ABSTRACT
While the bulk of late medieval manuscripts written and decorated for Scottish patrons and book-owners did not outlast the Reformation, there are a number of survivals that merit more attention than they have hitherto received. The Arbuthnott book of hours, now housed at the Paisley Museum and Art Gallery, is part of a uniquely interesting group of manuscripts that was copied by a named scribe between 1482 and 1492 for the Arbuthnott family, who lived in a small, rural village about 26 miles south of Aberdeen. Members of this family were notable patrons of art, architecture and the Franciscan order, and the manuscripts they commissioned illuminate key aspects of indigenous book production in late medieval Scotland. This essay will focus on several illustrations and texts in the book of hours that reveal the liturgical preferences, reading habits, and religious sympathies of its earliest owner, Mariota Arbuthnott. My chief aim is to show how this book of hours reflects very early evidence of the dissemination of Maria in sole (Virgin in the Sun) iconography and of devotion to the Rosary. Hence I hope to show that this manuscript, which reflects both national and regional Scottish concerns as well as certain Continental aesthetic influences, provides important information about book production and religious culture in the far North.
