Leaf of Missal [Germany, 15th century]

Physical description and Materiality

Parchment, a leaf, c.360×270mm, apparently uncropped, preserving prickings in all four margins, ruled in faint ink for two columns of 30 lines, written below top line in a fine regular gothic bookhand, with rubrics in red and capitals stroked in red, foliated in the middle of the upper margin in red ink “cliij.” probably by the original scribe, preserving guide-notes to the rubricator, e.g. “Jo” next to “S. Johannem”.

The inner margin preserves seven little notches, showing where the sewing-stations of the original binding were. Surprisingly, it also preserves the pricking that were made to guide the ruling (prickings in the outer three margins were normal throughout the Middle Ages, but inner-margin rulings were only common in the few decades to either side of 1200

Extremely unusually, the present leaf seems to have been re-used for two different book-covers. The space between the columns of text on the recto was used for the title of the first volume: “Zumß(?) Register im Jahr 1607”. This volume apparently became obsolete within a few years, so the leaf was removed, turned inside-out, and put on another book, whose spine has the date “1610”, ad whose front cover has an inscription between the columns of medieval text: “Kelleren … Anno 1610”  Other blank space has been used for pen-trials such as “Amen Amen dico vobis”

SCRIPT
Written in a very regular, fine, professional, high-grade gothic bookhand, with lozenge-shaped ‘quadrata’ strokes at the base of minims. The letter ‘i’ is dotted, hyphens are sometimes used at line-ends, round ‘r’ occurs after round letters such as ‘b’, the final stroke of ‘h’ curves down to the left, terminal ‘s’ ends with a hairline upward stroke.

TEXT
The end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th Sunday after the Octave of Easter:
recto: “sed etiam discolis. Hec est enim gratia … [i.e. I Peter 2:18–19] S. Iohannem. In illo tempore d.i.d.s. [i.e. dixit Ihesus discipulis suis] Modicum et iam non videbitis me … tollet a uobis [John 16:16–22] Offertorium. Lauda anima [with cross-reference to folio “cxxix” for the full text] Secretum. His nobis domine mysteriis conferatur … Communio. Modicum et non videbitis … Compl. Sacramenta que sumpsimus domine … Dominica quarta”
verso: “Cantate domino canticum novum… [Psalm 97:1] … Collecta. Deus qui fidelium mentes unius efficis uoluntatis … Lectio S. Iacobi. a. Karissimi. Omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum desursum est … S. Iohannem. In illo tempore d.i.d.s. Vado ad eum qui me misit … ad patrem uado. [John 16:5–10]”.

DECORATION
Painted initials are alternately red or blue.

This leaf exemplifies a curious phenomenon that we have never seen explained: the majority of 15th-century German Missals (and a significant proportion of those from other countries) are written in columns of 30 lines.