Assistants
Artists
Assistants provided the two levels of ornamentation throughout the manuscript.
The first, basic level – completed as soon as the text was written – consisted of the one-line verse initials (versals) in alternating gold and blue with blue or red pen flourishing, and other pen-flourished ornament (fol. 95r, 178r). The versals were executed following the small guide letters penned by the scribe and still visible beneath the pen flourishing (fols. 1r, 82r, 95r).
The second, higher level of ornamentation consisted of the fully illuminated initials for Psalms, offices and prayers, and the line fillers. The latter completed the spaces left blank by shorter verses at the end of a line and resulted in a form of medieval ‘justification’ of the page. The distinctive palette and motifs of this second level of ornamentation suggest the involvement of at least four hands. Most of them worked quire by quire, revealing the distribution of labour across the volume. Hand 1 was responsible for quires 1-7, 10-11 and 21 (fols. 1r, 95r). In quires 8 and 22, Hand 1 collaborated with Hand 2 who also completed quires 15, 18-19 and 23-27 by himself (fols. 191v, 209r). Hand 3 completed quires 9, 13 and 20 (fols. 82r, 89v, 220r). Hand 4 completed quires 12, 14, 16 and 17 (fols. 125v, 178r, 189v).
The division of labour among Hands 1-4 does not correspond to variations in the first level of ornamentation. This suggests that the versals and pen flourishing were completed – by Hands 1-4 or, more likely, by a different group of assistants – before work on the fully painted initials and line fillers began. That the two levels of ornamentation were executed separately, at two subsequent stages, is revealed by the different materials and techniques used for the fully illuminated initials and line fillers, by the unfinished state in which some of them were left (fol. 95r), and by the fact that they often overlap the pen flourishing completed as part of the first level of ornamentation.
Ornamentation of the Hours of the Virgin, Matins
This type of gold and black initials and line fillers on blue and pink grounds characterise the work of the most skilled assistant (Hand 4). This is the only quire (17) with red and blue pen-flourished ornamentation added in the upper and lower borders. This is the work of another assistant, who was also responsible for the pen-flourished verse initials and ‘justification’ on the right side of the text, which appear in this and other quires. Quire 17 contains the beginning of the Hours of the Virgin and the additional ornamentation signals the importance of this text.