A Tudor Abbot’s Prayerbook and Multimedia Marian Devotion on the Eve of the Reformation

ABSTRACT The prayerbook of the early Tudor abbot of St. Peter’s, Westminster, John Islip, remains as Manchester, John Rylands Library, MS Latin 165. Textually and artistically, the volume culminates in an unusual prayer, the Marian Ave cuius conceptio. Islip’s unparalleled decision to illustrate the piece with a complete narrative cycle shows his remarkable devotion to this prayer. Yet, Islip may have experienced Ave cuius conceptio most commonly not as a prayer, but as a motet sung in the same chapels that he spent his career renovating. In his highly personal prayerbook, Islip’s illustrated Ave cuius conceptio offers visual and textual cues that build on a mental musical setting for the abbot’s private Marian devotions.