ABSTRACT
The artist’s authority to use an image of the Trinity to open and close the Liturgical Year also lay in contemporary views of the shape of the liturgy, inherent in the texts for the Office. The synthesizing function of the image was particularly great when the opening rubric was the text receiving pictorial emphasis. The emphasis is usually carried by one or at most two initials or column miniatures within the Office, their size depending on the importance of the text. The texts receiving the decorative emphasis vary from Office to Office and from manuscript to manuscript. Bedford’s generous patronage had encouraged the workshop to treat the project in the experimental manner of a luxury Book of Hours rather than as a liturgical manuscript. The dangers of interpreting similarities between art and theatre as evidence of direct influence are particularly great when looking at images in illuminated manuscripts which form part of a larger cycle.
