Books of hours as codified compilations of compilations: dataset and code

Dataset, code to produce the figures, additional figures and visualizations for the following contribution:

Stutzmann, Dominique, and Chevalier, Louis, "Books of hours as codified compilations of compilations Textual networks and hybrid liturgical uses", Journal of Historical Network Research 9 (2023) 146 – 199, doi:10.25517/jhnr.v9i1.139

@article{stutzmann_books_2023,
title = {Books of hours as codified compilations of compilations {Textual} networks and hybrid liturgical uses},
volume = {9},
doi = {10.25517/jhnr.v9i1.139},
language = {en},
journal = {Journal of Historical Network Research},
author = {Stutzmann, Dominique and Chevalier, Louis},
year = {2023},
pages = {146--199},
}

Books of hours were the medieval best-seller. The referenced article aims to change how we study the textual content of books of hours by tackling the most common texts at a large scale. Intended for lay people and imitating the model of liturgical books, books of hours contain a core of votive offices and appear to have a very standardized content. The choice and the order of the chants, readings and orations may vary within the offices according to not only the liturgical destination, but also the place of production, the target export market, and the choices of the client. Variations are therefore difficult to characterize and analyze. Here, we focus on an analysis of the Hours of the Virgin and the Office of the Dead as both compilations and networks of compilations. At the level of texts and liturgical uses, we highlight and study textual commonalities based on geography or other historical links (e.g.
Germany, the Dominican order and Southern France for the Hours of the Virgin, Flanders and Scandinavia, Poitiers and Bordeaux, Auxerre and Bayeux for the Office of the Dead). Since patrons or copyists could also modify the expected contents, our last part analyses the uses by Utrecht and Bruges, and how uses specific to one institution may either be faithfully reproduced or give way to hybridization. This phenomenon is characterized, for example, by changes between pieces from another use into a well-identified set.