The Suffrage of St. Guinefort From the Hours of Catherine of Cleves

Pray for Us, Blessed Martyr Hound

“The whole program may have been devised with the help of some scholar or cleric, but its execution reveals a mind that delights in systems and in organizing large numbers of things.”

John Plummer, on The Master of Cleves The Hours of Catherine of Cleves: Introduction and Commentaries*

The Book of Hours of Catherine of Cleves is one of the most beautifully and elaborately illustrated examples of medieval illumination that survives today. It was created in the 15th century by an unknown Dutch artist (contemporaneously referred to as “The Master of the Hours of Catherine of Cleves”). We know that it was created for Catherine but there are conflicting details around who commissioned it – some sources cite^† that the book was a wedding gift from her father^*, others that she had it made herself – “partially, perhaps, as a consolation for an unhappy marriage” as Roger Wieck, the Melvin R. Seidan Curator and Department Head Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, suggested in a video posted by The Morgan providing a brief history of the work^‡. The book itself can be viewed in it’s beautiful entirety online thanks to The Morgan Library.

Image of a man's hands holding open The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, demonstrating it's size. — Figure 1. The Book of Hours of Catherine of Cleves, still from a video from The Morgan Library about the history of the book.

It was in 1963 that the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City purchased what was then known as the Heures de Catherine de Cléves/Martyrologe – a surprising text to them as they were already familiar with the Book of Hours made for Catherine of Cleves, but it was held within the private collection of Alastair Bradley Martin. It was not until the two documents were carefully compared that it was revealed that they were two halves of the same whole – having likely been broken into two different volumes sometime in the 1850’s. Thanks to the efforts of the library the two were painstakingly matched based on evidence within the work, despite the efforts of whoever disassembled it to obscure such tell-tale signs such as rubrics and catchwords within the document. Whoever broke the text apart did so deliberately, and likely with the end goal of doubling their profit by fooling two buyers into thinking they were buying a full manuscript.^*

Illumination from The Hours of Catherine of Cleves showing Joachim and Anne meeting at the Golden Gate on the left and Birth of the Virgin on the right. — Figure 2. Mary’s parents, Saints Anne and Joachim, embracing at Jerusalem’s Golden Gate having discovered they will have a child on the left. On the right Anne holds the infant Mary.

Part of the reason that it was so easy to disguise the two volumes as completely separate works is due to the unusual size and complexity of the offices within the text, the length of the suffrages section, and the elaborate extent of the illuminations.^* To better understand this, a quick breakdown of what a book of hours is would be helpful:

In the simplest definition, Books of Hours were texts used by the lay population (non-ordained church followers – not a priest, bishop, etc) to worship along outside of church sermons in an independent nature. They were often popular gifts, particularly around weddings, and they became status symbols based upon the manual nature of their production and the associated cost – the more elaborate the book the better.

Black and white photo of a man, George Braziler, viewing wall lightbox-mounted transparencies from the 1964 exhibition at The Morgan reuniting M. 917 and 945 — Figure 3. George Braziler, who would publish John Plummers partial facsimile and commentary, at an innovative show held by The Morgan in 1964 presenting the fully reunited text as color transparencies mounted in custom light boxes. Still from a video from The Morgan Library about the history of the book.

As for the contents of these texts, John Plummer, author of The Hours of Catherine of Cleves: Introduction and Commentaries and former curator for Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at The Morgan†, outlines it best in his book:

“A Book of Hours is a compendium of devotional texts that takes its name from its one essential text, the Hours of the Virgin, or more properly the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is called an “Hours,” or Horae in Latin, because it is subdivided into eight parts, one for each of the “hours” of the liturgical day – Martins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline.”^*

The key idea is that these hours of the day coincided with prayers devoted to the Virgin Mary that could be recited by the devotee, deepening their religious practice. As a side note, it is of little surprise to me that the focus is on the Virgin Mary, as the most popular figure in the cult of saints.

Plummer goes on to establish that it was only in the twelfth century, when these hours were combined with Psalters (selections from or the entirety of the Book of Psalms) that Books of Hours were fully established as we recognize them today.^* Due to their popularity they remained one of the most-produced texts in the West for about 200 years, and Books of Hours remain a common topic of scholarly examination due to the numerous examples still around today.^§

In the summer of 2008 I lived in New York City while completing an internship for college credit and taking a class at Pace University. It was during this time that I would visit the Morgan Library and view the Hours of Catherine of Cleves in person. In that same time period I would pick up a copy of John Plummer’s combination partial facsimile and commentary outlining the history of the book and its contents from the iconic Strand Bookstore

Illumination from The Hours of Catherine of Cleves of St. James the Minor with suffrage prayer and marginalia. — Figure 4. Saint James the Minor from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves. He was abstinent from substances, so the marginalia scene of a wine merchant provides a humorous foil.

One of the hallmarks of the Book of Hours of Catherine of Cleves is the extensive illuminations, the sophistication of the design, the lack of repetition in any depicted scene or border, and the large Suffrages section. Suffrages, or Memorials, to the Saints were short prayers to individual saints. There are a few regulars you tend to see over and over (St, Michael, John the Baptist,various apostles) but the highlight of this section is that they were highly personalized to the preferences of the patron – typically featuring favored and/or regionally popular saints. These suffrages often feature corresponding illuminations of the saint in question.

Pages from The Hours of Catherine of Cleves featuring the widow who embarks on a pilgrimage after the death of her husband. — Figure 5. Pages from The Hours of Catherine of Cleves featuring the widow who embarks on a pilgrimage after the death of her husband across several illuminations. Images 41, 45, 102, 107, and 109 – the last three of which a borders to various suffrages.

Playfulness is not lost in illumination, and the Hours of Catherine of Cleves are no exception. The borders around many of the Suffrages display unusual or downright funny images, including the abstinent Saint James the Minor bordered by a drinking scene, a son thieving from his father who lies on his deathbed (Figure 4), and a widow who conducts a pilgrimage across multiple pages (Figure 5).^*

Illumination of St. Hubert from The Hours of Catherine of Cleves with his suffrage prayer. — Figure 6. St. Hubert from The Hours of Catherine of Cleves. The hunting dogs informed my approach to designing St. Guinefort for this piece.

For my own design, I wanted to plausibly create a suffrage for Saint Guinefort that could have come from the text. Plummer outlines that while the book has largely been recovered in its entirety, some pages do remain missing^*. This could establish the possibility of missing Suffrages, especially as the section was so large. Catherine’s mother, Marie of Burgundy, was from Dijon, France^¶ – which is within 100 miles of the location where Stephen of Bourbon would have attempted to suppress the Cult of Guinefort some 200 years earlier (but we know this attempt was unsuccessful as cult practices were recorded until the 1930’s)^#. Would it be so impossible to believe that a mother would pass to her daughter the legacy of a beloved French folk saint, and that Catherine would choose to include him in her personalized and extensive Book of Hours?

An illumination after the style of The Hours of Catherine of Cleves illustrating a suffrage to Saint Guinefort. — Figure 7. My illumination – From the Hours of Catherine of Cleves.

Maybe so, but I’m putting the narrative out there!

The design itself painstakingly references the entirety of the text without repeating an already established design – a very important element of the original work. The saint itself appears similar to others in the text – he sits in front of a decorated textile that includes a pattern of roses and Bowls of Hygieia^** – the snakes entwining them a reference to the snake Guinefort killed, while the larger representation of the bowl as a symbol of healing a reference to Guinefort as a protector against disease.

Detail of Saint Guinefort "From the Hours of Catherine of Cleves" Illumination. A greyhound with a halo sit on a tile floor holding a martyr's palm. — Detail of Saint Guinefort “From the Hours of Catherine of Cleves”

The tile floor he sits on features a decorative motif of crossed swords and he holds a martyr’s palm in his bent paw – both references to his beheading at the hand of his master.

Detail of the widow "From the Hours of Catherine of Cleves" illumination. A widow prayers before a well, having reached her pilgrimage site. — Detail of the widow “From the Hours of Catherine of Cleves”. The widow prayers before Guinefort’s well, having reached her pilgrimage site.

The border is similar to other densely decorative ones throughout the book with curving wines and flowers including acorns, crown flowers, and henbane. The most exciting part of the border for me, however, is the conclusion of the story of the widow on her pilgrimage. Her story starts on page 41 with the death of her husband, and she departs on her pilgrimage on page 102 below what is presumably the burial of her husband. She is not seen again after page 109, she never reaches the pilgrimage site in the manuscript. With all of the attention to detail and meticulous eye for design, I find it very hard to believe this part of her journey would be simply abandoned – so I’ve completed the tale and had her praying at the well of Guinefort.

Antique needlepoint of a dog sitting to the right of a cradle that holds a baby, both are outside

As a last acknowledgement, the dog itself is modeled after an old piece of cross stitch I found at a flea market in Maine. The label dates it to the 1800’s, and it depicts a very greyhound-esque dog seated beside a child in a cradel. As I continue in these works, each one will feature a new ‘model’ for Guinefort, much in the same way that artists have used different models throughout history in their depictions of saints.

In closing – I set out to create a piece that looks like it could have come from The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, whether that has been achieved is subjective to the viewer. However, learning about the history of the text and it’s creation was an important exercise that helped inform the design choices of the finished product and the learning experience was invaluable. Prints of this piece are currently available in my shop.

Citations:

^*Plummer, John. The Hours of Catherine of Cleves: Introduction and Commentaries. George Braziller Inc., 1975. Pgs 1-13

^†“The Index | Digital Image Collection: The John Plummer Database of Medieval Manuscripts.” Princeton University, The Trustees of Princeton University, ima.princeton.edu/digital-image-collections/collection/plummer/intro. Accessed 3 Sept. 2024.

^‡Wieck, Roger. “The Hours of Catherine of Cleves Is the Greatest Dutch Illuminated Manuscript in the World…” Facebook – The Morgan Library & Museum, 2021, www.facebook.com/watch/?v=240506684869725.

^§Stein, Wendy A. “The Book of Hours: A Medieval Bestseller: Essay: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.” The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, 1 Jan. 2017, www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hour/hd_hour.htm.

^¶“Mary of Burgundy, Duchess of Cleves.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 May 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_of_Burgundy,_Duchess_of_Cleves.

^#*Schmitt, Jean Claude. The Holy Greyhound: Guinefort, Healer of Children since the Thirteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

^**“History of the Bowl of Hygeia Award.” Drug Topics, www.drugtopics.com/view/history-bowl-hygeia-award. Accessed 5 Sept. 2024.

All Images of The Hours of Catherine of Cleves from The Morgan Library. “Hours of Catherine of Cleves.” The Morgan Library & Museum, 21 Dec. 2023, www.themorgan.org/manuscript/76941.