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Details
Vocabularius Ex quo, in Latin and German, MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER
[Germany 15th century]
218 x 145mm. 194 leaves: 1-1312, 1411(of 12, xii cancelled blank), 1510, 1614, 173(of 6, iv-vi cancelled blanks), apparently COMPLETE, catchwords at lower edge of final versos of gatherings 1-13, 29-38 lines written in a cursive hand in brown ink in a frame-ruling of four verticals and two horizontals, justification: approx. 156 x 98mm, two four-line initials of red flourished brown, two- to three-line initials of red and capitals touched red ff.1-89 (repair to upper corner of f.130 affecting extremity of 7 lines of text, dampstaining at top of ff.1-36 and 132-194 not affecting legibility). Unrestored 15th-century Germanic limp vellum with link-stitch sewing on rigid leather backplate, sewn in chainstitch, backplate of two layers, upper layer scored and decoratively punched to reveal underlying green and red cloth strips, leather securing buttons (some creasing and stains, lacking flap with cord ties).
PROVENANCE:
Volfgangus Täxer: his inscription in Latin inside the upper cover compares sayings of Plato and St Paul; another on the final verso, signed and dated 1539, records an insult ('Nunc naso me suspendis Verbis magnus es sed factis nullus. [B]elle promitis, si prestares facto'); an inscription in another hand on final verso, dated 1537, refers to Täxer as about to arrive after a noviciate in Arnoldstein (in Carinthia; presumably the Benedictine abbey of St George); an addition by Täxer warns others against following his example.
CONTENT:
Vocabularius Ex quo ff.1-194v.
The 'Vocabularius Ex quo' was perhaps the most influential and widely distributed dictionary of the 15th century. Assembled by an unidentified compiler before 1410, it compressed and combined earler works such as those of Hugucio of Pisa, Johannes Balbus of Genoa and Gulielmus Brito, and the anonymous Brevilogus, to produce a vocabulary of unprecedented scope, defining not only the 'rara et inconsueta vocabula' of the Brevilogus, or the biblical vocabulary of Brito, but also place names, and basic words such as 'etiam', 'ego' and 'et'. The range of information is correspondingly broad: the part of speech is given, definitions are by Latin synonym, Latin explanation, German equivalent, German explanation, or a combination of these; and a number of definitions are expanded with encyclopedic, prosodical or etymological details. The layout is concise, taking advantage of the grammatical symbols devised by the Brevilogus compiler, and ease of use is also favoured by the choice of alphabetical ordering (up to at least the fourth letter), as opposed to the division by subject or part of speech adopted by many of the compiler's models. The compiler's preface criticises previous works such as Hugucio, the Catholicon of Balbus, the Brevilogus and Papias as 'in comparacione preciosi, in colleccione prolixi, in intelleccione obscuri et in numero multi', and proposes providing a vocabulary that will be affordable for 'pauperes scolares' to aid them in literal understanding of scripture, as well as for any other Latin text, laying particular emphasis on the advantages of the use of alphabetical order, and the provision of grammatical information. The work was eminently suited for use by beginners such as Volfgang Täxer as well as by those in search of more obscure vocabulary, and it enjoyed widespread popularity, particularly in Middle High German areas; the proliferation of manuscripts (Grabmüller notes 250 between 1410 and 1502) led to considerable variations in the text. It was first printed at Eltville in 1467; more than 40 other editions were issued in the 15th century. In spite of its popularity, no manuscript of this Latin-German dictionary has been sold at auction in the past 25 years.
Klaus Grabmüller, 'Vocabularius Ex quo'. Untersuchungen zu lateinischdeutschen Vokabularen des Spätmittelalters (MTU 17), Munich 1967. Grabmüller and Bernhard Schnell, 'Vocabularius Ex quo'. Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Ausgabe, Tübingen, 1988-2001.
This Vocabularius Ex quo is contained in a particularly attractive and elaborate example of the type of limp binding where the bookblock was link-stitched directly onto rigid backplates (see illustration facing p.13). Used predominantly as an effective and practical covering for more modest volumes, they have not survived in great numbers. Various surveys have identified about 140 examples, all dating from between 1375 and 1500 and mostly localisable to Austria and Germany or their neighbouring lands: J.A. Szirmai, The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding, 1999, pp.297-299.
[Germany 15th century]
218 x 145mm. 194 leaves: 1-13
PROVENANCE:
Volfgangus Täxer: his inscription in Latin inside the upper cover compares sayings of Plato and St Paul; another on the final verso, signed and dated 1539, records an insult ('Nunc naso me suspendis Verbis magnus es sed factis nullus. [B]elle promitis, si prestares facto'); an inscription in another hand on final verso, dated 1537, refers to Täxer as about to arrive after a noviciate in Arnoldstein (in Carinthia; presumably the Benedictine abbey of St George); an addition by Täxer warns others against following his example.
CONTENT:
Vocabularius Ex quo ff.1-194v.
The 'Vocabularius Ex quo' was perhaps the most influential and widely distributed dictionary of the 15th century. Assembled by an unidentified compiler before 1410, it compressed and combined earler works such as those of Hugucio of Pisa, Johannes Balbus of Genoa and Gulielmus Brito, and the anonymous Brevilogus, to produce a vocabulary of unprecedented scope, defining not only the 'rara et inconsueta vocabula' of the Brevilogus, or the biblical vocabulary of Brito, but also place names, and basic words such as 'etiam', 'ego' and 'et'. The range of information is correspondingly broad: the part of speech is given, definitions are by Latin synonym, Latin explanation, German equivalent, German explanation, or a combination of these; and a number of definitions are expanded with encyclopedic, prosodical or etymological details. The layout is concise, taking advantage of the grammatical symbols devised by the Brevilogus compiler, and ease of use is also favoured by the choice of alphabetical ordering (up to at least the fourth letter), as opposed to the division by subject or part of speech adopted by many of the compiler's models. The compiler's preface criticises previous works such as Hugucio, the Catholicon of Balbus, the Brevilogus and Papias as 'in comparacione preciosi, in colleccione prolixi, in intelleccione obscuri et in numero multi', and proposes providing a vocabulary that will be affordable for 'pauperes scolares' to aid them in literal understanding of scripture, as well as for any other Latin text, laying particular emphasis on the advantages of the use of alphabetical order, and the provision of grammatical information. The work was eminently suited for use by beginners such as Volfgang Täxer as well as by those in search of more obscure vocabulary, and it enjoyed widespread popularity, particularly in Middle High German areas; the proliferation of manuscripts (Grabmüller notes 250 between 1410 and 1502) led to considerable variations in the text. It was first printed at Eltville in 1467; more than 40 other editions were issued in the 15th century. In spite of its popularity, no manuscript of this Latin-German dictionary has been sold at auction in the past 25 years.
Klaus Grabmüller, 'Vocabularius Ex quo'. Untersuchungen zu lateinischdeutschen Vokabularen des Spätmittelalters (MTU 17), Munich 1967. Grabmüller and Bernhard Schnell, 'Vocabularius Ex quo'. Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Ausgabe, Tübingen, 1988-2001.
This Vocabularius Ex quo is contained in a particularly attractive and elaborate example of the type of limp binding where the bookblock was link-stitched directly onto rigid backplates (see illustration facing p.13). Used predominantly as an effective and practical covering for more modest volumes, they have not survived in great numbers. Various surveys have identified about 140 examples, all dating from between 1375 and 1500 and mostly localisable to Austria and Germany or their neighbouring lands: J.A. Szirmai, The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding, 1999, pp.297-299.
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Please note that there are minor restorations to the vellum sides of the binding and to the first leaf.