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RITUALE, for the use of a Dominican Prioress, in Latin with rubrics in German, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[Germany, St. Katherine's nunnery at Nuremberg] 1516.
160 x 125mm. 71 leaves: 1-88, 97 (of 8, final blank excised), COMPLETE, 18 lines written in black ink in a formal gothic script between 19 horizontals and two verticals ruled in red, justification: 112 x 76mm, rubrics in red, initials alternately of red and blue, music of square notation with five lines of text, ONE LARGE INITIAL in liquid gold with intricate penwork decoration and staff-like extensions in blue with red tracery and droplets of gold (some light marginal staining and warping). Contemporary blind-stamped calf, one clasp and catch (slight cracking to spine).
PROVENANCE
The manuscript is dated 1516 (f.71v). The three litanies have slight variations, but the list of confessors in all three ends with St. Sebald, patron saint of Nuremberg: in addition the second and third litanies invoke Dominic twice, and the third litany invokes St. Katherine (of Siena) twice. Other Dominican saints include Vincent Ferrer and Thomas Aquinas: together, the litanies suggest that the book was made for St. Katherine's Dominican nunnery in Nuremburg. The third litany is the same as others attributed to this nunnery. Several rubrics mention the 'convent', its Prioress 'Priorina', and several texts use feminine forms. In the first litany, to be said over a dying nun, each line ends not 'ora pro me' (pray for me) as is usual, but 'ora pro ea' (pray for her), similarly, the third litany has 'ora pro eis' (pray for them). A considerable number of manuscripts survive from the nunnery, in St. Peter's Abbey in the Black Forest, at Harvard (Houghton, Ms Lat. 196), at Notre Dame University, Indiana (see J.A. Corbett, 'Two German Dominican psalters,' Mediaeval Studies, 13, 1951, pp. 247-52), and elsewhere; in the 17th century additions were made in the second litany in red crayon of Sts Achasius, Emmeran, Hyacinth, Raymond, Januarius, the doubling of John the Baptist, Katherine, and Agnes, and the deletion of Henry, Louis, and Sebald. The deletion of Sebald suggests the manuscript had left Nuremberg, but Hyacinth and Raymond, both of whom took the habit from St. Dominic, suggest that it stayed in Dominican hands, perhaps in Poland, where Hyacinth founded several monasteries including those of Prague, Olmutz, and Cracow. Other additions include prayers in a 17th-century hand at ff.12 and 15v; an instruction only to genuflect at the Our Father, in German, in a later, possibly 18th-century hand at f.36 and another at f.47; Rush Christopher Hawkins (1831-1920), lawyer, American Civil War General and patron of the Arts; his sale, George A. Leavitt & Co (auctioneer's label on the inner upper cover), New York, March 21 1887, lot 1544; unidentified 20th-century catalogue description pasted in at the front, no.408; acquired from Goodspeed's Book Shop, 1970.
CONTENT:
Blank f.1; Order and rites for Confession, Anointing and Viaticum of an ailing nun ff.2-10, beginning 'Wenn ein sieche schwester die heilligen communion enpfangen sol und der priester in das siech haus kompt den spricht er', including the Litany to be recited if the nun recovers f.6v; rites and duties to be performed by the Convent and the Prioress in case of death ff.10-71v, including Psalms, Hymns and Litanies; 'Anno 1516' f.71v.
A VIVID INSIGHT INTO THE LIFE OF A NUN AT ST. KATHERINE'S NUNNERY IN NUREMBERG. The present manuscript belonged to a convent as famous for its library as for the bibliophilic tendencies of its nuns. The history and development of the convent's library is well-documented: Marie-Louise Ehrenschwendtner notes how after the reform in 1428, the convent witnessed a concerted and organised movement by the sisters to increase its holdings of manuscripts. By the end of the 15th century the convent owned between 500 and 600 manuscripts - only a few of which contained any illumination. Novices and young sisters were trained as copyists, cataloguers and librarians, and the name of one female illuminator survives - a certain Barbara Gewichtmacherin (d. 1491), who illuminated a breviary, a missal, copied by the sisters Margareta Imhoff and Margareta Karthaeuserin, and added two pictures to an antiphonal and gradual in eight volumes. It is likely that this movement continued into the early 16th century, and it is possible that the present manuscript was both written and illuminated by one of the sisters. See M.L. Ehrenschwendtner, 'A Library Collected by and for the Use of Nuns: St. Catherine's Convent, Nuremberg' in Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence, ed. Lesley Smith and Jane H.M. Taylor, Toronto, 1997, pp.123-32.
[Germany, St. Katherine's nunnery at Nuremberg] 1516.
160 x 125mm. 71 leaves: 1-88, 97 (of 8, final blank excised), COMPLETE, 18 lines written in black ink in a formal gothic script between 19 horizontals and two verticals ruled in red, justification: 112 x 76mm, rubrics in red, initials alternately of red and blue, music of square notation with five lines of text, ONE LARGE INITIAL in liquid gold with intricate penwork decoration and staff-like extensions in blue with red tracery and droplets of gold (some light marginal staining and warping). Contemporary blind-stamped calf, one clasp and catch (slight cracking to spine).
PROVENANCE
The manuscript is dated 1516 (f.71v). The three litanies have slight variations, but the list of confessors in all three ends with St. Sebald, patron saint of Nuremberg: in addition the second and third litanies invoke Dominic twice, and the third litany invokes St. Katherine (of Siena) twice. Other Dominican saints include Vincent Ferrer and Thomas Aquinas: together, the litanies suggest that the book was made for St. Katherine's Dominican nunnery in Nuremburg. The third litany is the same as others attributed to this nunnery. Several rubrics mention the 'convent', its Prioress 'Priorina', and several texts use feminine forms. In the first litany, to be said over a dying nun, each line ends not 'ora pro me' (pray for me) as is usual, but 'ora pro ea' (pray for her), similarly, the third litany has 'ora pro eis' (pray for them). A considerable number of manuscripts survive from the nunnery, in St. Peter's Abbey in the Black Forest, at Harvard (Houghton, Ms Lat. 196), at Notre Dame University, Indiana (see J.A. Corbett, 'Two German Dominican psalters,' Mediaeval Studies, 13, 1951, pp. 247-52), and elsewhere; in the 17th century additions were made in the second litany in red crayon of Sts Achasius, Emmeran, Hyacinth, Raymond, Januarius, the doubling of John the Baptist, Katherine, and Agnes, and the deletion of Henry, Louis, and Sebald. The deletion of Sebald suggests the manuscript had left Nuremberg, but Hyacinth and Raymond, both of whom took the habit from St. Dominic, suggest that it stayed in Dominican hands, perhaps in Poland, where Hyacinth founded several monasteries including those of Prague, Olmutz, and Cracow. Other additions include prayers in a 17th-century hand at ff.12 and 15v; an instruction only to genuflect at the Our Father, in German, in a later, possibly 18th-century hand at f.36 and another at f.47; Rush Christopher Hawkins (1831-1920), lawyer, American Civil War General and patron of the Arts; his sale, George A. Leavitt & Co (auctioneer's label on the inner upper cover), New York, March 21 1887, lot 1544; unidentified 20th-century catalogue description pasted in at the front, no.408; acquired from Goodspeed's Book Shop, 1970.
CONTENT:
Blank f.1; Order and rites for Confession, Anointing and Viaticum of an ailing nun ff.2-10, beginning 'Wenn ein sieche schwester die heilligen communion enpfangen sol und der priester in das siech haus kompt den spricht er', including the Litany to be recited if the nun recovers f.6v; rites and duties to be performed by the Convent and the Prioress in case of death ff.10-71v, including Psalms, Hymns and Litanies; 'Anno 1516' f.71v.
A VIVID INSIGHT INTO THE LIFE OF A NUN AT ST. KATHERINE'S NUNNERY IN NUREMBERG. The present manuscript belonged to a convent as famous for its library as for the bibliophilic tendencies of its nuns. The history and development of the convent's library is well-documented: Marie-Louise Ehrenschwendtner notes how after the reform in 1428, the convent witnessed a concerted and organised movement by the sisters to increase its holdings of manuscripts. By the end of the 15th century the convent owned between 500 and 600 manuscripts - only a few of which contained any illumination. Novices and young sisters were trained as copyists, cataloguers and librarians, and the name of one female illuminator survives - a certain Barbara Gewichtmacherin (d. 1491), who illuminated a breviary, a missal, copied by the sisters Margareta Imhoff and Margareta Karthaeuserin, and added two pictures to an antiphonal and gradual in eight volumes. It is likely that this movement continued into the early 16th century, and it is possible that the present manuscript was both written and illuminated by one of the sisters. See M.L. Ehrenschwendtner, 'A Library Collected by and for the Use of Nuns: St. Catherine's Convent, Nuremberg' in Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence, ed. Lesley Smith and Jane H.M. Taylor, Toronto, 1997, pp.123-32.