French Books of Hours

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 pos...

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.

Virginia Reinburg is an Associate Professor of History at Boston College, Massachusetts.