Collectie Soeterbeeck

(olim: Soeterbeeck IV 72)

[Manuscript description made by Ad Poirters, December 2010

Jordanus van Quedlinburg, Opus postillarum et sermonum de tempore, Middle Dutch translation; Benedictus XIII, Bulle vander insettinghen der feesten der heilegher dryuuldicheit
Paper, 321 leaves, 20 x 14 cm.
Diest, ca. 1484-1500
Contemporary boards

[DATE]

Though older sources prefer a date ca. 1520 (Handschriften 208; Stooker and Verbeij 142), Hans Kienhorst dates the manuscript somewhere around 1484-1500 on the basis of its watermarks (“Catalogus” 89; Verbruikt 78).

[ORIGIN]

The manuscript belonged to the convent of Mariëndaal in Diest, as a contemporary ownership note makes clear: “Dit boeck hoert toe den susteren van sinte / mariendale binnen diest Achter sinte Annen cappelle” (f. 2r4-5). Because books were professionally and commercially written, decorated, and bound at Mariëndaal (Handschriften 14), it is likely that this book was not only owned by the Diest sisters, but also produced by them. The fact that Richard de Beer says the penwork is “probably of Flemish origin” (38) makes this even more likely.

[MATERIALS]

Paper, 321 leaves (including the four flyleaves (ff. 1-2 and 320-21), which are of the same kind of paper as the book block), ca. 20 x 14 cm (Van Dijk, Mnl. 3). Later foliation in pencil, from 1 to 321.

Most of the sermons in this manuscript are from Jordan of Quedlinburg’s Opus postillarum et sermonum de tempore, and the sermons have more or less been ordered according to the liturgical year. The manuscript is divided into a winter part (ff. 3-164) and a summer part (ff. 168-319). More information on the way these textual divisions coincides with the book’s make-up will be given when the manuscript’s quire structure is described, and more on the means by which the text has been structured is said under the heading of rubrication and decoration, but here it must be mentioned that traces of red tabs survive, though the tabs themselves have been lost. For ease of reference, these tabs marked each new day for which one or more sermons had been included. There also was one for the papal constitution starting on f. 275v. Traces of tabs survive on the following folios: 17, 22, 28, 34, 40, 48, 58, 66, 72, 81, 88, 92, 102, 114, 121, 127, 133, 141, 150, 157, 176, 190, 200, 212, 227, 236, 247, 254, 267, 275, 278, 281, 294, 300, 307, and 314. This means f. 168, where the summer part starts, lacked a tab.

The watermarks have provided a means of dating the book to ca. 1485-1500 (Kienhorst, “Catalogus” 89; Verbruikt 78). There are seventeen different watermarks, including nine different hands, two different pots, four letters p, and two stars.¹ Van Dijk says the hands appear on ff. 1-167v, and 278-293, whereas the ps and the stars alternate on ff. 168-230, and the pots occur on ff. 231-246.² From f. 249 onwards and from ff. 294 to the end of the manuscript, Van Dijk recognizes a different kind of p than that appearing on ff. 168-230 (Mnl. 1). Based on the data gathered by Van Dijk and Van Herten, and the manuscript’s composition discussed below, table 1 can be compiled

Table 1: Watermarks in MS 463

This means that the changes in watermark coincide with the manuscript’s division in blocks. Sadly, Marjolein van Herten has no data for ff. 294-321, but if Van Dijk is right, then ff. 246-277 (the final leaves of the manuscript’s second block) are written on the same paper as ff. 294-321 (which make up the fourth block), providing a link between the two blocks. Otherwise, no watermark appears in more than one block.

The book is heavily thumb-marked and spotted, indicating heavy use, like the deplorable state of the cover. Probably as a result of that last fact, it has also sustained some water damage, especially at the end of the volume.

[STRUCTURE]

There are 38 quires, which are made up follows: 1⁸ + 2 before 3 [1-10] 2-3⁸ [11-26] 4⁸ - 1 after 28 [27-33] 5-20⁸ [34-161] 21⁶ [162-167] * 22-32¹⁰ [168-277] * 33-34⁸ [278-293] * 35-36⁸ [294-309] 37¹⁰ [310-319] 38² [320-321].⁵ There is no loss of text anywhere.

The pastedowns have been attached to the first and the last quires, and are visible between ff. 10-11 and 319-320. A stub is visible between ff. 28-29 in quire 4; the rest of the leaf will have been cut off.

The make-up of the first quire (ff. 1-10) merits some discussion. Sewing threads appear between ff. 6-7. If this quire were a regular quaternion, f. 3 would have been its first leaf, and that is where the main text of the book starts. Ff. 1-2 serve as flyleaves. The pastedown and the rudimentary parchment endpaper at the front of the book stick out between ff. 10 and 11. Looking at the book’s spine reveals that the first quire has been sewn to the pastedown. There is a stub between f. 10 and the latter end of the pastedown, and it is clear from the way this stub is torn, that this is actually the fold of a bifolio. This means that ff. 1-2 are a bifolio, and that it has been sewn to ff. 3-10 and the pastedown, not through the fold, but elsewhere, so that the fold sticks out a little bit at the latter end of the quire. However, since they are sewn to the first quire, they belong to it.

As can be gathered from the collation formula, the manuscript consists of four distinct blocks:

1. Ff. 3-167: this is the entire winter part of the manuscript. The text ends on f. 164v with a definitive-sounding: “Hier eynden meester iordanus sermonen” (evidently fulfilling the promise on f. 3: “Dit sijn meester Jordaens Sermonen in dietsche,” although these are not nearly all of Jordan’s sermons), and though f. 165-7 have been ruled, there is no text on them. This block consists almost completely of quaternions (although a bifolio have been added to quire 1 and one has been taken from quire 4), and as such is clearly a homogenous whole. The leaves of this block are the only ones bearing hands A-D, hands G-I, and pot B as watermarks.
2. Ff. 168-277: f. 168 marks the beginning of the summer’s part of the manuscript, and is written in new hands. The text is introduced by an elaborate rubric explaining that “hier beghinnen die bedudinghe oft sermonen opten ewangelien / nae den sondaghen van paeschen totten seuenden sondach nae beloken / sinxenen alsoe als iordanis die meester dat op vergadert ende gescriven / heeft,” clearly indicating that this was a major text division. This block is completely made up out of quinions, as no other part of the manuscript is. This block ends with a papal constitution on the institution of the feast of Trinity Sunday on ff. 275v-277ra remarkable addition in a book of sermons, and with a blank page on f. 277v.
3. Ff. 278-293: this block is distinct from the others for several reasons. F. 278 is the beginning of a new quire (quire 33), and it is completely written in a hand not found elsewhere in the manuscript. Not only does it start with a new text – a sermon for Trinity Sunday - after the blank page on f. 277v, all of the pages of this block have thirty-three lines, whereas the rest of the manuscript has twenty-nine or thirty lines. This block is further distinguished from the rest of the manuscript in that it is opened on f. 278r by a small, blue Lombard initial (which probably was to have received penwork flourishing, but never did). F. 293v has not been completely covered with writing, and it ends with an explicit: “Deo gratias semper.” On top of this, these leaves have different watermarks than the blocks surrounding them, i.e. hands E-F.
4. Ff. 294-319: here too the beginning of a new quire (quire 35) coincides with the beginning of a new text (the first sermon for the third Sunday after Whitsun), and with the introduction of a new hand. Its structure is also the most irregular of all blocks, as is common at the end of a volume.

[LAY-OUT]

The prickings are often still present in the outer margin of the page, because they were not cut off. On the blank pages, the ruling (in plummet) is clearly visible, as on ff. 165-167, 277v, and 320-31 (the flyleaves at the back of the book). The flyleaves at the front of the book do not show ruling. On the written pages, the grid and through lines are often also visible, and occasionally even the ruling. Most Lombard majuscules are within the ruling, though some are in the margin. Penwork is also marginal.

The manuscript generally has 29 or 30 lines per page, in one column (styled “lichtelijk onbruikbaar” by Van Dijk (Mnl. 1) because of its breadth and the number of words per line), but ff. 278-293 have 33 lines per page. The writing surface of the page is ca. 15.2 x 10.4 cm, with a margin of 5 to 10 mm in the margins. For ff. 278-293, this is ca. 15.5 x 11 cm (Van Dijk, Mnl. 3).

Catchwords in black ink are still partly visible on ff. 10v (the end of quire 1), 18v (the end of quire 2), 26v (the end of quire 3), 57v (the end of quire 7), 65v (the end of quire 8), 171v (the fourth leaf of quire 22), 177v (the end of quire 22), 201v (the fourth leaf of quire 25), 207v (the end of quire 25), and 211v (the fourth leaf of quire 26) (Van Dijk, Mnl. 2). A signature “ij,” indicating that this is the second quire, appears in red ink in the middle of the upper margin of ff. 12r, 13r, and 14r (Van Dijk, Mnl. 3), wich are the second, third, and fourth leaves of a quaternion (ff. 11-18). F. 11r, the recto side of the first leaf of the second quire, does not have the signature, because f. 10v already had the catchword “uen,” the first letters of f. 11r.

[SCRIPT]

The manuscript is mainly written in a littera hybrida, but some parts are in a cursiva (Kienhorst, “Catalogus” 89). Van Dijk identifies the script with the Friars’ Script of the Windesheim Congregation (Mnl. 1). There are various hands, divided as in table 2:⁶

Table 2: Hands in MS 463

This means that none of the hands seems to occur across blocks, and that hands 12 and 13 worked closely together on a large part of the second block. Van Dijk says that each scribe did its own rubrics, although those have later been corrected and added to in other hands (Mnl. 1). Occasionally, the letters on the first line of the page have slightly ornamented forms to fill out the upper margin.

[RUBRICATION AND DECORATION]

The manuscript contains two penwork initials: a blue H of five lines in height, with red penwork, on f. 3r, and one blue M of five lines in height, with red penwork, on f. 168r. These two penwork initials mark the major text divisions, namely the beginning of the winter and the summer part respectively. The underlying sketches of the penwork are still visible, and the penwork has not been entirely finished. The Lombard majuscule on f. 278r probably was to get penwork as well, and serve as an initial, since it is blue like the other initials, and not red like the other majuscules, and opens the third block.

Richard de Beer cannot say more about the penwork than that it is “probably of Flemish origin” (38). Given that the convent of Mariëndaal wrote and decorated its own books (Handschriften 14), it is likely that the manuscript was decorated there (although the decoration of this book does not at all resemble that of manuscript Nijmegen, Universiteitsbibliotheek, 451, the only other manuscript in the Soeterbeeck Collection known to be from Mariëndaal; see Kienhorst, Catalogus 64-5).

The beginnings of new sermons are marked by red Lombard majuscules of one, two or three lines in height (and one blue one spanning three lines on f. 278r). Some of them show openwork ornamentation, and for most of these letters, a guide letter is still visible. However, there is some variation. The red Lombard majuscules starting the sermon for Shrove Tuesday (f. 102v) – later emended by means of a marginal rubric to the first Sunday in Lent – is marginal and spans seven lines, the red Lombard majuscule at the beginning of the first sermon for the second Sunday after Easter (f. 190r) is four lines high, while the Lombard majuscule which was to mark the beginning of the first sermon for Whistun (254v), for which four lines were reserved in the text, was never added. The guide letter shows that it was to have been a D. Other than that, the Lombard majuscules are quite regular.

Rubrics mark the beginning of each sermon On f. 204v, a guide rubric is still visible underneath the red ink of the final rubric, and ff. 300v, 307v, 311v and 314v have guide rubrics in their folds. (Quite often, later marginal rubrics in both red and black (e.g. f. 102v) emend the text of the original rubric, and next to the rubrics of the first sermons for each day the marginal or interlinear note “meester Ioerdanus” (or a variant) has often been added in red or black at a later stage.) Names of authors and their quotations are generally underlined in red, but occasionally also in black, and sometimes not at all. Names and the first letter of each sentence are have been accentuated in red. Red paragraph marks are used to divide the text in other ways; for instance to distinguish the various elements of an enumeration. Some errors have been crossed out with red, others with black ink, and still others have been scratched away. It would seem that the scribe was responsible wherever red ink was used. There are numerous instances of words or short passages added marginally or between the lines in other hands in black and red.

[COVER]

Contemporary cover of wooden boards with dark brown leather, 21.4 x 14.3 x 5.7 cm. The text block is 4.4 cm. wide without boards (Van Dijk, Mnl. 7). Four raised bands. The book originally had two fastenings, the lower one of which is still intact, but the upper one of which lacks its hook, but still has its catch. The leather has been stamped and blind-tooled identically on both the front and the back of the book, but the decoration can now no longer be made out, for the cover is heavily damaged, to the extent that the quires are visible on the spine.

The manuscript includes two fragments from a thirteenth-century Latin breviary pasted to both the front and the back boards as board leaves. The fragment pasted to the front board has texts for the feasts of pope Sylvester I (31 December), St. Vincent (22 January),⁷ Ss. Fabian and Sebastian (20 January), and St. Agnes (21 January), which means these fragments once were part of the winter part of a breviary. The fragments are 12.5 x 21 and 14.5 and 20 cm. respectively, and they are from two different parchment bifolios, with one column per page, and rubrics and Lombard majuscules in red. The sewing holes and the impressions of the sewing thread are visible in the fold (Kienhorst, Verbruikt 78).

The manuscript also includes two strips of parchment of 20 cm. in length, written in a textualis. These strips have been sewn onto the first and last quires of the book to serve as rudimentary endpapers and appear between ff. 10 and 11 and between ff. 319-320. It is not known which Latin text they are taken from, but it has been written in a textualis, including one blue Lombard majuscule, with twenty lines per page (Kienhorst, Verbruikt 78).

The Mariëndaal community is known both to have bound its own books⁸ and to have written books that were subsequently bound elsewhere (Handschriften 14). The manuscript’s cover appears to be contemporaneous (Kienhorst, “Catalogus” 89) and so the book could have been bound at Mariëndaal. This is made more likely by the fact that the paper used for the flyleaves is related to that used for the book block itself (see notes 17 and 18), which suggests that those occupied with the writing of the book were also occupied with its binding. If that is true, then the thirteenth-century pastedowns mean that the convent of Mariëndaal, though it only originated in 1419 (Handschriften 199), apparently had very old manuscripts, which could be cut up and used for binding new books. However, since it is still not entirely certain whether MS 463 was bound by the convent of Mariëndaal, this remains speculative.

The head edge of the manuscript bears an edge title in black ink: “Meester Joerdanus sermoenen.”

[OWNERSHIP MARKS]

F. 1r has a note in blue ballpoint pen reading “Mariendaal | St. Udenrode” in its upper right corner. This ownership note must date from after 1801, when the convent of Mariëndaal moved from Diest to Sint-Oedenrode (Handschriften 199). Underneath is a note in red ballpoint reading “IV 72,” which must date from after 1954, when the book was brought to the convent of Soeterbeeck, where it received this signature (Kienhorst, Verbruikt 78).

F. 2r has a medieval ownership note reading: “Item meester Jordanis sermonen Noch vijf sermonen van onser lieuer / vrouwen Een van hare opuaert <Eende van haerder puerificacien> ende op hare poetschap een. Ende een | opten Aue maria Ende een van hare visentacien . van sinte mertes | translacie. Ende sinte Jda. Dit boeck hoert toe den susteren van sinte | mariendale binnen diest Achter sinte Annen cappelle.”

F. 319v30 has a colophon reading: “Enen Aue maria voer den scriuer om gode,” imploring the reader to pray for the scribes of this manuscript.

The manuscript has been corrected after it was written, both with regard to its main text and to its rubrics. Most of these corrections and additions are marginal, though some are interlinear, and they are in black and red ink and in pencil. Most of these consist of just a few words, with the exception of three lines added in the bottom margin of f. 263v, and of a very conspicuous addition of five lines in length appearing on f. 277r, at the end of the papal constitution.

[PROVENANCE]

The manuscript, which originally belonged to the convent of Mariëndaal in Diest according to the ownership note on f. 2r, was brought to Sint-Oedenrode when that convent moved there in 1801 (Handschriften 199). This is borne out by a modern note written in blue ballpoint which reads: “Mariendaal | St Udenrode” (f. 1r1-2). In Sint-Oedenrode the book must have had shelfmark 112, because there is a sticker bearing that number on f. 1v, although it was probably originally on the spine. The book was transferred to the convent of Soeterbeeck in Deursen as late as 1954, when the two convents amalgamated (Kienhorst, Verbruikt 78), which is borne out by the fact that the spine once bore a shelf mark (which has since come off) of the kind also appearing on other Soeterbeeck manuscripts, reading “IV HAND | 72 SCHRIFT,” which was the signature the manuscript received in Deursen. In 1997, the manuscript was transferred to the library of the Radboud University in Nijmegen as part of the Soeterbeeck Collection (Van Dijk, “Handschriften” 55), where it is currently still held.

[CONTENTS]

This is a manuscript with Middle Dutch translations of 85 sermons, mostly consisting of a selection from the Opus postillarum et sermonum de tempore by Jordan of Quedlinburg’s (ca. 1300-1380), but partly also of sermons falsely attributed to that author. There is also a Middle Dutch translation of a constitution issued by antipope Benedict XIII (1328-1423) on the institution of Trinity Sunday.

[LITERATURE]¹⁴

Beer, R.W.M. de. “De Verluchting van de Soeterbeeckse Handschriften.” Kienhorst et al. 31-39. [Of which p. 38.]

“Deursen, KS: IV 72.” Database Bibliotheca Neerlandica Manuscripta. 2010. Universiteit Leiden. href="http://picarta.pica.nl/DB=3.48/XMLPRS=Y/PPN?PPN=113508573.

Dijk, Rudolf Th.M. van. “Handschriften in de Oude Bibliotheek van de Priorij Soeterbeeck.” Priorij Soeterbeeck te Deursen. Ed. Harry Tummers. Nijmeegse Kunsthistorische Cahiers 6. Nijmegen: Nijmgen UP, 2000. 55-78. [Of which pp. 76-8.]

---. Een Mnl. Handschrift met sermoenen van Jordanus v. Quedlinburg: Hs. Deursen, Klooster Soeterbeeck, IV 72. Description of the manuscript. [Unpublished.]

Handschriften uit Diestse Kerken en Kloosters. Diestsche Cronycke 6. Diest: Stedelijk Museum, 1983. [Of which no. 41, pp. 208-9.]

Herten, Marjolein van. “Overzicht Watermerken in de Soeterbeeck-Handschriften.” 27 July 2005. [Unpublished.]

Kienhorst, Hans. “Catalogus van de Handschriften.” Kienhorst et al. 49-145. [Of which pp. 88-9.]

---. Verbruikt Verleden: Handschriftfragmenten in en uit Boeken van Klooster Soeterbeeck. Nijmeegse Kunsthistorische Cahiers 17. Edam: Orange House, 2007. [Of which no. 30, pp. 78-9.]

Kienhorst, Hans, et al. Rijkdom in Eenvoud: Laatmiddeleeuwse Handschriften uit Klooster Soeterbeeck. Nijmeegse Kunsthistorische Cahiers 11. Rotterdam: Nijmegen UP, 2005.

Laar, L.J.A. van de. “Preken van Jordanus (in het klooster Mariëndaal).” Description of the manuscript. [Unpublished.]

“Nijmegen, UB: ms. 463.” Medieval Manuscripts in Dutch Collections. 17 oktober 2008. Koninklijke Bibliotheek. http://www.mmdc.nl/.

Sherwood-Smith, Maria C., et al. Repertorium van Middelnederlanse Preken in Handschriften tot en met 1550. 7 vols. Miscellanea Neerlandica 29. Leuven: Peeters, 2003-2008. [Of which vol. 6, pp. 221-5.]

Stooker, Karl, and Theo Verbeij. Collecties op Orde: Middelnederlandse Handschriften uit Kloosters en Semi-Religieuze Gemeenschappen in de Nederlanden. 2 vols. Miscellanea Neerlandica 15. Leuven: Peeters, 1997. [Of which no. 415, vol. 2, p. 142.]

Zieleman, Gerrit Cornelis. Middelnederlandse Epistel- en Evangeliepreken. Leiden: Brill, 1978. [Of which p. 3, note 12.]