Sarum Book of Hours (Manuscript), c. 1400.

This Book of Hours, Sarum Use -- the oldest volume in Nashotah House’s  Underwood Prayer Book Collection -- arrived at the seminary in 1977 as a gift of the late Mr. Walter S. Underwood of Chicago, Illinois (1884-1976). Mr. Underwood had been a senior partner in a Chicago law firm, served as chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, and was an avid liturgical book collector.

Purchased by Mr. Underwood in 1952 from Brentanoʼs Chicago bookstore, the manuscript has appeared in three exhibitions: Turn the Pages Slowly: Rare Books and Manuscripts (Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University, 2008), Hidden Treasures: Illuminated Manuscripts from Midwestern Collections (the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, December 18, 2010- February 27, 2011), and The Art of Devotion: Illuminated Manuscripts from Local Collections (Milwaukee Art Museum, March 1-June 16, 2019).

The Book of Hours, Sarum Use contains 23 full-page miniatures and 23 historiated initials. Each full-page illumination is painted on the verso of a leaf with a blank recto. Of particular note is the pictorial prayer cycle to the five wounds of Christ. Both Dutch and English-style illustrations appear in folio margins. The pages are unnumbered, and the majority of text is Latin with additions in vernacular English.

“Books of hours,”  popular among devout Christian laity in the Middle Ages, contained prayers and psalms to be recited at the eight canonical hours of the day. Replete with decorative initials and hand-painted illustrations, many of these illuminated manuscripts were produced primarily in Holland and Belgium and exported to the faithful living in the British Isles.

Sarum Use, Use of Sarum, Sarum Rite, and Use of Salisbury all refer to the same ordered offices, or program of daily prayers and devotions, established at Salisbury Cathedral in the eleventh century by St. Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, as a local variation of the Roman Rite. The Sarum Use became popular, and its practice gradually spread throughout most of England, Wales, and Scotland before fading in the sixteenth century. It had a significant influence on the form of Anglican Liturgy represented in the Book of Common Prayer.