BYU

Harold B. Lee Library

Devotional Literature

Selected manuscript holdings

Meditationes Vitae Christi. Unknown provenance.

Written in Latin, the Meditationes Vitae Christi is a devotional work retelling the life Jesus Christ. The text, which originated in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, was an extremely popular work which fostered private devotion and meditation on Christ’s Passion.

    Call number: 091 B69 Vault Collection

Book of Hours, France, 15th century.

Books of Hours contain the text of the Office of the Virgin Mary, the seven Penitential Psalms, and the Office of the Dead, inviting the reader to participate in worship throughout the day. This French Book of Hours once belonged to St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622). It measures a mere 10 cm x 7 cm (approximately 4 in x 2¾ in), but is not illustrated.

    Call number: 091 C286b 1400z Vault Collection Agate

 

Selected manuscripts in facsimile

The Hastings Hours, Flanders, late 15th century.

This Latin-language Book of Hours was owned by William, Lord Hastings, an English diplomat to the Low Countries. The miniatures are an excellent example of Flemish manuscript painting.

    Call number: BX 2080 .C37 1983 Rare Book Collection

Speculum Humanae Salvationis (Mirror of Human Salvation), Germany, 14th century.

Speculum Humanae Salvationis is an anonymous work of medieval typology which uses both text and illustration to explain how the events of the Old Testament prefigure the New Testament. Several hundred copies of this text have survived, in Latin, German, Dutch, French, English, and Czech. This facsimile reproduces the oldest existing manuscript of the Speculum, in Latin, which today resides at Kremsmünster Abbey in Austria.

    Call number: BT 750 .S65 1997 Rare Book Collection

 

Selected online resources

The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux (France, ca. 1320-1324) at the Metropolitan Museum. Print facsimile, Call number: 091 J344 1998 Vault Collection

The Murthly Hours (France, ca. 1280) at the National Library of Scotland.

A German translation of Speculum Humanae Salvationis (Germany, ca. 1430) at the Royal Library of Denmark.

Life of St. Gilbert of Sempringham (England, mid-15th century) at the Bodleian Library.