Medieval Books of Hours in the Public Library of Bruges

The Public Library of Bruges presents a brief documentary about the patronage, content and use of medieval Books of Hours. The Biekorf ("Beehive") Library, best known for its collection of Cistercian manuscripts from the abbeys of Ten Duinen en Ter Doest, holds 21 medieval Books of Hours. Visit our collections at www.brugge.be/bibliotheek/erf...
A Dutch version of this documentary is also available on TH-cam: • Middeleeuwse getijdenb...

[@araucariapasquale1]

What a wonderful production. Thank you.

[@MonsieurChapeau]

11:39 what a beautiful song at the, the video does it good job of conveying the worldview of the time through books of hours

[@salomemalherbe677]

Wonderful !!! Modern society knows little or next to nothing about life during the Middle Ages. Thank you for a lovely bit of historical reality seen through the eyes of this extraordinary Book !! ❤

[@tammyleeder1176]

I am always pulled to the Book of Hours from Bruges at the Museum of Art in Columbia, SC. I really am enjoying getting some History on this Book. Not just sitting behind a case trying to figure it out. I do love walking thru their 27 galleries

[@spackretired]

Was hat dieses hervorragende Erzeugnis europäischer Kultur in den USA zu suchen? Wer hat es gestohlen und dorthin gebracht? Warum wird es nicht zurückgegeben?

[@ladyarwynn]

Very informative and wonderful, thank you for this production.

[@JelMain]

I've worked with Till Holger Borchert resetting the context of van Eyck's Mystic Lamb / Levensbron against Dufay's L'Homme Arme as the quadrivium facets of Jan van Ruusbroec's van het geetelijken tabernakel. The context is in Professor Bernard Guenee's biography of Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly, where Ruusbroec's posthumous collection lands on Jean Gerson's desk for posthumous imprimatur - he notifies his mentor d'Ailly, and they realise that inverting the power structure of the Papal Concilium to restore Supremacy is needful. This fits HRE needs, so they convene the Council of Constance, and the HRE Burgundian Vassals team up with England to destroy Valois at Agincourt. Everything's on hold during Martin V's papacy, but when he's passed, the Windesheim graduate Eugenius IV takes up the ball, which is why there's a 50 year gap.

[@Laurentio313]

The first sentence is probably the most extraordinary sentence I've ever read.

[@JelMain]

​@@Laurentio313 Fine. I came upon it working on the rationale for the RC Eucharistic Renewal of the late 19th Century, when the last asset of the body behind it imploded on our neighbourhood. The foundress' hiistory, signed, came into my hands, and pointed straight back at Pope Eugenius IV, which invoked Dufay's Papal Coronation Anthem Ecclesie Militate, Church Take Arms!, putting a crusade against the Ottoman threat to the HRE Austro-Hungarian vassals on the table. He followed it up with L'Homme Arme, the greatest hit of all time, with around 80 remixes - Sir Karl Jenkins' Armed Man is currently #3 on ClassicFM's all-time Top 300. I then had a firm pointer towards the Levensbron in the Prado, which clearly spoke the same language, and the recent revalidation of the work based on the dendrochronology, putting it in the Parral at the same time van Eyck was on mission. We may have a lost original here, as it's visually about the same size as Eugenius' Eucharistic Chapel on Rue des Sols in Brussels. This was demolished in 1955, but not before an exact copy was built on Rue van Maerlant in Brussels: it's now the European Commission's chapel. There's probably a Doctorate on offer on the subject of van Eyck the Diplomat, if anyone's interested, go talk to Till. Both opuses are contemporary and matched Ruusbroec's Spiritual Tabernacle, leaving the author open: Professor Laura Smoller pointed me towards d'Ailly and Professor Bernard Scouller's biography in Beyond Church and State. Ruusbroec passed the ball in two directions, Gerardus Groot, Windesheim, Eugenius, Devotio Moderna, Enlightenment, and in his writings, Jean Gerson for theological placet. Gerson alerted d'Ailly, and he found common cause with the HRE. I'm currently researching the family, as Joan of Arc, who sinks the entire project, is from the same lineage. Till's counterpart for Dufay is Yale's Professor Craig Wright, in his The Maze and the Warrior. In 2020, he shifted from History of Music to head their new Genius School, and searching for the truth of my own persona led me to read his The Hidden Habits of Genius, and tick most of the boxes: as I played fair and demonstrated how his own work was part of a far wider vision, and considering I've a decent share of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, it's likely I qualify.

[@petermullaert3015]

Prachtig in beeld gebracht, sfeervol geacteerd en muzikaal begeleid. Laten we hopen dat deze montage de interesse van velen kan wekken. Proficiat.

[@TheSunship777]

the music is beautiful. What was the last piece?

[@evelienhauwaerts4750]

Thank you! The last piece is 'Wel up elc sin die vruecht begaert', performed by Pandora² and Ultreya (www.duo-ultreya.be/nederlands/muziek/cd's.html). It is an adaptation of one of the poems or songs in the Middle Dutch Gruuthuse manuscript.

[@JelMain]

@@evelienhauwaerts4750 Guaranteed to get Ruusbroec narked! Hadewijk's circle...

[@filmlover542]

Very informative, nicely presented video. However, I wanted to have some information about the style the floral illuminations, initials, technique, materials used, and also to know about the binding process, not ONLY, exclusively about miniatures.! Unfortunately this part was completely ignored by the creators of this video.

[@JelMain]

The British Library runs a basic bookbinding day course, based around their restoration workshop. You can see from the spine it's conventionally bound, which may be anachronistic. Also The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding by J. A. Szirmai

[@tookclosely5480]

thank you

[@legofanguyvid]

whats the first piece of music?

[@hugovranckx4970]

Ik heb weer iets interessants bijgeleerd, dankjewel

[@sandnerdaniel]

Very nice production and great presentation! I would like to know more about the authors of those books. Was the text in those books always the same and codified for the purposes?

[@evelienhauwaerts4750]

Thank you! The authors: most of these texts are anonymous. There was a set structure, but it allowed for variations (depending on period, region, commissioner...). If you want to learn more about the texts in books of hours, I can recommend reading Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life (Roger Wieck e.a.), Marking the Hours: English People and their Prayers 1240 - 1570 (Eamon Duffy), and this website: www.medievalist.net/hourstxt/home.htm.

[@BrakeJiggs]

What about the a b c d e f g instead of Monday Tuesday Wednesday, and what about the letters before that

[@Navili502]

These were known as dominical letters, and they could be used to calculate which day was Sunday. If the first day of the month was a Tuesday, the calendar’s user would have to remember that A = Tuesday, B = Wednesday, C = Thursday, and so on for the rest of the month.

[@MH-ms1dg]

beautiful! small question: is a noblewoman's hair supposed to be visible when wearing a hennin? i thought no...

[@evelienhauwaerts4750]

Thank you! You are probably right... We were lucky to be able to borrow the dress and head gear from the BBC, who were shooting a production in Bruges, but we didn't borrow their stylist :-) And shaving my forehead was not an option for me :-D

[@MH-ms1dg]

@@evelienhauwaerts4750 wonderful nevertheless! lovely work!

[@rntablette9388]

at that time, the language was named " flamish " , not dutch

[@JB-yq9iw]

❤️

[@bluntobjct]

belgian people are very clean

[@pabloalvez915]

True and discreet.

[@mathieuvart]

And nowadays, people treat books like shit because it is made cheap and not too costy.

[@DrMcFacekick]

They put it on a pillow but aren't using gloves?

[@kungfuman1655]

DrMcFacekick They use clean and dry hands to carefully hold each manuscript

[@fakiirification]

gloves are incorrect for fragile old paper and parchment. you need to be able to feel the material to know how much pressure you are applying. gloves take away the tactile feedback which makes the human fingertip the most sensitive detecting device.

[@GrumpyOldTroll]

@@fakiirification Wait, really? It's long made me cringe when seeing people on TV shows manipulate old manuscripts with ungloved hands. Sometimes one sees them using white gloves, which I had come to assume was the right thing to do.

[@michaelvaughn2091]

Wearing gloves was accepted practice until several years ago when research revealed that gloves could actually lead to damage to the most fragile of manuscripts, and that little to no harm was posed by handling these materials with clean bare hands. (Most libraries and repositories of rare books stipulate that hands should be washed at regular intervals when interacting with them.)

[@GrumpyOldTroll]

@@michaelvaughn2091 Interesting, thank you.

[@reymicroc]

gibs me dat book

[@user-ie1tz5rm8x]

I used to get 6 candy bars fir a quarter ,osco drugs...