In April 2022, Professors Sharon R. Clayton and Laura Michelson offered a Virtual Alumni College course “Medieval European Books of Hours”. Gathering through a recorded lecture and virtual discussion, the course slides will be available for educational use here: Virtual Alumni College – Medieval Book of Hours slides. April 2022
For citation or more questions, please contact claytons@grinnell.edu or michelson@grinnell.edu.
Sharon R. Clayton (Associate Professor, Acquisitions and Discovery Librarian) | Sharon has done extensive research on books of hours, particularly the Office of the Dead. She is also the liaison librarian to art and art history, French, and Arabic.
Laura Michelson (Assistant Professor, Project Archivist to the SHLC) | Laura’s research interests are in book history, historical materials and structures, and provenance.
Session slides and bibliography coming soon.
Course description | Spring 2022
What are they? How were they made? Who read them?
Medieval Books of Hours are manuscript books containing prayers and devotional texts that were created and used primarily from the 13th through 16th centuries in Western Europe. These manuscript prayer books were often beautifully illustrated and bound, becoming objects of art as well as devotional texts. More books of hours remain today than any other artifact from medieval Europe. This lecture will provide more detail on what was in these books, how they were made, and who their readers were. Clayton and Michelson will show numerous beautiful examples along the way, including some from The Salisbury House Library Collection at Grinnell College Special Collections & Archives.
