Raymond of Pennafort, Summa de Penitentia, decorated manuscript in Latin, on vellum [England (probably Cottingham, East Ridings, Yorkshire), first half of the fourteenth century]

Estimate

10,000 - 15,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

159 leaves (plus 6 modern vellum endleaves), 245mm. by 170mm., early foliation (omitting fols.76-77 and 88, but followed here), complete, collation: i-xii¹⁰, xiii-xiv¹², xv¹⁰, xvi⁵ (last a singleton), double column, 33-35 lines in brown ink in a late gothic bookhand, capitals touched in red, rubrics in red, paragraph marks alternately red or blue, simple initials in same with contrasting penwork, fol.152 torn, small hole in first leaf affecting only a few letters, small rust marks and holes on first few leaves from two clasps on earlier binding, vellum cockled with slight stains in places, else good condition, nineteenth-century pale blue velvet over thick bevelled wooden boards

Provenance

provenance

(1) Written by William, once clerk of Cottingham, in the first half of the fourteenth century: colophon on fol.140v asking for prayers “pro anima Willelmi scriptoris quondam clericus [sic] de Cotingham qui eam fideliter scripsit”. He was most probably an inmate of the Augustinian Priory of Cottingham (founded 1322, later moved to Haltemprice, suppressed 1536), and the “William de Cottingham” who worked as a clerk for William de Kyme, 2^nd Baron Kyme (d. 1338), who was an important patron of the Priory. A note at the bottom of the last page may indicate a connection with Dorset: “Plebs fera dorsethe quae caudis leserat illum / Leditur in tota posteritate sua”, and he may have originated from that county.

(2) Radulffus Boteler and Joh[ann]es Bryggys, fifteenth-century inscriptions on last leaf.

(3) Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster (1879-1953); his sale in our rooms, 11 July 1966, lot 228, to Traylen for £380.

(4) Sold again in our rooms, 8 July 1970, lot 70, to Alan Thomas, his cats.26 (1971), no.10 and 31 (1973), no.52; bought by the great-grandfather of the present owner in 1973 for £450.

Catalogue Note

text

Raymond of Pennafort (c.1175-1275) rose in a meteoric career to be one of the first Generals of the Dominican Order. He was educated in Barcelona and Bologna, receiving doctorates in both civil and canon law, and compiled and edited the Decretals of Gregory IX, a law-collection which remained the fundamental base of Church law until the last century. He was canonised in 1601 and is the patron saint of lawyers.

The text here is his practical manual for confessors, the Summa de penitentia, written in 1225-35. In it he sets out his vision for Dominican preachers as inquisitors sent out into the world to judge men’s souls and force heretics to return the Church. It divides the subject up into three books on: (i) sins against God (simony, heresy, apostasy, perjury, sorcery, sacrilege and withholding of tithes); (ii) sin’s against one’s neighbour (homicides, tournaments and duels, thefts, arson and usury); and (iii) the functions of the ecclesiastical ministry. It was the was the seminal work of its genre. This is followed on fol.141r by a supplementary book by the same author, the Summa de matrimonio.