Reply To: Public vs. Private Devotion

[Aubri Stogsdill]

As churches constantly become more and more beautiful and intricately designed in the Gothic period, many wealthy families invested in things such as moralized bibles. These bibles were made of up thousands of illustrations of the stories and values found within scripture and they also included commentaries. These bibles would have been extremely costly, therefore would not have been accessible by the commoners. Being able to have these items would have only been a possibility because of rank. Though, there was also a growing access to various written devotionals for commoners called the ‘books of hours’. These books would have becoming increasingly more available to those who were less fortunate as the gothic period went on. Each of these books would have been unique. Inside would be a number of prayers that the individual could read and specific times of the day. In many ways this shift began as the Christians valuing of personal piety grew.