Hours of Philip the Bold (Grandes Heures de Philippe le Hardi)
Heures de Philippe le Hardi
Domine Iesu Christe, qui hanc sacratissimam carnem tuam...
Our renderingO Lord Jesus Christ, who this most sacred flesh of yours...
What it is
Initiated in 1376 for Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy — son of King John II of France, younger brother of Charles V, and the most powerful Valois cadet prince — the manuscript was paid for in 1379 with additions by 1390; Philip's confessor Guillaume de Valen supervised its production through the same Paris book trade that served Charles V. Beyond the core Hours of the Virgin, it contains Hours of the Holy Spirit, Penitential Psalms, Office of the Dead, suffrages, masses, prayers, and hymns more often found in missals, making it unusually comprehensive for a private devotional book. Now at the Fitzwilliam Museum (MS 3-1954), with a second volume from Philip the Good's 1450s rebinding at the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique (MS 11035-37). Its Burgundian ducal provenance distinguishes it from the strictly French royal commissions in this dataset.
Why it still matters
Its Office of the Dead remains one of the most profound liturgical prayers for the departed in the Western tradition and can be prayed in full or in part for any commemoration of the faithful departed; its Penitential Psalms are equally suited to Lenten or private penitential use.
Kept alongside
Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
Commissioned c. 1412 by Jean de France, Duc de Berry — son of King John II and brother of Charles V — this is the supreme surviving example of Valois private devotion in manuscript form. It contains the canonical hours structured around the Hours of the Virgin, Hours of the Cross, Hours of the Holy Ghost, Penitential Psalms, Office of the Dead, and additional offices and masses, all framed by the famous calendar illuminations depicting the labours of the months. The duke used it for daily private prayer in his châteaux, and it was left unfinished at his death in 1416, completed only in 1485–1489 by Jean Colombe for Charles I of Savoy. Its unmatched luxury simultaneously signals sincere personal piety and the Valois use of devotional objects as instruments of dynastic prestige.
Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry
Belles Heures du Duc de Berry
The only book of hours entirely completed by the Limbourg Brothers, made for Jean de Berry — uncle of King Charles VI and the pivotal Valois prince-patron — between 1405 and 1408/9, now held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Cloisters Collection). It contains the Hours of the Cross, Hours of the Holy Spirit, Penitential Psalms, Office of the Dead, and seven unprecedented pictorial saint-cycles (Catherine, Jerome, Anthony Abbot, the Baptist, Peter, Paul, and the Passion), plus the Fifteen Joys of the Virgin. Its 172 illuminations served the duke as a personal devotional companion in chapel and chamber; at his death it passed to Yolande of Aragon, mother of Charles VII. It is the most devotionally coherent and structurally complete of the Berry books of hours.
Hours of Charlotte of Savoy
Heures de Charlotte de Savoie (Horae ad usum Parisiensem)
This Parisian-use book of hours (Morgan Library MS M.1004) bears the added arms of King Louis XI of France and Charlotte of Savoy, his queen consort, confirming Valois royal ownership; Charlotte (d. 1483) was also the documented owner of Gerson's Montagne de Contemplation. The manuscript contains a full Paris-use devotional cycle: calendar, Gospel sequences, Obsecro te, O intemerata, Hours of the Virgin, Psalter of Jerome, Penitential Psalms, litany, Hours of the Cross, Hours of the Holy Spirit, Office of the Dead, Fifteen Joys of the Virgin, Seven Requests of Our Lord, and masses for major feasts. As a single royal commission subsequently kept within the immediate royal family, it never entered the commercial book trade. Its textual richness — combining the standard offices with the rarer Fifteen Joys and Seven Requests — makes it one of the more devotionally complete manuscripts in the Valois corpus.