Details
RITE FOR THE PROFESSION OF A VIRGIN and OFFICE OF THE DEAD, Latin and German, Franciscan use (Poor Clares). [Germany, c.1570-1574].
MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM AND PAPER, iii (modern paper) + ii (17th-cent. paper) + 80 (vellum) + 14 (17th-cent. paper) + iv (17th-cent. paper) + iii (modern paper) leaves; the main section of 80 vellum leaves foliated 1-76 in red ink in the hand of the scribe and rubricator and continued 77-80 in black ink, [1-108], 160 x 115mm. (6 1/4 x 4 1/8in.), written in black and red ink in careful bastarda script (change of hand at f. 77v), ruled in blind, single columns of c. 18 lines, justification (up to 117 x 82mm.), ABOUT 50 PAGES WITH UP TO FIVE LINES OF MUSIC (square black neumes on four-line red staves), ILLUSTRATED WITH 8 HAND-COLORED ENGRAVINGS, some including text in German, cut out and pasted in in place of illuminations, many two- or three-line red or red-and-black Lombard or cadel initials, numerous one-line red Lombards, capitals touched in red, rubrics in red; bound with a seventeenth-century supplement of 14 paper leaves, foliated 81-90 in brown ink, continued 91-93 in modern pencil, [11 6 12-13 4], 160 x 115mm. (6 1/4 x 4 1/8in.), written in brown ink in a mixture of German Kanzleischrift and miniscule imitating roman type, unruled, with a brown ink frame around each page, single columns of c. 12-15 lines, justification (115 x 85mm.). Slight flaking of ink on a few pages, some letters retraced in an early hand on ff. 77v-78r, a few passages lined through by an early hand leaving the text entirely legible, an early correction in the margin of f. 79r. Complete and in excellent condition internally.
Binding
Seventeenth-century German calf, blind-tooled, over wooden boards, lacking one of two clasps, rebacked in brown morocco with the spine title "S. Clara Regula Ordinis," the new joints broken.
Texts
Rite for the profession of a virgin (ff. 1r-23v: Her nach volgt die ordnung wie ein andechtige junckfraw in den heilligen orden unser heilligisten mueter S. Clara ein genumen vnd angelegt wird, vnd profess thuet, vnd auch stirbt, vnd wen sie gestorben ist wie man sie begraben soll), including the Ordo ad benedicendum velum (ff. 19v-23v). Penitential Psalms and Litany (ff. 24r-34r). Office of the Dead (ff. 34r-77r), including the rite of extreme unction (ff. 34r-37r), Vigils of the Dead (ff. 37v-55r), and the rite of burial (ff. 55v-77r). Prayers for the feast of All Souls (ff. 77v-80r: Das seind die Collecten die man an aller sellen tag auff die ander vesper pey den gröberen pett). Supplemental prayers for the dead (ff. 81r-91r: Das seind die Collecten zu den sieben Disciplinen für ein verstorbene Schwester zusprechen). Instructions for the anointing and burial of a sister (ff. 91v-93r: Information was aus diesen Buch zur lezten oelung einer Schwester, auch begräbnuss, und Seelen Gots-dienst zu gebrauchen; ff. 93v-94v blank).
A liturgical book written for a German-speaking community of Poor Clares, and kept in use until the seventeenth century, as shown by the supplement and the fact that the final instructions refer to texts in both parts of the book. The collects for All Souls include (f. 77v) a prayer for the souls of Charles and Elisabeth, King and Queen of France (Caroli et Elisabethae regis reginae franciae), presumably Charles VI, who married Elisabeth of Austria in 1570 and died in 1574. The illustration of the book with engravings was planned from the beginning, since the spaces in the text are proportioned to the individual pictures.
The text includes extensive rubrics in German that refer to processions to and from a chapel of St. Michael, which was evidently within the nuns' cloister. Specialized liturgical manuscripts such as this one appear to have been produced rather frequently in the later Middle Ages (and subsequently) for the use of religious women, often, as here, for specific communities of women. These represent an under-utilized source for the history both of the liturgy and of women's religious communities.
Provenance: Richard Douglass Fisher, Baltimore (bookplate, c.1903).
MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM AND PAPER, iii (modern paper) + ii (17th-cent. paper) + 80 (vellum) + 14 (17th-cent. paper) + iv (17th-cent. paper) + iii (modern paper) leaves; the main section of 80 vellum leaves foliated 1-76 in red ink in the hand of the scribe and rubricator and continued 77-80 in black ink, [1-108], 160 x 115mm. (6 1/4 x 4 1/8in.), written in black and red ink in careful bastarda script (change of hand at f. 77v), ruled in blind, single columns of c. 18 lines, justification (up to 117 x 82mm.), ABOUT 50 PAGES WITH UP TO FIVE LINES OF MUSIC (square black neumes on four-line red staves), ILLUSTRATED WITH 8 HAND-COLORED ENGRAVINGS, some including text in German, cut out and pasted in in place of illuminations, many two- or three-line red or red-and-black Lombard or cadel initials, numerous one-line red Lombards, capitals touched in red, rubrics in red; bound with a seventeenth-century supplement of 14 paper leaves, foliated 81-90 in brown ink, continued 91-93 in modern pencil, [11 6 12-13 4], 160 x 115mm. (6 1/4 x 4 1/8in.), written in brown ink in a mixture of German Kanzleischrift and miniscule imitating roman type, unruled, with a brown ink frame around each page, single columns of c. 12-15 lines, justification (115 x 85mm.). Slight flaking of ink on a few pages, some letters retraced in an early hand on ff. 77v-78r, a few passages lined through by an early hand leaving the text entirely legible, an early correction in the margin of f. 79r. Complete and in excellent condition internally.
Binding
Seventeenth-century German calf, blind-tooled, over wooden boards, lacking one of two clasps, rebacked in brown morocco with the spine title "S. Clara Regula Ordinis," the new joints broken.
Texts
Rite for the profession of a virgin (ff. 1r-23v: Her nach volgt die ordnung wie ein andechtige junckfraw in den heilligen orden unser heilligisten mueter S. Clara ein genumen vnd angelegt wird, vnd profess thuet, vnd auch stirbt, vnd wen sie gestorben ist wie man sie begraben soll), including the Ordo ad benedicendum velum (ff. 19v-23v). Penitential Psalms and Litany (ff. 24r-34r). Office of the Dead (ff. 34r-77r), including the rite of extreme unction (ff. 34r-37r), Vigils of the Dead (ff. 37v-55r), and the rite of burial (ff. 55v-77r). Prayers for the feast of All Souls (ff. 77v-80r: Das seind die Collecten die man an aller sellen tag auff die ander vesper pey den gröberen pett). Supplemental prayers for the dead (ff. 81r-91r: Das seind die Collecten zu den sieben Disciplinen für ein verstorbene Schwester zusprechen). Instructions for the anointing and burial of a sister (ff. 91v-93r: Information was aus diesen Buch zur lezten oelung einer Schwester, auch begräbnuss, und Seelen Gots-dienst zu gebrauchen; ff. 93v-94v blank).
A liturgical book written for a German-speaking community of Poor Clares, and kept in use until the seventeenth century, as shown by the supplement and the fact that the final instructions refer to texts in both parts of the book. The collects for All Souls include (f. 77v) a prayer for the souls of Charles and Elisabeth, King and Queen of France (Caroli et Elisabethae regis reginae franciae), presumably Charles VI, who married Elisabeth of Austria in 1570 and died in 1574. The illustration of the book with engravings was planned from the beginning, since the spaces in the text are proportioned to the individual pictures.
The text includes extensive rubrics in German that refer to processions to and from a chapel of St. Michael, which was evidently within the nuns' cloister. Specialized liturgical manuscripts such as this one appear to have been produced rather frequently in the later Middle Ages (and subsequently) for the use of religious women, often, as here, for specific communities of women. These represent an under-utilized source for the history both of the liturgy and of women's religious communities.
Provenance: Richard Douglass Fisher, Baltimore (bookplate, c.1903).