Beschreibung:

Goffredus de Trano, Summa super rubricis decretalium and Iohannes de Deo, Liber seu summa dispensationum, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [northern Germany (perhaps Rhineland), fourteenth century (most probably first half of that century), with an additional final quire of c. 1400] 241 leaves (plus an endleaf at front), the last leaf pasted to backboard, complete, collation: i-iii8, iv6, v10, vi-xix8, xx6 (once 8, last 2 leaves cancelled blanks removed after Early Modern foliation), xxi-xxix8, xxx11 (first original leaf a blank cancel, removed before Early Modern foliation added), occasional catchwords and original quire signatures, seventeenth- or eighteenth-century foliation in upper right hand corner of rectos (slightly imperfect, but followed here), double column of 38 lines, in a small number of skilled gothic bookhands (see below), capitals touched alternately in red and blue, rubrics in red, running titles in red or blue capitals, initials alternately in red and blue with contrasting penwork, space left blank for Tables of Affinity and Consanguinity on fols. 169r and 171r, prick marks for lines remaining in outer margins, a few leaves with extremities of edges slightly turned over, 2 further leaves with small sections of blank edges torn away, and small cuts to gutters of adjacent leaves from removal of 2 cancelled blanks, some slight areas of discoloration, small spots and scuffs and occasional natural flaw in parchment, a few leaves showing the volume very slightly trimmed (removing mostly edges of lines of marginalia), overwhelmingly in excellent condition on cream-coloured heavy parchment with wide and clean margins, 305 by 220mm.; fifteenth-century German binding of blind-stamped pigskin (tooled with frames formed of simple fillet and geometric panels around a central floral boss within a rhombus) over massive wooden boards, the spine tooled in same and sewn on 5 double thongs, leather added over binding structures in German style with spine covered first and leather panels for boards then laid over (inner vertical edge of board cover now slightly lifted), title in ink on fore-edge, clasps wanting and holes in leather where these clasps once protruded from edges of boards stitched shut, some green stains in same place from missing copper-based clasps, light scuffing and a few scratches, small hole in leather of spine, front board very slightly coming away from some thongs, but solid in binding An imposing and elegant German monastic codex, in its late medieval binding, and from the collections of Leander van Ess and Sir Thomas Phillipps Provenance: 1. Most probably written and decorated in the first half of the fourteenth century for use in a German monastic community, perhaps in the Rhineland. The subsequent owner (Leander van Ess) obtained many books from monasteries in this region: he had served as a monk at Marienmünster in North-Rhine Westphalia and took books with him when it was dissolved in 1803. Perhaps significantly, a large group of his manuscripts came from the Carthusian monastery of St. Barbara in Cologne, which was founded in 1334. If future research upholds a connection to this last house, then it may have been among the founding books of their medieval library. 2. Leander van Ess (in fact Johann Heinrich van Ess, 1772-1847), important early bibliophile and manuscript collector at time of the suppression of the German monasteries and the spilling of their libraries onto the open market, pastor of Swalenberg, theologian at Marburg University, German translator of the New Testament, passionate proponent of lay Bible reading and founder of the Christliche Bruderbund zur Verbreitung der heiligen Schriften), with his printed collection number 95 on spine, this corresponding to the published catalogue of his collection: Sammlung und Verzeichniss Handscriftlicher [sic] Bücher aus dem VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV, etc. Jahrhundert …, Darmstadt, 1823, no. 95. On his library see: M. Mc. Gatch