Script

Handwriting Style

The main text (calendar and devotional texts) of the Taymouth Hours is written in textualis quadrata, and the captions and inscriptions are in a smaller, less formal script (Smith, 2012).  Both the Taymouth Hours and the Glasgow Miscellany (Hunter MS 231) “feature the work of the same scribe” (Smith, 2012, p. 33).  Textualis quadrata is defined as an “English Gothic book script of a high grade and of very good quality […] the grade of the script (quadrata) is determined by the treatment of the bottoms of the minims, which have consistently applied feet” (Brown, 1994, p. 84).

Incipit/Explicit

While there is rubrication defining content throughout the Taymouth Hours, there is no incipit or explicit helping to identify the text and its ownership, further complicating the debate concerning the original commissioner and recipient.

Subscriptio/Colophon

There is no colophon as such, but the very last page of the Taymouth Hours contains a list.  The writing here is in a more casual style, which makes it more difficult to read.  It appears to be in English.  My first thought was that it was a table of contents.

f. 195v

The proceeding page has what might be a colophon, but the last content is the Office of the Dead – this may be an explicit, but I could not find a translation of the abbreviated Latin.

f. 195r – possible colophon.

Marginalia

Smith (2012) includes 24  pieces of marginalia in her account of the illustrative content of the Taymouth Hours, but looking at the images, it is hard to distinguish what she might be referring to from the bas-de-page illustrations.