The Burial from the Coëtivy Hours

Dunois Master, attributed to

Folio with three-quarter page miniature from a book of hours attributed to the Dunois Master, written in Latin and French in a bastarda script, made in Paris and dated 1443–1445. It was commissioned by Prigent de Coëtivy (1399?–1450) on the occasion of his marriage to Marie de Rais (1429–1457). Removed from the bound volume between 1933 and 1960. The Litany is followed by the Office of the Dead, read immediately before the requiem or funeral Mass, with Vespers read on the night before and Matins and Lauds on the day of the Mass and burial. In this manuscript, the Office is unusually illuminated with not one but six miniatures. Beneath rubrics in red, the seventh lesson from Matins for the Office opens with the illuminated initial 'S' (Spiritus meus attenuabitur dies mei breviabuntur) painted with white, red, blue and gold ivy-leaf ornament. The miniature is painted in demi-grisaille with pigments and gold and depicts the burial of the deceased. The ceremony is attended by priests, deacons and black-hooded mourners. One priest reads prayers from a book and another splashes holy water from an aspergillum, while two gravediggers lower the shrouded body into a recently dug grave. Secular mourners look on from a covered arcade or gallery. Bones from uninterred skeletons above suggest the presence of a charnel house. Additional gravediggers are at work in the lower margin with hoe and spade near an open grave. Also included are uninterred bones, grave markers, and a monk reading. This same figure is repeated, facing the opposite direction, in the right margin with a bird (goldfinch) below him. Except for the bird, the marginal figures on the verso are replaced by a wildman riding a lion.