LATE 15TH CENTURY

Edgar B. Frank in Old French Ironwork (1950), plate 291 shows a similar book or missal box: "Caskets, at least in France, were given different names depending on the use for which they were destined, sometimes on the material of which they were made, or their specialized shapes; thus, for instance, the cassette was used to carry money and sometimes personal belongings, the porte-missael to preserve precious books of hours, which the people of the Gothic period valued so highly...