Illuminators and Patrons in Fourteenth-Century England: The Psalter and Hours of Humphrey de Bohun and the Manuscripts of the Bohum Family

Illuminators and Patrons in Fourteenth-Century England is a richly illustrated study of one of the treasures of the British Library, MS Egerton 3277, a psalter and book of hours made for Humphrey de Bohun (d. 1373), the vastly wealthy earl of Hereford, Essex, and Northampton, who employed two or more illuminators to work on the manuscript in his own castle at Pleshey, Essex. The interaction between the Bohun patron and the Bohun artists is a major focus of the book.

Along with a detailed commentary on the manuscript’s more than three hundred pictorial subjects from the books of Kings of the Old Testament, the Gospel of Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles, the book includes twelve essays linking the British Library manuscript with others illustrated by the same artists for members of the Bohun family in the second half of the fourteenth century. The book is accompanied by a DVD reproducing every page in images that can be enlarged by the viewer to show the smallest details of the illustrations.