Illuminated around 1500 by the artist Jean Poyer, The Hours of Henry VIII receives its name from the possible but unproven eighteenth-century tradition that holds King Henry of England once owned this splendid manuscript. By following the simple instructions, you can explore every painting of this Renaissance masterpiece and learn how Books of Hours helped their readers to pray.

Books of Hours contain more or less standard texts—Calendar, Gospel Lessons, Hours of the Virgin, Hours of the Cross, Hours of the Holy Spirit, Penitential Psalms with Litany, Office of the Dead, and Suffrages—as well as a number of common accessory prayers. Based on the frequency and variety of added devotions, it appears that scribes included these for owners who wished to personalize their prayer books.

St. Anthony Abbot: Temptation of Anthony
Border: Anthony in the Wilderness (fol. 183v)

Anthony Abbot, or Anthony the Great (ca. 251–356), is best known for his long life of asceticism in the Egyptian deserts. Born in an Egyptian village near Memphis, Anthony Abbot decided at age twenty, when his parents died, to become a hermit. For two decades the saint lived in complete solitude in an abandoned tomb. Here the Devil tempts him in the form of an attractive woman, and scares him in the forms of a black man and then wild animals.

In 1095, in La Motte (in southern France), an order of Hospitalers was created in the saint's honor. Wearing black robes with a blue tau cross, they traveled widely, ringing bells for alms. By special ordinance, the Hospitalers' pigs were allowed to forage freely, leading to pictures of the saint accompanied by a pig.

Poyer's miniature presents Anthony as an old bearded man in a black robe and tau cross (the Egyptian cross and a symbol of his abbatial authority). The crutch at the saint's feet refers both to Christ's Cross and to the Hospitalers' care of the infirm. Anthony reaches toward the fire to escape the demonic young woman (note her horns).

In the margin below Anthony appears with his staff in the wilderness; the open book symbolizes the book of nature, which compensated the saint for lack of any other reading material. The belled pig at his side refers to the order of Hospitalers, but it was also his only companion in the wilderness. (Feast day: January 17)