Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



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  • Title: The Adoration of the Shepherds at the Nativity, with a young female book owner adoring the Virgin
  • Creator:
  • Description: The Neville of Hornby Hours was a family manuscript intended for personal use. This manuscript page is one of twenty-three Latin Salutations of the Virgin included in the book. The Virgin convalesces in bed after giving birth, and she gestures with her hand towards the Christ child lying in the manger, who is adored by the shepherds, the ox, and the ass. The girl kneeling inside a gold niche cut out in Jesus’ cradle is believed to be Isabel de Byron’s daughter or granddaughter. This is suggested by the figure’s youthful facial features and flowing hair. Unlike the portraits of owners included in manuscript pages before the fourteenth century, the figure of the daughter is neither smaller than the sacred people she adores, nor is she relegated to the borders of the page. The placement of the daughter’s figure at the side of the Virgin illustrates an increased sense of accessibility to the Virgin that parallels the more intimate relationships between readers and sacred personages and subjects as articulated by devotional literature of the time. By situating the Neville girl in the midst of the scene and on the same scale as sacred figures, she is prompted to consider the Nativity in her worship with the same sense of seriousness and intimacy as if she had personally experienced it.
  • Source: British Library
  • Rights: Public domain
  • Subject (See Also): Books of Hours Donor Portraits Childbirth Joseph, Saint Mary, Virgin, Saint Nativity Shepherds
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: 14
  • Date: Second quarter of 14th C., possibly 4th decade
  • Related Work: Neville of Hornby Hours: http://molcat1.bl.uk/illcat/record.asp?MSID=8838&CollID=28&NStart=2781 http://molcat1.bl.uk/illcat/record.asp?MSID=8838&CollID=28&NStart=2781
  • Current Location: London, British Library, Egerton MS 2781, fol. 13r
  • Original Location: England, S.E., possibly London
  • Artistic Type (Category): Digital Images; Manuscript illuminations
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Vellum (parchment); Paint
  • Donor: Laywoman; Isabel de Byron, Wife of Robert I de Neville of Hornby Manor
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): 17 cm/11 cm/
  • Inscription: Ave et gaude virgo et mater maria qu[a]e parvulum ihe(su)m pannis involutu(m) (et) i(n) p(rae)sepio positu(m) pastorib(us) evidenter ostendisti. Ave maria. {Hail and rejoice, Virgin and mother Mary, you who clearly showed little Jesus to the shepherds, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger]
  • Related Resources: Kathryn A. Smith, Art, Identity and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England: Three Women and their Books of Hours, British Library and University of Toronto Press, London, 2003, pg. 186