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- The book of hours began to appear in the 13th century, containing prayers to be said at the canonical hours in honour of the Virgin Mary. The growing demand for smaller such books for family and individual use created a prayerbook style enormously popular among the wealthy.
www.britannica.com/topic/book-of-hours-prayer-bookBook of hours | Medieval, Illuminated, Devotional | Britannica
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Around 1300, however, when devotion to the Virgin Mary was at its peak, Books of Hours began to be produced in bulk. Lay people from a newly emerged European middle class, people who had never before owned or even had access to books, were now willing and able to buy them.
Several factors contributed to the demand for books of hours. Increasing literacy among a wider circle of the population—both men and women—expanded the market for books in general. The manufacture of manuscripts shifted from clerical control to professional scribes, artists, and booksellers.
Books of hours (Latin: horae) are Christian prayer books, which were used to pray the canonical hours. [2] The use of a book of hours was especially popular in the Middle Ages, and as a result, they are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript.
The book of hours began to appear in the 13th century, containing prayers to be said at the canonical hours in honour of the Virgin Mary. The growing demand for smaller such books for family and individual use created a prayerbook style enormously popular among the wealthy.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
It has long been a truism that the Bible is the most-published book in the history of Western culture. But for almost 250 years, from about 1275 to 1525, Books of Hours (illuminated prayer books whose heart is a series of prayers devoted to the Virgin Mary) were the medieval best sellers.
This Book of Hours combines features typical of manuscripts made for the open market with unique elements designed for the volume’s discerning patron, a Cardinal. Although Books of Hours are often associated with lay women, in fact many were produced for male patrons, both secular and religious.
From around 1200 in Western Europe, there was an unprecedented rise in laypeople’s prayer-books, leading to the emergence of what would become the most popular book of the late Middle Ages: the Book of Hours.
