Some of the most magnificent manuscripts of the fifteenth century and earlier were, like Lord Lovel's _Lectionary_, illuminated at the cost of some wealthy layman for the purpose of presentation to a Cathedral or Abbey Church. In return for the gift the Church often agreed to keep a yearly _obiit_ or annual Mass for the donors soul, which in England was called "the years mind"; and this kind of gift thus often served to provide a "Chantry" of a limited kind. _Queen Mary's Prayer-book._ One of the finest examples of English manuscript art in the fourteenth century is a _Psalter_ commonly known as "Queen Marys Prayer-book". This exquisite manuscript, which is in the British Museum, contains, before the _Psalter_, a large number of miniatures of Biblical scenes executed in outline, treated with delicate washes of transparent colour. The _Psalter_ is illuminated in quite a different style, with brilliant gold and colours in all the miniatures and borders, which are painted with wonderful delicacy of touch, unsurpassed by the best French work. A _Bestiary_ is introduced into the margins of the _Psalter_; and at the end there are beautiful paintings of New Testament scenes. The date of this book is c. 1330; in 1553 it was given to Queen Mary. _MSS. of Dan Lydgate._ Another English manuscript of special interest both for its text and its beautiful illuminations is a copy in the British Museum of Dan Lydgate's _Life of Saint Edmund_, which was written and illuminated in 1433 by a Monk in the Benedictine Monastery at Bury Saint Edmunds; it is an early and very beautiful example of a manuscript in the Vulgar tongue. In style the illuminated borders are not unlike those in "Queen Mary's Prayer-book." Another very similar manuscript both in date and style was sold at the Perkins sale, in June, 1873, for £1320[121]. This is a magnificently illuminated folio of "The Siege of Troye compiled by Dann John Lydgate, Monke of Bury"; it contains seventy miniature paintings, chiefly of battle scenes, in which the combatants wear armour of the first half of the fifteenth century. The illuminated borders are of the boldly decorative English type mentioned above, and the miniatures are large in scale, in many cases extending across the whole width of the page with its double column of text. _Woodcut initials._ In England the introduction of the art of printing in 1477 seems to have brought the illuminator's art to an end more quickly than was the case in Continental countries. Caxton's later books have printed initials[122], instead of blank spaces left for the illuminator, as in most of the early printed books of Germany, France and Italy; and English book-buyers appear to have been soon satisfied with simple illustrations in the form of rather rudely executed woodcuts.