Customer Reviews
Marking Eternity - By: Rev. Kevin P. Robinson, 19 Feb 2008 
This book is meticulously researched & presented with beautiful colour plates on almost every page. Duffy's devotion to his subject is infectious. Here he writes with a simple lightness of touch which makes for easy reading that remains yet scholarly & accessible. This is a beautiful book to own & keep or to give as a gift. Many finely reproduced images are here available & now lend themselves for alll time to thoughtful reflection anywhere. This is a quality product & a worthy tribute to the material which was so cherished & lovingly preserved through the ages by so many classes of people even after the reformation.
Another 'must have' from Eamon Duffy. - By: Brim, 13 Dec 2006 'Marking the hours' is an excellent companion book to Professor Duffy's 'The Stripping of the Altars' & 'Voices of Morebath'. The main thrust of Duffys arguement in 'Altars' & 'Morebath' is that immediately prior to the Henrician reformation England adherance to Rome was firm & that there was little to suggest that there was an appetite for the non-conformism fomenting on the continent.
'Marking the Hours' is more 'grist to Duffy's mill'. By an examination of the mostly previously ignored marginalia, emendations, additions & deletions to copies of Books of Hours, enscribed & printed between the early 13th century & late 16th century, Duffy replies to historians whose theories run counter to his thesis. This he does methodicallly & presents his interpretation with typical lucidity.
Duffy seems to have written a canon of his very own & for anyone interested in catholicism in reformation England it needs to be read & 'Marking the Hours' is an original contribution to it & also to the understanding of that time in its generality.
A note on the quality of the book build itself: 'Marking the Hours' contains many splendid reproduction of pages from Books of Hours both expensive & hand written & low budget popular imports; alll are pertinant to the text & add hugely to the enjoyment of such an essay. It is also printed on sturdy alkaline paper which gives rise to the hope, at least, that it may last as long as the subjects contained therein.
