Beschreibung:

MAURICE THE PREACHER, Preaching notes on the Gospel readings for Summer Sundays, in Latin, manuscript on paper [Germany or Bohemia] 7 November 1436 A Dominican preacher ’ s own preaching notes, with his dated colophon, and a later monastic ownership inscription. Two non-consecutive bifolia, each leaf c.215×150mm, frame-ruled in ink for two columns of c.41 lines written in a rather cursive gothic hand, ruled space c.175×120mm, decorated with a large initial in red with dense penwork in brown and red, extending down the inner margin (some marginal staining). Bound in grey buckram by the Quaritch bindery. Provenance : (1) One (and perhaps both) of the bifolia written by Maurice, preacher, on the feast-day of St Willebrord (7 November) 1436, with his colophon: ‘Per dominum Mauricium predicatorem superioris ecclesie in montibus thnt(?)/chnt(?) Anno domini Mo. cccco xxxvi in die sancti Willibrordi confessoris’; the place-name immediately before the date is uncertain, and a 16th(?)-century reader has apparently attempted to clarify it by adding ‘Thuringie’ in the adjacent margin, over an erasure, but web searches for the phrase ‘superioris ecclesie in montibus’ suggest that the next word could be Chutnis/Cuthnis, i.e. Kutná Hora, to the east of Prague. (2) Contemporary inscription below the colophon: ‘Forte Erfordie / in montibus beate Marie virginis vel divi Severi’ (the 14th-century church of St Severus in Erfurt still exists). (3) Owned in the 17th(?) century by the Carthusian monastery of St Salvatorberg (Mons Sancti Salvatoris) near Erfurt (secularised in 1803): inscribed ‘Cartusie erfordiensis’ on the upper margin of f.1. (4) Owned by a 19th- or early 20th-century German-speaking owner, with their pencil note on the front of the wrapper, next to an accession(?) code ending ‘1929’. (5) Erik von Scherling (1907–56), bookseller of Leiden; offered in an unidentified catalogue as no 879, and again in his Rotulus , II, nos 3–4 (1932), no 1461, with clippings loosely inserted. (6) ‘The Property of a Lady’, sold at Sotheby’s, 7 December 1982, lot 56. (7) Bernard Quaritch, Bookhands V, cat. 1147 (1991), no 99. (8) Schøyen Collection, MS 723. Text : ‘Cum transisset sabbatum Maria Magdalena et Maria Iacobi et Salomee emerunt aromata […] [Mark 16:1] […] filium hominis ad cuius claram cognitionem . / Expliciunt collecta super ewangelia dominicalia partis estivalis’ (followed by the colophon).