This elegant Latin manuscript is known today as the Gotha Missal after its eighteenth-century owners, the German dukes of Gotha. The volume was originally copied and illuminated in Paris -- a commission of the Valois king Charles V the Wise (r.1364-1380), one of the great bibliophiles of the fifteenth century and brother of dukes Philip the Bold of Burgundy and Jean de Berry.

Manuscript missals were not intended for the lay user, but rather for the use of the celebrant at Mass. The present volume was therefore meant to be used by the king's private chaplain and was probably housed in Charles's private chapel, possibly in his principal residence, the Palace of the Louvre (demolished in the sixteenth century).

The main decorative body of the missal consists of two full-page miniatures comprising the Canon of the Mass and twenty-three small miniatures. The style and high quality of the decoration points to the Master of the Boqueteaux. The blind-tooled leather binding dates to the fifteenth century.

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