This early printed devotional book exists only in two fragments, one at the Morgan, one at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Now in a modern binding, the Morgan fragment consists of sixty-four leaves, maybe two-thirds of the book’s original contents. No leaves survive from the beginning or the end, where the volume suffered most from wear and tear. Even in its tattered state, it tells about an important episode in the introduction of printing to England. Before William Caxton set up his press in Westminster, around 1476, he printed this and several other books in Bruges, where he commissioned types from a gifted scribe and expert pressman, Colard Mansion. This book is now thought to have been printed in Bruges in 1475 or 1476 by Caxton and Mansion, no doubt with the intention of exporting copies to England. It is the earliest known example of an English book printed on vellum with hand illumination, which can be seen here in the borders and the decorated initial.
Catholic Church, Book of hours (Sarum) [Bruges: Colard Mansion?, for William Caxton, about 1475–1476]. Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1908; PML 18386.