"What cathedrals are to architecture and the 'Ave Maria' is to music, the Book of Hours is to literature and painting. Often described as a 'cathedral in the palm of the hand,' the Book of Hours offers a myriad of stained-glass window views into the medieval world, both cultural and religious. Through this proscenium, the divine mystery of the soul's relationship with God and the divine could be visualized, and by the holy act of naming the hours and the ritual contemplation of their own often personally selected prayers and pictures, secular time was sanctified for ordinary people as it had long been for the privileged few in the cloistered monasteries. The democratization of religion had begun."