Codex on 197 leaves of vellum (plus original endleaves at front and back, and one modern paper endleaf at each end and another two modern vellum endleaves at front), occasional modern foliation and with some gathering signatures in modern pencil (the latter sometimes in error), complete, collation: i-ix8, x10, xi6 (this gathering bound within the previous one, immediately before the last leaf of that gathering), xii-xvi8, xvii7 (wants original second leaf, originally after fol. 129, but text is continuous, and so this a cancelled blank), xviii-xxiii8, xxiv6, xxv8, some gatherings and bifolia with vellum guards around the outer sides of their gutters giving the false impression of stubs and thus removed leaves, written in single column of approximately 13 lines of a German vernacular hand, red rubrics, capitals touched in red, small initials in red or pale blue, sometimes with contrasting penwork, five large illuminated initials with floral borders (see below), four vellum navigation tabs visible at foredge, a few leaves discoloured perhaps from heavy use of those pages, first leaf rubbed (perhaps through ritual rubbing or kissing), and a few borders thumbed in places, trimmed to edges with some affect to edges of decorated borders, small chips and scratches to paint in places, else small spots and stains, overall in good condition, 100 by 80mm; bound in modern vellum over wooden boards (perhaps early, note the two large and apparently early thongs the volume is sewn on, and original endleaves still present: these from a thirteenth-century copy of Hugh of St. Victor, De quinque septenis, and another unidentified religious text from the same parent manuscript), with metal fittings and corner-pieces in a fifteenth-century style (rust marks on last original end leaves showing a central clasp also attached to backboard in same place in earlier binding), slight cracks at spine in places. Illumination: The border decoration on fol. 147r, with its long and thin scrolling foliage around thin gold bars and enclosing areas of gold infill between the tendrils, finds closest parallels in a choirbook of the end of the fifteenth century perhaps produced in Saxony (now Zittau, Kulturhistorisches Museum Franziskanerkloster, Mscr.A II: Zittauer Zimelien, 2015, no. 6). The detailed birds and animals here add great charm. The significant illumination comprises: 1. Fol. 1r, large initial 'D' in blue on gold grounds, with scrolling coloured foliage filling all margins and supporting a white cockerel in upper outer margin (this leaf rubbed); 2. Fol. 5v, small initial 'L' in blue, with white penwork overlaying acanthus leaves, on burnished gold grounds with yellow paint picking out swirling lines, with coloured foliage and large gold bezants filling two borders; 3. Fol. 16r, large initial 'D' in green, with acanthus leaves overlaid in black and yellow penwork, on burnished gold ground with yellow paint picking out coloured foliage and radiating beams of light, with coloured foliage, a gold bezant and a realistic green bird with a red collar in three borders; 4. Fol. 121r, a large initial 'D' in pink edged in white penwork, enclosing a burnished gold centre with yellow paint picking out foliage and on a realistic green and blue frame, with coloured foliage supporting flowerheads (one with a burnished gold centre) and a tall and detailed peacock in three borders; 5. Fol. 147r, a large initial 'O' in burnished gold on a blue ground heightened with white foliate tendrils, the border formed from thin gold bars on three sides, around which coloured foliage swirls, with a large oval area of gold in the lowermost margin and a detailed grey hound atop the foliage in the outer margin. Provenance: 1. This book has been previously identified as from the Rhineland, but references to the Three Kings and St. Bridget of Ireland, whose relics were in Cologne, appear to have been misreported, and the art style points to Germany proper and perhaps Saxony (see below). The presence of two prayers to St. Catherine of Siena, the first opening with an illuminated initial (fol. 5v) and another to St. Francis at the end of the book (fol. 191r), suggest Franciscan use, and the overwhelming use of German in the volume might be taken to indicate use by a female devotee. 2. F. Dörling, bookseller of Hamburg, his cat. 84 (November 1975), no. 34, and cat. 98 (December 1979), no. 132. 3. Christie's, 21 June 1989, lot 32. 4. Sotheby's, 29 November 1990, lot 127
Text: This stout little volume opens with prayers to Christ and St. Catherine of Siena, followed by more prayers to Christ, a prayer ascribed to ""Prester Beda"" on the seven words of Christ (fol. 26r), prayers on the 15 stations of Christ on the Cross (fol. 32v), prayers on the suffering of Christ (fol. 41r) including one ascribed to Pope Gregory XIV, prayers and collects for Christ for the Mass, to be read at the various canonical hours (fol. 62v), an antiphon concerning the Holy Virgin (fol. 75r), a prayer on the Virgin ascribed to St. Augustine (fol. 87v) followed by other prayers to the Virgin and Christ, the Stabat Mater in German translation (fol. 98v, here identified as ""gebeth von unser liben frawen zcu latin Stabat m[ate]r""), an antiphon from the Marian Psalter in German translation, with rubric ""Von de mein zwelf bottenn"" (fol. 101v), a prayer to angels (fol. 103r), various prayers on the Holy Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, prayer to St. George (fol. 114v), and St. Jerome (fol. 116v), the Fifteen 'O's ascribed to St. Bridget of Sweden in German translation (fol. 122r, with the saint named here as ""der heiligen frawen sancta Brigitten""), followed by other prayers to Christ, prayers for saying while the Holy Sacrament is distributed and transubstantiation occurs (fol. 148r), and prayers to St. Francis (fol. 191r). On previously blank space immediately before the Fifteen 'O's, a near contemporary, but almost impenetrable, hand added an apparent prayer in German, while others of the same date added a short extract from the works of Johannes de Sacrobosco in Latin and the beginnings of an alphabet (with various examples of 'A' and 'B'). The Fifteen 'O's of St. Bridget of Sweden: The Fifteen 'O's are a difficult Bridgettine text to interpret and place within the context of other Bridgettine devotional literature. The last academic assessments are that of C. Gejrot in 2000 ('The Fifteen Oes: Latin and Vernacular Versions' in The Translation of the Works of St Birgitta of Sweden into the Medieval European Vernacular, pp. 213-238), and A. Barratt and S. Powell in the introduction to their edition of the text as published by Caxton (2021, with section relevant here on pp. x-xvii). Gejrot noted that the majority of the early manuscripts cluster in 15th-century England, and suggested a creation point in English Bridgettine circles in the early part of that century or the decades before. Barratt and Powell took his tabulation of manuscript witnesses further, and on the basis of a few manuscripts there thought to be from the 14th century, concluded that the text was not Brigittine in origin - as Syon was not founded until 1415, and no Bridgettine contact was recorded in England before 1406. However, these authors took the dating of the manuscripts they cite from somewhat elderly and outdated cataloguing, and on closer examination their 14th century witnesses are revealed to be of the 15th century, or in one case a 15th-century addition to an early codex. We thus return to the very likely notion that the text did come into being in 15th-century English Bridgettine circles, and was passed from them to Rome in the second half of the fifteenth century, where it was printed in 1478 and promulgated widely. Around the middle of the 15th century, the text was translated into German, and some 46 manuscripts of the German text were traced by Ulrich Montag in 1968 (Das Werk der heiligen Birgitta von Schweden in oberdeutscher Überlieferung, pp. 25-34; the sole German copy to predate this proposed translation date was that once owned by Gerhard Eis and dated 'c.1400' has been recently re-examined and redated to c. 1440. In the present codex these Bridgettine prayers open with an illuminated initial and decorated border, and the rubric: ""Hie heben sich an die gebethe der heiligen frauwen sancte Brigitten die do zcu rome bestetigt sint von dem heiligen vater den Babiste Bonifacio"". This is followed by a short introduction, opening ""Du aller heyligister gutigister ihesu ..."". All 15 prayers here are present, with the first opening: ""Ihesu criste ein ewige sussikeit ..."". In addition to the Bridgettines, these prayers were used by other Orders, and this is a fascinating example of the text employed to Franciscan use. The text is rare to the market in manuscript, with records indicating only a handful of copies as ever offered for sale. Montag lists only the Eis manuscript in private hands. Another was offered by Ludwig Rosenthal in his catalogue 65 in 1889: a late 15th-century 18-leaf paper booklet from the Buxheim Charterhouse; and another was sold by Les Enluminures in 2015 in a Rhineland monastic prayerbook of c. 1500 (their TM 431, in their catalogue 5, 2015, no. 15). To these we should add an English Book of Hours sold in Skinner's of Boston, 23 May 2017, lot 1160, and then dispersed, with a representative sample of leaves including part of the Fifteen 'O's later in the collection of Roger Martin (see his sale at Bloomsbury Auctions, London, 6 July 2021, lot 97; and note also the same auction house, 6 July 2022, lot 104, where a miniature with a kneeling Dominican was first recognised as from this same manuscript, showing the Order of the original owner), and a post-medieval mid-17th-century prayerbook with the Fifteen 'O's in French translation, sold in Bloomsbury Auctions, 6 July 2021, lot 138
