The Black Hours - Pierpont Morgan Library M.493

            The “Black Hours,” refers to a Book of Hours that has been housed in the Pierpont Morgan Library & Museum in New York as MS Pierpont Morgan Library M.493 since the library purchased it in 1912.  According to the Morgan Library, an anonymous painter produced the manuscript in Bruges, Belgium in 1480. The Black Hours is a small book, measuring only 170 mm x 122 mm (roughly 6 inches x 5 inches), composed of 124 leaves of black-tinted vellum.  The Latin text of the Black Hours is written in silver and gold leaf in single 17-line columns of textura script.  Its pages feature 15 chartreuse (light green/yellow) panels, with initials and floral patterns drawn in yellow.  Fourteen full-page illustrations are drawn “in a restricted palette of blue, old rose, and light flesh tones, with dashes of green, gray and white,” (Pierpont Morgan Library) often featuring men and women in beautiful metallic silhouettes. Nearly every other page is framed in a beautiful blue marginal grounding and decorated with gold and silver vining, foliage, and grotesques. The painter takes particular advantage of the black background, generously highlighting and outlining figures in gold and silver.

            In a section of Masterpieces of Illumination dedicated to the Black Hours, Walther and Wolf observe, “Manuscripts completely immersed in black tint and written upon in gold and silver script … can all be localized quite accurately, namely to the southern Low Countries, today Belgium, and dated to the second half of the 15^th century.”  (Walther et al., 372).  The Black Hours’ origin in Burges places it in a central city within the southern Low Countries that Walther et al. are referring to. Over the course of the first half of the fifteenth century, Burgundy emerged as an economic juggernaut, managing booming wool and garment industries as well as operating as a cosmopolitan market town that facilitated trade with a diverse array of European merchants, from Portuguese spice traders to the Hanseatic Guilds of modern-day Northern Germany, to the Genoese.  When Philip III (1396-1467) took up the post of the Duke of Burgundy in 1419, he resolved to set up court in Burges.  Philip’s court consisted of an impressive circle of artists and craftsmen, and Philip himself commissioned musical pieces, tapestries, jewelry, and the production of over 600 manuscripts, makng him the largest patron of manuscripts by volume in Europe at the time.  Philip’s heir, Charles the Bold (1433-1477), continued his father’s tradition of book collecting, adding hundreds of additional books to Philip’s collection.  The Black Hours’ date of production sets it squarely within the reign of Charles. 

            The style of the Black Hours draws heavily from the techniques of one of Burgundy’s most famous illuminators - Willem Vrelant.  A court favorite who set up his studio in Burges between 1454-1481, Vrelant and his circle used specific techniques such as silver and gold lettering, extreme drapery of clothing and illuminated highlighting, oblong, rectangular framing, and black vellum staining, producing some of the most famous manuscripts from this time.  Some of these examples include the Viennese Black Prayer Book and the Black Hours of Galeazzo Maria Sforza.  To produce these famous blackened pages, Vrelant and his guild wuld dip the vellum for the manuscript into an iron-copper solution.  The process was both expensive and time consuming, and the blackened parchment would only hold lead white ink, gold ink, or silver ink on its pages. 

            Which brings us to a discussion of how the Black Hours reflects certain historical processes.  For starters, the Black Hours was produced in Burges, Burgundy in one of the courts of its most powerful Duchies.  The Black Hours’ was produced in the style of a renowned Flemish artist, William Vrelant, who was active at the Burgundian court and thus a trendsetter in artistic production.  At a time when Burgundy functioned as the barometer of style for the rest of Europe in the realms of fashion, art, and high culture, manuscripts of such quality acted as both status symbol and movable capitol.  Those who could afford as well-made a manuscript like the Black Hours commissioned them in an effort to distance themselves from the growing literate middle-class, which around the same period begun patronizing printing presses a la Johannes Gutenburg. As Walther et al. note, “In contrast to the mass appeal of stiff vestments covered with sumptuous gold and precious stones, how very cultivated must the noble, almost mystical black colouring have appeared!” (Walther et al., 372). 

The Hours of Mary of Burgundy, is a book of hours arranged for Mary of Burgundy (1457-1482) the daughter of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1433-1477, r. 1467-1477). Though the book’s ownership is contested, as several scholars suggest that the book was made for Margaret of York who was Charles’ third wife and Mary’s stepmother, the Hours of Mary of Burgundy, as its name suggests, is most popularly attributed to Mary of Burgundy. Books of hours were based upon medieval breviaries used by various religious groups and clergy to contain their daily prayers. The books of hours were designed to function similarly, however, they were made primarily for lay peoples for use in private devotion. Developed in the thirteenth century and rising to popularity in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, due to the increase in lay piety and rising middle classes able to afford to purchase books, books of hours were objects that were intended to reflect the individuality and to symbolize a lay person’s piety and connection to their faith. In addition to their religious purposes, books of hours were ornately decorated in order to represent an indication of its owner’s status within medieval society. Mary’s book of hours, was produced in Flanders around 1477, written in the vernacular, and decorated with twenty full-page miniatures and thirty-two small miniatures. The illustrations are richly adorned with color and beautifully rendered, clearly showing Mary’s status as part of the wealthy elite of medieval European society.

Mary of Burgundy in Prayer

The Hours of Mary of Burgundy are an exceptional representation of the increase of lay piety and private devotion in the late middle ages. Books of hours were designed specifically to met the specifications set by those who had them commissioned. By allowing for a greater customization of their intended books, the laity could now specify what they desired to see depicted within the books they had ordered to be made. While Mary’s book of hours was not commissioned by her and was most likely a gift to Mary, the manuscript can, nevertheless, be seen as a reflection of some elements of medieval society’s preferences in their books.  Mary herself is depicted in several scenes from the book, most notably in a picture of her reading her book of hours in front of what appears to be a mirror that shows another scene of the Virgin and Child in a church (above). The extent of private devotion that is reflected in such illustrations shows how in depth the relationship with their faith medieval peoples desired. They desired to reach a personal connection through their individual actions of piety that they themselves were in charge of, rather than seeing their relationship with God bourn through the devotions of monks in far off monasteries and priests in their churches. The increase in urbanization, the wider availability of books, increasing “literacy” among lay peoples and even the arguments made by members of heretical orders throughout Europe in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries allowed people to take on a new role in relation to their religious practices. Though book ownership was still a practice that was dominated primarily by the wealthy due to the cost of making books, the books of hours are a notation of a definitive ideological shift in late medieval culture that placed a greater emphasis on individuality and inclusion in religion outside of the members of the clergy.

Christ Nailed to the Cross

Mary's beads in Christ Nailed to the Cross

While the books of hours were a powerful representation of the increasing desire for religious piety for lay peoples they were additionally a delineation of status within in medieval society. As I had mentioned previously the commissioning of books and their creation was not a inexpensive undertaking. A book of hours such as Mary of Burgundy’s would have taken a great deal of time, effort and expense to have bound together. The ownership of such a privatized representation of an individual’s faith would have been highly impressive to members of medieval society. The illustrations in the Hours of Mary of Burgundy are extremely impressive, both in their detail and almost ostentatious intermixing of various colors, scenes and personal elements that were desired. Much like the illustration of Mary reading before the mirror, the scene of Christ Nailed to the Cross is fabulously ornate and colored, utilizing a broad array of expensive colors such as blue, gold, and hints of purple. Though it does not possess a depiction of Mary herself, the scene is incredibly detailed and contains other elements that were most likely central to the feeling that the image had been made to emphasize. The string of pearl and gold prayer beads on the pillow and the book of hours represent the means by which Mary, or any reader, was supposed to contemplate the image of Christ’s crucifixion. The beads represent the saying of the Rosary in which Mary would have been expected to recite her Hail Marys in pious meditation of a scene crucial to Christians as their Redemption by Christ. The detail within this image is a perfect representation of the effort and money that went into creating books of hours and why they were be seen as symbols of status for the wealthy elite of medieval Europe.

The Black Hours

           After the development of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-fifteenth century a slow segue towards an extreme spectrum between the printed book and hand copied manuscripts was initiated. The ability to afford hand copied manuscripts began to represent the pinnacle of wealth and status in the years following the spread of printed books out of Germany and into Italy and beyond. Fifteenth-century Bruges and the Dukes of Burgundy became the trendsetters of this period. Traders from all over the world came to the city to sell their products to each other. The trade of wool and cloth especially allowed Bruges to become an economic center, with the Burgundian court at the heart as influential trendsetters in fashion and art. The high concentration of talented artists such as Jan van Eyck combined with the attempt of middle class citizens to emulate the lifestyle of members of the court by means of patronage consequently turned Bruges into the hub of European book creation in the late fifteenth century. Pierpont Morgan Library MS M. 493, or The Black Hours as it is better known, is a product of these phenomena.

            The Black Hours is one of the less than ten surviving black parchment manuscripts. The manuscript itself is quite stunning; all of the over one hundred folios are dyed black. With the text written in gold and silver, and illustrated in a palette of blue, light pinks, light greens, and white, it is truly luxury item. This fifteenth century manuscript, probably produced around 1470 in Bruges, is styled after the influence of Willem Vrelant. Although the painter of MS M. 493 is anonymous, the influences of Vrelant are obvious in the styling of the figures and use of space. 

Folio 14v (lefts) Shows the Crucifixion and the influence of Willem Vrelant in the faces of the 
figures

Creating black parchment was a very costly and delicate production. The Black Hours also includes fourteen full page illuminated miniatures. The black parchment provided a surface that was not ideal for some of the pigments to adhere, however the blackness of the background provides a striking and unique contrast between the rich blue and gold which border the folios of this manuscript.

Folios 22v-23r show the Virgin and child and an example of a lavishly decorated initial and border decoration with a winged creature, respectively

           Today the parchment of The Black Hours is very brittle and flaky. The delicate nature of the manuscript is due to the carbon used in the black dye. The stain created a smooth surface on the parchment which was not ideal for the other paints to adhere for long periods of time. To make the dye itself a gall from an oak tree would have been crushed up and placed in water or a more acidic substance like wine or vinegar, second, ferrous sulphate, known as copperas, green vitriol, or salmortis would be added to the oak gall liquid. Having been stirred the liquid would turn from brown to a dark black ink. This type of ink becomes even darker when exposed to the air and soaked into the parchment of a manuscript. This type of ink is relatively shiny and slick, which is why The Black Hours are still quite a dark black. The pages have not faded, but other inks do chip off the dyed surface. The manuscript is now being kept in the Morgan Library where it is carefully conserved and kept in a stable condition.

            The Black Hours is a product of the lavishness of the Burgundian court in Bruges. The sheer cost to produce this book, especially with all of the blue pigment and gold leaf illumination, exhibits the mindset of the laypeople in the fifteenth century. Being able to commission such a book would have gone a great length in displaying its commissioner’s high place in society.

Folios 4v-5r These calendar pages show the intense black color of the dyed parchment

The Gutenberg Bible

Johannes Gutenberg began printing bibles in the mid-fifteenth century, to runaway success. His process mechanized the most time-consuming labor of book production, and made beautiful printed books more readily available to the growing affluent public, sufficiently wealthy and interested to buy books when available, but who found traditional manuscripts prohibitively expensive. Gutenberg’s first bible, the forty-two line edition, was printed in two volumes. There were two basic options available: one printed on paper, which was new to the European market, and one on the traditional, and more expensive, parchment.

Gutenberg’s development of the printing press did not immediately revolutionize the world of books and writing. The traditional model of book production, where books were made on commission and personalized for the client who commissioned them, had already begun to shift with the widespread production of books of hours to meet the large and increasing demand of the developing middle class, who wanted a personal religious practice in their homes. The central nature of books to religion contributed to this demand: people needed books primarily for practical and devotional purposes. Books continued to have no small significance as status symbols and means of conveying wealth, but this was an elite market. Gutenberg’s strategy of printing some books on parchment made an attempt at reaching this higher-end market.

Of the two copies of the forty-two line bible digitized by the British Library, one is on parchment and the other paper. Looking at the two side by side yields some interesting insights. The bibles keep the look of traditional manuscripts, even maintaining the same familiar Latin abbreviations, and the font is a neat, familiar Gothic book script. There are no obvious marks from printing, and the books bear no obvious signs, upon first glance, of being anything different from a manuscript. Closer inspection shows the lack of prickings or ruling, hardpoint or otherwise, and a complete consistency to the text beyond the reach of even the most well-trained scribe.

Though the text of the two books aligns perfectly, making the concept of a secundo folio obsolete, they are far from identical. The parchment copy is much more heavily decorated, with a comparatively detailed program of illumination, and beautiful initials throughout; it also has rubricated running heads, added by hand. The paper copy is not without decoration: though its initials are much plainer, it too has rubrication and initials done by hand. This comparison reveals the relatively slow transition from manuscript to print; though the printing press did ultimately result in a complete shift in the relationship of people to the written word, its effect was relatively gradual. What Gutenberg changed immediately was the speed and price of book production, by making it much faster and less labor-intensive to produce the text itself on the page. His press did not immediately change or undermine the general system of personalizing books to suit one’s specific needs, or the immediate place of writing in European culture – the text he chose, for example, was not the most accessible to the general public, because it was written in Latin.

The process by which Gutenberg went about producing his first run of printed bibles is also interesting, in that it seems fairly modern: he got the backing of a wealthy patron, and used what was effectively start-up capital to finish his invention, manufacture and then market his final product. Though Gutenberg did not profit extensively from his wildly successful development, this background does emphasize the middle-class, bourgeois nature of Gutenberg’s setting and his market. The printing press made books more available to a wide swath of the public previously only marginally included in written culture, and the rapid adoption of his press advanced this change.

Gutenberg’s bibles are widely cited as foundational to modern culture and the harbingers of radical social change, and to some extent this is true. As the first European printed books, they are impressive accomplishments – I saw one in person in the Library of Congress some years ago, and there was something of an aura of excitement surrounding it. The volumes themselves are fairly imposing; they are not small books, and were clearly designed for pride of place on a family’s shelf as a mark of educational distinction and piety rather than easy portability and reference. In this sense it marked the transitional divide between manuscript and printed culture: partially customizable and partially accessible to the less-educated and less-affluent, the forty-two line bible marked the beginning of a completely new era in print culture.