About the Border Image
THE image on the border for my home page is taken from a Low German prayer book from the fourteenth century. Prayer books for personal devotion had their origins with the Benedictine monks during the tenth century. Initially such works were, on account of cost, available only to a small number of people, but during the course of the thirteenth century, the use of prayer books by the laity became more common. Of particular importance were collections of Psalms and Hours. These works contained the seven penitential psalms, along with the offices -- Matins, Laudes, Prim, Terz, Sext, Non, the Vespers and Compline. Early prayer books were produced in Latin, but by the end of the thirteenth century vernacular works begin to appear.
THE first German prayer book was that prepared for Queen Agnes of Hungary (d. 1364), the daughter of the Habsburg emperor Albrecht I. The use of vernacular prayer books by both laity and clergy reflected the growing importance of sermons in the later Middle Ages, and there is a close connection between the tone, style and content of many late medieval prayer books and popular sermons. A large number of sermons and prayer books were influenced by German mysticism, in particular the variety of mysticism practiced in convents under the influence of Johannes Tauler and the so-called "Friends of God" (Gotesfreunde). There are similarities between the sort of symbolism found in the works of German mystics and that present in fourteenth century German devotional texts, above all in the elevation of the eucharistic cult.
LATE fourteenth century Low German prayer books and devotional works are generally associated with one of the most important religious movements of the later Middle Ages, the Devotio Moderna. This was a movement that centered around a group of pious laymen called the Brothers of the Common Life. The Brothers were organized by Gerard Groote (1340-1384) around 1370 in the Netherlands. The movement quickly spread throughout northern Europe and counted most of the figures from the early Reformation among its members.
THE work pictured here comes from the diocesan archive in Trier (Bistumsarchiv Trier, Hs. Nr. 528). It was written during the second half of the fourteenth century on parchment. The volume comprises 238 folia and is 15 X 11 cm in size. The page pictured below is from fol. 12b. The text is transcribed below. The scribe commonly uses a line above a preceding vowel to denote an n or m. Likewise, ver and unde are frequently abbreviated. Letters missing or abbreviated in the manuscript are set in brackets. Punctuation and parentheses have been added for clarity.
Source: Ein Niederdeutsches Gebetbuch aus der Zweiten Hälfte des XIV Jahrhunderts. ed. Axel Mante. Lund-Kopenhagen, 1960.