As mentioned, most of the usual updates are going through Twitter, @cokldb, but Chigi D.V.71  from the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana  is far to complex to explain in 280 characters.  First some numbers, this is the 18th MS from the BAV, and it was made in Toulouse, though liturgical Use of Rome, circa 1335-42.   After the January and February calendar pages there are Latin passages, written in red, on calculating the date of Easter.

The calendar is unusually large in several measures.  Each entry takes 2 ruled lines, with the dominical letter, golden number and roman number on the first line and the roman part stretched across both, sometimes even three.  The stretched Roman part is not unusual, but the double-line entry is unique.  This layout means that each month takes 2 full folios, 4 sides, leading to a calendar 24 pages long.  The decoration is rather sparse, but standard mid 14th Century, with a border and a few leaves on the first face of the month and nothing on the other three.  This layout allowed the scribe to load the calendar with saints, there are approximately 480 distinct feasts, with 9 dates carrying three.  August 22 has four distinct feasts: the Octave of the Assumption(469), and three distinct martyrs, Thimothy(478), Hippolytus(471), and Symphorian(477).  For context, a fully populated calendar has between 365 and 380 saints, and the previous MS with the densest calendar hit 401.  Not surprisingly, this calendar has a number of hapax saints, 30 new saints and 48 unidentified ones.

The calendar decorations are less unusual, rod borders with sparse foliage, some of in intruding into the text block.  There is no KL to start the page, in its place there's a small miniature of the labor of the month, backed with burnished gold.  To ornament the dominical "A" there's some small amount of red or blue penwork.

Note that this MS makes approximately 250 devotional calendars added to the DB since December 2015.

(DB Id: 381)

From the Bibliothèque nationale de France comes Latin 1173, the Hours of Charles d’Angoulême, made in France in the Late 15th C. Charles was the father of King François I(r. 1515-1547), and is identified by his arms on f.53r. The Hours are Use of Paris, but the calendar has not been localized.

Most of the literature on this MS is not focused on the text at all, but either the miniatures. Many of these are originals by Robinet Testard, but several are actually prints by Israel van Meckenem (signed IM), which have been colored and embellished by Testard. The calendar is populated with quite distinct illustrations. The labors of the month are unusual and 9 of the KL initials are formed by humans, often in brown/blue clothing, contorted and posing with strange beasts. May (f.3r below) is a representative example, with the woman seemingly unconcerned by the dragon attacking her to form the arms of the “K”. What seems to be the labor is, in fact, two “wild men” jousting

In the content of the calendar there are both some unusual saints listed as well as an interesting bit of scribal error. The calendar starts out mostly full, 27 in Jan, but immediately starts to open up, with only 12 in February. In January some of the entries are quite rare, eg. the heretofore unique 40 Martyrs (4294) on Jan 9.

The calendar starts out triple-graded, blue/red/black, and is carefully graded, several multiple-saint entries are graded distinctly for each saint. In November, however, the scribe seems to forget that he’s triple-grading, and starts to use red and blue in simple alternation when there are high-ranks. This was less definitive in early November, All Saints (2850) in blue vs. All Souls (2993) in red, but becomes more evident as the month proceeds. In December it is unavoidable with strict alternation of red/blue in the Christmas (814) through Holy Innocents (823) block. Were this still triple graded, Christmas, in red, would be outranked by the Holy Innocents and even St. Barbara (853), both in blue.

(DB Id: 278)

The second manuscript from the backlog is from a new archive, the Beinecke Library at Yale, one of the largest collections of medieval manuscripts in the US. MS 663 is an early 16th Century Book from Tournai, now in Belgium. The calendar is almost entirely undecorated, only gold and colored KLs to start the month, but the overall manuscript has a large number of complex miniatures.

An interesting bit of scribal practice is revealed errors in the calendar. January begins on f.4v, so that each month is a complete opening, however the second half of January, properly f.5r, is on f.4r. This points to scribal error, possibly the scribe noticed that he had mis-copied Anthony (1272) as a Monk on January 17th, where he should be properly a Confessor, Abbot or Hermit. Since the recto was not needed before the start of January, he was able to save the parchment without the need to scrape it. Why the second half of the month would have been done before the start is unclear, but since the red ink is missing from f.4r, this seems more likely than that he put the first part of January on the back of the wrong leaf.

The calendar entries are extremely accurate, with only three noted errors, all of which are at the start of the month. Due to an error in the layout of the page, the short verses for June take up the space of the first of the month(see f.9v below). The entries for June 1 (Nicomedes) and 2 (Peter and Marcellini) were shifted to June 2 and 3, to compensate. More interesting is Brigid, usually February 1, appearing on January 31. Shifts across month divisions are extremely rare.

Finally there is a bit of a mystery in the calendar, October 9 has Bishop Dyonisus, the most common name for the date, in black ink, followed by a word I read as “mesda”, in red. I’ve been unable to find a useful meaning for this word.

(DB Id: 270)

Another library joins the database with the addition of Ms.1185 from the Bibliothequè de l’Arsenal, located in Paris near the former site of the Bastille. This is a 15th C. Book from Cambrai, now in northern France. The book is in a very high quality bâtarde hand, with multiple flourished (nearly cadel) capitals in the calendar test. There are also illusionistic borders, with shell-gold backgrounds, on the outer edge of every page, both text and calendar, except for those with more complex decorative programs.

The text of the calendar is in French with some very specific-to-Cambrai entries, such as Bishop Gaugericus (feast in red on August 11 (370), Octave on August 18 (4007), elevation on September 24 (3803)).

An interesting variant is the indication of the Epiphany (January 6 (1488)) (see f.1r below). In French calendars this is usually spelled as La Tiphaine (or a varient thereof), however in MS.1185 it is spelled in hybrid La epyphanie n[ost]re s[iegneu]r. The article is never seen in Latin calendars, but neither Epyphanie nor vocal variants, are seen in French Calendars. The closest match to this entry, oddly, is the early 16th C. Ventian calendar in Houghton MS Typ.1000

(DB Id: 265)

We know more about the location of manuscript MS Lat 34 from the Bibliothèque de Genève, hosted by the excellent e-Codices, than we usually do. This was made for use in the Abbey of St. Martin, in Tours, France. Sadly the monastery was destroyed during the revolution due to St. Martin’s connection to the royal family, dating back to Clovis. The modern Basilica of St. Martin was built on the same site in the late 19th century.

The calendar is unusual in containing a large amount of non-festal dating. All of the Egyptian days are marked in full and there are the “keys” to both Rogation and Pentecost, though not for Easter, which is the most common. For Easter, there is a little poem on the outer margin of the first part of January (see f.3r below) that gives a simplified way of predicting the date. There’s also an entry for the day of Creation, according to Bede and the yet-unexplained “Septim[us] embolism[us]”. The saints are as expected. There are several feasts for St Martin, including the common, Translation on July 4 1854, and the uncommon, Subvention on May 12 2543, Octave of Translation on July 11 4220

(DB Id: 246

A quick summary of several Books of Hours added from my most recent trip to the Morgan Library in New York.

• M.141 - A late 14th C Parisian book, with a simple red/black complete calendar. There are errors in the listings, but no more than the usual number. The later months have multiple unidentified saints, including a saint “Olati” for Dec. 10 and Saint “Dani” on Dec. 5. (DB Id: 234)
• M.729 - The Hours of Yolande de Soissons, this is a Psalter/Hours, but has been added due to the unusually specific location, Amiens, and the rather precise date, 1280-1299, for such an early book. The Calendar has some specific-to-Amiens feasts, such as the Octave of St. Firminus, October 2. It’s triple graded as well, with blue for high importance and red for more medium-weight saints, though that is not a definite interpretation. (DB Id: 77)
• M.739 - This is a particularly old hours, 1204-1219, and from Moravia, which is a rare location. The calendar is damaged for the month of January, with the last 10 entries very difficult to read. There is also evidence of multiple generations of writing and rewriting, including additional saints and obituaries. Five entries for November were erased and rewritten, and it is unknown if these were changed. Of the saints from the original strata there are many unusual ones, such as St. Columba, along with the usual Pope Silvester, on December 31. Multiple saints are not yet identified. (DB Id: 175)
• M.1054 - A nice late 15th C book of hours from Tours, decorated, according to the catalogue by a “Distant follower of Jean Bourdichon”. The calender has a fantastic architectural border on the rectos, with the zodiac and the labors integrated into the frame. Interestingly the calendar is unevenly split, with about 20-22 entries on the recto and only a few on the versos. It is almost complete, but several months have a missing name for the last of the month. (DB Id: 228)
• S.9 - A Parisian book, illustrated by two associates of the Luçon master. The calendar is error-filled, both containing many saints on the wrong date as well as having many of the initials incorrectly filled in as ‘S’, such as “Sostre Dame” for Nostre Dame and “Ses Innocens” for Les Innocens. (DB Id: 226)

Note that with these additions, the total number of entries in the DB is 48910, 31951 of those have at least one saint.

We've not yet run out of Italian books from the Morgan Library.  M.305 is localized to Florence, dated circa 1495.  The calendar is nearly complete, containing 340 entries and all 12 zodiac entries, so only 12 empty lines.  It also has a unique color scheme: red for normal, blue for high rank feasts and gold only for vigils (all vigils are gold) and the Zodiacs. The last 2 entries in September (Michael the Archangel and Jerome) are unusual, they're red, but with a gold initial.  There's a manicule pointing to Michael, perhaps an indication of one of the previous owners.  The calendar is filled with errors

• Several days were omitted in the sequence and their dominical letter/golden number added in the margin
• The first letter of every month was never written in, there's a gap between the KL and the rest of the word, but no initial (i.e. KL ept[m]ber at the start of September)
• The last four saints in January were written one line off, with scribal correction

Finally there are many unidentified saints, but it is unclear if these are in error or too specific in localization to be recorded in the more general reference materials.  The hand is a lovely Humanist, with regular capitolization and mostly regular gendering of titles (Sce vs Sci vs Scor[um]).

(DB Id: 170)

An interesting postscript, this MS was rebound in the early 20th century by Marguerite Duprez Lahey in a lovely, if overly tight, light brown Morocco.  There's an outer case in 1/2 leather, 1/2 marbled paper.  The later matches the end-papers

(Taking a break from the Morgan Library)  Houghton Library Richardson 34 is an English book, use of Sarum, from the late 15th century.  The calendar has some interestingly English saints, like Swithun and Oswald, and the usual Reformation edits, all of the "pape" notations and reference to Thomas Becket were erased and then re-added in a much later hand.  St. Evaristus, who was a pope in the first century, and St. Hyginius (See f.1r below), pope in the second, were also added in that same later hand, though there's no evidence they there earlier.  Otherwise the calendar is exceedingly accurate and has many saints added alongside the larger feasts, such as St. Hillary alongside the Epiphany on January 6 (see f.1r below)

(DB ID: 190)

Richardson 10, from Harvard's Houghton Library, is a profoundly weird French Book of Hours, circa 1515.  The calendar is Parisian-ish, nearly full, with mostly the standard Paris saints, but not a full Paris-set, i.e. January starts with the Circumcision and lacks St. Geneieve (see f.1r below).  After the calendar the book contains the Lords Prayer (in French) and 7 sets of Hours, possibly as one for each day of the week.  These Hours include both the usual ones -- Hours of the BVM, Hours of the Holy Cross, the unusual ones -- Hours of Passion.  Then it has some completely made-up things -- the Hours of All Saints, the Hours of St. Barbara, a Mass against Pestelence, etc.  There are no Gospel pericopes and no obvious Litanies, though there are prayers to St. Catherine and St. Martin of Tours.  To round it out, the cover is about 50 years later than the text, brass (or bronze perhaps), with a layer of red paint carved back to reveal the arms and emblem of Catherine de Medici.

(DB ID: 189)

BNE Mss/176 is a late 16th century, dated to 1585 on the title page, Book that was made for the Duchess of Feria, Iuana Dormer (Jane Dormer, former lady-in-waiting to Mary I of England).  The hours is Use of Rome, stated on the same title page, but the place of creation is not listed in the catalogue.  The calendar is unusual in layout for several reasons: the dating information is only modern day numbers, not Roman, and only the dominical letters join the numbers; The title block for each month is simply the name of the month and the short verses, no "KL"; and the months are continuous, rather than a month starting at the top of a new folio(See start of June below, f.4v).  There are additions from a later hand in January-March indicating duple feasts and adding in a few saints.  The saints of the original campaign are very accurate, only 2 of the 206 saints seem to be on the wrong day.   With regards to orthography, there are very few abbreviations/suspensions in the text, virgin, martyr and even confessor are often written out and it has the late pattern(cf. LoC Rosenwald 10 or BnF Latin 10558) of inserting an 'ae' digraph wherever possible, sometimes creating near nonsense "Judae" for "Jude" or "Caeciliae" for "Cecilia".  

(DB ID: 184)