Blog Gauronica

Women can already be found in early materials at Special Collections, such as 15th-century books of hours. Books of hours are manuscripts made for private devotion with prayers for set times of the day.

Because of material evidence, such as annotations, we sometimes know to which woman a specific book of hours belonged. An example of this is this annotation in a book of hours from the monastery in Selwerd (uklu HANDS ADD 429) , which we purchased at an auction in Chicago last summer.

It is evident that women play an important role in the history of the book of hours, as creators and readers of these popular works.