Breviary, Use of Rome, decorated manuscript in Latin, on vellum [Low Countries or Northern Germany, late fourteenth or early fifteenth century]

Estimate

3,000 - 5,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

187 leaves, 215mm. by 160mm., wanting leaves from front, back, single leaves from third and last gatherings, and a number of gatherings after first, fourth and sixth gatherings, collation: i-ii¹², iii¹¹ (last leaf wanting), iv¹², v¹⁰, vi¹², vii¹⁰, viii-x¹², xi¹⁰ (the remains of a gathering, some leaves restored with thin brown paper and reattached to volume), xi-xii¹², xiii¹⁰, xiv-xv¹², xvi⁴ (wanting a number of leaves, including outermost bifolium), double column, 29 lines in dark brown ink in 2 sizes of a late gothic German hand, one-line initials and rubrics in red, 2-line initials in same with red penwork, larger initials with floral infill, somewhat discoloured throughout, a small number of leaves torn with losses to text (some restored with thin brown paper), slight cockling and water damage throughout, seventeenth- or eighteenth-century blind-stamped white leather over pasteboards, somewhat scuffed and battered

Provenance

provenance

(1) Written in the Low Countries or Northern Germany in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century: readings for the feasts of SS. Vedast and Amandus, 6 February (fol.127v), Gertrude, abbess of Nivelles in Brabant, 17 March (fol.134r), Liudger, first bishop of Münster, 26 March (fol.136v) and Lambert, bishop of Maastricht and patron saint of Liège, 17 September (fol.174v).

(2) Heinrich Rottgaring: his sixteenth-century ex libris on fol.97v.

(3) Johannes Theodorius Rullier: his seventeenth-century inscriptions on fols.101r, 127 and 186v-87r, others in same hand noting “Anno 1639” on fol.146v. Other crude inscriptions pounced into borders of fols.107-08.

(4) Anton Henricus: seventeenth- or eighteenth-century inscription on fol.69v.

(5) Richard Caton of Liverpool (1842-1926), Professor of Physiology, University College Liverpool 1882-1891, and Lord Mayor of Liverpool 1907-08: his bookplate dated 1914 inside front board.

(6) Professor H.A. Ormerod (1884-1964) of Newberry; and by descent.

Catalogue Note

text

The book contains: a Psalter (wanting leaves at beginning and end); litanies of the saints (wanting beginning); the capitula for the monastic offices beginning with Advent and continuing throughout the entire year and ending with those for the dedication of a church; hymns; the Proprium de Tempore and Sanctorum (ending incomplete).