Book of Hours were prayer books designed for the laity, but modeled on the Divine Office, a cycle of daily devotions, prayers and readings, performed by members of religious orders and the clergy. Its central text is the Hours of the Virgin. There are eight hours (times for prayer ): Matins, Lauds. Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. During the Middle Ages, the leaves making up a Book of Hours were written by hand on expensive parchment and beautifully illuminated with jewel-like pigments and gold leaf. These illuminated manuscripts combined the collaborative efforts of an array of highly skilled craftspeople; requiring the joint labors of the parchmenter, professional scribes to write the text in Gothic script, artists to illuminate the pages with decorations, and masterful binders to complete the process.

Superb vellum leaf from a French Book of Hours. The text is in a bold gothic book hand with nine illuminated initials and five line fillers. Both sides include fine floral and vine panels painted in a multitude of colors and gold leaf. The text includes part of Psalm 40 and beginning with the capital "B" at top on recto translates as:

Blessed is he who shows understanding toward the needy and the poor. The Lord will deliver him in the evil day.
May the Lord preserve him and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth. And may he not hand him over to the will of his adversaries.
May the Lord bring him help on his bed of sorrow. In his infirmity, you have changed his entire covering.
I said, “O Lord, be merciful to me. Heal my soul, because I have sinned against you.”
My enemies have spoken evils against me. When will he die and his name perish?
And when he came in to see me, he was speaking emptiness. His heart gathered iniquity to itself. He went outside, and he was speaking in the same way.
All my enemies were whispering against me. They were thinking up evils against me.
They established an unjust word against me.

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Condition: A

Light foxing and a couple of dampstains along the edges of the sheet.