Lot 151
Breviary
Illuminated manuscript on vellum
Auction: 16 June 2026 from 10:00 BST
Description
Mons, Hainaut, 15th century.
In Latin, 207 leaves (unfoliated), 16.2 x 10.9cm, i6+1 ii-xxvi8 (i1 blank, the quire with a singleton containing July and August of the calendar bound in between i4 and i5; xxvi5-8 originally blank, with later manuscript additions, incipit ‘La reception d’une chanonesse'), mainly 24 lines to the page, written in a neat gothic bookhand, rubricated, ruled in purple and red, decorated with 2 large initials (12 or 13 lines, approx. 6cm tall) and some 40 medium-size initials (4 to 10 lines, approx. 2-5cm), all in liquid gold and with elaborate penwork infill and marginal extensions in red and blue inks, 100s of small decorative initials (2-3 lines, approx. 1-2cm), similarly decorated (though many in red and blue inks only), and 1000s of Lombardic capitals alternately in red and blue, all edges gilt. With an additional quire of 4 vellum leaves at front, each annotated in French in a hand of a different period (2 of which possibly 15th century, one of which in bastard script, one in a gothic bookhand), each with different parts or versions of a formula for the reception of canonesses of Sainte-Waudru (q.v., ‘Madame Ste Wauldr.’ mentioned twice), and 6 binder's paper blanks at front and 3 at rear (one of which with a later transcription of the foregoing, one with a related text headed ‘Mise en possession d’une chapelle royale').
Contents:
Calendar (ff. 2-7), including St Waltrude (with her feast-day and transitus, both rubricated) and her family members and fellow saints including Aldegund, Aldetrude, Madelberta ('Maldaberta'), and Landry, together with other saints, many of them French, including Gangulphus, Gildard and Medard, Valerius and Rufinus, Lambert, and similar;
Psalter (ff. 8-103);
Canticles (ff. 103-111);
Litany (ff. 112-114), including SS. Waltrude and family members (Aldegund, Aldetrude, Madelberta, Walbert);
Collects (ff. 114-115);
Hymns (ff. 115-120);
Collects for the temporale (ff. 121-127);
Collects for the sanctorale (ff. 127-146);
Lessons on the Blessed Virgin Mary (147-150);
Short Hours of the Virgin (ff. 150-155);
Suffrages and collects (ff. 156-159), including SS. Waltrude, Humbert, and Vincent;
Short Hours of the Nativity of Christ (ff. 159-168);
Miscellaneous texts (ff. 168-170);
Common of the apostles (ff. 171-175);
Common of many martyrs (ff. 176-179);
Common of many confessors (ff. 179-183);
Common of many virgins (ff. 183-184), including a prayer to St Waltrude;
Excerpt from the commentary of Augustine on the Gospel of John, apparently attributed in rubric to Gregory the Great (ff. 184-5);
Life of St Waltrude (ff. 186-193), incipit ‘Beata autem Waldetrudis adhuc adolescentula cum in p[ater]na domo nutriretur’;
Prayers (ff. 193-195);
Office of the dead (ff. 195-202).
Binding: 18th-century red morocco, fleurons gilt to spine compartments, broad floral roll gilt to covers, old ties or clasps now perished.
Condition: marginal extensions of a few of the larger initials just shaved by binder, a few small stretch-holes or rents in vellum (the latter with old repairs), end of headband detached from binding
Provenance
1) The canonesses of Sainte-Waudru, Mons, Hainaut, modern Belgium.
2) Henry Huth (1815-1875), English financier and bibliophile, with his gilt green morocco ‘Ex Musaeo Huthii’ label to front pastedown, and apparently the item listed in The Huth Library: a Catalogue (London, 1880, volume 1, p. 213), where described as ‘Breviarium Romanum, MS on vellum of the early part of the 15th century of Flemish execution, with large and small initial letters carefully ornamented with tracery work'.
3) Alfred H. Huth, his sale, Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 15th-24th November 1911, lot 986 (Catalogue of the Famous Library … of Henry Huth … since maintained and augmented by his Son Alfred H. Huth, the present lot illustrated on plate facing p. 275).
4) Private collection, Scotland.
Footnote
A fine example of an illuminated manuscript executed for a community of women noted as leading patrons of book production in the medieval period, including a rare hagiography of the community’s patron saint.
The collegiate of Sainte-Waudru was founded in the mid-7th century by a Frankish noblewoman (English, Waltrude; Latin, Waldetrudis), and by the 12th century had become a chapter of secular canonesses. The canonesses were drawn exclusively from the nobility and were not subject to vows of poverty. The chapter was therefore unusually wealthy and its surviving records show that great expense was lavished on the commissioning of devotional manuscripts. A recent study of the chapter’s accounts has identified some 250 liturgical books of various genres, of which apparently only a few are now extant, one of which being a 13th-century lectionary now at the British Library MS Egerton 2569.
In addition to Waltrude, this manuscript exhibits a devotion to her various family members, also saints, many of whom were associated with the abbey of Maubeuge, a few miles south of Mons:
‘Aldegund and Waldetrude were sisters born in the reign of Dagobert I between 628 and 639 … They were ultimately settled in monasteries in the northern frontiers of Christian Frankland under the influence of Saint Amand. They are the best documented of a family of saints that includes their father and mother, Waldetrude’s husband, Vincent of Soignies, and her daughters Madelberta and Aldetrude. Aldetrude … succeeded Aldegund as abbess of Maubeuge from 684 to 696’ (McNamara et al., pp. 235-6)
Further reading: Anne Jenny Clark, ‘Book Commissions in the Noble Women’s Chapter of Sainte-Waudru’s Collegiate, Mons (Hainaut)’, Queeste, Vol. 32, Issue 1, 2025, pp. 144-159; McNamara, Halborg & Whatley, eds., Sainted Women of the Dark Ages, 1992; Jacques de Guyse, Histoire de Hainaut, Paris, 1826-36, Vol. 7, p. 52 et seq. (for the Life of St Waltrude).