Textmanuscripts - Les Enluminures
442 folios on paper (15 manuscript + 387 printed (+ 1 inserted manuscript leaf) + 39 manuscript), no watermark visible, two manuscript sections: modern foliation in pencil in the beginning and end of the book: 1-15, 1-39, complete (collation first section: i8 [quire includes the front pastedown] ii-iii4; second section: i-v8 [the last quire includes the back pastedown]), no catchwords or signatures, ruled in lead point (justification 87 x 60 mm.), written in brown ink in gothic bookhand (textualis) in a single column on 15 lines, rubrics in red, 1- to 2-line initials in red; imprint: no pagination or foliation, lacking 21 leaves (collation [lacking the first sixteen leaves, quires A-B8] [*]4 [-1, -4, lacking the first and last leaf of this unsigned quire] a-g8 h8[-h8] i-z8 [et]8 A-X8 Y8[one manuscript leaf inserted between Y3 and Y4], Z8 aa8 bb4[-bb1, -bb4]), alphanumeric quire signatures (with several errors), printed in Roman font on 25 lines in single column in black and red inks, 1- to 3-line initials and rubrics in red, 8-line woodcut initials printed in black, some hand-painted in red, THREE FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS pasted onto the volume, of which two are hand-painted, some stains and signs of use to the pages, small holes and tears, especially on ff. 1-3, 6-7, 12 of the first manuscript section, m4-n1, y1, D2, N1, otherwise in very good condition. CONTEMPORARY SIXTEENTH-CENTURY BINDING of dark brown leather over wooden boards, blind-tooled with foliage and fillets, spine with three raised bands, brass clasps and catches, leather tabs attached to the fore-edge of leaves beginning important sections, sewing more modern, leather very worn with a tear in the upper part of the spine and tooling mostly illegible, the upper clasp broken, otherwise in good condition. Dimensions 102 x 75 mm.
A fine example of a hybrid book, demonstrating how both print and manuscript media coexisted and complemented each other in the first century of printing, providing the owner with a unique, more personalized book suited for individual or conventual worship. This rare printed monastic Diurnal, identified in only three other copies, was personalized for use at the famous Benediktbeuern Abbey in Bavaria. Print and manuscript synchronize perfectly in this book, which was customized further with the addition of three hand-colored engravings.
1.This Diurnal for the Benedictine reform congregation of Melk was printed by Erhard Ratdolt (1442-1528) in Augsburg on July 29, (“quarto kalendas Augustas”) 1513, as stated in the colophon on sig. bb3; for a copy online, see Online Resources below.
2. Soon after, the book was customized for use at Benediktbeuern Abbey: handwritten additions in manuscript include a calendar, prayers and Offices that are specific to liturgical use at that monastery. Benediktbeuern was founded in 739, and is one of the oldest and most beautiful monasteries in Upper Bavaria.
The calendar includes in red, St. Landfried (10 July), the founder and first abbot of Benediktbeuern, and, also in red, St. Ulrich of Augsburg (4 July), who restored the monastery destroyed by the Magyars in 955. The added manuscript section at the end includes several prayers and an office to St. Anastasia, whose relics were at the abbey since the eleventh century (see the discussion below).
3. Private European collection.
Manuscript:
f. 1r-v, [originally blank, a prayer added in a sixteenth-century cursive hand in red], incipit, “Dimitte Domine, nobis omnibus miseris ...”; [f. 1v, added in black], incipit, “Orare ante tempus est securitas ...”;
ff. 2-13v, Calendar, in manuscript; [ff. 14-15v, blank];
Imprint:
sig. (*2-3v; these leaves are misleadingly foliated “1” and “2”, but are in fact leaves 2 and 3 in this unsigned quire), “Sequuntur absolutiones nocturnales...”;
sig. a1-o8, Ferial Psalter; with f. (1), an inserted leaf before sig. l4, on the recto, an antiphon written in sixteenth-century cursive hand, “Post quinque psalmos de passione Domini, antiphon”; on the verso an inserted woodcut representing the Five Wounds of Christ;
sig. o8-t6, Litanies, prayers, canticles, hymns; [sig. t6 verso, blank];
sig. t7-E7, Incipit diurnale per anni circulum secundum rubricam romanam iuxta consuetudinem monachorum nigrorum de observantia Mellicensium ....; Temporale; [sig. E7 verso, blank];
sig. E8-L4, Proper of the Saints; [sig. L4 verso, blank];
sig. L5-X7, Common of the Saints;
sig. X7-bb3 verso, Office of the Dead;
Benedictine religionis professis quibuslibet. S. P. Com[m]uni ordinis nostri cupie[n]tes vtilitati [con]sulere, co[m]pluriu[m] p[re]cibus [et] instantia fratrum exhortati inductiq[ue], p[rae]sens diurnium s[e]c[un]dario, [et] correctiori [et] expolitiori charactere imprimi curauimus…; printed by Erhard Ratdolt, Augsburg, 1513; Bohatta, 1937, no. 1026, VD 16, B 8208, listing copies in Munich and Augsburg; WorldCat lists an additional copy in Bamberg.
Manuscript:
[f. 1r-v, blank]; ff. 2-35, Prayers for various feasts, mainly saints’ days, including numerous prayers (ff. 3-4, 4-5, 5r-v, 34) and an office (ff. 15v-18) to St. Anastasia; a small prayer to St. Afra of Augsburg (f. 13v); incipit, “Supplementum quod promore et ritu monasterii Benedicto puranii Ordinis S Benedicti in hoc libello deliberatur. De sancto Ambrosio oratio”; [ff. 35v-39v, ruled, otherwise blank].
Three sixteenth-century engravings pasted into the volume:
Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary, St. John and two angels, hand-colored in aquarelle, affixed to the front pastedown;
Five Wounds of Christ, mounted on an inserted leaf between leaves sig. l3 (printed with signature “l4” in error) and sig. l4;
Virgin and Child, hand-colored in aquarelle, affixed to the back pastedown.
This book is a hybrid book combining printed and manuscript sections. The imprint, printed in Augsburg, is quite rare (known in only three copies, see above). Our example is made even more interesting by the fact that it was customized with manuscript additions for use at the famous Benediktbeuern Abbey in Bavaria, Southern Germany. The printed section is a Diurnal, that is, a Breviary containing just the day hours of the Divine Office, from Lauds to Compline, excluding the night offices of Matins. It is now lacking twenty-one leaves, including the titlepage, calendar, and tables for calculation of feasts and golden numbers, which were removed intentionally and replaced with extended handwritten manuscript sections when the manuscript was customized for use at Benediktbeuern. A new calendar was inserted at the beginning of the book with feasts corresponding the liturgical use at the abbey, and a lengthy collection of prayers and Offices specific to Benediktbeuern added at the end. The printed sections of the book also include several marginal additions, written in clear handwriting, testifying to the use of the book at the abbey. In the month of April, which has very few feasts, a later owner added a fascinating list of seven protective and beneficial effects of holy water.
Benediktbeuern Abbey was founded in 739, making it one of the oldest Benedictine monasteries in Bavaria. In 1053 the relics of St. Anastasia, especially her cranium, came from the monastery S. Maria in Organo in Verona to Benediktbeuern. The relics of St. Anastasia added substantially to the prosperity and fame of Benediktbeuern and made it an important destination for pilgrimage.
The continued importance of manuscripts in the centuries after the discovery of printing cannot be more eloquently expressed than in books such as this one that include both manuscript and printed sections. Long neglected by both historians of manuscripts and historians interested in early printing, recent scholarship has underlined their importance for our understanding of an era when both print and manuscript production flourished as different options for the making of books (Hindman and Farquhar, 1977; Hindman, 2009; McKitterick, 2003). Liturgical books, which often combined widely used texts with those specific to one particular convent or diocese, were particularly likely to be made in this way. TM 148, 172, 759, 830, and 915, described on this site, are also hybrid liturgical books; McKitterick mentions a manuscript Breviary for the Nazareth community in Brussels with a printed Psalter, use of Tournai (Mckitterick, 2003, pp. 42-3, 51).
Our volume was customized further, with the addition of three hand-colored sixteenth-century engravings by different unidentified printmakers. For additional example of the practice of using printed illustration, engravings or woodcuts, to customize manuscripts and printed books in the fifteenth and sixteenth century see Hindman and Farquhar, 1977; Hindman, 2009; Schmidt, 2003; and Rudy, 2015 and 2016.
Bohatta, H. Bibliographie der breviere, 1501-1850, Leipzig, 1937.
Harper, J. The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century: A Historical Introduction and Guide for Students and Musicians, Oxford, 1991.
Hemmerle, J. Das Bistum Augsburg: Die Benediktinerabtei Benediktbeuern, Germania Sacra N.F. 28, Die Bistümer der Kirchenprovinz Mainz. Berlin, New York, 1991.
Available online, http://personendatenbank.germania-sacra.de/files/books/NF%2028%20Hemmerle%20Benediktbeuern.pdf
Hindman, Sandra, and James Douglas Farquhar. Pen to Press: Illustrated Manuscripts and Printed Books in the First Century of Printing, College Park, 1977.
Hindman, Sandra. Pen to Press. Paint to Print. Manuscript Illumination and Early Prints in the Age of Gutenberg, Les Enluminures, 2009.
McKitterick, David. Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450 - 1830. Cambridge, 2004.
Palazzo, Eric. A History of Liturgical Books from the Beginning to the Thirteenth Century, translated by Madeline Beaumont, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1998.
Rudy, Kathryn M. Postcards on Parchment: The Social Lives of Medieval Books, New Haven, 2015.
Rudy, Kathryn. Piety in Pieces: How Medieval Readers Customized their Manuscripts, Cambridge, UK, 2016.
Available online, https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/477
Schmidt, Peter. Gedruckte Bilder in handgeschriebenen Buechern. Zum Gebrauch von Druckgraphik im 15. Jahrhundert, Pictura et Poesis Interdisziplinäre Studien zum Verhältnis von Literatur und Kunst,16, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, 2003.
Benedictine religionis professis quibuslibet, Augsburg, Ratdolt, 1513, copy in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
https://bildsuche.digitale-sammlungen.de/index.html?c=viewer&bandnummer=bsb00006629&pimage=39&v=100&nav=&l=fr
VD 16 B8208 http://gateway-bayern.de/VD16+B+8208
Benediktbeuern Abbey https://www.kloster-benediktbeuern.de/
Columbia University Library (Consuelo Dutschke and Susan Boynton), “Liturgical Books“
https://liturgical.columbia.edu/
TM 1184
