Course Blog #13: The Lilly Archive [Andrea, Iris, Jenna, Sara]

e chose for our object a lavishly illuminated Book of Hours from the fifteenth century. Our first interesting experience with this object was the librarian’s reaction when she brought us lists of theatre-related books and we asked her for collections of medieval manuscripts. Sara had to defensively come to our aid and insist to the librarian that we did, in fact, want to look at the Book of Hours for a performance class. Integral in forming our impressions of the object was the foam on the table that supported the manuscript as we read it. The fact that elaborate preparations were necessary in order to view this book—registering at the library, ordering the manuscripts, setting up the foam, gently turning the pages—encouraged us to regard the book as sacred. 

Ricketts 118. A book of hours (detail, right) from the collection of Coella Lindsay Ricketts (1859-1941) archived in the Lilly Library Manuscript Collections. The more than 12,000-piece collection contains medieval and historical documents assembled by Ricketts, ranging from the 13th C. through 1848. — Photo by Sara Taylor.

We all felt timid about turning the pages, and not all of us even wanted to do so, although everyone wanted to at least touch a corner. Additionally, we delegated the job of turning pages to Andrea, as she was perceived as a medieval “expert” and therefore was granted  legitimacy to handle the object in a fashion that we “novices” felt was improper. The hand-printed text awed us a little at the thought that producing this book was probably someone’s life’s work, and we especially admired the pictures. 

Iris daintily handles the book of hours after much encouragement. — Photo by Sara Taylor.

One picture in particular caught our attention. It was the last large illustration in the book, and it used darker colors than the rest of the images. It was the image of a funeral, which was the only large picture in the book which was not specifically identified with a biblical scene, which is interesting in a book that is primarily for liturgical use. This is also the only day in the calendar that does not repeat, unlike the Saint’s Days that take up the rest of the book.

Edited to add: Upon doing some further research into books of hours last night, I discovered that this image most likely accompanies the Office of the Dead, a prayer that might have been said for a particular deceased person as a votive, but also commemorated All Souls Day which, despite not being a Saint's Day (but rather All Saints Day) it is still an annual Feast Day, and would have been celebrated by most of the faithful. In many European countries, this would have been a day to visit the dead, clean and decorate graves, and relieve the tension generated by the pagan festival Samhainn/Halloween.

Illumination illustrating prayers for the Feast of All Souls, also known as "All Saints Day" or "All Hallows Day." — Photo by Sara Taylor.

The background was striking in color and design, giving it an almost three-dimensional perspective. The movement implied in this perspective contrasted with the stillness of the death shown in the scene. The text on that page had faded much more than the text on any other pages in the book, which we interpreted as evidence of its greater use. The faces of the people in this picture were unsettling because they are highly detailed and the faces are vividly expressing pain and almost torment.

We considered the performance of this object from two perspectives, focusing on the methodological approaches of Bernstein, Harris, and Cavell. First, the book and the circumstances in which we encountered it invited us to treat it with reverence. Our perception of the book as a sacred object was based on Harris’ notions of untimely matter—the book was sacred because it was a survival of a long-lost time in our own time. Although it is not a palimpsest in the way Harris describes, but its interaction with time is not past or present, but both/and.

The foam and the rules of the reading room acted in a scriptive way, similar to the effect Cavell describes in the theatre; the setting encouraged us to interact carefully and reverently with the book. Not only did we feel that we were too inexperienced to handle the book properly, but we had some difficulty finding the kind of manuscript we were looking for. [Bernstein’s discussion of performance competency] We looked through two different catalogues and eventually chose our Book of Hours from a book the librarian provided that commemorated the Lilly Library's 50th Anniversary.  Without the historical information in this text, Gilding the Lilly, A Hundred Medieval and Illuminated Manuscripts in the Lilly Library, we would have had little to no performance competence with the manuscript.

— Photo by Sara Taylor.

The second perspective we considered was that of the medieval reader of the Book of Hours. Hodgdon and Wexler were important to our methodology in interpreting this reader’s performance with the book. The image is teaching the reader the proper way to mourn, so the performance of mourning is scripted in a literal way by the prayer (which may be in the book) but the illustration showed the reader how to dress, stand, and feel. We connected this to Wexler’s discussion of sentimentality in photographs, which also teach us to normalize and script our reactions to everyday life. Hodgdon is also helpful in allowing us read photographs, which we extended to our reading of this image. These images are visually coded in a way that is no longer easy for us to read—for instance, the image of the Holy Spirit as a bird, or Mary kneeling to be crowned are not as accessible to us without study. The funeral image may signify a much more specific scene that we can casually read. We assumed that the book mainly performed an instructive function for the medieval reader.