Bohun

3 texts in the archive

Bohun3 texts

iiWhat they prayed from

Horæ01

Psalter and Hours of Humphrey de Bohun

Psalterium et Horae de usu Sarum (Egerton MS 3277)

A sumptuously illuminated psalter and book of hours produced at Pleshey Castle, Essex, for the Bohun family by Augustinian friars retained as a court scriptorium. Its contents — a Sarum calendar, the 150 Psalms, the Hours of the Virgin, the seven Penitential Psalms, and the Office of the Dead — place it firmly within the Bohun house tradition of Passion-centered devotion. After the death of Humphrey, seventh earl (d. 1373), his daughters Eleanor and Mary de Bohun inherited the Bohun library; Mary married Henry of Bolingbroke (later Henry IV) and this manuscript passed into the Lancastrian royal line. Over 300 pictorial subjects guide meditative prayer through the manuscript, and one of the earliest English depictions of the Man of Sorrows appears in its margins.

c. 1361–1373Latin·Bohun (Earls of Hereford) · Plantagenet (Lancaster)Likely

View dossier Open blogs.bl.ukblogs.bl.uk

Horæ02

Psalter and Hours of Mary de Bohun

Psalterium et Horae Mariae de Bohun (Copenhagen, Royal Library, Thott 547 4°)

This psalter-hours (Copenhagen, Royal Library, Thott 547 4°) was commissioned by Joan de Bohun to mark her daughter Mary's marriage to Henry of Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV, around 1380. The manuscript served simultaneously as a prayer book, a dynastic commemoration of the Bohun-Lancaster union, and a formation guide: its images of Old Testament matriarchs — Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel — provided explicit models of female piety and agency through motherhood for a young royal bride. Mary used this book before her early death in 1394; as wife of the man who would depose Richard II and found the Lancastrian dynasty, her devotional formation through this manuscript carried indirect historical weight far beyond the private chapel.

c. 1380–1385Latin·Bohun (Earls of Hereford) · Plantagenet (Lancaster) +1Confirmed

View dossier Open academia.eduacademia.edu

Horæ03

Bohun Psalter and Hours of Eleanor de Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester

Psalterium et Horae Alienorae de Bohun (NLS Adv. MS 18.6.5)

This psalter-hours, now at the National Library of Scotland (Adv. MS 18.6.5), was made for Eleanor de Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester, wife of Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of Edward III. Its ownership is confirmed by the name 'Alienora' written into several prayers and references to her father Humphrey, Earl of Hereford. The contents move from a liturgical calendar through the Hours of the Virgin for Advent and the full liturgical year, then a Confession attributed to St John Chrysostom in the distinctly feminine form, and the complete Hours of the Cross meditating on a Passion scene at each canonical hour from Lauds onward. The manuscript probably passed to Eleanor's daughter Joan after Eleanor's death in 1399, and subsequently to her sister Anne, Countess of Stafford.

c. 1387–1397Latin·Bohun (Earls of Hereford) · Plantagenet (Woodstock/Gloucester)Confirmed

View dossier Open manuscripts.nls.ukmanuscripts.nls.uk