Fabr. 28 2°: Vitae sanctorum

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Fabr. 28 2°: Vitae sanctorum

Parchment, 115 ff. (I + 14×IV + 1), c. 25 x 17 cm; Germany, saec. XV

The codex belonged to the Austin Canons of Marienwold (Marienwald, Monasterium nemoris beatae Mariae ordinis canonicorum regularium) in Frenswegen, founded 1394

The codex contains 11 narratives about 12 saints, 8 male and 4 female, most of them figures of the fourth Century, renowned as pioneers of Christian monastic life. Some narratives are old translations of Greek sources, amongst them the longest text in the volume, the life of Pachomius, translated by Dionysius Exiguus. Others were written in Latin, such as the long letter addressed by St Jerome to Eustochium on the occasion of the death in 404 of her mother, Paula (ep. 108). The 11 texts have not been copied in the book according to the saints’ feastdays nor, as it seems, according to any other organizing principle. Following their occurrence in the manuscript the 12 saints are: Hilarion, Malchus monachus, Epictetus presbyter & Astion monachus, Abraham eremita, Pelagia, Paulus primus eremita, Paula, Maria Aegyptiaca, Euphrosyna, Pachomius abbas and Frontonius abbas. The latter is named Fronto in the incipit, explicit and page headings, but Frontonius in the text proper

A fragment of a parchment leaf has been used as pastedown at the front of the late medieval binding. It contains the text of the Liber de Sancti Anselmi similitudinibus (in some manuscripts ascribed to Eadmer) from caput III (De sensibus animae), ad discernendum quid sit, to caput V (De obedientia), et ad ea volendum, ac deinde hominis sensus (PL 159, col. 605). Enclosed in the volume there is a tool for readers with a wheel with numbers I to IV, made of parchment

In the 17th and 18th centuries the volume was owned by Marquard Gude (1635-1689), Johann Albert Fabricius (1668-1736), and Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768), Fabricius’ son-in-law and heir to his collection of manuscripts. The collection was bought as an ensemble by the University Library of Copenhagen in 1770. The entire collection of manuscripts of the University Library was incorporated into the Royal Library in 1938

Bibl.: Paul Lehmann, Skandinavische Reisefrüchte, II, in: Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen XXII 1935, p. 22f. ('s. XV'). - La vie latine de saint Pachôme, éd. critique par H. van Cranenburgh, Bruxelles 1969, p. 55 & passim (siglum y). - Seminaire de E.N.S., Les vies latines de sainte Pélagie [1 & 2], Recherches Augustiniennes, 12, 1977, p. 296, & 15, 1980, p. 286f. (no. 53). – Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz. Ergänzungsband I: Sigrid Krämer, Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters, Teil 1, München 1989, p. 263. - Irene Stahl, Die Handschriften der Klosterbibliothek Frenswegen, Wiesbaden 1994, p. 46f., no. 5. - Erik Petersen, Intellectum Liberare. Johann Albert Fabricius - en humanist i Europa. København 1998, p. 1049

Erik Petersen