Gabriel and the Hour Book

In the days of this story, printed books were very few, and almost unknown to most people, as printing presses had been invented only a few years earlier. So by far, the greater number of books in the world were made by the patient labor of skillful monks.

And so these brothers, who lived in monasteries and abbeys, made it their chief work to preserve and multiply all the books worth keeping. They ornamented the pages with beautiful borders of flowers, birds, saints, angels, and such lovely ...