Textmanuscripts - Les Enluminures
In 4o; [iv]+[16]+LXXIV+[xii] leaves, paper with parchment additions; collation: x4, a8, b4, A–C8, D4, E–I8, K6; for the greater part printed in Roman type, some smaller sections printed in Gothic type; ff. x4v, a1r–v, LXXIIIv and LXXIVr blank; rubricated up to f. XXXIIIr and on ff. LXXIIv–LXXIIIr; title within woodcut border consisting of four rectangular woodcuts, two vertical ones depicting the four fathers of the church Sts. Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine and Gregory the Great, and two horizontal ones (the upper one dated “1521”) depicting Indians with exotic and fantastic animals like an elephant, two camels and a dragon, all heightened with red; two small, astronomical woodcuts for the finding of the Golden Number and the Sunday Letter, heightened with red (f. VIIIr); one nine-line woodcut initial (f. Ir); forty-five four- and five-line woodcut initials with representations of men, animals, Christ the Savior and the Sudarium; one four-line woodcut initial with the Five Holy Wounds (title-page); a full-page woodcut (122x86 mm.) of the Virgin and Child in the sun and on the crescent moon (f. LXXIVv); several leaves with a small tab of vellum, some of them painted red; many marginal and interlinear corrections and additions and notes on separate leaves in brown and red ink by at least six sixteenth-century hands. In good condition, some leaves in the front dog-eared and creased along the edges, a tear in the lower part of f. XXX, a few leaves repaired with pasted-on pieces of old paper. Contemporary binding of limp brown calf folded around and pasted over vellum maculature of a tenth-century manuscript, probably a Lectionary, with verses from Revelation 8, with elongated back cover overlapping the front cover, blind stamped, fillets, on the front cover a central panel stamp (54x40 mm.) with the Virgin and Child in the sun and on the crescent moon, on the back cover a central panel stamp (74x49 mm.) with St. Roch attired as a pilgrim, at his left a dog with a loaf in its mouth jumping up, at his right an angel to whom St. Roch is showing the plague spot on his leg, in an arched compartment, below a legend reading “Sancte roche or[a]” (Weale 1894–1898, nos. 401, 402 and 430a), on the back cover also two smaller panel stamps (41x26 mm.) with a double eagle, on the overlapping flap a panel stamp (74x40 mm.) divided into two vertical compartments, each occupied by a vine branch, enclosing within its curves four animals, on both covers and on the overlapping flap also circular stamps with the Lamb of God, small stamps with floral motifs and rosettes, also rosettes on the back, in the front one vellum and four paper flyleaves, in the back one vellum and twelve paper flyleaves, a leaf tipped in between ff. ai–aii and between the seventh and the eight flyleaf in the back, in the back a pastedown of vellum maculature from a tenth-century Lectionary with verses from Matthew 6 and Isaiah 58, four raised bands. Dimensions 207 x 135 mm.
Well-preserved copy of the first edition of the Ordinarius of the Windesheim Congregation, illustrated with fine woodcuts attributed to Urs Graf, two of them depicting Indians. Printed in 1521 in Deventer, this copy belonged to the Canons Regular of Eberhardsklausen near Trier, where it was in augmented during the sixteenth century with profuse annotations and manuscript additions of calendars, an obituary, and feasts from 1529 to 1590. The remarkable binding (with four different panel stamps), preserves two large fragments from tenth-century manuscripts.
1. A seventeenth-century inscription on the recto of the vellum flyleaf in the front reads: “Jesum christum salutis locum [?] venerabilis domini prior de venerabile et religioso domino, domino abbati [?] de priori domus beatae Mariae virg[inis] in Clusa Eberhardi ad manus proprias.” The religious house mentioned here is Eberhardsklausen, often referred to as Klausen, a monastery of Augustinian Canons Regular near Trier. The monastery was founded in 1449 by a simple vintner called Everard and recognized by the archbishops of Trier in 1456. The convent joined the Windesheim Congregation before 1464 (see Cottineau, I, 1018). An important number of the manuscripts and printed books that once were part of the library of Eberhardsklausen are now in the Stadtsbibliothek in Trier, but others have been dispersed. One example is a copy of the Catholicon of Johannes Balbus printed in Mainz between 1460 and c. 1472, which is now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Auct. 2Q inf.1.31(a). Regarding the house and its members, see Clausen, 1908, and particularly Dohms, 1968, a study discussing the scribal and binding activities of the congregation, the monastic library and its dispersal in 1802. Many manuscripts were seized between 1802 and 1804 by French commissioners such as Jean-Baptiste Maugérard, during the French occupation of Rhineland (see Schiel 1960a). Some manuscripts and incunables eventually went to the Stadtbibliothek and the library of the Priesterseminar in Trier, others to Bonn, Brussels and Paris (see Schiel 1960b and Bushey 1996). Most probably the name “Bartholomeij” written in an earlier hand on the second flyleaf recto, followed by some crossed-out, illegible words, is connected with the monastery of Eberhardsklausen as well. The same name appears in a manuscript from the monastery’s library now kept in the Stadtbibliothek of Trier (see Heydeck and Staccioli 2007, p. 57). A Bartholomäus von Köwerich was Canon Regular in Eberhardsklausen between 1513 and 1544, the year of his death (see Dohms 1968, p. 191). On the second flyleaf recto in a possibly seventeenth-century hand is an old shelf mark of Eberhardklausen: “B.I.72”.
On the second flyleaf recto: “Anno domini 86. venerabilis prior Petrus [...] venerabili domino Abbati in Sprangersibach, tres libros scilicet duos libri Annale et unum librum Missale, circa fest[...] presenti [...] Restituit Anno domini 90. Gregorij abba.”
2. On the fifth flyleaf verso in pencil by a modern hand: “GB 10 660”.
1. f. x1r, title, “Ordinarius divini officii pro ordine Canonicorum Regularium, Capittuli sive Co[n]gregatio[n]is Wyndesemensis. Anno Domini. M.CCCCC.XXI”;
2. ff. x1v–x2r, prologue, “Prologus in ordinarium divini officij pro ordine Canonicorum Regularium Capittuli sive Congregationis Wyndesemensis”;
3. ff. x2v-x3v, table of contents, “Incipit tabula declaratoria contentorum presentis Ordinarij”;
4. f. x4r, errata, “Erratulorum brevis recognitio” (ff. x4v and a1r–v blank);
5. ff. a2r–b4v, Calendar;
6. ff. Ir–LXVIIr, Ordinarius, “Incipit Ordinarius divini officij”;
7. ff. LXVIIv–LXXIIr, treatise, “Incipit Tractatus de periculis Misse et sacri canonis ex diversis doctorum dictis copulatus et collectus”;
8. ff. LXXIIr–LXXIIIr, treatise, “Ut posteri habeant formam dicendi Confiteor in privato quando legit quisque vel completorium, iste modus traditus est”;
9. f. LXXIIIr, colophon, “Daventriae ex officina chalcotypa Alberti Pafradi Anno salutis nostrae vicesimo primo, supra sesquimillesimum, Mense Aprili” (ff. LXXIIIv and LXXIVr blank).
This first edition of the Ordinarius of the Congregation of Windesheim describes and clarifies the liturgy as it should be followed in the monasteries connected with the congregation. It was printed by Albert Pafraet in Deventer, one of the prosperous Hanzeatic cities along the IJssel River in the Northern Netherlands, and the cradle of the Devotio Moderna. Albert was the son of the first printer at Deventer, Richard Pafraet. Both father and son had a significant role in making Deventer a leading center of book production in the Northern Netherlands at the dawn of the Reformation. NK 1649. NAT IV, 16. NB 10926.
In the first half of the sixteenth century Albert Pafraet was by far the most important Deventer printer. At first he issued classical texts such as Virgil’s Aeneis, works on rhetoric by Erasmus and religious texts with an undeniable Roman-Catholic character, but later on he also printed Erasmus’s Colloquia and his Laus stultitiae (both satirizing the church), texts of Philip Melanchton and a Bible in the vernacular with a prologue and glosses by Martin Luther, published in 1525, albeit without the printer’s name, and mentioning Basle instead of Deventer as the place of publication. Between 1537 and 1542 Pafraet even printed five tracts written by the notorious heretic David Joris. In 1544 he was arrested and prosecuted for having printed forbidden books. The court of Guelders in Arnhem condemned him without punishing him too harshly: Albert had to walk bareheaded, in a linen garment and carrying a burning candle in front of a procession to the church, and to show penitence by kneeling there for the Holy Sacrament. After having paid a fine he could return home. Albert never printed forbidden books again. He died between 1554 and 1557 (see Hollaar 2013).
The book described here is illustrated with attractive woodcuts on the title-page and at the end, and two woodcuts on fol. VIIIr to help finding the Golden Number and the Sunday Letter. On f. VIIIv is a table of the movable feasts facilitating to determine the ecclesiastical calendar. The bulk of the book has been printed in a clear and beautiful Roman type; only the first two lines of f. x1r (the title-page), the printed references in the margin of f. x1v, the errata on f. x4r, the Calendar on ff. a2r–b4v and the captions of the two woodcuts on f. VIIIr are in Gothic type.
The title-page border, consisting of four woodcuts, is used here for the first time (NAT IV, 16). The two woodcuts at the left and the right have rather conventional, images of the four fathers of the church. The two woodcuts above and below, however, show men in Indian dress and feathers, with an elephant, two camels and other exotic and fantastic animals. These two woodcuts are thought to have been designed by the Swiss goldsmith, painter and printmaker Urs Graf. Since 1518 they appeared for a short period in the editions of various printers at Basle, Cologne, Schlettstadt and Tübingen.
The binding of limp calf over maculature from two earlier manuscripts (described below) is adorned with a variety of small stamps and panel stamps. The panel stamps show the Virgin and Child in the sun and on the crescent of the moon; a double eagle; two rows of vine branches enclosing animals; and St. Roch. The one with the vine branches and animals is of a type associated with Flanders, and the one with St. Roch has been located more specifically in Antwerp (Weale 1894–1898, nos. 401, 402 and 430a; Indestege 1961, pp. 37–38). The St. Roch panel stamp, however, must also have been used elsewhere, as Staffan Fogelmark has observed (Fogelmark 1990, p. 144), and the present binding seems to confirm this. Noteworthy is that the same St. Roch panel stamp has been used for a prayer book written in 1565 by a nun in a Windesheim convent Bethany in Malines; that manuscript is now Ms. IV 1140 of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België in Brussels (see Vijf jaar aanwinsten 1979, no. 76). Another manuscript, also a sixteenth-century prayer book from the Southern Netherlands, with a binding showing the same St. Roch panel stamp, is now Leiden, University Library, Ms. LTK 2074.
Most extant example of wallet bindings (bindings in which the back cover continues around to protect the fore edge, often, although not always, fastening on the front cover) from Western Europe are utilitarian bindings made from limp vellum (for example, for example, the Dutch vernacular prayer book from the Convent of St. Cecelia in Hoorn, bound in a sixteenth-century limp vellum wallet, described on this site, TM 418). Examples of wallet bindings constructed from blindstamped leather such as the one described here, are much less common (for another example from the Low Countries, probably Antwerp, c. 1548, see TM 546 on this site; an example from Germany or Austria is found on TM 777).
Two fragments from tenth-century manuscripts (possibly first half of the century) were used for the binding; the inside of the front cover is lined with a fragment from the Apocalypse 4:3-8 (incipit, “//[s]imilis erat aspectui lapidis ... die ac nocte dicentia//”), followed by a narrow strip, almost certainly from the same book, with one line of text from Wisdom 1:5. The fragment is vertical to the main text of the book, preserving most of the original width of the text space of the leaf (ie. c. 207 mm.), without the margins (a few words have been trimmed between each line), and with text lost at the top and the bottom. Ruled in hard point, and copied in an upright carolingian minuscule; datable to the tenth century, and possibly to the first half of the tenth century, based on the evidence of the script, copied in long lines (12 lines now remaining). This leaf is likely to have been extracted from a lectionary, given its relatively small size and layout, although it might have been part of a Bible.
Inside back cover is lined with another leaf, certainly from a lectionary; the text begins with a reading from Matthew 5:43, beginning in the midst of the reading (incipit, “//proximum tuum et odio ...), followed by a text from Isaiah (Sabbato. Lectio Isaiae Prophete, incipit, “Si abstulerit de medio tui ...” [Isaiah:58:9]. The leaf is ruled in blind, with red rubrics and a red two-line initial, used to line the back flap, the text reads vertically to the main volume, retaining the margin on the left, and trimmed closely to the text space on the right, darkened with some loss of legibility on the right hand side; copied in an upright caroline minuscule in long lines (now with 25 long lines), the evidence of the script also suggests a date in the tenth century (possibly first half).
This copy of the 1521 Ordinarius not only represents the first printed text of the liturgical guidelines of the Windesheim congregation, it also bears ample witness of the practical use which was made of those guidelines in a Windesheim monastery in the sixteenth century.
The book has many marginal and interlinear corrections and annotations and also lengthy additions on separate leaves. On the flyleaves in the front and on the unprinted pages before f. a2 there are some references to the printed text, instructions for the use of the Ordinarius, two computistical tables over the years 1558–1579 and a small, childish drawing of a horse. A third computistical table, over the years 1550–1563, can be found on the recto of the vellum flyleaf in the back. On the tipped-in folding leaf between ff. a1–a2 there is a table showing on which Sunday to venerate which saints during Mass, depending on the Golden Number and the Sunday Letter. Finally, on the paper flyleaves and the tipped-in leaf in the back there are many instructions for the use of the Ordinarius, with references to the years 1529–1590.
Acquoy, J.G.R. Het klooster te Windesheim en zijn invloed, I–III, Utrecht, 1875 (repr., Amsterdam, 1968). Also online: https://archive.org/details/hetkloostertewi02wetegoog.
Bushey, Betty. Die deutschen und niederlandischen Handschriften der Stadtbibliothek Trier bis 1600, Wiesbaden, 1996.
Clausen, J. Eberhards-Clausen, Kloster und Wallfahrtsort, Trier, 1908.
Conzemius, V. “Eberhards-Clausen”, Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, XIV, Paris, 1960.
Cottineau, L.-H. Répertoire topo-bibliographique des abbayes et prieurés, Mâcon, 1935–1970.
Dohms, Peter. Die Geschichte des Klosters und Wallfahrtsortes Eberhardsklausen an der Mosel. Von den Anfängen bis zur Auflösung des Klosters im Jahre 1802, (= Rheinisches Archiv, 64), Bonn, 1968.
Embach, M. “Unbekannte Frühdrucke aus der Bibliothek der Augustiner-Chorherren Eberhardsklausen”, in M. Persch, M. Embach and P. Dohms, eds., 500 Jahre Wallfahrtskirche Eberhardsklausen, Mainz, 2003, pp. 351–381.
Fogelmark, Staffan. Flemish and Related Panel-Stamped Bindings. Evidence and Principles, New York, 1990.
Franke, H.M. Der “Liber Ordinarius” der Regularkanoniker der Windesheimer Kongregation, (= Studia Vindesemensia. Beiträge zur Erforschung der Devotio Moderna und des Kanonikalen Lebens, II-1), Leverkusen, 1981.
Heydeck, Kurt and Giuliano Staccioli. Die lateinischen Handschriften aus dem Augustiner-Chorherrenstift Eberhardsklausen in der Stadtbibliothek Trier, I, Wiesbaden, 2007.
Hollaar, Jeanette M. “Deventer drukkers in de zestiende eeuw: de tweede en derde generatie Pafraet”, De Boekenwereld. Tijdschrift voor Boek en Prent 29 (2012–2013), no. 5, pp. 70–75.
Indestege, Luc. Boekbanden uit vijf eeuwen. Catalogus van de tentoonstelling, Ghent, 1961.
A.C.F. Koch, “Albert Pafraet”, in Hendrik D.L. Vervliet (ed.). Post-incunabula en hun uitgevers in de Lage Landen / Post-Incunabula and Their Publishers in the Low Countries, Den Haag / The Hague etc., 1979, pp. 128–135, esp. pp. 131–132. Reprinted as part of: “Deventer uitgevers van post-incunabula”, in Tussen Vlaanderen en Saksen. Uit de verspreide geschiedkundige geschriften van A.C.F. Koch (1923–1990), (= Middeleeuwse Studies en Bronnen, 29), Hilversum, 1992, pp. 245–264, esp. pp. 257–258.
Kronenberg, M.E. Verboden boeken en opstandige drukkers in de hervormingstijd, (= Patria, 44), Amsterdam, 1948, pp. 130–131.
NAT = Nijhoff, Wouter. L’art typographique dans les Pays-Bas pendant les années 1500 à 1540, I–III, La Haye, 1926–1935.
NB = Pettegree, Andrew and Malcolm Walsby (eds.). Netherlandish Books. Books Published in the Low Countries and Dutch Books Printed Abroad before 1601, I–II, Leiden, 2011, no. 10926.
NK = Nijhoff, Wouter and M.E. Kronenberg. Nederlandsche bibliographie van 1500 tot 1540, I–III, ’s-Gravenhage, 1923–1971.
Peeters, Hans. “Albert Pafraet: een vroege ketter of gewoon een brooddrukker?”, Romantiek en mythevorming rond een bibliotheek. 450 jaar Stads- en Athenaeumbibliotheek 1560–2010, Deventer, 2010, pp. 13–23.
Schiel, H. “Die Auflosung der Trierer Kloster- und Stiftsbibliotheken und die Entfremdung von Trierer Handschriften durch Maugérard”, Armaria Treverensia. Beiträge zur Trierer Bibliothekgeschichte, Trier, 1960, pp. 57–81.
Schiel, H. “Handschriften aus Trier und aus Klöstern und Stiften des Trierer Raumes in Brüssel und Gent”, Armaria Treverensia. Beiträge zur Trierer Bibliothekgeschichte, Trier, 1960, pp. 83–92.
Vervliet, H. D. L., ed. Post-incunabula and their Publishers in the Low Countries: a selection based on Wouter Nijhoff's L'art typographique published in commemoration of the 125th anniversary of Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague and Boston, 1978, pp. 131ff.
Vijf jaar aanwinsten 1974–1978. Tentoonstelling georganiseerd in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I [...], Brussels, 1979.
Voullième, E. Die Inkunabeln der öffentlichen Bibliothek und der kleineren Büchersammlungen der Stadt Trier (= Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, Beiheft 38), Leipzig, 1910.
Weale, W.H. James. Bookbindings and Rubbings of Bindings in the National Art Library, South Kensington Museum, I–II, London, 1894–1898 (repr., London, 1962).
On the Canons Regular of St. Augustine:
http://www.augustiniancanons.org/main.htm.
Digitized copy of the University Library of Utrecht (lacking the title-page and the preliminary texts):
http://objects.library.uu.nl/reader/index.php?obj=1874-281119.
Title-page from the copy of the Bibliothèque Mazarine in Paris, Ms. 0531:
http://initiale.irht.cnrs.fr/ouvrages/ouvrages.php?imageInd=2&id=6877.
