DIURNAL, Use of Sarum.

by Use of Sarum Diurnal

£22,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

The only known copy of this miniature liturgical book printed in Paris, made specifically for an English market, containing the daytime offices of the rite of Sarum, the pre-Reformation rite for most of England south of the river Trent. It was designed to render yet more compendious the already epitomised Breviary, and to make the Portos yet more portable we may infer that the parish priest who owned a Journal would say his Matins in the church where his Breviary and Missal lay, before his Mass, and that, after that, he could use his handy little Diurnale for Sext, Nones, Evensong, and Compline, wherever he might chance to be at his usual times of prayer (Christopher Wordsworth, Old Service Books of the English Church, 101-2). The work splits the year into a winter and summer liturgical cycle, the former beginning in early December at Advent, and continuing until Easter. The summer officia (official prayers of the Church) open with the celebration of Easter itself, the Ascension and Pentecost, until the end of the season in August. Weeks are assigned a number or given a name relating to an upcoming religious celebration. A calendar in traditional Roman format follows, which lists all prayers required for each day of the year; each month is titled with its number of days and moons. Saints days are also recorded along with the relevant prayers, which are found in the last part of the work. These include dedications to St Andrew, Osmund, Nicholas, Barnabas, the Virgin Mary, John

• Binding: Hardcover

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