Rule of St. Clare (in German); Germany (Klarenthal), 1457

Title

Rule of St. Clare (in German); Germany (Klarenthal), 1457

Shelfmark

MS. Lyell 68

Place of origin

German, Klarenthal bei Wiesbaden

Date

1457

Language

German

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

i + 53 leaves (fo. i is part of the first quire)

Hands

Large textura.

Decoration

Red initials, sometimes enclosing pen drawings. Miniature added in 1472. (Pächt and Alexander i. 171) Pen drawings on fol. 8v, a bird; fol. 13v the head of a monk; fol. 15 stylized birds’ heads.

Added, a framed pen drawing of St. Clare, labelled Sente Claren and dated 1472, fol. i verso. She is dressed as an abbess and holds a monstrance in her right hand and a book and pastoral staff in her left hand. She is accompanied by the verses: Dit isz sente Claren de sal unsz bewaren vur Tufels list und varen ytzt und in allen J aren.

Binding

Contemporary binding in bevelled wooden boards covered with calf; original sewing; pin for fastening (strap gone) in centre of upper cover; four bosses on upper and five on lower cover. Traces of a label on upper cover.

Acquisition

Chosen as one of the hundred manuscripts bequeathed to the Bodleian by Lyell in 1948.

Provenance

Written by frater Johannes Molmecher: inscription, fol. 50v-51r. A Fr. Johannes Mulnmecher (d. 1479) was for thirty-six years confessor of the Convent of Poor Clares at Klarenthal, near Wiesbaden, in the diocese of Mainz (see F. Otto, Das Necrol. des Klosters Clarenthal bei Wiesbaden (Veroffentlichen der hist. Comm. für Nassau III), 1901, p. 57).

Maggs bros., booksellers: bought from them by James P. R. Lyell in August 1939: their Catalogue. 542 (1930).

James P. R. Lyell, 1871–1948