| StorageSite | UCL Special Collections |
| Level | Item |
| Reference Number | MS GERM/4 |
| Title | Prayer Book |
| Date | 15th century
|
| Description | Book of prayers [gebetbuch], manuscript on parchment in a limp vellum binding. 16mo size. In a 15th century gothic minuscule hand in black ink with red rubrics. Appears to be the work of a single scribe; in her 1935 list Dorothy Coveney suggests that the style and quality of the script indicates that it was written by a nun. Ornamented throughout with coloured initials of various sizes, generally worked in red and/or blue, and some with gold leaf. The text is written continuously except ff.70r-81r where it is written in 2 columns.
Written in a German dialect identified by Coveney as Alsatian. There are sketches worked in very light ink at the base of some of the folios of an intricately drawn landscape including towns, rivers and bridges. It is not clear whether the towns and features they represent are real or imagined, but Coveney suggests that they may have been intended to form a continuous panorama. Other folios have drawings in the same hand of trees and shrubs.
There are two sketches of the Madonna, one of them dated 1676, on one of the paper fly-leaves at the end of the volume, and a miniature drawing of a soldier as well as some pen trials on the final fly-leaf. None of these appear to be the work of the same person as the landscape drawings throughout the volume.
There is a 4-line annotation at the bottom of f.46r which has been erased.
Binding includes manuscript fragment strips glued into the spine. |
| Extent | 1 volume containing 87 leaves |
| Acquisition | Presented to University College London in 1911 by Professor Trouton. |
| AccessStatus | Open |
| AccessConditions | Handle with care, particularly the headband which is loose. |
| URLDescription | Coveney gives the date of the manuscript as 15th century, but Ker gives it as 16th century. |
| FindingAids | Dorothy K Coveney, 'A Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of University College London' (London, 1935), which summarises the contents of the manuscript and reproduces one of its openings, including one of the landscape sketches (Plate VI);
N R Ker, 'Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries' (London and Oxford, 1969); handlist at University College London Special Collections. |