Taymouth Hours

Taymouth Hours
British Library
Also known asYates Thompson MS 13
TypeBook of Hours
Date1325-1335
Language(s)Anglo-Norman French and Latin

The Taymouth Hours (Yates Thompson MS 13) is an illuminated Book of Hours produced in England in about 1325–35. It is named after Taymouth Castle where it was kept after being acquired by an Earl of Breadalbane in the seventeenth or eighteenth century.[1] The manuscript's shelf mark originates from its previous owner, Henry Yates Thompson, who owned an extensive collection of illuminated medieval manuscripts which he sold or donated posthumously to the British Library.[2] The Taymouth Hours is now held by the British Library Department of Manuscripts in the Yates Thompson collection.[2]

Most pages have a bas-de-page illustration, often accompanied by a caption in Anglo-Norman French or Latin. A few have bilingual captions that include Middle English.[3] During this period in Medieval England, Anglo-Norman would have been the language most commonly spoken by affluent and royal families.[4] The illustrations include both sacred and secular scenes. Picture-narratives of the stories of Bevis of Hampton (ff. 8v–12) and Guy of Warwick (ff. 12v–17) appear at the beginning of the text, while below the Matins of the Hours of the Virgin (ff. 60v–67v) are fifteen scenes depicting a tale of a damsel captured by a wild man.[5]

  1. ^ Detailed record for Yates Thompson 13 British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
  2. ^ a b Wormald, Francis (1951). "The Yates Thompson Manuscripts". British Museum Quarterly. 16. doi:10.2307/4422290. JSTOR 4422290.
  3. ^ Brownrigg (1989)
  4. ^ Manion, Margaret (2014). "Review". Studies in Iconography. 35: 268–273 – via JSTOR.
  5. ^ Loomis (1917), 750-55.