Abstract
The lavishly illuminated Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders (Berlin, SBB-PK, Ms. germ. qu. 42) was written in 1415 by Helmig die Lewe in the monastery of Marienborn near Arnhem. During the second half of the 19th cent. this manuscript gradually became known to historians of art in Germany and to church historians in the Netherlands. Its appreciation until c. 1900 depended on the point of view of its observers as well as on the gradual development of an art-historical vocabulary and the introduction of high-quality reproductions in scholarly publications.
The Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. germ. qu. 42) is, in our time, generally considered either a masterpiece or an important witness of manuscript illumination in the Netherlands in the later Middle Ages.1 This manuscript was written for Duchess Mary of Guelders in 1415 by Helmich die Lewe in the monastery of Canons regular called Marienborn (Fons Sanctae Mariae) near Arnhem. It consists of no less than 484 very thin parchment leaves measuring 18,4 × 13,2 cm. A further 137 leaves were separated, presumably during the 18th century, and are now kept at the National Library of Austria (Cod. Vind. 1908). Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book was illuminated by five (?) anonymous artists in a style that refers to contemporary northern French miniatures. There are six full-page miniatures on single (inserted) leaves, 86 smaller miniatures and 12 small miniatures in the Calendar (ff. 3–17) as well as a major number of historiated initials. All miniatures are of excellent quality and testify to the existence of a well-organized workshop, the exact location of which remains unknown.
Mary of Guelders, née princess Marie d’Harcourt et d’Aumale, was a kinswoman of Charles VI, king of France (d. 1422) and of Duke Jean de Berry (d. 1416). Before she married Reinald IV, duke of Guelders, she may have been familiar with the illuminated manuscripts ordered by these two book-loving patrons. Her Prayer Book was illuminated in an unmistakably ‘French’ style, probably in order to respond to her artistic preferments. Attributions of single miniatures to one of the Limbourg brothers, who were born in the eastern Netherlands and who illuminated manuscripts for Jean de Berry, found no acceptance among art historians. The highly skilled artists remain anonymous, but, over the years, art historians identified several other manuscripts, written in the Low Countries, containing their miniatures.
Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book was not written in French or Latin (except for a few Latin prayers), but in Middle Dutch, the linguistic features of which clearly refer to the eastern Netherlands and the Lower Rhine area on both sides of the actual frontier between Germany and the Netherlands. This was the language spoken at the court of Duke Reinald of Guelders, but, as her Prayer Book demonstrates, also the language in which Duchess Mary expressed her piety. Her Prayer Book not only contains the prayer cycles (hours) we find in countless Books of Hours, but also prayers to be said during Mass, to the Virgin, to a major number of saints and on special occasions. Some rhymed prayers are unique to this manuscript; they may have been composed especially for Mary of Guelders.
Due to the loss of pigment particles in several miniatures and because of hundreds of minor cracks in the parchment, the binding was removed at the end of the 1980s. Since then, for reasons of conservation, access to the manuscript was (and is) strictly limited. From 2015 onwards, Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book was the object of a research project directed by Johan Oosterman (Nijmegen, Radboud Universiteit) and the author of this paper (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin), uniting philologists, art historians, manuscript librarians, conservators and natural scientists, with the aim to make this strongly damaged manuscript accessible again.2 Some recently restored leaves of the manuscript were displayed in the spectacular exhibition “I, Mary of Guelders” (Nijmegen, Museum Het Valkhof, October 13, 2018–January 6, 2019).3
It is likely that during the 15th century, many men and women, probably also Mary of Guelders herself, were impressed by the quality and the number of the miniatures as well as the illuminated initials and borders in this voluminous manuscript. Their positive judgement may have lasted well into the 16th century, but the manuscript was presumably no longer held in high esteem from the later 16th century until the middle of the 19th century, when it was discovered, or rather re-discovered, by art historians and other scholars studying medieval art in Germany and the Netherlands. As with most medieval manuscripts containing miniatures, there was, for a long time, a lack of interest in Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book. In the Early Modern period, the study and publication of manuscripts was mainly focused on those containing important historical documents and highly appreciated literary texts, more often in Latin rather than in the vernacular. In this paper I will give an overview and an analysis of the references to the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders from the 17th century until the end of the 19th century. The oldest references were written by staff members of the library in Berlin where the manuscript was kept from the later 17th century onwards. These references teach us how the appreciation of this manuscript was not only dependent on the perspectives, professional competences and the objectives of the observers, but also on the availability of a professional art historical vocabulary (in German). The accessibility of this manuscript and other illuminated manuscripts was enhanced by the development of new printing techniques in the second half of the 19th century, allowing high-quality reproductions of scripts and miniatures, but also by the construction of a railway network in the same period, enabling middle-class scholars to travel to the museums and libraries in which these manuscripts were preserved.
Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book presumably arrived at the library of the margraves of Brandenburg in Berlin in 1666. We suppose that, after the death of Mary of Guelders, the manuscript initially remained in the possession of the family of her second husband, the dukes of Berg. In the early 17th century, the dukes of Berg remained without a legal heir. After the Treaty of Xanten, concluded in 1614, the lords of Brandenburg and those of Pfalz-Neuburg divided their heritage.4 In 1666, when all legal matters were finally settled, our Prayer Book entered the library of Margrave Frederick William of Brandenburg (1620–1688), then housed at the old wing of the Berlin Castle, the recently rebuilt Berliner Schloss. Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book entered the Bibliotheca electoralis together with a fair, but uncertain number of other medieval manuscripts from the Lower Rhine area.
Around 1668, a first catalogue was made of the manuscripts (and some precious early printed books) in the library of the margraves of Brandenburg. The author of this catalogue, Joachim Raue (1610–1679), was the first professional librarian of the Bibliotheca electoralis. This library has been accessible to the learned public since 1661. In Raue’s catalogue there are two similar entries describing Prayer Books in the vernacular, both written on parchment, each of which may refer to the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders. The first is entry no. 39, which reads as follows: ‘Liber Precationum lingua Brabantica, variis figuris exornatus in membrana’ (‘A book of prayers in the language of Brabant, illuminated with several images, on parchment’). The second entry, no. 47 in the catalogue, is very similar to the first and reads as follows: ‘Liber Precationum lingua Brabantica cum variis picturis elegantissimis in membrana’ (‘A book of prayers in the language of Brabant, illuminated with several very beautiful images, on parchment’).5
Ursula Winter, the editor of Raue’s catalogue, could not decide which manuscripts in the Bibliotheca electoralis were to be identified with each of these two catalogue entries. There were, in her view, two manuscripts, the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders and another illuminated Middle Dutch Prayer Book (now Ms. germ. oct. 89), that correspond with the catalogue entries quoted above.6 Either entry may thus refer to the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders. As Ms. germ. oct. 89 contains only eight unexceptional miniatures, catalogue entry no. 47 (‘cum variis picturis elegantissimis’) is a better match for Mary of Guelder’s Prayer Book (fig. 1: Bl. 19v).7 The designation of the language of both manuscripts as ‘lingua Brabantica’ should not surprise us: for the author of the 17th-century catalogue, this simply means the language we now call Middle Dutch, including all of its regional variations. This designation is used in at least one more entry in Raue’s catalogue, a third Middle Dutch manuscript that could not be identified by the editor of the catalogue.8
Figure 1
Portrait of Mary of Guelders, standing in an enclosed garden, reading a book
Citation: Quaerendo 54, 4 (2024) ; 10.1163/15700690-bja10017
Berlin, SBB-PK, Ms. germ. qu. 42, fol. 19vIn his still useful history of the Royal Library in Berlin, published in 1828, the librarian Friedrich Wilken (1777–1840), published an addendum (‘Beilage’) with the title ‘Anzeige einiger Handschriften und Seltenheiten der Königlichen Bibliothek’, containing short descriptions of more than 150 manuscripts, divided into groups according to their shelf-marks. Under the heading ‘D. Deutsche Handschriften. b. In Quarto’, there are descriptions of four manuscripts in German. One of these is our Prayer Book:
Gebetbuch in niederrheinischem Dialekte, mit Randverzierungen, Arabesken, und vielen Gemälden geschmückt. Auf dem Blatte 410 findet sich folgende Nachricht: ‘Dit boich hat laissen scriven Maria Hertzouginne van Gelre ind van Guylich Ind Greyuinne van Zutphen, Vrauwe des edelen houtzogen Reynalts. Ind wart gheeynt oevermits broider helmich, die lewe Regulier zoe Marienborn bi arnhem. Int iair ons heren dusent vierhondert ind vuofftzien op sent Mathias avont’.9
fig. 2: fol. 410r
Figure 2
Colophon in Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book
Citation: Quaerendo 54, 4 (2024) ; 10.1163/15700690-bja10017
Berlin, SBB-PK, Ms. germ. qu. 42, fol. 410rAfter having published the entire colophon for the first time, Wilken continues as follows:
Der gegenwärtige Einband ist, so wie es auch der frühere zerstörte war, geziert mit einer Tafel von Elfenbein, welche den Heiland darstellt in schwebender Stellung mit einem von zwei Knaben in gebückter Stellung gehaltenen Gewande, zwischen zwei Heiligen, Hieronymus und Gregorius, deren Arme von den Händen des Heilandes berührt werden.10
Figure 3
11th-cent. ivory in the last binding of the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders
Citation: Quaerendo 54, 4 (2024) ; 10.1163/15700690-bja10017
Berlin, SBB-PK, Ms. germ. qu. 42 (Einbd.)This note is followed by a long and detailed description of the iconography of the ivory (fig. 3).11
Wilken’s description of the Prayer Book is noteworthy for several reasons. First, because he correctly identified the language of the manuscript (‘in niederrheinischem Dialekte’). Second, because he referred to the many miniatures (‘mit … vielen Gemälden’), albeit without describing them – not even rudimentary. Third, because he was the first to publish the full text of the colophon (without any serious mistakes). He was, moreover, the first to describe the medieval ivory in the binding. This binding was, as it seems, more important to him than the contents and the illumination of Mary of Guelders’ Prayer book. Wilken was also the first to identify the manuscript using its shelf-number.
In a book about the activities of the Royal Library (successor to the Bibliotheca electoralis) in Berlin during the years 1842–1867, the chief librarian, Georg Heinrich Pertz (1785–1876), published in 1867 a list of over 200 notable books, manuscripts and other objects in its holdings, divided into categories such as ‘Schreib- und Druckstoffe’, ‘Inschriften und Urkunden’, ‘Ältere europäische Handschriften’, ‘Ältere Drucke’ and ‘Classische Schriftsteller’. All of the objects included in this list may be considered as precious according to the standards of the librarian. Surprisingly enough, there is no category ‘Illuminated manuscripts’, but under the heading ‘Einbände’, there is a short description of the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders:
Gebetbuch der Herzogin Maria von Geldern und Jülich, Gemahlin des Herzogs Reynald, Niederdeutsch, 482 Quartblätter, Pergament, aufs reichste mit Gemälden und Randverzierungen geschmückt, ‘geeint’ vermittelst Bruder Helmichs, Regulirten zu Marienborn bei Arnheim, im Jahr unsers Herrn 1415 auf Sanct Matthias Abend. Auf der Vorderdecke Elfenbeintafel: der Heiland schwebt zwischen den Heiligen Hieronymus und Gregorius über einem von gebückten Knaben gehaltenen Tuche; einer der Knaben hält einen Bischofsstab, Hieronymus ein vom Heilande berührtes offnes, Gregorius ein geschlossenes Buch, über denen Löwe und Taube. Deutsche Kunst.12
From Pertz’s description of the Prayer Book we may conclude, that, like in Wilken’s book, the ivory in the binding was of higher interest than the miniatures in the manuscript. This binding was not an old binding; it must have been manufactured in the early 19th century. The ivory was removed from the binding of a lost Orationale from Minden, made for Bishop Sigebert (1022–1036) and mounted in the new binding of the Prayer Book.13 There is no written or codicological evidence about the preceding binding (or bindings) of the Prayer Book. Pertz’s description of the manuscript acknowledges the abundance of miniatures, but refrains from describing or appreciating them, whereas the iconography of the ivory is carefully specified. In this respect, this description is similar to Pertz’s descriptions of other illuminated manuscripts in the same book. From the modern librarian’s point of view, however, illuminated manuscripts constitute a category of their own – and as such they are nowadays studied and appreciated.
Both Wilken’s and Pertz’s books were written to inform the learned public about the activities of Berlin’s Royal library, such as new staff members, important acquisitions and building activities. Pertz’s lists of highly esteemed objects in the holdings of the library were added to attract the attention of scholars in various academic disciplines. Both books are somewhat comparable to modern books that present the treasures kept in a single public or scientific library. Neither Wilken nor Pertz address art historians.
The first art historian to study the miniatures in the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders was probably Gustav Friedrich Waagen (1794–1868). Waagen was a highly esteemed extraordinary professor of Art History at Berlin University from 1844 until his death in 1868.14 In a paper published in 1850, in the first volume of the Deutsches Kunstblatt, Waagen described the miniatures in the Prayer Book and their relationship with the contemporary paintings of the Rhenish, Cologne-based artist named Meister Wilhelm:15
Die ziemlich zahlreichen Bilder, deren einige eine ganze Seite einnehmen, zeigen in Composition, Motiven, Gesichtsbildung eine entschiedene Uebereinstimmung mit den dem Meister Wilhelm beigemessenen Gemälden. Sie sind leicht, ja hie und da flüchtig, doch von geschickter Hand gemalt und im Werth sehr ungleich.16
Waagen thus mainly appreciates the miniatures for their relationship with the high quality paintings by Meister Wilhelm, but not for their own merits. He does not know any illuminated manuscripts comparable with the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders, but he claims that the illuminated borders are somewhat old-fashioned:
Der Kalender enthält nur ziemlich einfache Darstellungen der auf jeden Monat bezüglichen Beschäftigung. Die Ränder aller Seiten sind ziemlich einförmig, noch im Geschmack des 14. Jahrhunderts, mit mageren Windungen, woran goldene und farbige Blättchen, verziert. Nur hie und da kommen ziemlich dürftige spasshaftige Vorstellungen vor.17
fig. 4: fol. 360r
Figure 4
Drollery in the outer margin of a set of prayers in the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders
Citation: Quaerendo 54, 4 (2024) ; 10.1163/15700690-bja10017
Berlin, SBB-PK, Ms. germ. qu. 42, fol. 360rTaken as a whole, Waagen does not express enthusiasm for the miniatures in Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book. His repeated use of the adverb ‘ziemlich’ (‘quite’ or ‘rather’), expresses his uncertainty. It seems that Waagen was not endued with a vocabulary that would have enabled him, on the one hand, to assess the relationship between the miniatures in the Prayer Book and the paintings by Meister Wilhelm and, on the other hand, to describe the quality of these miniatures as independent, self-contained works of art. Waagen moreover refrains from any attempt to describe the miniatures, or to identify their iconography and function within the manuscript.
In 1861, eleven years after Waagen published his notes on Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book, another prominent German art historian, Carl Schnaase (1798–1875), studied the same manuscript. After having studied Law in Berlin, Schnaase worked as a jurist at courts of law in Danzig and Berlin. In 1857, he retired from public service and dedicated himself to art historical studies. He is considered as one of the founders of art history as a scholarly discipline in Germany.18 Like Waagen, Schnaase studied and described the miniatures in Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book and their dependency on 14th-century paintings from the School of Cologne.19 According to Schnaase, the miniatures in the Prayer Book are decidedly modern:
Der Schreiber war ein Bruder Helmich in einem Kloster in Marienborn bei Arnheim, der Styl der Miniaturen ist aber entschieden kölnisch und zwar nicht in der Weise der älteren, sondern in der der ebengeschilderten neueren Schule’. And: ‘Die Randverzierungen, magere mit der Feder gezeichneten Ranken mit einzelnen goldenen oder farbigen Blättchen, die tapetenartigen Hintergründe der Bilder sind noch ganz im Stile des 14. Jahrhunderts; die Miniaturen selbst, mit weichem Pinsel und kräftiger Farbe ausgeführt, überraschen uns durch die schon völlig ausgesprochene Tendenz der neuen Schule. Die Figürchen sind von kurzen Verhältnissen mit etwas zu großen Köpfen, die männlichen schwer und breit, die weiblichen anmuthig, mit bewusster Grazie, aber mit runden Formen, die Gewänder theils im bizarren Costüm der Zeit, theils mit vielen, etwas unruhig gebrochenen Falten, die Compositionen gedrängt, die motive fast genreartig’.20
Unlike Waagen, to whom he refers in a footnote, Schnaase had a vocabulary at his disposal allowing him to describe the style of the miniatures in relation to 14th- and early 15th-century paintings from Cologne – but not, however, in relation to miniatures in other manuscripts. His description of male and female persons in the miniatures is still comprehensible. Schnaase, moreover, refers to colours and proportions; he claims to know, what is modern in early 15th-century art. In this respect, he is a truly engaged art historian. On the other hand, Schnaase is not aware of any French tendencies in the miniatures of Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book. How could it be otherwise in the year 1874, when the reproduction of works of art for scholarly publications was at its very beginnings?
Schnaase’s description and analysis of Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book were carefully read by the Dutch scholar Willem Moll (1872–1879), a professor in Amsterdam and a well-known historian of the Church in the Low Countries during the Middle Ages and the Reformation. Although a convinced protestant, Moll was very interested in all sorts of texts, vernacular and Latin, expressing medieval, pre-Reformation piety. In 1874 he published a summary of Schnaase’s analysis, in which he emphasized the importance of the Prayer Book, not only as a major work of art, but also as a manifestation of piety, devoutness, and a product written in a monastery that was a member of the Congregation of Windesheim and thus closely connected with the spiritual movement known as Devotio moderna.21 Moll held this movement in high esteem, and he did not eliminate the possibility that Helmich die Lewe was not only the scribe of Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book, but also the artist who painted the miniatures. On the basis of the miniatures published by Schnaase, Moll saw analogies with the style of the miniatures and the border decoration in the Pontifical of St. Mary’s in Utrecht (Utrecht, UB, Hs. 400), nowadays usually dated to the middle of the 15th century. Moll expressed his wish that a competent Dutch scholar should travel to Berlin to study Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book systematically. Moll’s short article clearly demonstrates that until 1874 our Prayer Book was not yet known to scholars in the Netherlands. Schnaase’s Geschichte der bildenden Künste im Mittelalter was, however, immediately studied by Dutch scholars.
Two years later, in 1876, another distinguished protestant Dutch scholar referred to our Prayer Book. This scholar was Johannes Acquoy (1819–1895), a pupil of Willem Moll, professor of theology at Leiden University, who published his observations in the second volume of his history of the Congregation of Windesheim.22 Acquoy had read Schnaase’s observations as well as Moll’s note on the manuscript, but, like Moll, he never saw the manuscript himself. As he was aware of the existence of another illuminated manuscript from Marienborn in Arnhem Municipal Library, he suggested that Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book might not only have been written in Marienborn, but illuminated there as well. In the same book, Acquoy expresses his ideas on the artistic merits of the visual and graphic arts in the monasteries of the Congregation of Windesheim. Considering that Windesheim was not a forerunner in any field of the arts, he asked himself whether any important works of art were produced in monasteries of this congregation. He recognizes his own ignorance in this matter, but remarks that, if the spiritual movement of Windesheim played a significant role in this particular field, the brothers themselves, who lived permanently in one of the houses of the Congregation, would have been artists, not any persons (wandering miniaturists) living there for a certain period only. He then writes:
Want of men al in de miniaturen van het reeds genoemd gebedenboek van Maria, hertogin van Gelder, het vroegste voorbeeld van den stijl eener hoogst belangrijke groep van Keulsche schilders heeft gezien, het bewijst niets voor den invloed van Windesheim op de kunst, wijl er tot dusver tusschen het eene en het andere verschijnsel geen verband, veel minder een oorzakelijk verband is gevonden.23
In my view, Acquoy’s considerations are coherent, although his concern to connect the quality of a work of art to the spirituality of a late medieval reform movement no longer prevails. Acquoy is not an art historian, but a historian of the Congregation of Windesheim within the framework of the Modern Devotion.
In the meantime, Schnaase’s observations on the iconography and artistic quality of our Prayer Book were repeated and extended by another German art historian. In his Habilitationsschrift (Halle) on the woodcuts in the printed Cologne Bible of 1479, Rudolf Kautzsch studied miniatures from Cologne and the Lower Rhine area in 15th-century manuscripts in order to find the models for the woodcuts. Reading his observations, it becomes evident that he studied Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book himself. Kautzsch starts his observations with a remark on the origin of the manuscript:
Da es uns nicht gelungen ist, ein so recht sprechendes Denkmal der Illustration aus der Uebergangszeit in Köln aufzufinden, so schieben wir hier ein Werk ein, das zwar nicht der Stadt Köln, aber wenigstens sicher dem Niederrhein angehört.24
He then publishes the colophon in our Prayer Book and suggests, based on the language in which it is written. that the scribe, Helmich die Lewe, was probably born in Cologne. After his observations on the language of the Prayer Book, Kautzsch turns to the miniatures:
Das ganze Buch ist nun mit zahlreichen Bildchen ausgestattet. Diese sind sämtlich in Deckfarben gemalt, die Vorzeichnung ist nirgends sichtbar. Der farbige Reiz ist ganz außerordentlich. Stets sind die Töne satt, lebhaft und glänzend. Gebrochene, trübe Farben kommen so gut wie nie vor. Aber auch die schweren, tiefen Töne sind vermieden. Alles ist heiter und freundlich.25
After some further positive remarks on the colours in the miniatures, he approaches their iconography:
Statt der Martyrien der Heiligen finden wir sacre conversazioni, je drei Heilige in ruhigem Gespräch beisammen stehend, einander zugekehrt, durch leichte Handbewegungen in Beziehung zu einander gesetzt. Aber auch in den Passionsscenen des Herren sind alle Brutalitäten vermieden. Es ist ganz deutlich: am liebsten schildert der Maler die himmlischen Frommen, mit herrlichen Kleidern angethan, ein Rosenkränzlein im blonden Lockenhaar, das rosige Gesichtchen halb gesenkt in seliger Vergessenheit. Die Farbe der Gesichter ist durchaus gesund und ganz lebendig, und die Typen der Männer sind eher kräftlich als weichlich zu nennen.26
fig. 5
Figure 5
Half-page miniature of the saints Remigius, Jerome and Leodegar in the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders
Citation: Quaerendo 54, 4 (2024) ; 10.1163/15700690-bja10017
Berlin, SBB-PK, Ms. germ. qu. 42, fol. 245rFollowing further observations on the style and the iconography of the miniatures, Kautzsch concludes his appreciation of the miniatures with the following words:
Die Hauptsache ist für uns hier, festzustellen, dass sich am Niederrhein (also ganz gewiss auch in Köln) die Richtung, die Meister Wilhelm eingeschlagen hatte, dahin erweiterte, dass die einzelnen Gestalten noch lebensfähiger wurden, ohne den Charakter einer überaus zarten Schönheit einzubüssen.27
In 1899 Willem Vogelsang (1875–1954), professor of Art History in Utrecht from 1907 onwards, published his dissertation on late medieval miniatures in manuscripts from the Netherlands. This book is presumably the first comprehensive study of medieval book illumination in the Low Countries. It contains 30 high-quality reproductions of miniatures and illuminated pages. Vogelsang’s observations on the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders are somewhat surprising:
In 1415 freilich wurde das berühmte Gebetbuch der Maria von Gelder geschrieben, welches sich nicht als holländische Handschrift besprechen lässt. Der Stil der Bilder ist, wie schon Schnaase bemerkte, im Zusammenhang mit kölnischen Hauptwerken der Uebergangszeit am besten zu verstehen; die Eigentümlichkeiten der Sprache aber weisen in die Kölnische Gegend. Eigentlich ‘holländisch’ hat ‘Bruder Helmich’ nicht verstanden und die Wichtigkeit, hier das sichere Werk eines Arnheimer Klosters zu haben, wird dadurch beträchtlich verringert.28
According to Vogelsang, in 1899 our manuscript was already ‘berühmt’. He agrees with Schnaase and Kautzsch in localizing the style of the miniatures to Cologne. The language of the manuscript is, in his view, not ‘holländisch’ enough and, for that reason the Prayer Book is not relevant for the theme of his book, that is ‘Holländische Miniaturen des späteren Mittelalters’. He was, moreover, seriously in doubt about the possibility that the miniatures were added to the manuscript in the same monastery, Marienborn, in which it was written. In a footnote he refers to Acquoy, who, as we have seen, had brought forward this possibility.29
Vogelsang was, however, probably the first to recognize French motives in the Prayer Book. When describing ornaments in manuscripts from the Netherlands, he also observes tendrils, ‘kleine Ranken’, in early 15th-century manuscripts:
Kleine Ranken, dieser Gruppe angehörend, finden sich ebenso wie schon im 14. Jahrhundert die Dornblattzweige in Frankreich häufig an den Ecken der Bilderrahmen, oder wachsen auch aus der Mitte der Seiten hinaus. Beispiele: zuerst im Gebetbuch der Maria von Gelder in völliger Ausbildung.30
Who was the first scholar to assess the merits of the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders as a major work of art and as an expression of the piety of a noble lady in the early 15th century? There is no single answer to this question. From 1666 onwards, the librarians at the Berlin Library made the manuscript accessible to scholars. The entry in Raue’s catalogue of 1668 merely served administrative purposes; it was not a catalogue to be used by readers and scholars visiting the library of the margraves of Brandenburg. The descriptions of Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book published in 1828 and 1867 by Wilken and Pertz explicitly refer to the miniatures, but focus rather on the precious ivory in the binding. Waagen, the first art historian who studied the manuscript, related the miniatures to late 14th-century paintings from Cologne, more specifically to paintings by Meister Wilhelm. This allocation remained valid at least until the end of the 19th century, although, by that time (and still today), not a single painting can be ascribed with certainty to the enigmatic Meister Wilhelm. Whereas Waagen in 1850 was reluctant to appreciate the artistic qualities of the miniatures, in 1874 Schnaase was the first to use a professional art historical vocabulary to express his appraisal. The first art historian who recognized the artistic qualities of the miniatures was Kautzsch, who used an outspoken positive vocabulary to express his appreciation. His opinion was confirmed by Vogelsang in 1899, although, according to Vogelsang, the manuscript was not to be considered as a ‘Holländisch’ work of art, but rather as ‘German’. Vogelsang was, nevertheless, the first scholar to recognize French elements in the illumination of the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders.
During the second half of the 19th century, between the publications of Waagen (1850) and Vogelsang (1899), art history gradually became an established academic discipline in Germany. A professional vocabulary came into being and allowed permanent and consistent debates between art historians. Schnaase probably contributed substantially to this vocabulary. During the same period, the improvement of typographical techniques made it possible to print high-quality reproductions of miniatures in scholarly publications. Moreover, the establishment of a transnational railway network allowed members of the scholarly middle class to make long-distant trips in order to study works of art in situ.
The first Dutch scholars who published their interest in the manuscript, Moll and Acquoy, were historians of the Church in the Netherlands, not art historians. Their main interest was whether this manuscript could be considered as an expression of the Modern Devotion. They could have studied the contents of the Prayer Book to find an answer to this question – but they did not. Both Moll and Acquoy were familiar with the first German publications by art historians on Mary of Guelders’ manuscript. It is their merit to have drawn the attention of the scholarly community in the Netherlands towards this extraordinary Prayer Book. 25 years later, Byvanck and Hoogewerff published their comprehensive catalogue of illuminated manuscripts from the Netherlands. As a matter of course, this catalogue contains a full description of the illumination of Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book; the contents of the manuscript, however, are only superficially described.31 Byvanck and Hoogewerff could not have published their catalogues without the preliminary results of the pioneering studies of the German art historians who first studied Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book and gradually developed an art historical vocabulary. Recent research on the miniatures has substantially enriched our view of the manuscript as a work of art.32 Once its contents, especially those unique to this manuscript’s texts are published and studied, Mary of Guelders’ Prayer Book can better be appreciated as a token of late medieval piety.
This paper is the revised and augmented version of a contribution to a conference held in Nijmegen on November 23–24, 2018. I am most grateful to Beate Braun-Niehr and Klaus Niehr for their help in writing this paper, and to Sarah Griffin, who kindly corrected my English. For an excellent description of the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders as well as a status quaestionis regarding the research on this manuscript see Joanka van de Laan, ‘Mary of Guelders and her Book. Prolegomena to the Study of a Remarkable Manuscript’, Ons geestelijk erf, 86 (2015), pp. 178–218; pp. 179–180 deal with the earliest references to our manuscript. Other extensive descriptions of the manuscript are found in the exhibition catalogue for the Catherijnenconvent in Utrecht, Die Goldene Zeit der holländischen Buchmalerei, ed. James H. Marrow (Stuttgart and Zürich: Belser Verlag, 1990); James H. Marrow, ‘Introduction’, in Die Goldene Zeit, pp. 67–70; and the exhibition catalogue for Het Valkhof in Nijmegen, Die Brüder von Limburg. Nijmegener Meister am französischen Hof (1400–1416), ed. Rob Dückers, Pieter Roelofs and Boudewijn Bakker (Stuttgart: Belser, 2005), pp. 250–253 (no. 22–23). A full digital copy of the manuscript is available at
Johan Oosterman, his collaborators and other partners in the project published several high-quality books, papers and electronic resources concerning Mary of Guelders, her Prayer Book and her environment. See a description of the research project,
Exhibition catalogue Ik, Maria van Gelre. De hertogin en haar uitzonderlijke gebedenboek (1380–1429), ed. Johan Oosterman (Nijmegen and Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 2018). A German version of this catalogue was also published.
Valentin Rose, Verzeichniss der lateinischen Handschriften, Zweiter Band, dritte Abteilung (Berlin: Asher, 1905), p. 1433; Die Deutsche Staatsbibliothek 1661–1961, ed. H. Kunze, W. Dube, G. Fröschner, vol. 1: Geschichte und Gegenwart (Leipzig: VEB Verlag für Buch-und Bibliothekswesen, 1961), p. 321; Eugen Paunel, Die Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Ihre Geschichte und Organisation […] 1661–1871 (Berlin: Verlag De Gruyter 1965), pp. 8–9. There is no comprehensive list of manuscripts of the Lower Rhine area in the Bibliotheca Electoralis. Knaus assumes that c. 60 codices from monasteries in that area were handed over to the Bibliotheca Electoralis in 1666. See Hermann Knaus, ‘Aus der Schreibstube der Weseler Fraterherren’, in Studien zur Handschriftenkunde, ed. Gerard Achten, Thomas Knaus, Kurt Hans Staub (München: K.G. Sauer, 1992), pp. 113–124, here 113.
Ursula Winter, Die Handschriften der Churfürstlichen Bibliothek zu Cölln an der Spree – Johann Raues Katalog von 1668. Ms. Cat. A 465 der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz mit Signaturennachweisen und Kommentar (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018), pp. 97 (no. 39) and 98 (no. 47).
On this manuscript (an illuminated Book of Hours in Middle Dutch, written c. 1460–1470) see Gerard Achten, Das christliche Gebetbuch im Mittelalter, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1987), p. 101 (no. 65).
On this miniature see Van de Laan, ‘Mary of Guelders and her Book’, pp. 187–190.
Winter, Die Handschriften der Churfürstlichen Bibliothek, p. 99 (no. 56).
Prayer book in Lower Rhine dialect, decorated with border decorations, arabesques and many paintings. On leaf 410 there is the following message: ‘This book was written on behalf of Mary, duchess of Guelders and countess of Zutphen, wife of the noble duke Reynalt. It was copied by brother Helmich die Lewe, canon regular at Marienborn near Arnhem in the year of our Lord 1415 and finished at the eve of saint Matthias.’
‘The present cover, like the previous one that was destroyed, is adorned with an ivory panel depicting the Savior in a floating position with a robe held by two boys in a stooped position, between two saints, Jerome and Gregory, whose arms are touched by the hands of the Savior.’
Friedrich Wilken, Geschichte der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1828), p. 232.
‘Prayer book of the Duchess Maria of Geldern and Jülich, wife of Duke Reynald, Low German, 482 quarto leaves, parchment, richly decorated with paintings and marginal decorations, ‘united’ by Brother Helmich, Regulated at Marienborn near Arnhem, in the year of our Lord 1415 on Saint Matthias Evening. On the front cover there is an ivory panel: the Savior hovers between Saints Jerome and Gregory above a cloth held by stooping boys; One of the boys holds a bishop’s crook, Jerome holds an open book touched by the Savior, Gregory holds a closed book, with a lion and a dove above them. German art.’ Georg Heinrich Pertz, Die Königliche Bibliothek zu Berlin in den Jahren 1842 bis 1867 (Berlin: Schade, 1867), p. 45.
On this ivory, showing bishop Sigebert capped and gowned, see Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Kostbare Handschriften und Drucke. Ausstellung zur Eröffnung des Neubaus in Berlin, 15. Dezember 1978–9. Juni 1979 (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1978), pp. 26–27.
On Waagenʿs conception of medieval miniatures see Michaela Braesel, Buchmalerei in der Kunstgeschichte. Zur Rezeption in England, Frankreich und Italien (Köln-Weimar-Wien: Böhlau, 2009), pp. 439–440, 442–448, 455–456.
‘Meister Wilhelm’ is the name given by 19th-cent. German art historians to a painter only known from archival sources. According to Robert Suckale he can be identified by Wilhelm from Herne (near Aachen), who bought a house in Cologne in 1358. He died in the same city in 1372. Suckale proposes to ascribe a few altar pieces, painted between 1360 and 1379, to this artist. See Robert Suckale, ‘Zur Chronologie der Kölner Malerei der zweiten Hälfte des 14. Jahrhunderts’, in: Dortmund und Conrad von Soest im spätmittelalterlichen Europa, ed. Thomas Schilp and Barbara Wenzel (Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 2004), pp. 45–72, esp. 53–56.
‘The quite numerous pictures, some of which take up an entire page, show a clear agreement with the paintings attributed to Master Wilhelm in terms of composition, motifs and facial formation. They are light, even fleeting here and there, but painted by a skilful hand and very unequal in value’, Gustav Friedrich Waagen, ‘Nachträge zur zweiten Ausgabe von Kugler’s Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei. (Abschnitt) VI: Zur Malerei in Böhmen, Deutschland, Frankreich und den Niederlanden von 1350–1450’, Deutsches Kunstblatt, Nr. 39, 30. September 1850, pp. 306–308.
‘The calendar contains only fairly simple representations of the activity related to each month. The edges of all pages are fairly uniform, still in the style of the 14th century, decorated with thin spirals with gold and colored leaves. Only here and there are some pretty poor, funny ideas’.
On Schnaase’s impact as an art historian see Braesel, Buchmalerei in der Kunstgeschichte, pp. 455–456.
Carl Schnaase, Geschichte der bildenden Künste im Mittelalter. Zweite, vermehrte und verbesserte Auflage, vol. 4: Die Spätzeit des Mittelalters bis zur Blüthe der Eyckschen Schule (Düsseldorf : Julius Buddeus, 1874), pp. 409–410. Schnaase’s observations were confirmed in Alfred Woltmann and Karl Woermann, Geschichte der Malerei, vol. 1 (Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1879), p. 372.
‘The writer was a Brother Helmich in a monastery in Marienborn near Arnhem, but the style of the miniatures is decidedly Cologne, not in the style of the older school, but in that of the newer school just described’. And: ‘The border decorations, thin tendrils drawn with a pen with individual golden or colored leaves, the wallpaper-like backgrounds of the pictures are still entirely in the style of the 14th century; The miniatures themselves, executed with a soft brush and strong color, surprise us with the already completely pronounced tendency of the new school. The figurines are of short stature with slightly too large heads, the male ones are heavy and broad, the female ones are graceful, with conscious grace, but with round shapes, the robes are partly in the bizarre costume of the time, partly with many, somewhat restlessly broken folds, the compositions crowded, the motifs almost genre-like.’
Willem Moll, ‘Het Gebedenboek van Maria, hertogin van Gelder in de Kon. Bibliotheek te Berlijn’, Nederlandsche Kunstbode, 3 (1874), p. 19.
‘For whether one has already seen the earliest example of the style of a highly important group of Cologne painters in the miniatures of the aforementioned prayer book of Maria, Duchess of Gelder, it proves nothing for the influence of Windesheim on art, because so far no connection, much less a causal connection, has been found between one phenomenon and the other’, J.G.R. Acquoy, Het klooster Windesheim en zijn invloed, vol. 2 (Utrecht 1876: Van der Post, reprint Leeuwarden 1984), p. 233. On the relationship between Moll and Acquoy see Koen Goudriaan, ‘The Modern Devout and the Inquisition’, Ons geestelijk erf, 89 (2018), pp. 50–92, esp. 52–53.
Acquoy, Het klooster Windesheim en zijn invloed, p. 245.
‘Since we were unable to find a truly representative monument of illustration from the transition period in Cologne, we are including a work here that does not belong to the city of Cologne, but at least certainly belongs to the Lower Rhine’, Rudolf Kautzsch, Die Holzschnitte der Kölner Bibel von 1479 (Strasburg 1896: Heitz&Mündel, reprint Baden-Baden 1971), pp. 38–39.
‘The entire book now has numerous pictures. These are all painted in opaque colors; the preliminary drawing is nowhere visible. The colorful appeal is quite extraordinary. The tones are always rich, lively and shiny. Broken, cloudy colors almost never occur. But the heavy, deep tones are also avoided. Everything is cheerful and friendly.’
‘Instead of the martyrdoms of the saints, we find sacre conversazioni, three saints standing together in quiet conversation, facing each other, related to each other by light hand movements. But all brutality is also avoided in the Lord’s Passion scenes. It is quite clear: the painter prefers to portray the heavenly pious ones, dressed in splendid clothes, a little rosary in their blonde curly hair, their rosy little faces half lowered in blissful oblivion. The color of the faces is quite healthy and quite lively, and the types of men are more strong than soft.’
‘The main thing for us here is to note that on the Lower Rhine (and certainly also in Cologne) the direction that Master Wilhelm had taken expanded so that the individual figures became even more viable without losing the character of extremely delicate beauty.’
‘In 1415, of course, the famous prayer book of Mary of Gelder was written, which cannot be described as a Dutch manuscript. The style of the pictures is, as Schnaase already noted, best understood in connection with major Cologne works of the transition period; But the peculiarities of the language point to the Cologne area. ‘Brother Helmich’ did not actually understand ‘Dutch’ and the importance of having the secure work of an Arnhem monastery here is thereby considerably reduced’, Willem Vogelsang, Holländische Miniaturen des späteren Mittelalters (Strassburg: Heitz, 1899), p. 31. On the observations of Waagen, Schnaase, Moll, Acquoy and Vogelsang cf. Van de Laan, ‘Mary of Guelders and her Book’, pp. 179–181.
Cf. Vogelsang, Holländische Miniaturen, p. 98.
‘Small tendrils belonging to this group are often found at the corners of picture frames, as were the thorn leaf branches in France in the 14th century, or grow out of the middle of the pages. Examples: first in the prayer book of Mary of Guelder in full formation’, Vogelsang, Holländische Miniaturen, pp. 21–22. On the French style of the illumination of the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders see Dückers, Roelofs amd Bakker, Die Brüder von Limburg, pp. 73–83.
A.W. Byvanck, G.J. Hoogewerff, Noord-Nederlandsche Miniaturen in Handschriften der 14e, 15e en 16e eeuwen (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1925), text pp. 6–7 and part 2, pl. 202.
See the publications referred to in footnotes 1, 2 and 3.