The De Brailles Hours

The de Brailes Hours is the earliest surviving independent Book of Hours, dating from about 1240. The work of William de Brailes, of Oxford, it is illustrated throughout with miniatures and historiated initials with a sequence of scenes. As the first example of this new type of text, its design and iconography have much that is experimental. In this book, Claire Donovan provides a detailed discussion of the Hours, its iconography and its place in the 13th-century Oxford book trade, with about two-thirds of the manuscript reproduced in black and white and full-page colour illustrations of some of the finest illuminated pages. Claire Donovan studied art history at Oxford and East Anglia. Her doctoral thesis was on early Books of Hours in England.