Repertorium Juris, an alphabetical dictionary of Canon Law, and Decretum Abbreviatum, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Low Countries (probably near Aachen), dated 6 October 1371]

single gathering (6 leaves, wanting central bifolium), 265mm. by 190mm., with entries of first text for ‘R-S’ and ‘U-Z’ and breaking off one column into third (unidentified) text, double column, c.46 lines in a small and casual secretarial hand, written space 215mm. by 165mm., capitals touched in red, paragraph marks and initials in red, innermost bifolium with natural curve of membrane restricting text frame in upper outer corner, some cockling and small stains to first and last leaves, else good and presentable

Written by the scribe and cleric Johannis de Gerdinghen, who finished the texts on 6 October 1371 and the feast of St. Timothy (26 January) in the following year (here also recorded as 1371, following the common medieval custom of marking the end of the year on a date other than Christmas, often Easter): his colophons at the end of each text, the second also briefly noting that in that year the duke of Jülich with the aid of his brother in law, Edward, duke of Guelders, attacked the Brabant forces of Wenceslaus I of Luxembourg in the Battle of Baesweiler (in the county of Aachen).

text

The appearance of a signed and precisely dated fragment of the first text here is important for future study of the text. While copies of this anonymous text (or texts closely related to it) can be found in the British Library (Arundel MS.475, dated 1429); the Free Library of Philadelphia (De Ricci, Census, II, p.2054, no.159); the University of Pennsylvania; Avignon, Bibl. Mun. Livrée Ceccano; Besançon, Bibl. Mun.; and Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek; only one of these is dated, and none predates the present witness. The only copy known to us to have come to the market is that sold in our rooms, 5 July 2005, lot 72 (a paper copy of the mid-fifteenth century; subsequently Les Enluminures, Primer 3, Law, no.9).