Add MS 38004

"OMELIE dominicales per circulum anni": sermons on the Sunday Gospels, by Caesarius of Heisterbach (d. circ. 1240), containing a great number of illustrative tales, with allusions to contemporary history, civil and ecelesiastical. Many of these had already been used by Caesarius in his often printed Dialogus Miraculorum (e.g. see f. 26 b, "De his in dyalogo nostro distinctione septima plenius tractatum est"), and some appear also in his now fragmentary Libri viii. Miraculorum (ed. Meister, 1901). The sermon for the 2nd Sunday in Advent contains the phrase "Anno vero presenti, qui est M^o CC^o XXV^o ." (f. 7 b); and in his own catalogue of his writings (see A. E. Schönbach in the Vienna Academy's Sitzungsberichte, phil.-hist. Classe, Bd. cxliv., 1902, Abh. ix. p. 8) Caesarius puts this series of homilies next after the Dialogus, which he finished about 1222-4 (See Cat. of Romances, iii. pp. 348-9). They are preceded here by 8 leonine hexameters, beg. "Hie lege tu qui vis quibus influat vnetio riuis," and by the usual "Prologus Cesarii," beg. "Botrus cipri dilectus meus mihi." f. 1. This prologue is prefixed by J. A. Coppenstein to Homiliae Dominicales ven. fr. Caesarii, 1615, pt. ii.; and he prints all the sermons, but in a different order, beginning with the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany instead of the lst Sunday in Advent. In the present MS. the sermons, many of which are headed "Omelia Cesarii ad monachos," begin " Inicium euangelii ihesu christi......... Marcus sciens scriptum in hiereinia." f. 1 b. The first 8 (to the end of Advent, ff. 1 b-18 b) are in Coppenstein, pt. iii. pp. 159-190; the next 25 (2nd Sund. aft. Epiphany to Ascension Day, ff. 18 b- 84 b) in pt. ii. pp. 1-123; and the remainder in pt. iii. pp. 1-159. A leaf has been cut out after f. 76 (3rd [4th] Sund. aft. Easter, cf. Coppenstein, pt. ii. pp. 107-9). Vellum ; ff. ii. + 171. 16 in. x 11½ in. xv. cent. In double columns, with initials and headings in red. Bound in wooden boards covered with stamped pigskin. Phillipps MS. 451 (sale-cat. 1910, lot 168), from the library of Leander van Ess, where it was numbered 66. Formerly belonged to the monastery of St. James "in Monte Specioso," near Mainz (see Phillipps folio cat.), to which the press-mark F xvii., on the back and on a label pasted outside the cover, doubtless refers. Later press-marks are G. 1 outside the cover and A. 8 and 10 inside.

Caesarius, of Heisterbach: Homiliae dominicales: 15th cent.

Bindings GERMAN: Wooden boards covered with stamped pigskin: 15th cent.