Imprint: in-8o format, iii (modern paper) + 100 folios on paper, two watermarks (unidentified) wolf and snake wrapped around a cross, leaf numbering printed in Roman numerals in red, I-XCV, plus 4 unnumbered leaves in the beginning and 1 at the end, complete, 13 quires (collation *4 A-M8), the first five leaves of each quire signed with a majuscule letter followed by a roman numeral from the second leaf onwards: A, Aij, Aiij, Aiiij, Av-Mv (justification, text, without leaf numbers and signatures, 115 x 71 mm.), printed in gothic type on 26 lines, rubrics and 1- to 4-line initials printed in red, Peypus’s printer’s device, SIX FULL-PAGE WOODCUTS, several worm holes (some in the lower margins restored), some stains, overall in very good condition. Manuscript: 219 + iii (modern paper) folios on paper, watermark, unidentified, perhaps a cross inside a circle(?) (not fully visible), modern foliation in pencil, 100-219, 1-99 (the foliation reflects the fact that the two parts have been bound in the wrong order), complete (collation i-xxi10 xxii9), horizontal catchwords (mostly cropped), no ruling visible, written in brown ink in Gothic hybrid bookhand in a single column on 18-20 lines, capitals touched in red, red paragraph marks, title on f. 1 in red, rubrics (often in Latin) underlined in red, one 5-line puzzle initial (f. 102) and one 6-line puzzle initial in red and blue (f. 1), several worm holes (some in the lower margins restored), some stains, margins slightly trimmed, overall in very good condition. Modern binding of brown morocco over (original?) wooden boards, blind-tooled with fillets, spine with three raised bands, two pairs of clasps and brass catches with interlace knot decoration, original flyleaf with an ownership inscription (see below) survives pasted to the modern front pastedown, small portions of original flyleaves (reused fifteenth-century manuscript leaves) are bound within the book at the end, modern cardboard case with labels pasted on the spine and front are inscribed “Friderich Peypus ... Wurtzgertlein der andechtigen übung... Nürnberg, 1516 + handschriftliche Homilie,” in excellent condition. Dimensions 152 x 103 mm.
This hybrid volume contains two very rare works on spiritual edification, one printed, another manuscript, demonstrating the way the two types of book production endured side by side at the turn of the sixteenth century. The rare imprint is handsomely illustrated with six woodcuts. The volume can be securely localized to an Augustinian convent in Eichstätt, and it may have been copied there by one of the nuns for their own use. Hybrid volumes are particularly evocative of the interests of the people who created them; here we have secure evidence of reading habits of religious women in sixteenth-century Germany.
Provenance
1. A hybrid book combining a text printed in Nuremberg and dated March 24,1516, in the colophon (sig. m8), with a work in manuscript, dated at the end of the first of its two parts on f. 97, “xx iar am liechtmess tag,” i.e. (15)20 Candlemas day, February 2, very likely copied soon after the acquisition of the printed text.
An original flyleaf, pasted on the modern front pastedown, bears the ownership inscription “S(uor) Ottilia heltin profess in mariastein” of Sister Ottilia Helt of the Kloster Marienstein in Eichstätt. The hand of the inscription is very similar to that used for the manuscript, suggesting that Sister Ottilia Helt copied the manuscript herself at Kloster Marienstein. The Kloster Marienstein was founded around 1460 and adopted the rule of St. Augustine; Walburga Eichhorn became the first prioress in 1471 (Online resources).
2. Modern booksellers’s notes, first front flyleaf.
Text
Imprint: sig. *1-sig. m8, [sig. *1, titlepage] “Disz Büchlein genant das wurtzgertlein der andechtigen übung ist also gesetzt und geordnet durch ainen gaystlichen vatter Barfüsser sant Franciscen ordenns der observantz in der Provintz Österreich gott zu lob und dem nechsten zu nutz und auffnemung in andacht“; ... [sig. m8, Colophon], incipit, “Allso ist geendet diss nutzparlich Büchlein daz da gar ordenlich gedruckt ist durch Friderich Peypus zu Nürmberck und volendet am abendt der verkundigung Marie in der Fasten alls man zelet nach der geburt Christi M.D. unnd xvj“ [followed by Peypus’ printer’s device]; [sig. m8v, blank];
Disz Büchlein genant das wurtzgertlein der andechtigen übung; see a digitized copy in Online resources below.
Manuscript: [ff. 100-101v, blank]; ff. 102-219, 1-97, [in red], Dise materi sagt von einem waren einker und von den dingen die darzu dienen, [underlined], Ad vesperum demorabitur fletus et ad matutinam leticia, incipit, “Also spricht der prophet im psalter Des abents wirt wonen ... [f. 219] ... das sy wider dienen zu einem einker ist wol predig gehort Deo gracias.”; [note that the first part ends on f. 97, “... und der heilig gaist Amen. Deo gracias. xx iar am liechtmess tag”, and the second part begins on f. 102, “Unser liebster herr ihesus der unser wares leben ist …”); [ff. 97v-99v, 219v, blank].
Anonymous (attributed to Heinrich Vigilis von Weissenburg), Von der wahren Einkehr. The two parts of the text of Von der wahren Einkehr are introduced by large parti-colored initials. The parts were bound in an inversed order already in the sixteenth century. This is demonstrated by the note written in a later sixteenth-century hand on the blank page facing the beginning of part 1, confirming that it is the first part and was written first: “Das hie vor geschrieben ist der ander teil des einkers. Das nachfolgendt ist der erst tayl und ist im pinden versehen und versezt worden” (f. 219v according to modern foliation).
Illustration
The subjects of the woodcuts are as follows:
sig. *4v, Crucifixion (with the Virgin Mary, St. John and a male supplicant);
sig. E3, Mass (with a priest with an acolyte);
sig. G8v, All saints (St. George in the middle);
sig. H7v, Man and woman at the altar on which appears the Virgin and Child;
sig. K3v, Christ as Salvator Mundi (Christus als “Salvator”; see Online resources);
sig. M6v, Crucifixion (surrounded by God the Father, Virgin and Child, prophets, saints, angels, monks, the Veil of St. Veronika); illustration for the rosary and indulgences.
sig. M8, Peypus’s device.
The work Disz Büchlein genant das wurtzgertlein der andechtigen übung (This Booklet called the Little Tool of Devotional Practice) was printed in 1515 by Silvan Otmar in Augsburg, and the following year by Friedrich Peypus in Nuremberg (Verzeichnis der Drucke 16. Jhd., VD16 W 4578; USTC 640269; Online Resources); our book includes a copy of the Nuremberg edition. It is a work on spiritual edification by a Discalced (Barefoot) Observant Franciscan friar from Austria, and is very rare (not included in Adams, 1967; four copies listed by VD16, all institutional libraries in Germany). The copy in Munich is incomplete, lacking the first leaf with the titlepage and the beginning of the preface, which is included in our complete copy.
It is illustrated with six handsome woodcuts by Erhard Schön (c. 1491-1542), a popular woodcut designer and painter from Nuremberg, who was greatly influenced by Albrecht Dürer. Schön’s earliest known work is a series of woodcuts made for a book in 1513, three years before the woodcuts included here. In total, around 1200 illustrations for 116 books and 200 separate woodcuts have been attributed to him. For more on Schön, see Campbell, 2009, pp. 226–227.
The treatise on spiritual edification, Von der wahren Einkehr (Of True Contemplation), copied on ff. 1-219 in 1520 is attributed to the Franciscan Heinrich Vigilis von Weissenburg (d. 1499), but his authorship remains to be proven. The work is very rare, known in only four other copies: Berlin, Staatsbibl. MS mgo 563, Munich, Staatsbibl. MS. Cgm 844, Prague, Nationalbibl. MS Cod. XVI.G.31 and Strasbourg, Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire, MS 1989 (cf. Handschriftencencus in Online resources). The earliest known copy is the one in Strasbourg, written in 1454 by the nun Anna Brechteln (see Online resources for images; cf. Becker, 1914, p. 2, and Wickersheimer,1923, p. 408).
Heinrich Vigilis was a German Franciscan Friar, active as a preacher and confessor. Many of his works were copied by Poor Clares from Alspach and Nuremberg and then corrected by Henry himself (van der Heijden and Roest, “Franciscan authors,” Online Resources, citing Kist (1938), p. 145) testify to his pastoral activities for Franciscan nuns. Although his authorship of Von der wahren Einkehr, is not certain, it is interesting that the text was owned, and perhaps was copied by, the Augustinian sisters at Kloster Marienstein in Eichstätt, about twenty years after his death.
Literature
Adams, H. M. Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge Libraries, Cambridge, 1967, 2 vols.
Becker, A. Die deutschen Handschriften der Kaiserlichen Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek zu Strassburg (Katalog der Kaiserlichen Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek in Strassburg 6), Strasbourg, 1914.
Blanton, V., V. O’Mara and P. Stoop, eds. Nuns’ Literacies in Medieval Europe, 3 vols, The Hull Dialogue, Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, 26-28, Turnhout, 2013, 2015, 2017.
Campbell, G., ed. The Grove Encyclopedia of Northern Renaissance Art, vol. 3, Oxford, 2009, pp. 226–227.
Kist, J. “Heinrich Vigilis, ein Franziskanerprediger am Vorabend der Reformation,” Zeitschrift für Bayerische Kirchengeschichte 13 (1938), pp. 144-150.
Lindgren, E. L. Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany, New York, 2009.
Wickersheimer, E. Strasbourg, Catalogue Général des Manuscrits des Bibliothèques Publiques de France, Départements 47, Paris, 1923.
Online Resources
Maarten van der Heijden and Bert Roest,”Franciscan Authors, 13th-18th Century: A Catalogue in Progress,”
http://users.bart.nl/~roestb/franciscan/
A digitized copy of Disz Büchlein genant das wurtzgertlein der andechtigen übung, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
https://books.google.fr/books?id=AA1SAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Disz Büchlein genant das wurtzgertlein der andechtigen übung in Verzeichnis der Drucke 16. Jhd.
http://gateway-bayern.de/VD16+W+4578
Strasbourg, Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire, MS 1989
https://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/mirador/index.php?manifest=https://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/iiif/17018/manifest
Heinrich Vigilis von Weissenburg in “Handschriftencensus” https://handschriftencensus.de/autoren/1200
Kloster Marienstein (Wikipedia) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kloster_Marienstein
Erhard Schön (Wikipedia) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Sch%C3%B6n
Erhard Schön, Christus als “Salvator” (1516), in “Bildindex der Kunst & Architektur”
https://www.bildindex.de/document/obj00035121?part=1&medium=mi08099g14
TM 1210
