Humanity Hits 4: Thesinge Book of Hours

The fourth film in the Humanity Hits series is about the 16th-century Thesinge Book of Hours, the original of which is kept in the Special Collections department of the University of Groningen Library.

This little book of hours contains a calendar and seven texts in Middle Dutch. It was written around 1515 by Stine Dutmers, a nun in the Benedictine monastery of Thesinge, which was first mentioned in 1283 and destroyed in 1584. Stine wrote her initials at the end of the text.

Throughout the book, we see beautiful illuminations with birds, leaves and flowers in bright colours and gold paint. This illumination was made by Frans Maler, most likely a resident of the city of Groningen. He, too, wrote down his name in this book which is a unique work of art as well as material evidence of the time when Thesinge was not a village but a monastery.