English Binding.- [Breviary] Portiforium Seu Breviarium, 3 parts in 1, blackletter in double column, in black and red throughout, woodcut device to title, two manuscript notes to margins in English in a contemporary hand (at +6 verso and i2, this scoured out), title faintly browned and soiled otherwise generally quite clean, bound in contemporary English calf over boards, stamped in blind in a panel design bearing foliate and other devices (possibly including griffins), neatly rebacked, lacking clasps, [Adams L949], Paris, by Joannis le Blanc for Guillaume Merlin, 1557.

⁂ A fantastic example of a prayerbook from the period of Catholic restoration in England under Mary Tudor, with English ownership and in a contemporary English binding.

This summer section of the Roman Breviary, according to the use of Salisbury, while printed in Paris was clearly intended for the English market, and if not soon after printing then definitely by the end of the century was in the hands of an English owner. The manuscript note on the verso of folio +6, the Calendar page for October, is of great contextual resonance, reading "the first sonday of hoctober ys the dedycation day of the churche All ways". The first Sunday in October had been decreed by Henry VIII in 1536 to be held as the official feast of dedication for every parish Church in England, rather than as traditionally on the exact date specific to each parish. This note thus reveals the complex blending of religious paradigms and sentiment in England at this time, between Henrician Anglicanism and Marian Catholicism. Of course, if the book came into English hands later than 1558, the state of recusancy adds yet another complex interpretational layer to the context of this scribbled reminder.

Provenance: Tho. Falconer [18th century engraved bookplate] & Pusey House, Oxford [library stamps to title and front endpaper].