Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Book of Hours
England, probably Oxford, ca. 1325-1330
MS M.700 fol. 1v

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Archangel Gabriel, pearled scalloped nimbus, stands with palm in right hand and book with one strap in left hand, flanked by Hawisia du Bois, wearing wimpled veil, and husband, both wearing heraldic garments (du Bois family of Lincoln), kneeling as donors with joined hands raised.
Figures against diapered background, beneath trefoil arch of multifoiled cusps and heraldic spandrels (argent two bars and in chief three besants gules).
Frames, decorated with geometric ornament of x's and with sprigs of three pointed trefoliate leaves, include barbed quatrefoils enclosing busts of two crowned kings at center of top and bottom, busts of two veiled crowned queens at center of sides, and enclosing four heraldic escutcheons at corners, representing du Bois (argent, two bars and a canton gules).