Lot 35: A 15th-century Breviarum Minorum from the library of an accused Episcopalian heretic

[MANUSCRIPT]

Breviarum [Romanum ad usum fratrum] Minorum. [Spine title]. Likely Southern Netherlands (though N.B. annotated in Italian at the end): 1446, dated here from the calendrical calculator at the rear. Bound in shagreen with metal fittings, an Irish bookbinding, the binder's name obscured by rubbing to the endpaper on which their name was stamped in gilt, but the address is still visible as 7 Castle Street Dublin; the rear cover with the blind-stamped seal of Alexander Penrose Forbes, Bishop of Brechlin, dated October 18th, 1847, the spine lettered Breviarium Minorum; all edges gilt, richly gauffered with concentric rectangles of red and blue painted on all three edges. 4 5/8 x 3 1/8 inches (11.75 x 8 cm); manuscript on vellum written in several Gothic bookhands in black and red, 543 ff., initials in blue and red. ff. 99r-105 contain a calendar; the final three leaves bear a Computus, a calendrical calculator for Easter dates, the recto of the first leaf of this portion with early instuctional notes in Italian, the margin of the first calculator leaf with the date 1446 (presumably the date at which this section of the manuscript was prepared). Joints worn, some leaves in the first section (approximately 50 ff.), pale with some loss of ink, occasional minor staining and soiling elsewhere in the manuscript, generally in sound condition.

A very extensive breviary (probably intended for Franciscan use), assembled—though likely at a very early date—from multiple component parts, presumably prepared at different locations and dates. Such accreted breviaries are an interesting phenomenon; a similar example is shown at , but the present specimen is far more extensive, with a substantially more diverse range of components. The first 99 ff. section of Psalms seems a little earlier than the rest of the work; it opens with a 18-line versal "P", and has a brief plainchant notation in the lower margin, and the second leaf also is elaborate and quite attractive. This first section is written as a single column of 27 lines. The Calendar (99r-105) has an early added entry for St. Anthony of Padua, apparently in the same hand that added the annotations in Italian to the Computus leaf at the end of the manuscript, so the manuscript must have seen use in Italy early on, though it does not appear to be Italian. After the calendar, the manuscript becomes two-column for the remaining 400-odd leaves, typically with 22-27 lines to the leaf. Several distinct hands are represented. Again, despite the occasional notes in Italian, the sections of the ms. are seem far more likely to have originated in the Low Countries.

The binder who bound the work for Alexander Penrose Forbes probably did the elaborate gauffering and painting of the text block. Forbes was a Scottish Episcopalian clergyman of prominence, Bishop of Brechin from 1847 until his death in 1875. An Oxford graduate, he was associated with John Henry Newman, Edward Pusey, and John Keble in the Oxford Movement. He was, at one point, prosecuted for heresy, though he was acquitted with a censure. His seal on this book reads "The Seal of Alexander Penrose Forbes D.C.L. Bishop of Brechlin Octr. 28th 1847."