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Description
Title from printed catalog. Support: Parchment. Script: Hybrida. Layout: Collation beginning at f. 2: 1⁶ 2-20⁸. Catchwords, cropped, in a noting hand in the lower right corner; on f. 103v, which is followed by the woodcut of the Ascension, the "catchword" is "dy auffart." Quire signatures in arabic numerals in the lower right corner of the first leaf of the gathering. On the four quires containing all the woodcuts but one, ff. 80-111, the leaves of the first half of the gathering bear sequential letters of the alphabet as signatures: ff. 80-83, a-d; ff. 88-91, e-h; ff. 96-99, i-m; ff. 104-107, n-q. Ruled space, 72 x 50 mm. 17-18 long lines, frame ruled in ink. Decoration: Two hand-produced drawings, and eighteen woodcuts known as the "Nonnberg Passion" printed directly on the frame ruled leaves of the quires (rather than being separate sheets affixed to the pages, or separate leaves tipped into the quires), ca. 93 x 63 mm., colored with an opaque water based paint, and numbered in contemporary roman numerals in red ink in the upper margin (this numbering also includes the drawing on f. 92v, but not that on f. 157v). Because of the varying lengths of the prayers, the illustrations occur irregularly on versos and rectos. The woodcuts are similar to a series of 27 Passion woodcuts in London, British Museum, Dept. of Prints and Drawings, 1856-10-11-1 through 28, which are printed on parchment, accompanied by prayers in German, and dated 1457. For a description of this series, see C. Dodgson, Catalogue of Early German and Flemish Woodcuts preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (London 1903), A 7; for reproductions, see C. Dodgson, Woodcuts of the XV Century in the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum (London 1934), nn. 48-75, pl. 10-14. Both the Huntington and the British Museum series bear relationships to the work of Albrecht Pfister, as suggested by H. C. Schulz, "Albrecht Pfister and the Nürnberg Woodcut School," Gutenberg Jahrbuch (1953) 39-49. The woodcuts of HM 195 are reproduced in G. Gugenbauer, Inkunabeln der Graphik in den Klosterbibliotheken Ober-österreichs und Salzburgs. Einblattdrucke des Funfzehnten Jahrhunderts, ed. P. Heitz, v. 35 (Strasbourg 1913) 29-32 and nn. 9-26; full descriptions of the woodcuts are given in W. L. Schreiber, Handbuch der Holz- und Metallschnitte des XV Jahrhunderts (Leipzig 1926) with references to the reproductions in Gugenbauer as Heitz v. 34 (sic). Assigned Date: s. XVmed. Input into Digital Scriptorium by: C. W. Dutschke, 11/24/2009. Cataloged from existing description: C. W. Dutschke with the assistance of R. H. Rouse et al., Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino, 1989). Bound, s. XVIII, in vellum over pasteboards with 2 fore edge ties; title on the front cover "Beichtbüchlin __?___." HM 195. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
Extent
ff. iii + 159 (1 = contemp. flyleaf) + iii : illustrations (woodcuts), parchment ; 74 x 109 mm.
Written in Bavaria on the basis of the dialect and the origin of the woodcuts, in the middle of the fifteenth century; the dates 1433 and 1435 on ff. 53 and 70 are thought to be the dates of translation of the texts rather than the dates of transcription. Belonged to the Benedictine abbey of Nonnbergin the diocese of Salzburg, where it apparently bore the pressmark 26.A*.11 (not in the book). Prayers occasionally use feminine forms. Inscriptions include: on the front pastedown,"1623L" and an erasure; on f. iii verso,"Auss der Nunbergerisch Librerei" (now partially erased); on f. 1, the date 1584, the motto"Mein vertrauen steet in Cristo all __cropped___," and erased name and the title, s. XVIII,"Beichtbüchlin __?___"; on f. 159v, a count of the leaves. The book remained in Nonnberg until at least 1913 when it was studied by Gugenbauer (see above). Schreiber's work, dated 1926, still places the book in Nonnberg; however, Huntington Library records show that the book, acquired by Henry E. Huntington from Maggs, was accessioned in February 1926.
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