Pope Innocent III, De miseria humanae conditionis, on the misery of the human condition, and two moral quotations attributed to Seneca, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [northern France (perhaps Paris), mid-fifteenth century]

87 leaves (last 3 leaves ruled but otherwise blank, plus one original vellum flyleaf at each end), 134mm. by 94mm., complete, catchwords and quire-signatures in lower margins, collation: i-x⁸, xi⁷ (vii cancelled, most probably blank), 20 lines, written space 80mm. by 50mm., written in brown ink in a fine and elegant gothic bookhand, some ornamental cadels, rubrics in red, tiny notes to the rubricator in the margins in brown ink, spaces for initials left blank, vellum slightly cockled, overall in good condition, early (perhaps original) leather binding over wooden boards, some wormholes, binding structures at spine intact but boards almost detached, spine split at top and upper board and first flyleaf loose, clasp missing, fragment of a diploma in French dated 1444 recycled as flyleaf at front, fifteenth-century inscriptions on fol.1r and flyleaf at end and modern inscriptions ‘Theol. No 97’ in black and ‘3192’ in red ink on verso of first flyleaf

(1) Charles Chardin (1742-1826), bookseller and bibliophile, who was discussed at length by Dibdin in his bibliographical tour through France and Germany: his number ‘305’ on spine and on verso of front flyleaf; offered in his sale in 1811 (alongside 590 other manuscripts), as lot 158, and again 9 February 1824, lot 305, to Phillips who bought more than 120 manuscripts in that sale.

(2) Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872); his lion rampant inkstamp above ‘Sir T.P. Middle Hill’ and his number ‘788’; offered in his sale in our rooms, 5 June 1899, lot 743, and again 27 April 1903, lot 614, sold to the ancestor of the present owner.

text

The De miseria humanae conditionis was written by Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), the tireless papal reformer, who presided over the 1215 Lateran Council and launched both the Fourth Crusade in 1202 and the Albigensian Crusade in 1209. He completed it in 1195 when still a cardinal, and it draws heavily on the moralising contemptus mundi tradition which stresses the negativity of human existence. This may seem pessimistic to a modern reader, but is as quintessentially medieval as the memento mori traditions in the contemporary arts. In fact, the book was remarkably popular in the Middle Ages, and survives in a vast number of manuscripts (some 672 are noted by Lewis in Lotario dei Segni, 1978, pp.236-53), with copies recorded in an array of monastic libraries, schools and princely collections. On the last page, the main scribe added two short quotations (opening “Si scirem deos Ignoscituros …” and “Luxuria est sitis arida …”) commonly attributed in the Middle Ages to the Roman Stoic philosopher, Seneca the younger (d.65 AD).