1966.

Barbara A. Shailor