Gabriel and the Hour Book is a lovely addition to my collection of books (mainly picture books) about the art of illumination.
Gabriel is a young peasant boy living in Normandy in the late 1400s, the time of Louis XII. He lives near St. Martin’s Abbey, and works as an assistant to the monks there who copy and illuminate books. Gabriel grinds and mixes colors for them, prepares parchments, makes ink, and eagerly learns any other tasks that will help the brothers.
“In those days—it was four hundred years ago—printed books were very few, and almost unknown to most people; for printing presses had been invented only a few years, and so by far the greater number of books in the world were still made by the patient labour of skillful hands; the work usually being done by the monks, of whom there were very many at that time.”
One day when Gabriel arrives at the Abbey, he is told that instead of doing his usual tasks, he must help Brother Stephen whose assistant is sick. Gabriel is directed to an old chapter house where Stephen is working alone. He wonders why Stephen is isolated this way, but he obeys instructions without asking questions. Toward the end of the day, Gabriel realizes that Brother Stephen is chained to the table. He later finds out that the Abbot is afraid Stephen will try to run away, and he is being punished for his angry, disrespectful attitude.
Brother Stephen had come to the Abbey as a young orphan and was brought up to join the Brotherhood. He took his binding vows before he realized exactly what that would mean for him. Now he feels the strong pull of art, and wishes to be released from his vow. The Abbot has refused his request for many reasons, but one is that Louis XII has ordered an hour book as a wedding gift for his bride to be, Lady Anne. The Abbot knows Brother Stephen is the only one who can do justice to the project.
Though Gabriel’s family is poor, he is a cheerful and generous soul with an artistic eye for nature and true gratitude for small wonders and gifts. He is a complement to Stephen’s brooding sensitivity. Gabriel’s innocent enthusiasm for their work helps Stephen put aside his injured feelings and immerse himself in the project. He decides the hour book will be like nothing anyone has ever done before.
As powerless peasants whose land and labor belong to Count Pierre, calamity falls on Gabriel’s family when the Count decides to levy more taxes in order to fund a war. When Gabriel’s father can’t pay the taxes, the Count imprisons him in the castle and confiscates the family’s sheep. Gabriel earns a few pennies for his work at the Abbey, but there is nothing else he can do to help his family, and he will not profit when the stunningly beautiful hour book is finished.
According to custom, when Stephen finishes binding the book, he adds one last page that says he is the one who made the book, and asks for God’s compassion on his sins. Gabriel thinks about all the work he has done on the book himself and wonders if God would not also somehow have compassion on him and his family. He finds a piece of parchment and writes:
“I, Gabriel Viaud, am Brother Stephen’s colour grinder; and I have made the ink for this book, and the glue, and caught the eels, and ground the gold and colours, and ruled the lines and gathered the flowers for the borders, and so I pray the Lord God will be kind and let my father out of prison in Count Pierre’s castle, and tell Count Pierre to give us back our meadow and sheep, for we cannot pay the tax, and mother says we will starve.”
Gabriel tucks this prayer between the pages of the book and waits for God to answer. How he answers is the rest of the story, and as the answer comes at Christmastime, the wooden shoes of the entire family are filled to overflowing.
Brother Stephen is also rewarded for his magnificent work, and the author tells us it is possible, to this day, to see some of his (and perhaps Gabriel’s) work in the libraries and museums of Europe. Early in the story, we are told that Brother Stephen’s given name was Jean, and it is believed that Stein had Jean Bourdichon in mind when she created the character of Brother Stephen.
Stein was a limner, or illumination artist in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Her descriptions of medieval methods for producing all the elements of an illuminated manuscript are naturally integrated into the story without the feeling that she is teaching a lesson.
The entry for this book at Biblioguides includes a link to a pdf of a scholarly work on The Hours of Louis XII. At some point, over the hundreds of years since Louis’s gift to his wife, the book was broken up, perhaps sold off page by page. Now, much of it has been recovered and, in this pdf you may see many pages from the lavish book Brother Stephen and Gabriel labored over. This is not, however, a resource for children. There is some nudity, and the text is quite frank in its description of those paintings.
Gabriel and the Hour Book is now available in a new edition from Purple House Press.