Middle English Literature

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Images
Lovell Lectionary
British Library MS Harley 7026, fol. 4v
Language: Latin
Manuscript date: ca. 1408
The Lovell Lectionary image is outstanding in the history of English por-
traits, the history of presentation scenes, size, and composition. The only
other contemporary portraits executed in such a realistic style are of Chaucer
(see “Thomas Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes,” p. 141). Book presentation
images much more commonly show an author or patron kneeling before
an authority figure (see “Anne of Burgundy, duchess of Bedford, before St.
Anne,” p. 135). Such illuminations usually contain full-length figures in small
miniatures, not this large composition where the figures are dramatically
close up, one framed by the window.
It is unclear whether Lovell presents the book to the monk or is receiving
the book from him, but the scroll on the left identifies the context of the
donation of the lectionary: “Orate pro anima domini iohannis louell qui hunc
librum ordinauit ecclesie cathedrali Sarum pro speciali memoria sui & uxoris”
(“Pray for the soul of Lord John Lovell, who bequeathed this book for
Sarum Cathedral in special memory of him and his wife”). The faint inscrip-
tion in the lower frame, “ffrater Johes SiferWas,” provides further clues about
the book. It seems that John Holand, Lord Lovell (d. 1408), of Titmarsh,
Northamptonshire, commissioned the book from John Siferwas, a Dominican
identified as the illuminator of other books (including the Sherborne Missal),
and then donated it to the cathedral presumably before his death. His wife,

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Images
Maud de Holand, died in 1423. The lectionary was probably made at the
Benedictine Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Glastonbury, Somerset.
Primary documents and further reading
Backhouse, J. (1999) The Sherborne Missal. London: British Library.
Herbert, J. A. (Intro.) (1920) The Sherborne Missal. Oxford: Roxburghe Club.
Mathew, G. (1968) The Court of Richard II. London: John Murray.
Millar, E. G. (1928) English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Centuries.
Paris: G. Van Oest.