Art of Reading in the Middle Ages: previously digitised item
According to the colophon on folio 103rb, a scribe called Johannes Witzenhusen wrote this manuscript in 1461 in Gdańsk (Per me Johannem witczenhusen kathedralis in Gdanczk). The codex consists of 166 folios and is quite impressive (36 × 27 cm). It transmits three texts: On fol. 10ra-165vb, there is a German translation of the Revelationes of Bridget of Sweden (c. 1303–1373), the founder of the religious order of the Bridgettines. There are two other texts at the beginning of the codex: fol. 1ra-5ra contains The Letter of Rabbi Samuel to Rabbi Isaac by Irmhart Öser (incomplete), and fol. 5ra-9vb comprises the Tundalus by an anonymous author. The Relevationes of Saint Birgitta may have been first written down in Swedish, but this original version has not come down to us. All translations in the vernacular derive from the Latin version of her visions. Only 19 years after her death, Birgitta received the status of a Saint by pope Bonifaz IX (1350–1404) in 1392. Five years later, Marienbrunn Abbey was founded in Gdańsk in 1397. It was the second house of the Bridgettines and the first outside of Sweden. The colophon of Ms. germ. fol. 532 teaches us, that the text in this manuscript was translated into German in 1398 – only one year after the founding of the Bridgettines in Gdansk. It is very likely that this precious codex was associated with the Bridgettine Order in Gdańsk.
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Germany
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany
Epistel des Rabbi Samuel an Rabbi Isaac, dt. von Irmhart Öser