This tiny book is a Book of Hours, containing all the prayers, orders of service and masses to be said on particular days throughout the year. It is deliberately small so it can be easily carried or kept in a bag or pocket. Faith was an important part of everyday life in the 16th century. If you were wealthy enough, you were expected to spend part of each day in private prayer, rather than wait to go to church each week.

It was made by hand with lots of decorated pages and pictures (called illuminations) and it has details picked out with gold. Only a very wealthy person could have afforded it and would have been educated enough to use it.

The page shown here is the Calendar for January. The text is in Latin, and the first word is JANUARUS. In case this was not clear, the artist has put the sign of the zodiac for January, Aquarius, at the top of the right hand page.

This book was made in the workshop of Simon Bening, who was famous for the realistic detail of his work. He has chosen winter scenes for January. On the left, a man and woman are about to have dinner, but the man is trying to warm himself by the fire. Bening has played a trick on the reader in designing the page. He has made the text look as though it is stuck onto the picture, which makes you really want to see what is behind it. It is as if he is giving us a peek into someone else's life. From these pages you would not know, unless you could read Latin, that this was a religious book, but in other sections there are scenes from the Bible and paintings of the saints. Here you can see the angel Gabriel visiting Mary on the left of the page...

...and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden from the right.