Background
Title
The Grey-Fitzpayn Hours
English Gothic Manuscript, 14th Century
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, MS 242
Context
The Grey-Fitzpayn Hours is presumed to be a wedding gift which honored the marriage of Sir Richard de Grey of Condor Castle, Derbyshire and Joan Fitzpayn of Dorsetshire, England. The Grey-Fitzpayn wedding took place sometime between 1300-1301. Joan Fitzpayn died in 1308, therefore the date of execution for this manuscript is between 1300-1308. The contents are important because the manuscript is an early example of a Book of Hours - a religious book and one of the most popular kinds of illuminated manuscripts of the fifteenth century. The Book of Hours consisted of prayers including Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None and Vespers which were said every three hours. This manuscript employs the use of Sarum and is distinguished from other books of hours because it also contains the Hours of Virgin, and Hours of the Trinity, and the Hours of the Holy Ghost. The exact contents of the book are as follows:
Hours of the Virgin
Hours of the Trinity
Hours of the Holy Ghost
Seven Penitential Psalms
The remains of the Litany and its Collects
The Gradual Psalms
The Office of the Dead
The Prayer of Bede on the Seven Words (added in the fifteenth century)
Many illuminated manuscripts were made for weddings and given as gifts to the bride. The Grey-Fitzpayn Hours is similar in style to the Bardolf-Vaux Psalter at Lambeth Palace, which was made for a woman associated with the Bardolf and Vaux families. A substantial amount of information concerning the Grey-Fitzpayn Hours is based on its similarities to the Bardolf-Vaux Psalter in Lambeth Palace, the Tickhill Psalter in New York Public Library, and the Psalter of Queen Isabella in Munich (Harthan, 1977, p. 45). The Grey-Fitzpayn Hours includes two full-page miniatures and three large historiated initials. A knight bearing the arms of the Greys of Condor is depicted in all of the remaining full-page pictures. It is also decorated with decorative initials, heraldic shields, animals, and hunting scenes. See the physical description for more information on this.
Author(s) or creator(s)
Egbert (1936) stated the Grey-Fitzpayn Hours and the the Tickhill Psalter could have been written by monks from the Augustinian monastery, as both manuscripts are similar in style (p. 531). While there is no evidence that this is true, the Grey family were indeed patrons of the Augustian house of Felley. It is more probable that the Grey-Fitzpayn Hours was created by a group of illuminators located in central England. If this is true, these illuminators may have restricted their work to the southern part of the diocese of York because of the similarities to the manuscripts mentioned above. It has been suggested that because of the similarities to other manuscripts, the creators of the Grey-Fitzpayn Hours could have used a common pattern book (Egbert, 1936, p. 530-532).