Illuminated Manuscripts

This is the long-lost Missal of the Abbey of St.-Adrian in Geraardsbergen, or Grammont, illuminated for the monastery’s greatest Renaissance abbot, Jan van Broedere, abbot 1506-26, who is depicted in one of its finest miniatures along with its presumed patron Daniel van Boeckhout, chamberlain of Philip of Burgundy, both standing in a chapel (the Lady Chapel) of the abbey church itself. 

It is a luxurious display manuscript of the most important of all texts of Christian liturgy.  It is spectacularly illustrated. It was made for Geraardsbergen, near Brussels, probably for the altar of the Lady Chapel, for which the celebrated altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi by Jan Gossart (d. 1523), now in the National Gallery in London was also made likewise during van Broedere’s abbacy.  The identification and recovery of the missing parts of the Geraardsbergen Missal in recent decades has an extraordinary tale of chance and good fortune. This volume, although defective, has been known since 1830.   From 1863 until 2002 it was among of the art treasures of the Marquess of Bath, exhibited at the famous palace of Longleat House, near Warminster in south-western England.  Nothing was then known about the Missal’s origins, except for an assumption that it was Flemish.  In 2002 its arms were first identified by Lorne Campbell as being those of Jan van Broedere.  In 2009 the manuscript was recognised by Christopher de Hamel as the unrecorded summer portion of a plainer winter volume of a Missal which has been in Glasgow University Library since 1874. Systematic searches were made by Les Enluminures for the manuscript’s missing full-page miniatures, lost since before at least 1830.  Astonishingly, two have actually been found, both bought, and both now triumphantly restored to the original manuscript.  The Geraardsbergen (Grammont) Abbey Missal of Jan van Broedere is now more complete and more specular than it has been at any moment since the French Revolution, surviving as precious testimony to a high point in the history of the Church of St.-Adrian, whose buildings were demolished in 1798

189 ff., preceded and followed by 5 paper flyleaves, lacking single leaves after fol. 39, 53, and probably at end (likely two of the missing leaves initially had illumination) [collation: i-iv8, v7, vi8, vii7, viii-xi8, xii7, xiii-xvii8, xviii7 (of 8, lacking i), xix-xxiv8, xxv1 (probably of 2, probably lacking ii)], text copied in double column, on 23 lines (justification 238 x 156 mm), ruled in ink, written in black ink in a gothic liturgical hand, rubrics in red, music on a 4-line black stave, capitals touched in red, one-line high initials in red and blue, 2- to 4-line high initials alternately in red with violet pen flourishing and blue with red pen flourishing, some 4-line high initials of both colours, 4 illuminated initials and 4 historiated initials accompanied by three-sided trompe l’oeil illusionistic borders in the Ghent-Bruges style, 3 large miniatures (half to three-quarter page) with full borders, mostly of similar type but one with narrative scenes (A few tiny pigment losses in borders, but generally in excellent and fresh condition). Bound in an early nineteenth-century French or Belgian green morocco binding, gilt frame on boards, back sewn on 6 raised bands, gilt lettering in second compartment: “Manuscrit du 15e siècle,” marbled pastedowns, red speckled edges (some scratches and tears to leather (scuffed), but in general sound condition). Dimensions 335 x 230 mm.

Provenance

1. Written and illuminated for Abbot Jan de Broedere (consecrated at Valenciennes on 25 November 1506; died 1526) of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Adrian of Grammont, or Geraardsbergen in eastern Flanders, near Brussels, with his arms on ff. 1 and 89 (quarterly 1 and 4, azure a cross gules, 2 and 3, vert three escalopes argent), as in the Glasgow volume (Missal, Winter Part, Glasgow, University Library, MS Euing 29). The Missal was probably intended for use in the abbey itself. Little is known about Jan van Broedere, alias van Coppenhole, also known as Johannes de Cruce (see Van Bockstaele, pp. 101-103). His abbacy was a period of great prosperity, and it was during his tenure that Jan Gossart (d. 1523) painted the altarpiece of The Adoration of the Kings (London, National Gallery, NG 2790; see Cambell, 2010) for the Lady Chapel of the Virgin in the abbey’s church.  De Broedere is reported to have restored or rebuilt this chapel, and it seems likely that he had this Missal made for use there; for a time, the Lady Chapel was known as his chapel. The abbey was suppressed in 1797 and most of the buildings demolished in 1798.

Around 1510-1515, Jan de Broedere commissioned the Adoration of the Magi altarpiece by Jan Gossart. Recent research on the patronage of Gossart’s famous painting has ramifications for the origins of the Geraardsbergen Missal. Campbell has convincingly argued that it was not de Broedere alone who ordered the painting, but the Abbot along with a close associate of Philip of Burgundy, Daniel van Boeckhout  (Von Trimpont, pp. 155-163).  Daniel had inherited the lordship of Boelare near Geraardsbergen, and the van Boechouts were closely related to many of the great families of Brabant and Liege.  He was in 1496 castellan at Ter Horst near Rhenen and one of the chamberlains at the court of Philip the Handsome.  In his will he expressed the desire to be buried at Geraardsbergen, and indeed when he died between 1525 and 1527, he was buried in the Chapel of the Virgin in the Abbey Church of St. Adrian at Geraarsbergen.  It was “probably Daniel who secured the permission of Gossart’s employer Philip of Burgundy (half-brother of David of Burgundy and bishop between 1517 and 1524), to commission him to paint … the Adoration of the Magi ….”  Van Boeckhout is also thought to have contributed the funding of the Lady Chapel renewed under de Boedere’s abbacy, and it is he who may be depicted as the kneeling figure of Caspar in the London altarpiece.

These details of provenance prompt an interpretation of the miniature of the Veneration of the Host depicting Jan de Broedere in the Geraardsbergen Missal.  Next to Jan de Broedere, who is clearly shown as the abbot in a red garment among the group attending Mass, is another dignitary.  Dressed in noble garb, befitting a chamberlain, this figure is probably Daniel van Boeckhout, the likely patron of the Missal.  The site – a small chapel in a larger abbey church (seen through the opening) -- may well be the newly rebuilt Lady Chapel of Geraardsbergen, also funded by Van Boeckhout and where he would eventually be buried.  The Abbey was suppressed in 1797 and most of the buildings were demolished in 1798.  This miniature thus survives as visual evidence of the former grandeur of St.-Adrian’s and its most important sponsors in the early sixteenth century.

2. Beriah Botfield (1807-1863), bought from Thomas Thorpe, Catalogue, Part II, 1830, no. 7223. The Glasgow volume was acquired in 1853 by William Euing (1788-1874) and bequeathed to the Glasgow University Library in 1874 (see Thorpe, 1987, p. 193). Botfield bequeathed his collection to the library of the Marquesses of Bath and Longleat, and it was transferred to the ownership of Lord Alexander Thynne, son of the fourth Marquess in 1911.  Although we cannot determine exactly when, it appears that the two volumes were separated in the first half of the nineteenth century.

3. By descent to the seventh Marquess of Bath, Longleat House, MS 343; their sale, Christie’s, 13 June 2002, lot 3.

Text

ff. 1-88v, Masses from the Temporal, from Easter Sunday to the 10^th week after Pentecost;

ff. 89-93v, Prefaces;

ff, 94-101, Canon of the Mass;

ff. 102-111v, Collect, Secret and Post communion of 28 votives masses, fol. 104, Prayer De sanctis ecclesie, naming the relics of Saint Adrian as first among those “in presenti continentur ecclesie” (see Ker, p. 877: the relics were transferred to Grammont in 1100);

ff. 111v-122, Masses of Trinity, Holy Spirit, Holy Cross, Blessed Virgin Mary, Saints Peter and Paul, Saint Adrian, for the Dead; 

ff. 122-128, Collect, Secret and Post Communion of 14 Masses for the Dead; 

ff. 128-131v, Lections for the Mass of the Dead for each day of the week; 

ff. 131v-133v, Mass for the Dedication of the Church;

ff. 134-189v, Masses from the Sanctoral, from the Feast of the Annunciation (lacking opening leaf) to Saint Germanus [ends incomplete]

This is the summer volume of a Missal, from Easter Sunday to the weeks following the Pentecost. It is the summer part of a two-volume set. The winter part of this Missal is located in Glasgow, University Library, MS Euing 29 (see Ker, II, 1977, pp. 877-878; Thorp, 1987, pp. 192-193, no. 127). The Glasgow manuscript continues with the Masses for the autumn from where the present volume concludes. The text here comprises the Temporal, Easter to the 10^th week after Pentecost.

This Missal was certainly intended for use in the Abbey of St.-Adrian, Geraardsbergen (Grammont), in eastern Flanders, near Brussels. The Collect for “De sanctis ecclesie” (f. 104) names the principal relics of Saint Adrian, Georges, and Natalia “contained in this church” (“[…] per sanctorum tuorum adriani georgii et beate nathalie atque ceterorum reliquie in presenti continentur ecclesia merita gloriosa…”). Saint Adrian is given prominence amongst the votives masses and the Sanctoral. The dedication of the Abbey established at Geraardsbergen in 1071 changed from Saint Peter to Saint Adrian with the transfer of the latter’s relics in 1110.  The efficacy of Adrian’s relics as protection against plague and sudden death had wide renown.  King Louis XI of France made a substantial endowment to the abbey, partly to pay for four large bells, in order to enlist the aid of the saint. The king is shown in a miniature by the Master of the Older Prayerbook of Maximilian, accompanied by his queen and in prayer before the abbey’s altar, with the carved retable showing Saint Adrian standing on a lion’s back, in a manuscript Life of St-Adrian in Vienna (Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. Ser. n. 2619).  

Illustration

There are five large miniatures:

f. 1, Resurrection, with sequence of subsequent events in the landscape including the sleeping soldiers; the Harrowing of Hell, the Noli me Tangere, the meetings with Saints Thomas and Peter, the supper at Emmaus and the Ascension; Full border of an elaborate carved architectural frame with the arms of Abbot Jan de Broedere;

f. 29, Ascension, with full border with entwined branches and naturalistic sprays of fruit and flowers on grounds of pink and yellow;

<between ff. 53 and 54>, The Trinity with full border in lavish Ghent-Bruges style with an architectural frame, swans and birds in the lower border, jewels in the upper and lower (reinserted).

f. 56, Veneration of the Host, set in a Church interior; with typological border vignettes including Melchizedek giving bread and wine to the army; Manna falling from heaven in Sinai; Elijah being fed by an angel; the Last Supper (see Provenance for a further explanation of this miniature).

<between f. 93v and 94>, The Crucifixion; with full border in a lavish Ghent-Bruges style with symbols of the Four Evangelists in roundels in the margins and birds and flowers strewn on liquid gold ground matching facing border (reinserted).

Further illumination includes:

f. 28v, Decorated initial “I” with illuminated three-sided border, with classical vases, putto and male profiles;

f. 56v, Decorated initial “E,” with three-sided border of illusionistic Ghent/Bruges style;

f. 89, Decorated initial “P,” with the Arms of Abbot Jan de Broedere in the infill, three-sided border with divided ground of pink, blue with liquid gold decoration and liquid gold with pink and white interlace;

f. 94, Historiated initial “T,” with the Mass of Saint Gregory, full border in the illusionistic Ghent/Bruges style;

f. 102, Decorated initial “O,” with three-sided border in pink with gray acanthus leaves on a pink ground;

f. 131v, Historiated initial “T,” with Jacob’s Dream, three-sided border of illusionistic Ghent/Bruges style;

f. 165v, Historiated initial “D,” with Saint John the Baptist and the Lamb of God in a pastoral landscape, three-sided border of illusionistic Ghent/Bruges style;

f. 170, Historiated initial “N,” with Saints Peter and Paul, three-sided border of illusionistic Ghent/Bruges style.

A Ferial Psalter with a calendar for the use of Geraardsbergen (Sotheby’s, 1 December 1987, lot 39) has flourished initials so close to those of the present manuscript that they appear to be by the same hand. A.M. As-Vijvers suggests that the elaborate penwork in the present “Longleat Missal” for use in Geraardsbergen (Grammont) bears comparison with the penwork found in Ghent, UL, MS 112 (see Derolez, 1979, fig. 48, p. 156).

Also, as suggested to us by M. As-Vijvers, the illumination can be attributed to the group of artists now referred to as the Masters of Raphael Mercatellis. This group of Bruges illuminators was identified by Dogaer and baptized the Masters of Raphael de Mercatellis, because their hands are found in a number of manuscripts copied for the famous abbot and bibliophile, Raphael de Mercatellis (see below). A nickname not much heard these days, the appellation “Masters of Raphael de Mercatellis” might be more usefully resurrected as the description of a style. When Raphael de Mercatellis, bastard son of Duke Philip of Burgundy, was abbot of St. Bavo’s in Ghent from 1478 till his death in 1508, he assembled a reading library of learned texts. For the illumination of his books the practical abbot turned not to expensive illuminators, but to more workaday artists who labored in their shadows, absorbing their style (see Dogaer and Marrow, 1987, pp. 151-155; also Smeyers, 1998, pp. 453-454: “Le bibliophile Raphael Mercatel”; see also Derolez, 1979, pp. 294-295 who refers to the “Master of the Second Workshop of Raphael de Mercatellis”). The artists who labored for Raphael de Mercatellis had a keen eye for details, and the miniatures are generally of outstanding interest for their iconography. There is indeed a strong predilection to combine different scenes in one miniature, and as in the present Missal, this is found consistently in Raphael de Mercatellis's codices.  

The illuminations in the present Missal (made for Jan de Broedere) are by the same hand as the one who illuminated a little-studied Book of Hours, related to the Mercatellis group by A. M. As-Vijvers (Brussels, KBR, II 460). This Book of Hours was made for the Augustinian Abbey of Mont Saint-Eloi in Northern France (Pas-de-Calais). The heraldry in the Brussels Book of Hours has not yet been identified. In addition, there is another Book of Hours sold at Christie's (24 June 1992, lot. 62) which contains two full-page miniatures very close in style to the illuminations found in our Missal. Compare also some of the manuscripts described in Derolez (1979), in particular a large Augustine (Holkam Hall, Library of the Earl of Leicester, MS 133) (Derolez, 1979, no. 50).  

Raphael de Mercatellis or Marcatellis (1437-1508), was Abbot of Saint-Bavo in Ghent (1478-1508). He was the natural son of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy and of the wife of a member of the Venetian Mercatelli family. During his existence, Raphael de Mercatellis was an important patron of the arts and had a strong predilection for his library which counted almost exclusively deluxe, large-sized, beautifully written and lavishly   illuminated manuscripts. His large and impressive private library was built mainly during his abbacy in Saint-Bavo in Ghent, and he ranks amongst the most important clerical bibliophiles. The library of Raphael de Mercatellis is the earliest Netherlandish collection to reveal an extensive interest in Renaissance and humanist ideals. In his study of 1979, Albert Derolez gave a full study of the codicology and textual contents of the identified Mercatellis manuscripts. He distinguishes between three groups of manuscripts, depending largely on chronological criteria. Group (or period) III encompasses the manuscripts Mercatellis acquired after his episcopal consecration in 1487 to his death in 1508, a period where he gathered more than half of the known extant manuscripts (see A. Derolez, 1979, esp. pp. 175 et sqq.). Given the fame of Raphael's library and collection, it was fitting that his workshop and miniaturists should work for other clerical bibliophiles such as Jan de Broedere, a contemporary and neighbor of Raphael de Mercatellis. The borders are inspired by the scatter or trompe l’oeil borders of so-called Ghent-Bruges manuscript illumination, some of them with distinctly Renaissance elements.

In Dominique Vanwijnsberghe’s and Lieve Watteeuw recent monograph on the Breviary of Grammont housed in Maredsous, they cite the present manuscript (pp. 18-19) among a small group of six manuscripts from the library of the Abbey of St.-Adrien of Grammont.  Most well-known is the partially dismantled twelfth-century Lectern Bible (Oslo, Schøyen Collection and elsewhere).  There is also the Opera of Hugh of St.-Victor, 13^th to 14^th centuries (Ghent, Bibliothèque de l’Université, MS 546), a Book of Hours (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 244), Breviary in 2 volumes (Brussels, KBR, MSS 8909-8910), the Legend of Saint Adrian (Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. Ser. N. 2619).  On the four-volume Breviary in the library of Maredsous see T. Delforge, “Le Bréviaire de Saint-Adrien de Grammont,” in Scriptorium 12 (1958), pp. 102-104; L. M. J. Delaissé, “Les techniques du livre dans le Bréviaire bénédictin de Grammont,” in Scriptorium 12, pp. 104-107; D. Vanwijnsberghe, in Medieval Mastery, Louvain, 2002, pp. 288-293, no. 75); in addition to Vanwijnsberghe/ Watteeuw 2021. Nicaise de Frasne preceded Jan de Broedere as Abbot in 1455 and is pictured F/3/4, fol. 95v in the Breviary.

Literature

Published:

Christie’s. Fine Illuminated Manuscripts, Valuable Printed Books, Autograph Letters, London, Wednesday, 24 June 1992, London, Christie's, lot 62.

Christie’s.  Printed books and manuscripts from Beriah Botfield's Library at Longleat [Thursday 13. June 2002], London, Christie’s, 2002, lot. 3.

Vanwijnsberghe, Dominique and Lieve Watteeuw.  Le Bréviaire de Grammont.  Un manuscrit de l’époque bourguignonne conserve à l’abbaye de Maredsous, Louvain, Abdij van Maredsous and KU, 2021, pp. 18-19.

Wijsman, H. Luxury Bound. Illustrated Manuscript Production and Noble and Princely Book Ownership in the Burgundian Netherlands (1400-1550), Turnhout, 2010 [not in the print version, but published in the online version http://telma.irht.cnrs.fr//outils/luxury-bound/listemanuscrits/]

Further reading:

Anne Margreet W. As-Vijvers, Re-Making the Margin. The Master of the David Scenes and Flemish Manuscript Painting around 1500. Brepols, Turnhout 2013.

Campbell, Lorne.  “The Patron of Jan Gossart’s Adoration of the Kings in the National gallery, London,” The Burlington Magazine 152 (2010), pp. 86-89.

Delforge, T. “Le Bréviaire de Saint-Adrien de Grammont,” in Scriptorium 12 (1958), pp. 102-104.

Derolez, A. The Library of Raphael de Marcatellis, Abbot of St. Bavon's, Ghent 1437-1508, Ghent, 1979.

Dogaer, Georges, and Marrow, James H. Flemish Miniature Painting in the 15th and 16th Centuries, Amsterdam, B.M. Israël, 1987.

Ker, N. R. Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, II Abbotsford-Keele, Oxford, Clarendon Press,1977

Smeyers, M. L'art de la miniature flamande du VIIe au XVIe siècle, Tournai, 1998.

Thorp, N. The Glory of the Page. Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts from Glasgow University Library, Harvey Miller, 1987.

Van Bockstaele, Geert. “Abbaye de Saint-Adrien a Grammont,” in Monasticon belge, VII, Province de Flandre orientale, Liege, 1977, vol. 2, pp. 53-128.

Van Bockstaele, Geert. Het culturele erfgoed van de Sint-Adriaansabdij van Geraardsbergen, 1096-2002, Geraardsbergen, 2002.

Van Trimpont, M.  Het land en de baronie Boelare, Geraardsbergen, 2001.

Online Resources

Grammont Missal, Winter Portion, Glasgow MS Euing 29 http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/detaild.cfm?DID=43982

Lorne Campbell, “Jean Gossart, The Adoration of the Kings,” published online 2011, from The Sixteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings with French Paintings before 1600, London, http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/jan-Gossart-the-adoration-of-the-kings-introduction