BOOK OF HOURS: Where do Your SELL a $250,000 BOOK ??? 

They are indeed miracles of art and history... Fun fact, some yet many "Books of Hours" are highly personalized, containing secret prayers or messages that are not immediately visible to the naked eye. These prayers were often written in microscopic script or concealed within the elaborate illustrations and borders. modern 'usage' of UV light has revealed that certain Books of Hours contain hidden layers of text, often prayers or devotional messages tailored specifically for the owner... these hidden texts were written using ink that has faded or become invisible over the centuries (such as The Sforza Hours, Bedford Hours, etc.) these secret prayers allowed for a more intimate and personal form of devotion. Hidden messages could include protective charms or invocations against illness or evil, which were considered powerful when kept secret... p.s. really wanted to hold one in real life, not just an vintage reproduction!

As a seminarian in a church open to women’s ordination, I’ve found these books to be beautiful insights into the religious life of laywomen, as a majority of surviving examples are thought to have belonged to women. I’ve made my own personal prayer book (much less well decorated than your examples) and it’s so lovely to have prayers that are related to your life at hand in a book. Something I also love about the genre is the so-called “luxury” books of Hours, and how their decoration reflects the more beautiful parts of creation.

Oh my goodness, look at those pages! 😍 As a calligrapher, I've always dreamed of collecting manuscript pages and studying them. However, after watching your videos showcasing those fascinating books, I'm even more eager to learn about the script used in the gilding and the text, as well as the emotions that went into creating these works in the medieval era, despite the limited access to quality materials compared to the modern world. If I were to win this, I would be incredibly thankful for the opportunity to preserve this history and pass it on to future creative calligraphers.

Always enjoy your videos, thanks for making them. Amazing book!

They should have made a whole pawnstars spin off on you and your job. Would have watched 1000%

That certainly is an aspirational piece! One day… after I win the lottery! But I am still happy collecting individual book of hours leaves and displaying them in a custom bound book cover. I taught myself the rudiments of book binding years ago, after visiting a little book binder shop on the Realto bridge in Venice, called Rivoaltus. I created my own journals and a replica of the grail diary from Indiana Jones (ov’s), which is where I found my love of illuminated manuscripts, and while binding books, I came across illuminated manuscript fragments, used to strengthen the spin of later bound books when liturgical works were replaced with printed copies in the late fifteenth century. I love that some books only survive only as repurposed waste fragments and are sometimes beautifully written pieces worthy of collection in their own right.

Books of Hours were personalized prayer books designed for laypeople's private devotion. They were often tailored to the owner's preferences and included prayers, psalms, hymns, and liturgical texts organized according to the hours of the day.

This is amazing. I've been using a modern Book of Hours (Liturgy of the Hours), but this is simply astonishing. The artwork is phenomenal. I've long coveted one like this. I find it so interesting how books were created in the middle ages, mostly by the monks, copying the words and drawing the borders from their imagination. The decorations on the border are the true selling point to me. I prefer the Byzantine style, but all are amazing.

Book of Hours actually contributed to the development of contemporary landscape paintings. The illuminated manuscripts obviously often contained many miniatures and smalls, depicting religious images, however, as you mentioned with the combination of the sacred and the profane, some contained miniatures with secular art, such as the cat and the mouse that you showed in the video, or miniatures detailing medieval castles and the landscape around them would appear, especially in ones commissioned for a particular individual. This in turn revitalized a subject of art that was rarely seen in Europe since the days of the Roman Empire and the soon thereafter Catholic Church’s expansion across the continent, as most new art was dedicated solely to the topic of Christianity. Also I’d just like to say thanks for giving everyone the opportunity to enter this giveaway for such an awesome prize…definitely one of the coolest giveaways I’ve ever seen!

Glad to see you back around these parts - Wonderful content!

So I used to love when Adam came in on Pawn Stars because it meant Rebecca was gonna show up (who was a crush of mine as a teenager) 😂😂 But I’m even more excited that I learned that Adams has a RU-vid channel!! Such a knowledgeable man! Subscribing. 🙌🏽

an added challenge when dealing with illuminated manuscripts is artistic quality too. this area of collecting rides the line between book collecting and art collecting and it takes a degree of connoisseurship to understand what is a well executed illumination or a historically important illumination vs. workshop pieces that were pumped out in mass (not that those can't also be expensive to a lesser degree). it's a fun area to collect, and you would be surprised how often quality illuminated manuscripts come up to market at reasonable/affordable prices.

There was a young monk from Shrewsbury, who drew in the margins quite rudely. The Abbot was furious, his hours cut serious, but his Hours Book made its mark on history.

Some books of hours have been known to contain magical seals or incantations. One example is the Stowe MS 16 manuscript which contains a seal of Solomon inscribed by a previous owner instructing the reader to use it as a Talisman, reading “Hoc signum Salamonis qui super se portaverit nec manu in bello erit captus (whosoever will carry the seal of Solomon on themselves will not be captured in battle).” Incantations against the “seven sisters”, referring to demons named after seven types of fevers are also found inscribed in this book of hours, along with 3 more magical seals offering protection from negative forces and elements with another talismanic instruction, “Hoc Signum fer [te]cum contra omnes inimicos (Carry this seal with you against all enemies).”

I find it interesting that the secular symbolism in a medieval book of hours seems to serve as a more imaginative and creative way to convey religious teachings, while our modern day's evangelical literal interpretation provides a more straightforward (dumbed-down, if you will) approach to understanding and applying the teachings of the Bible. Funny how modern-day folks can look at symbolic pictures of the past as a means to simplify scriptural instruction, when in fact, folks of medieval times had the creativity and imagination to associate the interesting symbolism and teachings with everyday life. Fascinating video! I am in the process of looking for a home in the Loire Valley. What a wonderful addition a 15th century leaf from a Book of Hours would be to the walls of my future maison ancienne!

Now I'm considering getting into collecting rare books. That just sounds so cool

Beautiful place, and a lovely painting behind you!

When I see a book like that I think about the original buyer and how much it must have cost back then. And that it might have been a part of a library of other books. Someone looking through it every day and the impacts it had. I guess if I had to sell a book like that I’d try to find the institution that needed it and work with their board of directors to find the patron that would support the purchase. I’m guessing having the very public auction price available would make it harder to get a significant bump in a short time unless you found some hidden value that wasn’t known or noticed before. Maybe an underbidder whose resources have changed since the auction. I love that the book is a physical object 500 years old and likely to last 500 more whereas our digital files are lost in a decade or so as technology changes.

Amazing book! And complete! Let us hope will not be dismembered.

Best Adam Weinberger Rare Books Buyer video yet! Doesn’t have to be super expensive. Thanks for posting on RU-vid again.

I love the one page I have from a Book of Hours. I got yelled at on Reddit for buying it when I asked if someone could read it.

Book of hours? They should be called a book of years, since that’s how long they took to make! From a bookbinding perspective, books of hours and other manuscripts were extremely time consuming, and mixed with the fact that the materials were pricey, these small objects were usually owned by only the most wealthy of their day. Sadly, many of them today exist only as individual leaves because many people from the past sadly broke the books up! One such person who did so was a man by the name of Otto Ege, who broke apart a large part of his manuscript collection to create teaching and learning sets, which he would go on to sell to collectors and libraries. Evil for the greater good? I’ll let you be the judge…

Very interesting to watch. I'm new to all this, so I've enjoyed the video very much.

Initially conceived for laymen (and women) thus the plenty and vibrant drawings - often offering the only alternative to reading for what i am sure was a considerable majority back then as is today since only the fewest will be able to read middle french. So the book (which was always deemed important enough to be preserved over the centuries) still fulfills it's initial purpose to captivate the illiterate wealthy :D

Well, a typical Book of Hours usually contains the Calendar of Church feasts, amongst other texts. Church feasts has an interesting history i Sweden. As a result of the reformation it was decided in the Swedish Church Ordinance of 1571 that a bunch of Church feasts were ro be cancelled. All the sanits’ celebratoey days were cancelled. This was however not the only time something similar happened in Swedish history. During the 1700’s, the remaining holidays were linked to ”sloth and drunkenness”. The drinking was probably not the biggest problem since the Crown monopolized destillation and the sale of liqour, thus making it a patriotic act to have a drink (since this reform was made to finance the military). The problem was instead that with a bunch of holidays, alot of commerce halted. So by the Royal Decree concerning Celebration of the Sabbath and Other Miscellaneous Holidays’ Moving or Removal in 1772, many of these holidays were to be either cancelled or moved to nearest Sunday. No less than 23 holidays disappeared which resulted in a whole extra month’s worth of working days. That decree was active until 1990! So a Book of Hours wont let me keep up with the current holidays in Sweden. But a leaf would indeed be a great addition to my collection anyways!

I am fascinated by the calendar sections of Books of Hours. The most famous is probably that of the “Tres Riches Heures” of Jean, Duke of Berry. The Julian Calendar of the middle ages had the same months as our modern calendar, but they organized the days of each month according to the system of the Roman Empire rather than simply numbering the days in sequence, as we do today. The “Tres Riches Heures” also contained information for astrological calculations. The conservative Christians of today consider astrology to be tantamount to Satanism, but it was part of the basic technology of the middle ages. 😉

Hello Mr. Weinberger, my fact submission for your contest is: "Anne Boleyn's Book of Hours that may have been with her just before her execution was discovered by a former Hever Castle steward using ultraviolet light wnd photo editing software to have been signed, secretly kept safe due to Anne's history, and passed on to female descendents for decades.

I’m not sure if I should leave the same comment as I did on Instagram- in the interest of being sincere about the competition for a chance to win a piece of a Book of Hours, I will state that when I had to read, transcribe, and transpose neumes, I forgot the difference in Medieval clefs and then had to do it AGAIN in front of my committee. This yet another example of my Medieval music trauma which only a leaf of a Book of Hours can begin to heal…

Did you know that these books were the original 'smartphones' of their time? People carried them everywhere to keep track of their prayers and schedules. It's like finding a medieval version of a personal planner mixed with a spiritual guide! 📜📖✨

Some book of hours contain math tools to calculate and determine the time of Easter and lunar time.

Looks like there are only about ten baseball cards that sold for over $1 million. There's still hope for the human race.

I always learn something interesting from your series. I have a folio facsimile of a Mary Queen of Scots book of hours. It is only about an inch and a half. Imagine the talent and technique!

Fascinating glimpse into the rare book world. Am commenting more on Instagram where I follow you more regularly.

Fascinating video as always. As an aside, do you have a picture of Dorian Gray hanging in your gallery, you haven't aged a day!

What a brilliant book!! Thanks for sharing.

awesome shop / studio library! great works as always! Everyone just went to up there credit cards n lookin into second mortgages to make more money on and from buying more expensive books 😛😛😛😂 great video 😊

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience!

At auction!

It would be wonderful to scan every page and upload somehow. So everyone could at least appreciate the pictures if not the object itself. thanks again for wonderful post

This is great

Very interesting I love to learn new things.

Really interesting. I think Books like that are beautiful. Jeff

what do you think of that Johnny Depp movie "The 9th gate" ?

Beautiful example! How recent is the binding?

I follow you on Instagram, .and I had no clue what a book of hours was!! I quickly looked it up. So😊 Now I do. It's a religious book that people carried to guide them with prayers and Psalms. They had little Bible story illustrations and dates of religious feasts.

New video... 📚 📖 💪

If that book is worth so much money then imagine the value of all the books in the Vatican library. I guess we will never know.

Too long since the last video! I’m a vacuum for more rare book tips

Dude you really need to update your website lol 😅

One of my favorite channels. Always informative and interesting. Thank you for sharing all the wonderful wonders of us bibliophilia individuals

Very strange manuscript