French Books of Hours

Making an Archive of Prayer, c.1400–1600

Bibliographic Data

ID23136199
AuthorsVirginia Reinburg (0000-0003-0135-708X, Boston College, corresponding author)
Year2012
Publication date2012-02-02
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueFrench Books of Hours (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/cbo9781139030496
OpenAlexW1423897445
Open LibraryOL34469008M
ISBN9781139030496
LanguageEN
Citations received16

The Book of Hours was a 'best-seller' in medieval and early modern Europe, the era's most commonly produced and owned book. This interdisciplinary study explores its increasing popularity and prestige, offering a full account of the Book of Hours as a book - how it was acquired, how it was read to guide prayer and teach literacy and what it meant to its owners as a personal possession. Based on the study of over 500 manuscripts and printed books from France, Virginia Reinburg combines a social history of the Book of Hours with an ethnography of prayer. Approaching the practice of prayer as both speech and ritual, she argues that a central part of the Book of Hours' appeal for lay people was its role as a bridge between the liturgy and the home. Reinburg describes how the Book of Hours shaped religious practice through the ways in which it was used.

Appeal · Art · Ethnography · Literacy · Liturgy · Media studies · Pedagogy · Political science · Popularity · Possession (linguistics) · Prayer · Prestige · Sociology · Anthropology · Classics · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious studies · books and reading · Books of hours · Europe · France · Gebet · Publishers and publishing · Stundenbuch

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