Weale, Printed and manuscript liturgical fragments collected by Weale, including from the Aberdeen Breviary

William Henry James Weale

A volume containing numerous printed and manuscript liturgical fragments, collected by Weale and with his autograph notes, including 8 leaves from THE ABERDEEN BREVIARY

folio (338 x 265mm.), with the fragments tipped in on fabric guards, including 8 conjoint leaves from the Aberdeen Breviary [Edinburgh, 1509], and several leaves from breviaries of Swedish uses, crimson buckram binding, many of the fragments with defects and glue stains, upper joint fraying

A FASCINATING COLLECTION OF LITURGICAL FRAGMENTS, both printed and manuscript, collected by the noted art and book historian William Weale (1832-1917), who converted to Catholicism under the influence of the Oxford Movement and became keeper of the National Art Library in 1890. He was also the author of the Catalogus Missalium ritus Latini (London: Quaritch, 1886; revised in 1928), the standard reference work on missals, arranged by use and order.

Some of the fragments show clear signs of having been removed from old bindings, which were an area examined by Weale while at the National Art Library and at the British Museum; he produced several volumes of rubbings from historical bindings. Most of the fragments were printed in red and black, as usual for liturgical works.

The first printers in Scotland were Andrew Myllar and Walter Chepman, who were granted a privilege by James IV in 1507. The Aberdeen Breviary was commissioned by James and prepared by James Elphinstone, bishop of Aberdeen, and Hector Boece, as a Scottish alternative to liturgical books of Sarum use, though this was the only edition printed. It survives in a handful of fragmentary copies.

The fragments comprise:

1. Aberdeen Breviary [Edinburgh: W. Chepman, 1509]. STC 15791: 8vo, an uncut sheet of 8 leaves from the pars aestivalis, quire D8, printed in red and black

2. Breviarium. Use of Le Puy (Aniciense). [Lyon, c. 1530? If so, Bohatta 1873; USTC 120995, no copies recorded]: 8vo, quire a6 (first leaf blank), b3-6, and 6 more pairs of conjoint leaves

3. Breviarium. Use of Västerås (Arosiense). [Basel: Jakob Wolff of Pforzheim, 1513]. Bohatta 1911; VD16 B 8200: 8vo, 2 leaves, a3-4 ("In adventu")

4. 2 uncut sheets containing 3 and 6 leaves respectively, from a 16mo edition

5. Breviarium. Use of Cologne (Coloniense). Five fragments tipped into the same page, from three different editions, all found in an early sixteenth-century Cologne binding

6. Breviarium. Use of Langres (Lingonense). [Paris: Simon Vostre, c. 1505? If so, Bohatta 2355]. 8vo, 4 leaves (2 cut down)

7. Breviarium. Use of Linköping (Lincopense). [Nuremberg: Georg Stuchs, 16 April 1493]. ISTC ib01164000. 8vo, 2 leaves, D3 and one other

8. Breviarium. Use of Prague (Pragense). [Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, 10 October 1517]. Bohatta 2598; Edit16 35585. 8vo, 2 leaves, m5-6

9. Breviarium Romanum. [Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 1478]. ISTC ib01112000. folio, leaf kk3, PRINTED ON VELLUM; there is a note with this stating that Weale's own defective copy (presumably now lacking this leaf) was sold to the National Art Library

10. Breviarium. Use of Sarum. [?Paris: M. Boursette, 1550s, no exact match found], 8vo, leaves k4 and k6

11. Breviarium. Use of Strängnäs (Strengnense). [Stockholm: Johannes Fabri, 18 July 1495]. ISTC ib01183000. 8vo, leaf b2

12. Missal. Use of Langres (Lingonense). [early 16th century]. 4to, 6 leaves, *2-7 containing the whole calendar, manuscript note by Weale dated London, 9 October 1880

13. Missal. Use of Sarum. [?Rouen, 27 May 1508]. folio, 3 incomplete leaves, including n3 and n4

14. Missal. Use of Rome. [Venice: Lucantonio Giunta, late fifteenth or early sixteenth-century], folio, 20 fragments pasted to 10 sheets, some with woodcuts, some staining and defects

15. Masses for St Anne and for a priest, from a Missal, one paper leaf [France; late 15th or 16th century]

16. Calendar, in French, written in red, blue, and gold, in an unusual two-column layout, two vellum bifolia, 115 x 108mm., lacking May-August [France, c.1470s]

17. Missal. folio, manuscript on paper, one leaf, containing part of the feast of the Holy Spirit

18. Poem, manuscript on paper, in Latin, probably eighteenth century

19. Votive masses for the Five Wounds, the Compassion of the Virgin, etc., manuscript on paper [France, 16th century], 4 ff. containing 5pp. of text

20. Veni sancte spiritus, from a Missal, manuscript on paper, 11 lines of text

21. Mass of St Vigilius of Trent, manuscript on paper, folio, 4pp., probably eighteenth century

22. [fragment removed, fabric guard remaining]

23. Two small printed fragments removed from a binding on a copy of Raulin, Itinerarium paradisi (Paris: Rembolt, 1518)

24. Breviarium. [Paris, early sixteenth century], 6 leaves and an uncut sheet containg 3 leaves (the uncut sheet bound after no. 25) from a 16mo edition

25. Breviarium Uppalense [Uppsala]. [Stockholm: Johannes then Anna Fabri, 30 September 1496]. ISTC ib01187000. 4to, one leaf

26. Small printed fragment on vellum from a book of hours, containing part of leaf b3

27. Sequentiary, an incomplete vellum leaf with sequences for Christmas, Epiphany, Purification, and Easter, all or part of 23 lines, with interlinear stave-less neumes [Netherlands or Germany, 13th century]

28. 2 printed leaves from a volume of lectiones, folio, fos. CCXXIII and CCXVIII, textura type, [Germany, late fifteenth century]