Condition and Textual Content

While not among the most lavishly illuminated books of its period, the Tabram Hours was clearly planned as a luxury item, and was almost certainly produced as the result of a commission by an individual patron. Currently, it is in a cheap nineteenth-century binding of cardboard and leather, with the inscription Horae ab [sic] usum Sarum written on a paper label on the spine. With the exception of some additions in cursive hands at the end, the text is by a single scribe writing a practised textura script of two different scales.Footnote ⁴ In its current state, the manuscript contains 110 parchment leaves, measuring on average 178mm by 130mm, but at least thirteen others have been lost.Footnote ⁵ Of these, some are represented by unevenly cut stubs with traces of ruling on them, suggesting mutilation after the manuscript was put into its current binding. Other leaves were evidently missing when the rebinding was done.Footnote ⁶ The borders have been trimmed and the first twenty-five leaves in particular have been injured by damp or rodents: the manuscript appears to have lacked a cover for some period. Folios 9, 10, 24, 25 and 83 are currently loose, although they are in their proper positions. Ideologically motivated damage exists in the erasure of the names of Thomas of Canterbury and the canonised popes and of the word pape from the calendar, litany and suffrages. The litany has also lost its invocation Ut episcopos et abbates nostros in sancta religione conservare digneris, te rogamus. However, the violation was not very systematic. The feast of St Gregory, in red, is untouched in the calendar (12 March), and although one set of prayers to St Thomas has been thoroughly deleted in accordance with the proclamation of 1538, another survives intact.

The text begins with a standard Sarum calendar in red and black with feasts graded up to nine lessons. It contains most of the usual English saints, and no later additions except an added obit on 23 January in a minute Anglicana hand, which is only partially legible: Obit […] Seueburgh […] mccccxxix.Footnote ⁷ This is followed by a series of suffrages – to the Holy Face, the Guardian Angel, the Trinity, Christ and various saints (John the Baptist, Catherine, Anne, George, Christopher, Margaret, Mary Magdalene, Thomas of Canterbury and John of Bridlington). Those that incorporate psalms do so by cue, indicating that the intended reader could recognise and recite psalms on the basis of their incipits. Each suffrage occupies its own leaf, meaning that the verso is partially or wholly blank: the intention must have been to provide the owner with an opportunity to insert extra prayers, information or images (this was never exploited). Three leaves, now represented by stubs with evidence of ruling, have been excised from the suffrages, although apparently not with the intent of censorship, because the prayers to Thomas of Canterbury remain (fol 18–18v).Footnote ⁸ Probably some of the missing prayers were to apostles such as Peter and Paul, none of whom is represented here. The most interesting suffrage is the final one, to John of Bridlington, which has the rubric heading Antiphona ad iohannem sanctum priorem bridlingtonie (fol 19). Suffrages to this saint are unusual in English books of hours, especially at such an early date, and their presence here suggests a refinement of interest in indigenous saints for which there is more evidence in the litany.Footnote ⁹

Folios 20–37 contain the hours of the Virgin, each (from prime onwards) preceded by a condensed office of the Cross. The opening leaf of matins of the Virgin is lost. As commonly in Sarum books of hours, lauds is followed by a series of suffrages (to the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the Cross and saints Michael, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, Andrew and (again) Thomas of Canterbury). Among these, the prayers to Thomas of Canterbury have been completely erased (fol 27v). After the hour of none of the Virgin there are more suffrages: to John the Evangelist, Anne, Margaret, All Angels and Relics. Besides the opening leaf, two other important leaves have been lost from this section of the manuscript. The beginning of terce of the Virgin, with prime of the Cross, is missing between fols 29 and 30, and most of none of the Virgin, with the short sext of the Cross, has also disappeared from between fols 32 and 33. The devotional material between the hours and Penitential Psalms begins with the Salve Regina (fol 38) and other prayers to the Virgin, some of them cut out (a stub remains between fols 38 and 39). The Salve Virgo virginum, a popular stanzaic adaptation of the Salve Regina, begins on fol 39, preceded by an image of the Virgin and Child and the usual heading promising help to all those who venerate images (figurae) of the Virgin.Footnote ¹⁰ It is followed here by another stanzaic devotion on the theme of the Annunciation, the O Intemerata (with masculine form peccator), prayers to be recited during the mass, and the prayer on the seven last words of Christ ascribed to the Venerable Bede (beginning with the rubric Oracio uenerabilis bede presbiteri de septem uerbis Christi Ihesu in cruce pendentis). On fol 46, a distinct set of prayers to the Virgin, Christ and the Trinity is announced in red, its opening G (for Gaude flore uirginali) specially illuminated. These are followed by the Seven Penitential Psalms, written out in full (fols 54–57, the first leaf lost), and the Fifteen Gradual Psalms, of which only half are written out (fols 57v–58v).

The litany with its collects follows (fols 58v–63v). It contains three points of interest. First, St Thomas appears three times, once among the Apostles (erased), again after the invocation of all Apostles, Evangelists, Disciples and Innocents (not erased) and a third time after Kenelm in the list of English martyrs (erased). It is unclear whether a double invocation of the apostle or the martyr of Canterbury is intended, although the presence of two sets of prayers to the English Thomas earlier in the manuscript makes it seem likely that he is the intended one. The repetition may suggest that the book was made for someone called Thomas, or for an individual or institution particularly devoted to one of these saints. Second, the English names are given precedence at the head of the list of martyrs over Stephen, Fabian, Sebastian and the rest: an instance of ‘spiritual patriotism’ which reinforces the impression of a devotionally articulate patron with a particular attraction to English saints. The third point of interest is the addition to the Virgins of Sancta vritha in a hand of roughly the same date as the main text (fol 60v; Fig 1). This is Urith of Chittlehampton, the Brittonic Devonshire saint supposed to have been beheaded at the instigation of her stepmother.Footnote ¹¹ After the litany collects, the texts follow the familiar sequence of Office of the Dead, Commendation of Souls, Psalter of St Jerome and Psalms of the Passion (each lacking its opening leaf except for the Commendation).Footnote ¹² The section ends with a prayer against the Seven Deadly Sins. The concluding portion of the original text (fols 92v–106) is occupied by prayers of various kinds, beginning with the Obsecro te (with the masculine forms N[omine] famulo tuo) and a version of the Confiteor confessing fifty-one egregious ways of sinning. There are prayers to the seven occult names of God, to Christ and to the Trinity. Following these are two series of prayers in Anglo-Norman French with introductory rubrics.Footnote ¹³ The first seven prayers (fols 99–103v), in verse, are designed to be said before and during the mass. Their long rubrics (also in verse) spell out the points at which each prayer is to be said: at the beginning of the mass, at the words Orate pro me, before the offertory, during the secret, at the elevation, when commemorating the dead and after the pax. These prayers are otherwise found in the Carew-Poyntz Hours (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, ms 48, fols 41–46v), the M R James Memorial Psalter (London, British Library, Additional ms 44949, fols 11–15v) and the Taymouth Hours (London, British Library, ms Yates Thompson 13, fols 7–14), although only the James Memorial Psalter has the extended rubrics as well.Footnote ¹⁴ The second series, comprising five prayers to the Five Joys of the Virgin Mary (fols 103v–104v), is in prose, and begins Duz dame seint marie en lonour de del glorious message; it is followed by a Latin prayer on the same theme.Footnote ¹⁵ Finally, there are prayers in Latin to be said during mass, a long rubric explaining that those in peril and tribulation should say a mass of a different dedication each day of the week and also light candles and distribute alms, and a concluding prayer to God for salvation.Footnote ¹⁶

Fig 1

Tabram Hours, fol 60v, detail, with added invocation of St Urith of Chittlehampton

The scribe of the Tabram Hours left four leaves blank at the end of the manuscript, which were subsequently filled up with additions in three hands. First come the Fifteen Oes, written in a coarse fifteenth-century script (fols 106–110). The final O had to be written around a pre-existing macaronic prayer inserted at the head of fol 109 (beginning Regardes les pees de Jhesu). Uniquely in the manuscript, this has a heading in Middle English (‘To haue þy praier y granted’). The prayer was designed to be said while contemplating an image of Christ crucified, because there are exhortations in French to look at Christ's feet (les pees), the wounds in his side (les plaiez du cost), arms (lez bras), head (le teste) and whole body (toutz le corps) respectively, while reciting Latin prayers (or simply their incipits) such as the Pater noster and Adoramus te. Its purpose was evidently that of ensuring the effectiveness of the other prayers in the book, whose recitation without it must have been thought potentially unreliable. In any case, this generic function accounts for its position in a place of ready reference at the end of the book. A further, short, prayer to the Virgin has been added by someone else on fol 110, after the last of the Fifteen Oes. Folio 110v, which looks as though it has always faced the manuscript's back cover, is blank.

Illumination

In its original state, the Tabram Hours contained at least twelve pages with illuminated bar-frame borders, ten of them between fols 19 and 39. Seven of these survive, all on rectos (fols 23, 28, 31, 34, 36, 37 and 39), of which one (fol 37: compline of the Cross) has a three-sided border, the others full borders (Figs 2–7). The missing leaf on which the Psalms of the Passion commenced (between fols 83 and 84) also had an illuminated recto (traces of its border survive on the stub), and it can be assumed that this was the case with the lost opening leaves of matins, terce and none of the Virgin and the Office of the Dead. Five of the surviving illuminated leaves have major initials with figure-subjects (probably not by the artist of the borders) and one has a further major initial containing a coat of arms.Footnote ¹⁷ The other two border pages (fols 36 and 37), together with fol 46 (Fig 8), have elaborate foliate initials by the border artist. Additionally, there are 246 illuminated initials of between two and seven lines. These stand at the heads of the prayers and the calendar pages, taking the familiar form of gold letters in frames with maroon (or sometimes tawny) and blue backgrounds, the backgrounds ornamented with linear decoration in white (usually abstract, but in six cases representing a two-headed bird displayed).Footnote ¹⁸ In many instances, the frames are indented or scalloped and the terminations often elongated and spiky. There is practically no flourishing, and the format as a whole looks rather old-fashioned in an early fifteenth-century book. The presence of three or more of these initials on a single page (as, for example, on fols 64v and 75v) is visually striking (Fig 9).

Fig 2

Tabram Hours, fol 23, showing the illumination at the opening of lauds of the Virgin

Fig 3

Tabram Hours, fol 28, showing the illumination at the openings of matins of the Cross and prime of the Virgin

Fig 4

Tabram Hours, fol 31, showing the illumination at the opening of sext of the Virgin

Fig 5

Tabram Hours, fol 34, showing the illumination at the opening of vespers of the Virgin

Fig 6

Tabram Hours, fol 36, showing the illumination at the opening of compline of the Virgin

Fig 7

Tabram Hours, fol 39, showing the illumination at the opening of devotions to the Virgin, beginning with Salve Virgo virginum

Fig 8

Tabram Hours, fol 46, detail, showing the illuminated initial

Fig 9

Tabram Hours, fol 75v, showing the decorative effect created by the combination of illuminated initials and red and black text

Some of the figure-subjects are contextually rare or unique in an English book of hours, and this contributes to the manuscript's art-historical significance. At lauds of the Virgin the major initial D contains a figure of God (or Christ) seated upon a bench that looks like an altar or tomb (Fig 10). He wears a rich blue mantle, holds a golden orb in his lap, and raises his right hand in blessing. The background is black, diapered with a mesh of gold lines and red and blue ornament. Such diapered backgrounds, which also appear on fols 28, 31 and 34, are distinctive features of the illumination. This first historiated initial is also the largest, at eight lines (the others are six lines): the impression of a hierarchy of decoration, from lauds to the foliate initial of compline, would probably be clearer if the illuminated page for matins survived.Footnote ¹⁹ The next border page (fol 28) includes the scene of Christ before Pilate (or perhaps Caiaphas or Annas: the figure wears a red Phrygian cap) in the D at the beginning of prime of the Virgin, against a similar diapered background. Christ, in blue, his hands crossed in front of him, is attractively and skilfully grouped with two other figures, one dressed in green, the other in red. On fol 31 (sext of the Virgin) the subject is the Crucifixion, with Mary and John on a diapered gold ground, and at fol 34 (vespers of the Virgin) it is Our Lady of Pity (ie the Pietà) (Fig 11), on a black ground with diaperwork, with the Virgin, in red and white, seated on the same sort of bench as the figure on fol 23. Comparison of these images with Kathleen Scott's table of figure-subjects in English books of hours of c 1390–c 1490, which collates forty-two manuscripts, throws up only one correspondence: the interrogation of Christ at prime (five examples – the subject is much more common at terce). However, Scott lists no manuscript in which either a seated figure of God or Christ blessing or of Our Lady of Pity illustrates any of the hours, and none which has the Crucifixion at sext (although it is common at none, and a few have it at vespers).Footnote ²⁰ The unusual selection of subjects for the initials makes it impossible to guess with confidence what the missing images at matins (usually the Annunciation), terce and none of the Virgin were.

Fig 10

Tabram Hours, fol 23, detail, showing the miniature of God the Father at lauds of the Virgin

Fig 11

Tabram Hours, fol 34, detail, showing the miniature of Our Lady of Pity at vespers of the Virgin

There is one other historiated initial, accompanying the Salve Virgo virginum on fol 39. Here, the opening S contains a seated Virgin and Child on a gold ground, the Virgin in red with a blue mantle and gold crown, the Child with a gold nimbus (the only example of this among the miniatures: see Figs 7 and 12). Christ leans toward the left of the page, and extends a gesturing arm in that direction. This indicates that the model for the image included a votive figure to the right of Christ, and it is possible that such a figure was once represented opposite this initial on the verso of the leaf that has been lost between fols 38 and 39. Parallels for Christ's pose here can be seen on the Wilton Diptych and in a handful of other English fifteenth-century manuscripts.Footnote ²¹ The model in this case must have resembled the opening initial of the same prayer in the Burnet Psalter-Hours of c 1420 (now Aberdeen, University Library, ms 25, fol 84), a book of Sarum use illuminated by Flemish artists, which shows a donor kneeling in the inner margin and Christ gesticulating in the same manner (Figs 12 and 13).Footnote ²²

Fig 12

Tabram Hours, fol 39, detail, showing the miniature of the Virgin and Child

Fig 13

Burnet Psalter-Hours (Aberdeen, University Library, ms 25), fol 84, detail, showing the initial at the opening of the Salve Virgo virginum. Photograph: reproduced by permission of Aberdeen University Library

Of identical size, and clearly as important in the scheme as the historiated letters, is the heraldic initial, which appears at the beginning of matins of the Cross (fol 28; see Fig 3). It displays a shield with a black engrailed cross on a gold field, the field itself delicately flourished with feathery gold lines of a sort common in high-grade illumination of the period. The heraldic charge is, of course, appropriate to the devotional subject. However, this coat of arms, whose identity is discussed below, is unlikely to have been selected for religious purposes alone. It seems more likely to represent the deliberate incorporation of personal or institutional heraldry into the book at a devotionally appropriate point.

Despite an extensive search, I have been unable to find a match for the style of either the borders or the figures in any other manuscript.Footnote ²³ The drawing and style of the figures is practised but not of conspicuous quality, and bears a generic resemblance to much small-scale figurework of the late fourteenth century and first quarter of the fifteenth. As commonly in illumination of the period, the head and hands are exaggerated in scale to emphasise their expressive and symbolic importance. All the outlines and the facial features are executed in brown ink, and the faces and limbs are modelled in flesh-pink, red and white. Garments are coloured dark blue (modelled with white), red (modelled with orange), green and brown. There are a few diagnostic characteristics of the major initials that support a date of c 1400–10. One of the figures presenting Christ in the miniature on fol 28 has flowing hair parted across the brow in the broad V-shape seen in a more distinguished degree in the figures of saints Edward and Edmund on the Wilton Diptych. The short, forked beards in the miniatures on fols 23, 28 and 31 are familiar features in illumination of the period, including that of the Westminster (Litlyngton), Carmelite and Sherborne missals,Footnote ²⁴ and the type and perspective of the thrones in the initials of fols 23, 34 and 39 are paralleled in the Westminster Missal (fol 120), Sherborne Missal (eg, pp 382–3) and numerous other contemporary manuscripts. The distinctive diapered backgrounds, whose success as a matrix for the figure-subjects is particularly obvious when the illuminated pages are regarded as integrated units of decoration, also have early fifteenth-century parallels. In the Tabram Hours, square diapering was created by application to the background of rectilinear grids of slender, double gold lines. The squares were then filled in with a minute circle of red, blue or gold, with smaller coloured motifs in each corner (see Figs 10 and 11). Decoration of this sort can be found in late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century Netherlandish books of hours made for the English market, the work of immigrant illuminators of the same period, and also (again) in the Sherborne Missal, two of whose major initials (pp 44 and 301) have backgrounds treated in the same way (Fig 14).Footnote ²⁵

Fig 14

Sherborne Missal (London, British Library, Additional ms 74236), p 301, detail. This historiated initial has two types of diaperwork. That used in the corners of the background is also found in the Tabram Hours. Photograph: reproduced by permission of the British Library Board

Each of the borders growing out of these initials has its own distinctive design. The synoptic impression is of an imaginative, highly capable artist striving to produce something special in terms of both quality and variety. There is none of the repetition often found in illuminated books of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century. All his work is richly executed in gold, blue, magenta and orange. Primary colours are eschewed in favour of a softer, pastel palette, with copious modelling in white, intended in some cases to give the impression of reflected light (thus, for example, the flowers that stud the border bars on fol 36 look as though they are enamelled; see Fig 6). The work is distinctive in appearance and vocabulary. Its artist had a liking for ostentatious and occasionally idiosyncratic motifs, which he rendered with considerable skill: for example, scrollwork of plain and acanthus form around the bar-frames, opulent circular, polygonal or star-shaped cornerpieces and lush, symmetrical clumps, fans and trumpets of acanthus and other foliage in the upper, outer and lower margins. The latter are particularly striking, and include one designed to represent an eye in the lower margin of fol 36 beneath Psalm 12, with its exhortations respice et exaudi me domine and illumina oculos meos (see Fig 6).Footnote ²⁶ Also unusual is the angular zigzag appearance of the plain scrollwork on fols 23, 31 and 39, and its combination with acanthus scrolls on fols 28 and 39. Interlace is scarcely used, occurring only in loose, uncomplicated knots of foliage in the outer margins of fols 23, 28, 34 and 36; there is none in the cornerpieces, as there is in many other illuminated books of the period.Footnote ²⁷ Contrasting with the general boldness of the ornament (and tending, if anything, to emphasise it) is a restrained but consistent application of spraywork, terminating in kite-shaped leaves and gold balls. The pen squiggles projecting from these balls lack the green wash that became common on such features from c 1410.Footnote ²⁸ While this is not of itself persuasive dating evidence, an overall assessment of the borders suggests a date of execution in the first decade of the fifteenth century.

It is not possible to localise the illumination with certainty on the basis of its features, but an argument can be made for its having been produced in the south west of England. The strength of this argument is difficult to test in any broad-based way, because current understanding of illumination in this region during the century c 1350–1450 is slight. A number of south-western and west Midlands manuscripts from the period contain illumination thought to have been executed locally on the basis of its difference to work known or presumed to have come from London,Footnote ²⁹ but there is no distinctive stylistic current in these manuscripts that allows one to group them together as a basis for judgements about the provenance of other illumination. The exception to this is the work done by John Siferwas and his colleagues in the Sherborne Missal (London, British Library, Additional ms 74236) and the fragmentary Lovell Lectionary (British Library, ms Harley 7026), both produced in the decade c 1398–c 1408. This is known to have been executed in the south west (the missal in Dorset or Somerset, the lectionary in Somerset or Wiltshire) and it almost certainly remained there.Footnote ³⁰ Given the south-western provenance of the Tabram Hours, it is worth emphasising the similarities that exist between its illumination and that of the Sherborne Missal in particular. The combination of plain and acanthus scrolls twisted illusionistically around the border bars is a shared feature (Figs 7 and 15), as is the knotting over of the inner bars and their termination in fleshy flowers with gaping peristomes (fol 34).Footnote ³¹ Another is the liking for bold polygonal angle-forms. In particular, the Tabram Hours (fol 31) has an elaborate form of octagonal cornerpiece with trefoil motifs at the points, also a characteristic feature of some of the grandest pages of the missal (pp 216, 249, 260, 279; see Figs 4 and 15).Footnote ³² The design of the flowers with folded petals inhabiting the cornerpieces on fol 39 (see Fig 7) and the cruciform networks of white dots radiating outwards from the centre of these flowers have several parallels in the missal (eg, pp 249, 526, 527, 536, 558, 571 and 581; Fig 16). Both manuscripts break up the rigidity of border bars with rounded flower motifs: those on fol 36 of the hours can be seen as an echo of the double roses that appear in the missal (eg, pp 276 and 281) and they also resemble some of the flowers found in its decorative initials (eg, pp 609, 616, 618, 639 and 654).Footnote ³³ On fols 34 and 39 of the Tabram Hours (see Figs 5 and 7) the central ornament of the lower border incorporates a wavy, writhing form of leaf that often appears in the missal but is not otherwise easy to parallel (Fig 17).Footnote ³⁴ The way in which some of the missal's non-figured initials incorporate curling foliate motifs composed of pear-shaped leaves of alternating colours is echoed in the illuminated G on fol 46 of the hours.Footnote ³⁵ Finally, the motif of the double-headed bird displayed, which appears, as noted, in six of the illuminated initials of the hours, is also found in three decorative motifs in the missal's calendar (pp 6, 8 and 10). As with the diapered design of the historiated initials, no one of these correspondences is evidence of artistic contact with the missal, or with any other manuscript with borderwork by the same artists. However, when taken together, the hypothesis that the border artist of the Tabram Hours did have some such contact (presumably at one or more removes) is strengthened.Footnote ³⁶ In the case of the octagonal cornerpieces, flowers with folded petals and wavy, writhing leaf forms it is worth stressing the closeness of the association between the two manuscripts. These features are highly unusual in surviving illumination and seem particularly likely to indicate a relationship between the Tabram Hours and the missal.

Fig 15

Sherborne Missal (London, British Library, Additional ms 74236), p 249, Ascension Day. The form of the octagonal cornerpieces with trefoils on the points is paralleled at fol 31 of the Tabram Hours. Photograph: reproduced by permission of The School of World Art Studies and Museology, University of East Anglia, Photographic Collection

Fig 16

Sherborne Missal (London, British Library, Additional ms 74236), p 581, detail, showing flowers with folded petals and white crosses composed of individual dots of a type paralleled on fol 39 of the Tabram Hours. Photograph: reproduced by permission of the British Library Board

Fig 17

Sherborne Missal (London, British Library, Additional ms 74236), p 444, detail, showing the writhing, wavy leaf form paralleled in the Tabram Hours; cf particularly fol 34, lower margin (Fig 5). Photograph: reproduced by permission of The School of World Art Studies and Museology, University of East Anglia, Photographic Collection

This hypothesis raises the difficult questions of the milieu in which the Tabram Hours was made and the relationship between the artists of the borders and of the figurework – if the illumination is the product of two hands, as suggested above. In this regard it seems needless to imagine an urban environment capable of sustaining one or more limners’ workshops. The distinctive style of the borders may be taken to indicate an individual working by himself (though in some sort of proximity to a competent figure artist). If this is the case, then the work could as easily have been done in a religious house or private household as in a town or city.Footnote ³⁷ Admittedly, it would be possible (if less cogent) to argue the reverse: that the borders were executed in London, where a figure artist with knowledge of the Netherlandish technique of diapering the backgrounds of his initials could be found. However, in the interests of sustaining a potentially important theory about contact with high-grade illumination in the south west, it is necessary to insist upon the number and description of similarities between the illumination of the Tabram Hours and that of the Sherborne Missal. Not surprisingly, some of the shared features are also found in contemporaneous work from the south east of England, but no manuscript from this region appears to have a similar degree of correspondence with the missal.

Date and Provenance

The presence of a suffrage to John of Bridlington in the original text hand may be taken to indicate that the Tabram Hours was made in or after 1401, the year of his canonisation. However, miracles of this saint were reported in the south of England as early as 1389 and his reputation as a wonder-worker began with his death ten years earlier.Footnote ³⁸ The terminus ante quem must be 1429, the date of the added obit in the calendar.Footnote ³⁹ As noted, the style of the illumination allows this date range to be narrowed to the years around the beginning of the fifteenth century. Also tending to support this dating are the prayers in Anglo-Norman French to be said during mass. The other English manuscripts containing these prayers are of the early and mid-fourteenth century, and extended devotional cycles in French are generally rare in English manuscripts after 1400.Footnote ⁴⁰

There are three explicit indications that the owner (or owners) of the manuscript lived in the south west of England.Footnote ⁴¹ The first is the toponym ‘Seueburgh’ in the obit on 23 January. This refers to someone – the first name or initial unfortunately obliterated – from Seaborough, a locality near Crewkerne in the medieval diocese of Bath and Wells.Footnote ⁴² Of course, this person, or a member of his or her family, did not necessarily own the book; the name simply suggests locality. The addition of St Urith to the litany provides another, more familiar, link to the region. Chittlehampton, the location of this saint's cult, is a village near Barnstaple, in north Devon, and Urith's influence never extended much beyond it. The only known medieval references to her are found in books and objects from north Devon and Somerset.Footnote ⁴³ Urith's name is written in a formal hand in the lower margin of fol 60v, some distance beneath the bottom line, together with the abbreviated petition ora (see Fig 1).Footnote ⁴⁴ This interest in setting the name apart seems to have been intended to make it stand out, and the very fact of its insertion demonstrates the saint's significance to the owner of the book. Whoever wrote the name wished to assimilate it to the original text by copying the initial Lombardic S of Sancta and writing the other letters in textura. The style of the handwriting suggests that the addition was made by a practised scribe early in the book's life, probably soon after its original owner received it.Footnote ⁴⁵

The third indication of provenance is the coat of arms or, a cross engrailed sable on fol 28 (see Fig 3). This was borne by the Mohun family, which had its seat at Dunster in west Somerset.Footnote ⁴⁶ By extension, it was also the institutional heraldry of Bruton Priory in east Somerset, a house of Augustinian canons founded between 1127 and 1135 by William ii de Mohun, and Newenham Abbey, a Cistercian house near Axminster in east Devon established c 1246 by Reginald ii de Mohun.Footnote ⁴⁷ The same arms appear at lauds, sext and compline of the Virgin in another book of hoursFootnote ⁴⁸ made for Eleanor de Mohun between 1324 and 1337, but a direct link with the family is harder to posit in the current instance because the Mohun estates in the west of England, including Dunster Castle, were sold by Joan, widow of John v de Mohun, after his death in 1375. Joan de Mohun, who was interested in illuminated manuscripts, went on using the arms until her death in 1404. They also appear on the seal of Philippa (d 1431), one of Joan's daughters, after her marriage to Walter Fitzwalter (d 1386).Footnote ⁴⁹ However, the Tabram Hours is unlikely to have been made for Joan (it may post-date her death) and there are no firm grounds for linking it to any of her three daughters by John v, all of whom made aristocratic marriages before 1400, taking them out of the region.Footnote ⁵⁰ The prayers in Anglo-Norman French would certainly have been appropriate to a Mohun, but the chronology and, perhaps, the lack of feminine forms in the Latin prayers make an immediate link with this rump of the family doubtful. Nor is there any obvious reason to associate the manuscript with Bruton or Newenham. In 1404, the English chapter of the Augustinian canons decreed that all houses of the order should observe the feast of John of Bridlington, and there was an altar dedicated to him at Launceston Priory, in Cornwall, by 1428.Footnote ⁵¹ But this saint was popular with the laity as well, and his feast on 10 October is not in the manuscript's calendar. Neither the calendar nor the litany has characteristics that might link it to regular use. Perhaps the best guess is that the arms denote ownership by someone, perhaps named Thomas, who was associated with the Mohuns through patronage. It is, for example, conceivable that a secular priest serving a chantry at Bruton, Newenham or Dunster Priory (there were Mohun burials and, presumably, chantries at all three houses), identified sufficiently with either the family or his domicile to have ordered a Sarum prayer book embellished in a prominent place with these arms. Ongoing spiritual association with the Mohuns is expressed in the use of their heraldry on fifteenth-century armorial tiles in the north chancel chapel of Dunster church and the parapet of the crossing tower of Axminster church.Footnote ⁵² These arms were recognised locally as those of Mohun of Dunster into the sixteenth century.Footnote ⁵³ Although the matter of patronage is indistinct, the arms, as original features, are valuable for implying that the manuscript was actually made for someone in south-west England. The early date of the additions to the calendar and litany support this conclusion.

The idea that a manuscript intended for the use of someone living in Somerset or Devon was ipso facto made in the same region is obviously wrong-headed. But neither should manufacture in this region be dismissed on the assumption that illumination of the style and quality discussed here could only have been made within the ambit of London or some other recognised centre of manuscript production. By emphasising what the borders of the Tabram Hours share with those of the Sherborne Missal, I have tried to promote a hypothesis that deserves to be assessed on its own merits. Over and above this specific consideration, the manuscript published here is remarkable for a number of features: the variety and occasional rarity or curiosity of its textual content (particularly, perhaps, the Anglo-Norman prayers); the range, prolixity and quality of its ornament; the contextual rarity or uniqueness of some of its figure-subjects; the high attractiveness of many of its page designs; and the nature and implications of its references to the south west of England, not least the presence of an early and rare mention of St Urith of Chittlehampton. These features make it an intriguing addition to a popular class of medieval book.

Dedication

This paper is dedicated to the memory of my late colleague, Rosemary Muir Wright, who had hoped to work on the Tabram Hours and who, when prevented from doing so by illness, suggested the project to me.