Leaf from the Beauvais Missal
ca. 1285 CE, Beauvais, Kingdom of France (present-day France)
Pigment and gold on parchment
This lavishly-illuminated page is one leaf of the Beauvais Missal, a book originally used in Beauvais Cathedral in northern France to celebrate mass. Donated to the Cathedral by Canon Robert de Hangest, the book aided in the singing of hymns for feast days, or special celebrations of saints; in Temple’s leaf, these include Saints Clement and Felicity of Rome (November 23) and Saint Chrysogonus (November 24). This manuscript was famously disassembled in 1942 by Philip Duschnes, who sold many leaves to bookseller Otto F. Ege. Individual folios of the Missal have been disbursed among public and private collections alike, but an ongoing project by scholar Lisa Fagin Davis has moved towards providing a digitally reconstructed facsimile of the book using all known leaves.
Ivy D’Agostino
Digitized leaf at Temple Digital Collections
Lisa Fagin Davis, Beauvais Missal (Virtual Reconstruction), Fragmentarium
Lisa Fagin Davis, Reconstructing the Beauvais Missal
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