It is the first day of the second quarter of the 21st Century, and thus a time for a fresh new start. I’ll begin here with a bit of material from a sixteenth century print – an interesting one for my current chapter-segment. This is the top of the January entry from its calendar:
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| Top of January Calendar entry with poem & images (pouring from pitcher, taking medicine [?]; roasting on a spit on the hearth) |
Multimedia, sixteenth-century style, right? Pictures and poetry, and calendar instructions, and the start of the daily list of feasts and saints. So many things to look at!
Take the short ditty that starts our page-reading:
Im Jenner man nit lassen soll. Warin feucht speyss die thut dir wol. Auff warm bad magstu haben acht. Meyd artzney ob du magst
In January, one shouldn't let things run unchecked. Warm food will do you good. Be careful with hot baths. Take medicine if you like.
Warm food, don’t take a chill, take two tablets and call me if that hangover doesn’t get better: it’s like your mom is welcoming you into the new year. Well, greetings to us all from this new century-quartile; I’m sure we all have wishes for how it will turn out. May the good ones come true!
The Teutsch Römisch Breuier of 1535
And now a bit about the book itself:
I found myself down an interesting rabbit hole as I was expanding a discussion in my current chapter. As it happens, I was curious about the circulation of memorial prayers (well, the chapter does need finishing), which took me on a brief excursus to the realm of early print. For vernacular-centric tertiary sisters of the period, there are an awful lot of liturgy-adjacent books to choose from.
This particular book interested me because the Teutsch Römisch Breuier is the first translation of the Roman Rite to circulate in regions central to my work. It is also, delightfully, a nuntastic find: the title makes explicit that it is aimed at monastic women (Klosterfrawen). Also, as the title promises, it provides a gute verteütschung, a good German translation—not only of the liturgical texts themselves, but also of the rubrics that govern their use.
In other words, it is a practical book for navigating liturgical life in the generation immediately before the edicts of the Council of Trent, when many convents were compelled to return to exclusive use of the Latin rite.
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| Title page of Teutsch Römisch Breuier in red and black |
It's a lovely and quite informative long-format title:
Teutsch Römisch Breuier vast nutzlich vnd trostlich: Nämlich den klosterfrawen, die nach dem lateinischen Römischen breuier, als die clarisserin vn[d] ander, jre tagzeit bezalen: Auch der priesterschafft weltlich vnd ordenßleüt, die Römisch breuier brauchen, so yetlicher ding der Collecte[n], Capitel, Responsen, Antiphen, vn[d] der gleich, gute verteütschung auch zu[m] gotswort dienstlich, begerte[n] … Augsburg: Alexander Weyssenhorn [=Weissenhorn], 1535. VD16 B 8092.
German Roman Breviary, very useful and comforting: Namely for the monastic women who recite their daily prayers according to the Latin Roman Breviary, such as the Poor Clares and others; also for the secular and regular clergy who use the Roman Breviary, as it contains good German translations of all matters relating to the collect, chapters, responses, antiphons, and the like, which is also useful for the service of God's word
Not only is the content of interest, so are the copies themselves. You see, both surviving copies reflect the target audience: monastic sisters! First, a bibliographic orientation:
BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE TEUTSCH RÖMISCH BREUIER (1535):
And the two surviving exemplars are
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The Munich exemplar comes from a sister of the Pütrichhaus, Susanna Gartnerin, as she says on the flyleaf:
Das pryfier [= brevier] Jst gewessen S susa / anna gartnerin jn der pitterich / reyehaus got der almachtig / pegnadt Jr hie vnd thort / ewigklich amen
This breviery belonged to Susanna Gärtner in Pitterich Regelhaus, may God Almighty bless her here and there forever, amen.
Susanna Gartnerin is an interesting case; she was a scribe and book owner (Kramer Scriptores), served the convent as librarian, and eventually became “Oberin” of the tertiary house. So she was both book- owning and book-loving, and hereby provisioned with a vernacular breviary that she could use and follow. Not a bad model for our happiest of New Years!
The Regensburg copy also was passed from sister to “mit sch[wester]” – I only wish I knew of which convent! A chain of ownership unfolds in the flyleaf area:
We actually have two different inscriptions here. The first:
Anno 1538 an sant Mathias tag hat mir mein / lieber brueder Hanns Langawi disen brevier geschickt
In the year 1538, on St. Matthias's Day, my / dear brother Hanns Langawi sent me this breviary.
And then, with a change of ink:
Jryet [=Ihr gehört?] der Barbara Sedlmaierin hatt / mirs mein liebe mit sch Richila ^obsinerin^ im Jar / 1590 den 7 Junius geschencken gott / geb mir vnd alle den Jenigen ge / nadt die es Brauche vnd eines des / ander vmb gottes wile darbey ge / denokhe mit ainen pn nr / und Ave
It belongs to Barbara Sedlmaier, and was given to me by my beloved co-sister [mitschwester] Richila Obsinerin in the year 1590 on June 7th. May God grant grace to me and to all those who use it, and may we remember one another for God’s sake with a Pater Noster and an Ave [Maria].
What we’re getting here is a chain of ownership, common to convent books. The brother of one of the sisters sent this book when it was just three years old in 1538 – practically new! -- and it passed first to Richila, and then to Barbara by 1590.
Hanns Langawi > Sister X > Richila [Richildis] Obsinerin > Barbara Sedlmaier
And along the way, how many prayers were offered, and how many different Januaries did those convent women look at the January calendar and think about the meat roasting on a spit by the fire?
Happy New Year!
RESOURCES
- Sigrid Krämer, Scriptores possessoresque codicum medii aevi (database, Augsburg: ERV, 2003–2025).
- VD16 entry: https://gateway-bayern.de/VD16+B+8092
