PRAYER BOOK IN GERMAN.

Illuminated manuscript on vellum, Germany, late fifteenth century.

Illuminated manuscript on vellum, Germany, late fifteenth century.
110 x 75 mm. i (paper) + 275 vellum + i (paper) leaves. Collation impractical owing to tightness of binding. Modern penciled foliation every tenth leaf. Main text with 16 long lines written in black ink in gothic hybrida formata script between two vertical and seventeen horizontal lines ruled in lead; written area: 70 x 40-45 mm; added sections in several other hands. Text script often with marginal flourishes. Rubrics in red. One-line initials alternating blue flourished in red and burnished gold flourished in black, two-line initials in burnished gold on red or blue grounds infilled with the other color and white tracery; 4-line initials in red or blue on burnished gold grounds infilled with vining tendrils sprouting red and blue trilobe leaves, these initials accompanied by three-quarter bar borders in gold and red and outer full borders of thin black tendrils sprouting small golden leaves; 12 full-page arch-topped miniatures and 5 half-page arch-topped miniatures with similar borders. Cropped into some borders and flourished letters, lacking several leaves, approximately one square inch of vellum missing from lower corner of f. 275 with minor loss of text, some thumbing especially in last added sections. 16th century blind-tooled dark leather over thin wooden boards, two brass clasps (one partially detached), lacks corner bosses, in a custom cloth case.
Provenance: A. F. Ditterich, nineteenth-century signature on front pastedown.

Content:
ff. 1r-7v (added section): Suffrages to Saints Christopher, Jerome, John the Evangelist, Peter, Paul, and the Virgin Mary.
ff. 9r-10r: Prayer to the Trinity. ff. 10v-11r: later additions addressed to Mary.
ff. 11v-61v: Hours of the Cross, with Matins (ff. 12r-20r), Prayer to the Virgin (ff. 20r-23r, with later addition at end), Prime (ff. 24r-30r), Terce (ff. 32r-38v), Sext (ff. 40r-40v, perhaps incomplete at end), None (ff. 42r-55v), Vespers (ff. 57r-61v, [without Compline]. All hie endet sich das leyden vnsers lieben herren ihesu Christi vber dye wochen zu bedenncken mit gutter andacht.
ff. 62r-103v: Meditations on the life of Christ.
ff. 105r-141r: Hours of the Virgin, incipit Die hiernach geschriben tagzeit von vnser frawen mitleyden die sye hat gehabt mi yrem Sun ... Divided into the canonical standard hours, but with only one miniature, the Pieta.
ff. 142r-162v: Penitential Psalms and litany.
ff. 164r-175r: Office of the Dead.
ff. 175v-199r: Various prayers and suffrages, to St. Helena, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, St. Catherine, All Saints, St. Sebastian, Confessors, Virgins (leaves missing at least after f. 188 and 196).
ff. 200r-234v: Prayers and meditations relating to Corpus Christi, and to preparations for mass and receiving the sacrament.
ff. 235v-249r: Miscellaneous prayers (added section).
ff. 250r-264v: Hiernach volgen funffzehen gebethe S. Brigite (added section).
ff. 265r-275r: Miscellaneous prayers, including one (ff. 272r-273r) against the "French plague" (added section).

Illumination:
Full-page miniatures (on inserted leaves, rectos blank): God the Father holding his crucified son with his feet on the orb (f. 8v), Betrayal in the Garden (f. 10v), Christ before Pilate (f. 23v), Mocking of Christ (f. 31v), Christ bearing the cross (f. 39v), Crucifixion (f. 41v), Entombment (f. 56v); Resurrection (f. 67v), Ascension (f. 74v), Pieta at the foot of the cross (f. 104v), Last Judgement (f. 142v), Funeral (f. 163v)
Half-page miniatures: St Helena with the True Cross (f. 175v), Pentecost (f. 181v), St. Catherine (f. 190r), St. Sebastian (f. 197r), A confessor (f. 198r).

The core of this German-language prayerbook is a translation of the major texts found in Latin Books of Hours. In this it is unusual, in that such extensive vernacular translations are uncommon out of the Dutch tradition. In this case, the owner or commissioner has customized the volume by placing the Hours of the Cross first, by adding a number prayers that reflect a devotion to Christ' Passion, and by including meditations on how to prepare for receiving the sacrament at Mass. The well-executed hybrida formata script, with flourishes in the margins, suggests a date late in the fifteenth or early sixteenth century. However, the style of the decoration, the illuminated initials, the marginal flourishing with thin black tendrils sprouting small golden leaves, and the arch-topped miniatures, all suggest imitation of French models of the mid- fifteenth century.