WTF is a Book of Hours?

What is a Book of Hours?

A Book of Hours is a prayer book for private devotion from the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Widely popular from about 1250 to 1700, these luxurious books were personalized for wealthy patrons, especially women. Books of Hours are most often illuminated manuscripts, meaning they were handwritten and hand-decorated with miniature paintings and ornamental designs. Starting in the late 1400s, however, Books of Hours were also printed because printing with movable type—à la Johannes Gutenberg—had taken Europe by storm.

Books of Hours were for the noble laity. As devout Christians who weren’t clergy or part of monastic orders, these prayer books were a way to experience an intimate relationship with God. A Book of Hours was a direct line to the Lord Almighty, bypassing church officials who traditionally acted as intermediaries. Get outta here, cleric, I can pray on my own!

Before the mid-13^th century, wealthy patrons commissioned psalters—a book of psalms—for private devotion. Soon enough, however, Books of Hours became bestsellers and largely replaced psalters.¹

Contents of a Book of Hours

So, what makes up a Book of Hours? Well, it varies, since they’re highly individualized books. Generally, each one contains a core set of prayers supplemented by other texts. Let’s explore the most common elements of a Book of Hours.

Hours of the Virgin

The main part is the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as the Hours of the Virgin. It’s a collection of prayers to be said at specific times of the day and night. This liturgical devotion consists of psalms, hymns, scripture, and praise for the Virgin Mary as the mother of Jesus Christ.

The practice of constant praying is based on the Divine Office, the Roman Catholic Church’s official daily prayer at appointed times. Clerics in churches and monks in monasteries chanted these prayers during the eight canonical hours, which are as follows:

1. Matins (in the wee hours of the AM)
2. Lauds (daybreak)
3. Prime (6:00 AM)
4. Terce (9:00 AM)
5. Sext (Noon)
6. None (3:00 PM)
7. Vespers (Sunset)
8. Compline (evening/bedtime)

Whew, that’s a lot of praying. As you might have figured out by now, the canonical hours are the basis for the name “Book of Hours.”

Supplementary Text

In addition to the Hours of the Virgin, these prayer books contained a variety of supplemental texts. Since patrons commissioned the books, they decided which additional texts to include. As a result, any given Book of Hours differs from its brethren.

Book of Hours Calendar

Books of Hours often had illustrated calendars listing local feast days. The calendar appeared at the front of the book, before the Hours of the Virgin. Perhaps the most famous calendar hails from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, by the Limbourg Brothers, 1413–1416. My favorite page is October, which depicts plebs working in the fields outside the duke’s gorgeous castle. In the forefront, a harrower and a sower go about their daily business. Art historians claim the peasants don’t look disgruntled, but I disagree.² That poor sower at the lower right looks resigned to his miserable fate, throwing fucking seeds over the patch of land while fancy courtiers promenade along the city gate.

Limbourg Brothers (Paul, Jean, and Herman), October, with closeup of the sower, from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1413–1416, ink on vellum, approx. 8 ½ x 5 ½ inches. Musée Condé, Chantilly, France.

Anyway, the actual calendar! Above October’s pleb scene is a lunette depicting the chariot of the sun as it makes its way across the seasons. Signs of the zodiac appear as well, with October showing Libra’s scales and Scorpio’s scorpion.

Liturgies, Prayers, and Hours

Books of Hours also contain liturgies for local saints, penitential psalms, other devotional prayers, litanies to saints, and Hours of the Cross. The latter were yet another set of prayers to be said throughout the day, but were related to the Passion of Christ, which are the events of Jesus’ Crucifixion.

Examples of Books of Hours

Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is one of the most famous Books of Hours. Jean, Duke of Berry (1340–1416) and brother of King Charles V of France, commissioned the prayer book from the Limbourg Brothers in 1411. The three Flemish brothers—Paul, Jean, and Herman—were the rock stars of late Gothic illumination, and Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry was their masterpiece. Unfortunately, they never finished the prayer book because all three died in 1416, likely from the plague. Interestingly, the duke also died in 1416, so he never got to enjoy his Book of Hours.

In the 1440s, Flemish artist Barthélemy d’Eyck (c. 1420–post-1470) continued work on the prayer book. Artist Jean Colombe (1430–1493) finally completed it around 1485 under the patronage of Charles, Duke of Savoy.³

The Book of Hours contains 206 sheets of high-quality vellum, the most luxurious type of parchment. It includes a calendar of religious festivals and saints’ days, excerpts from the Gospels, litanies, prayers, and psalms. Its most notable feature, however, is the miniature paintings of courtly life and religious scenes. In the former, we see courtiers wearing the latest fashions and living the high life. For example, in the painting January, we see the Duke of Berry at a New Year’s feast. He’s sitting at the head of the table on the right in a glorious blue robe and brown hat.

In addition to the court, miniatures also treat us to scenes of the peasantry toiling away while the rich play.

To see the book in all its glory, click here.

The Hours of Joanna of Castile

The Hours of Joanna of Castile is another exquisite Book of Hours. Dating to the late 15^th century, the prayer book was produced in Bruges between 1496 and 1506 for Joanna I of Castile (1479–1555). Joanna was the daughter of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, the famous Catholic monarchs who funded Columbus’s expedition to the New World.

Poor Joanna was also known as Joanna the Mad, or Juana la Loca en español, due to her purported bouts of mental illness and instability. This girl’s life was tragic as hell. When she was ruling as Queen of Castile, her father and husband declared her insane and took her throne. After her husband died, her dad locked her away in a monastery, as if that would help her mental health. Weirdly, she was so in love with her treacherous husband that she wanted to kiss his corpse for weeks after his death. Alright…

Anyway, her Book of Hours contains portraits of her in the miniature paintings, as well as fun marginal images of jewels, flowers, and animals.

The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux, Queen of France

The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux is a Book of Hours fit for a queen. Jeanne, the third wife of King Charles IV of France, owned this tiny prayer book consisting of 209 vellum folios. The 25 full-page miniature paintings are in grisaille (shades of grey) and accented with color, making them look like sculptures. The paintings depict Christ’s childhood and Passion, as well as the life of Jeanne’s ancestor, Saint Louis.

In addition to the 25 full miniature paintings, the prayer book contains almost 700 images of the people of medieval Paris, such as beggars, street dancers, and bishops. Animals are also included, particularly apes, dogs, and fantastical creatures. The French artist Jean Pucelle (1319–1334) illuminated the Book of Hours.

As an interesting side note, King Charles V inherited the prayer book. When he died, it made its way into the collection of his brother, Jean, Duc de Berry. We’ve come full circle, people!

Farnese Book of Hours

The next stop on our Books of Hours tour is Rome, Italy. The Farnese Hours, commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, is an example of high Renaissance illumination. A Croatian artist named Giulio Clovio (Julije Klović) (1498–1578) illuminated the prayer book in 1546. Clovio received high praise from Giorgio Vasari (1511­­–1574) in his Lives of the Painters (1568). Vasari said there “never [was] a more rare painter of little things.” He even went so far as to dub Clovio “a new, if smaller Michelangelo.”⁴ Let me tell you, this is a big deal because Vasari was the ultimate Michelangelo fangirl. To compare Clovio to the divine master of the Renaissance was an exceptional compliment.

Printed Book of Hours

The Books of Hours we’ve looked at so far have all been manuscripts. Once printing with movable type came onto the scene in the mid-1450s, book production never looked the same. The first printed Books of Hours hail from Italy and date to the 1470s. By the mid-1480s, Paris was the hub for printed prayer books, and unlike those from Italy, they were decorated. Scholar Rowan Watson states that “of the nearly 1,600 editions known, almost 90% came from Paris.”⁵ They were so popular that in 1545, the French publisher Guillaume Godard had 150,000 Books of Hours in his stock.⁶

Like many incunabula, these printed prayer books mimicked illuminated manuscripts. An example is a Book of Hours at the Met, which has woodcut printed images that the artist Germain Hardouyn hand colored.

If you’re interested in learning more about book history, check out the following posts:

• WTF is Papyrus?
• WTF is Parchment?
• WTF is Vellum?
• WTF is a Palimpsest?
• WTF is a Codex?
• WTF is a Psalter?
• WTF are Illuminated Manuscripts?
• WTF are Incunabula?

Footnotes

1. Kleiner, Gardner’s Art, 427. ↩︎
2. Kleiner, Gardner’s Art, 427-428. ↩︎
3. Lyons, Books, 45-46. ↩︎
4. Vasari, Lives of the Painters, quoted in Cave, The History of the Book, 75. ↩︎
5. Watson, Illuminated Manuscripts, 74. ↩︎
6. Watson, Illuminated Manuscripts, 74. ↩︎

Bibliography & Further Reading

*Several of the following links are Amazon affiliate links, which means I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no cost to you.

The British Library. “A Medieval Menagerie.” Medieval Manuscripts Blog, September 13, 2013. Accessed June 17, 2025.

Cave, Roderick, and Sara Ayad. The History of The Book in 100 Books. Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books U.S., Inc., 2014.

Kleiner, Fred S., and Christin J. Mamiya. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. 12th ed. Vol. II. Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.

Lyons, Martyn. Books: A Living History. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2011.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Book of Hours.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accessed June 17, 2025.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux, Queen of France.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accessed June 17, 2025.

Watson, Rowan. Illuminated Manuscripts and Their Makers. London: V&A Publications, 2003.