Textmanuscripts - Les Enluminures
v + 14 + iii paper folios, two watermarks of unicorns with hair, separated ears, lined horns and looped beards similar to Briquet 10031-10033 witnessed in France, the Low Countries (especially southern), and Germany (especially north and western) c. 1475-1500, modern foliation in black ink at top recto corner, complete (i8 ii8-2[blank bottom of f. 14 and ff. 15-16 restored, no text loss]), unruled (justification c. 175 x c. 115 mm.), 38-42 long lines of Gothic cursive written neatly in dark brown ink by a single scribe, majuscules and paraphs touched with red, rubrics touched with and/or underlined in red, seven red 2-line initials opening each section, one blue 3-line initial at incipit, SEVEN ‘CANDELABRA’ DIAGRAMS in brown ink of seven circles containing text ruled/underlined in red, some flecking throughout, moisture staining at top edges of all folios, paper cracking and restorations at gutter, bottom margin of f. 6 has a small tear and is folded to verso, lower half of f. 14 and ff. 15-16 lost and replaced with later paper, no text loss or damaged, overall in good condition. Modern (late 19th-century?) cardboard binding covered in paper speckled with dark brown and red, corners coated in black canvas, spine with four supports and simple endbands covered in black leather, modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns, minor abrasions on front and back covers, some chipping and rubbing on edges and spine, overall good condition. Dimensions 208 x 140 mm.
Late medieval devotion and diagrams are important topics among scholars today. This very rare Carthusian text combines both. The text, identified in only two other copies, includes seven diagrams designed to enhance the meditative experience, employing celestial imagery to explore the seven mortal sins, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and seven petitions of the Pater Noster, among other numerological topics, along christological lines. To our knowledge, this is unstudied and almost certainly has never appeared in print.
1. Based on the watermarks, this manuscript was likely produced in western Germany in the last half of the fifteenth century by a single scribe who also completed its seven diagrams. The rounded and relatively upright cursive script – not executed at a particularly high register, but certainly by an experienced hand – demonstrates Germanic attributes such as the 2- shaped Tironian note for ‘et’ in which the approach stroke begins below baseline, and angular 3-shaped terminal ‘-m.’
Based on the incipit, there are only two other known copies of this manuscript’s text known to us, namely Trier Stadtbibliothek, MS 683/245 (ff. 104-127) and MS 1925/1482 (ff. 433-448), both fifteenth century and produced in St. Alban’s Charterhouse just outside Trier. Whether these copies share the same diagrams or appearance is uncertain from their catalogue descriptions, but they do share almost identical dimensions and similar length. The present manuscript may be a copy of one of the Trier manuscripts (or vice versa), and given the apparent rarity of the text, was probably also made at St. Alban’s.
The title, “Septisellium meditationis,” appears on the spine of Stanford University Codex 1126, a composite manuscript with seven texts by various hands dating from the thirteenth through late fourteenth century, and with flyleaves comprised of a 1387 document from St. Alban’s. There is, however, no clear link to the current manuscript in text or structure. Perhaps a librarian at St. Alban’s, familiar with the text in our manuscript, thought the title appropriate to a miscellany with seven texts.
2. Brief content index for another book added in the bottom margin of f. 13v and top of the blank f. 14, in a somewhat later hand (early sixteenth century?). Topics are cited by folio and paragraph and focus on obedience and obligation to the Carthusian way of life. It is the only evidence of the manuscript’s premodern use.
3. Belonged to the Lower German Province of the Redemptorist Congregation; their late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century bookplate, “Bibl. Prov. Germ. Inferioris,” on the front pastedown, identifying the manuscript as both number 3 (in the same black ink as the manuscript’s foliation) and number 66140 (in pencil); stamp on the recto of the first front flyleaf: “Bibl. Prov. Germ. Inf. C. SS. R.” The text’s title is written in a neat cursive at the top of f. 1 with a blue ball point pen.
The Redemptorist Congregation (CSSR) was founded by Alfons of Liguori (1696-1787) in 1732. The Lower German Province was established in 1859, and the order opened a seminary and college in 1861 in Maria Hamicolt near Dülmen, Westphalia, which was relocated to Trier in 1898. In 1902, the college moved again to Geistingen in Siegtal (incorporated into the town of Hennef later, and then known as Hennef-Geistingen). In 1996, it ceased use as an active seminary; in January 2006, it was sold by the Order, and the library was dispersed (Online Resources). Some of the manuscripts, including this one, were transferred the Redemptorist monastery at Heiligenstadt; when this monastery was in turn closed in 2018, the manuscripts were sold.
ff. 1-13, [added in a modern hand: Septistellium meditationis], incipit, “Cum numerus septenarius admodus gravidus censeatur misteriis … ad quam nos dominus producere dignet Amen”; [f. 1v] Septistellium meditationis. Dominica die meditatio sequitur, incipit, “Quoniam igitur finis est primum in intentione … [f. 13] Applicatio illius candelabri de sacramento incarnationis potest fieri ad septimus nocturnum … Missa vero hoc sabbato fiet de omnem vitionem dominica de sacramento variationis propter materiae correspondentiam,” Explicit deo laus;
Seven unedited meditations by an unidentified author. Each meditation is arranged as a “candelabra” with an overarching theme acting as each candelabra’s trunk, which in turn supports seven “stellae” (stars); the structure of each meditation is displayed in a diagram at the end of each meditation, followed by a short paragraph on when in the liturgical year it can be used (although presumably the reader could meditate on these topics at any point). The stars are arranged ordinally, one through seven, and their topics correspond to important biblical, liturgical, or dogmatic groups of seven as follows:
1. The first star in each meditation reflects on one of the seven mortal sins;
2. The second on one of the seven petitions of the Pater Noster;
3. The third on one of the different ranks of saints in heaven commemorated in the liturgy;
4. The fourth on one of the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit;
5. The fifth on one of the beatitudes (with the persecuted omitted);
6. The sixth on each day of Creation; and
7. The seventh on aspects of the Passion to contemplate through the hours of the Divine Office (omitting Compline).
Seven “candelabrum” diagrams, with one line of text written vertically as the “trunk,” and 7 circles arranged around it, and caption below: f. 3, diagram one; f. 4v, diagram two; f. 6, diagram three; f. 7v, diagram four; f. 9v, diagram five; f. 11, diagram six; and f. 12v, diagram 7.
f. 13rv, Articuli meditationum passionis christi continentes numero meditacionum septi stellum … De primo completorio …, incipit, “Primo quomodo venit dominus cum discipuli suis ad locum …; De hora vespertina..., Primus est deposicio corporis christi de cruce, … Tertius est eius honorablis in novo monumento sepelicio.”
Seven meditational topics from the life of Christ, listed in brief, for each of the canonical hours of the Divine Office.
The text of this manuscript draws on celestial imagery and Christian numerology to structure seven meditations for monastic readers. Numerology is the belief that certain numbers hold biblical, mystical and/or theological significance, and is observed in each of the Abrahamic faiths (as well as many others). In Christianity, seven is one of the most symbolic numbers (for a history of numerology in the Christian tradition, see Hopper, 2000, especially pp. 78-135). Another text focused on “sevens” is the “Septenarium Pictum,” a circular diagram, with the seven deadly sins, seven petitions of the Lord’s prayer, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, seven Virtues, and seven beatitudes (Worms and Cleaver in Leonardi and Rainini, 2018).
The author of this text remains unidentified, but he was probably a monk of St. Alban’s Charterhouse near Trier (see Provenance above). The text contains occasional citations of patristic and other authorities (e.g., Gregory the Great on f. 1v and Augustine on f. 2v) but does not appear to be a simply a compilation. It includes biblical commentary – interpretations of biblical events and passages, in this case primarily on the words and deeds of Christ – but it is not particulary complex. Rather, explanations of each “star” are brief, each occupying only a few sentences, and first-person prayer is interspersed throughout. This accords well with the text’s titular identification: as described by Robertson in his Lectio Divina (2011), a “literary meditatio is not bound to the exposition of a given text [...] but rather on a free-association of any number of scriptural references,” and its prayers usually speak in the first-person singular in the manner of Augustine’s Confessiones (p. 209). Medieval meditations were not meant to be intellectual exercises, but rather contemplative and prayerful reflections on scripture, Christ, and Christian teaching.
The candelabra diagrams outlining the meditation’s discursive structure are a noteworthy feature. Candelabra imagery was a recurring theme in medieval texts (Bollati, 2018). As recent studies have explored, diagrams during the European Middle Ages were employed across a wide variety of genres (Hamburger, 2020; Kupfer, 2020; Leonardi and Rainini, 2018). This text offers the opportunity to examine their relationship to the meditative practice and will reward further study.
The tradition of meditatio, while practiced broadly across all monastic orders, held a particularly important position within the Carthusian way of life. The works of two priors of the Order’s Grand Chartreuse, known as Guigo I (d. 1136) and Guigo II (d. 1297), characterized and helped shape the meditatio genre in both structure and intention, and cemented its role within Carthusian practice (Robertson 2011, pp. xvii-xviii). This manuscript, comprising a rare text known in only two other manuscripts – Trier Stadtbibliothek, MS 683/245 (ff. 104-127) and MS 1925/1482 (ff. 433-448) – is presently unedited and apparently unstudied, despite its accessible brevity. It is the only copy known to have reached market. As such, it offers unique insights into the themes explored in fifteenth-century Carthusian meditatio and the practice of this crucial mode of lectio divina.
Bollati, Milvia. “Simboli e diagrammi nel Compendium historiae in genealogiae Christi di Pietro di Poitiers: la Menorah,” in Ordinare il mondo. Diagrammi e simboli nelle pergamene di Vercelli, eds. T. Leonardi e M. Rainini, Milano 2018, pp. 211-232.
Hamburger, Jeffrey. Diagramming Devotion: Berthold of Nuremberg’s Transformation of Hrabanus Maurus’s Poems in Praise of the Cross, Chicago, 2020.
Hopper, Vincent Foster. Medieval Number Symbolism: Its Sources, Meaning, and Influence on Thought and Expression, New York, 2000, repr. Columbia University Press, 1938.
Kentenich, G. De Ascetischen Handscriften der Stadtbibliothek zu Trier, Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der Handschriften der Stadtbibliothek zu Trier, vol. 6, Trier, 1910, MS 683/245 (pp. 26-27); MS 1925/1482 (pp. 146-148). Available at: https://archive.org/details/beschreibendesve00stad/mode/2up.
Kupfer, Marcia A., et al. The Visualization of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Brepols, 2020.
Leonardi, Timothy and Marco Rainini, eds. Ordinare il mondo: diagrammi e simboli nelle pergamene di Vercelli, Milan, 2018.
Worm, Andrea with Laura Cleaver. “The Septenarium Pictum or Rota Dominice Orationis: Combatting Vice through Prayer in the High Middle Ages,” in Ordinare il mondo. Diagrammi e simboli nelle pergamene di Vercelli, eds. Timothy Leonardi und Marco Rainini, Milan, 2018, pp. 265-288.
Robertson, Duncan. Lectio Divina: The Medieval Experience of Reading, Cistercian Studies Series 238 Collegeville, MN, 2011.
Stanford, CA, Stanford University Library, Codex 1126 https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/11371697
The library of the Redemptorist Seminary in Hennef-Geistingen (Monumenta Germaniae Historica)
https://www.mgh.de/en/mgh-library/about-the-mgh-library/redemptorist-seminary-library
TM 1129
