[Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis]

The quire signatures (b-o) indicate a missing quire at the beginning of the manuscript (a calendar).

Decoration: One full-page miniature (Virgin and Child) and two smaller miniatures. One 4-line historiated initial and one framed floral border, now worn. Several 2 to 4-line initials in gold on pink and blue grounds infilled with white penwork flowers.

Accompanied by transcripts and ultra-violet photographs of the inscriptions on the front paste-down and on f. 101v, made by Dr N. R. Ker and Mr P.S. Morrish in January-March 1981.

Written in textualis semi-quadrata.

Principal contents: ff. 1r-6v Prayers in French and Latin; ff. 7r-12v Gospel Sequences; ff. 13r-69r Hours of the Virgin, Use of Autun; ff. 69r-72v Hours of the Holy Spirit; ff. 76r-94v Penitential psalms and litany; ff. 95r-99r Obsecro te; ff. 99r-101r Prayers.

Bequeathed in 1952 by the book collector R. A. Hellewell of Bradford. Acquired by Hellewell in 1934 from books formerly belonging to the collector and art historian Randall Davies.

See for a fuller description: N. R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, vol. 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983) pp. 22-24.