Rohan Hours
Grandes Heures de Rohan
In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum; redemisti me, Domine, Deus veritatis.
Our renderingInto your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth.
What it is
Now BNF ms. Latin 9471, the Rohan Hours is the supreme surviving example of affective Passion piety in the Book of Hours tradition, renowned for its monumental full-page miniatures depicting the sufferings of Christ and the grief of the Virgin with an emotional intensity unmatched in contemporaneous Parisian illumination. Its patron is contested: the most probable first recipient was Yolande of Aragon, Duchess of Anjou, though a minority of scholars argue for Charles, the Dauphin of France (her nephew); a further theory places the initial commission with the House of Rohan itself. The manuscript passed through Anjou hands and later to the House of Rohan before entering the Royal Library in 1784. Alongside the standard Horae structure — Hours of the Virgin, Office of the Dead, Penitential Psalms — it includes Old Testament scenes captioned in Old French in the margins.
Why it still matters
The Rohan Hours' unflinching imagery of Christ's Passion invites the contemplative practice of meditating on the suffering of Christ during prayer — a method central to later classics such as the Imitation of Christ — and the excerpt from Psalm 31 it carries into the death scene remains a living prayer used at Compline and Vespers today.
Kept alongside
Psalter (for the Education of Giovanni de' Medici)
The documented use of the Latin Psalter as the basis of young Giovanni de' Medici's religious instruction by his mother Clarice Orsini is one of the most precisely attested Medici devotional education episodes. When Poliziano attempted to teach the Medici boys using Homer and classical authors, Clarice expelled him from the villa at Cafaggiolo (c. 1479) and substituted the Latin Psalter, insisting on traditional Catholic instruction. Giovanni later became Pope Leo X, giving the episode retrospective significance; it is documented through Poliziano's own letters and subsequent Renaissance scholarship. The underlying text — the Psalter itself — was the universal prayer book of medieval and Renaissance Christendom and carries the highest possible devotional relevance independent of this particular episode.
English Primer (The Prymer)
Prymer or Lay Folks' Prayer Book
The English Primer ('Prymer') was the standard lay devotional book in England from the 14th to 16th centuries, used by children and adults alike to learn both literacy and prayer. Beginning as a first reading book combining the alphabet, Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Creed, it grew to include the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Seven Penitential Psalms, the Fifteen Gradual Psalms, the Litany of the Saints, and the Office of the Dead. Chaucer's reference in the Prioress's Tale (c. 1386) to a seven-year-old boy learning his 'primer' confirms its role in children's formation, and Eleanor of Castile purchased 'seven primers' in Cambridge in 1289 for royal household use. The royal culmination was Henry VIII's King's Primer (1545), principally compiled by Archbishop Cranmer and prescribed by royal proclamation as the only permitted primer in England.
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.