Beschreibung:

CISTERCIAN MISSAL, in Latin, leaf from a DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
CISTERCIAN MISSAL, in Latin, leaf from a DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Southern Germany or Austria, second half 12th century] 345 x 243 mm. 24 lines written in a fine formal angular gothic bookhand in brown ink, ruled in blind, rubrics in red, capitals touched red, the first word written in red or black with red highlighting, medieval foliation 'xxxiii' in red ink in the outer margin, erased modern pencil foliation, prickings survive in the inner margin, one VERY LARGE DECORATED INITIAL in red and pale blue, two smaller initials in red, with decorative flourishes (a small hole in the lower margin, contemporary repair). In a modern cloth binding. Provenance : (a) While the use of multi-coloured initials was banned by Cistercian statutes, the ban was widely ignored, and the punctus flexus punctuation found here is typical of books written for the Order. Since the style was imitated in monasteries throughout Europe, it can be very difficult to localise; Ege himself took this manuscript to be Spanish, but the Missal is now thought to be either south German or, more probably, Austrian. (b) The parent manuscript had 173 leaves when sold in in 1948, comprising the Temporal, Canon, Sanctoral (from f.105v), and votive Masses (from f.160). The modern pencil foliation of the present leaf '126' was erased after the 1983 auction, and the medieval foliation suggests that it was the 33rd leaf of the Sanctorale (the text is part of the mass for the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin on 8 September), and leaf 'XLVI', now at Boulder, Colorado, has the Mass for Apostles, presumably from the Common of Saints. (c) ARNOLD METTLER (1867-1945) of St Gallen: sold with the residue of his estate by his son, 30 November 1948, lot 317. (d) OTTO EGE (1888-1951) of Cleveland, Ohio, who broke it up for inclusion as no 2 in his portfolios of Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Western Europe, XII-XVI Century [c.1950]. Leaves of this manuscript from thirteen Ege portfolios are listed and reproduced on the Denison University website, and a group of 26 leaves was soldfrom the Ege estate at Sotheby's, 26 November 1985, lot 44. Three leaves were sold in these rooms 9 July 2001, lot 2, another was 20 November 2002, lot 1; another was Sam Fogg, Catalogue 16, 1995, no 25. (e) ESTHER ROSENBAUM (d.1980), of Chicago and New York: sold with three other leaves of the same manuscript at Sotheby's, 25 April 1983, lot 16, with full-page plate showing the pencil folio number '126'. (f) NEIL F. PHILLIPS, Q.C. (1924-1997), of Montreal, New York, and Virginia: his MS. 1117, sold at Sotheby's, 2 December 1997, lot 45. The leaf contains the beginning of the Mass of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, celebrated on 8 September, beginning with the collect 'Famulis tuis domine celestis' and with the gospel reading from Matthew 1:1 listing the ancestors of Christ, 'Liber generationis' (cf. C. Waddell, The Primitive Cistercian Breviary , 2007, p.547).