Helsinki, National Library, C.IV.10. Dominican breviary with psalter Cataloguer Jesse Keskiaho Finnish Literature Society (SKS) Codices Fennici Creative Commons BY 4.0 Helsinki National Library C.IV.10 Saec. XIII 2/3, England? (prov. the Dominican convent in London, saec. XIV 2/4 [c. 1326?]; the Nordic countries, saec. XV; diocese of Turku saec. XV 4/4 or XVI¼ at the latest) Two probably originally distinct but roughly contemporary books (I–II, copied by three scribes, A–C): a psalter and a Dominican breviary.

I: Psalter

Fols. 7r–76va, Psalter, with additional hymns, concluding with Te Deum.

[7r] Beatus uir qui non abiit... [76va] sedit in gloria.

Fols. 76vb–77vb, the Athanasian Creed.

[76vb] Quicumque uult saluus esse... [77vb] saluus esse non poterit.

Fols. 77vb–80v, litany and other prayers.

[77vb] Kyrieleison. Christe, Christe audi uos ... [79vb] ... Dominus uobiscum, Et cetera. [80ra] Oratio. Deus qui corda fidelium ... [80vb] ... Oratio. Fidelium deus omnium conditor ... Per omnia secula seculorum, Amen.

The book has been modified (saec. XIV) for English use; see the additions to the litany on fol. 78r–v, esp. St Edward and St Winifred. St Thomas is added after St Francis on fol. 78v, probably Thomas Becket rather than Aquinas.

II: Dominican breviary

Fols. 1r–6v, English Dominican calendar (Jan.–Dec.).

Fols. 81r–242v, 276r–312r; <hi rend="italic">proprium de tempore</hi>, defect; from the First Advent to the First Sunday after Trinity, and from septuagesima in mensis Augusti to the 25th Sunday after Trinity.

[81r] Notandum quod per ... [242v] ... [lectio] VIa Ivit igitur Azael in occursum| [276r] [LXX .i. mensis Augusti] |eius, homines secum munera ... [313ra] ... ulterius repetanda.

Fols. 313ra–318v, Office for the dedication of a church.

[313ra] De officio dedicationis. Notandum quod in ... terminentur cum alleluia.

Fols. 243r–275v, 319r–334v, 353r–v, 335r–352v, 354r–371r; <hi rend="italic">proprium de sanctis</hi>, defect; from the beginning up to the office of Mary Magdalene, with a misplaced leaf, fol. 353, at translatio B. Dominici, and, after several missing gatherings, the end of commune sanctorum.

[243r] In quacumque die ... [275vb] ... non es confusus am|[ 319r]putare in femina ... [334vb] ... Ad matutinum inuitatorium. Assunt dominici leta sollempnia [353r] laude multiplici plaudat ... [353v] ... responsorium nonum in odoris. [335r] Ad laudes et ad alias ... [348vb] Sancte Marie Magdalene ... [352v] ... et capillis capitis sui | [354r] Yadum nomine qui iminente ... [371r] ... fit officium in conuentu.

Fol. 371v, originally empty, with office for St Ursula added in a hand of saec. XIV.

[371v] In festo sancte ursule martyris et uirginis ad uesperas capitulum. Multe filie ...

The Dominican nature of part II is most clearly seen in the presence of totum duplex feasts of the order’s saints (see e.g. translatio B. Dominici on fols. 3v, 334v and 335r–v; Peter the Martyr on fols. 2v, 327ra–328va). The breviary itself is generally Dominican, but it has been intended for use in England, as can be seen from the calendar, with a number of English feasts, which, however, cannot be found in the extant sanctoral cycle of the breviary: 19.1. St Wulfstan, three lessons; 18.3. St Edward, simplex; 20.3. St Cuthbert, memoria; 19.5. St Dunstan, three lessons; 26.5. St Augustine of Canterbury, nine lessons; 17.6. St Botulph, three lessons; 22.6. St Alban, three lessons; 23.6. St Ethelreda, memoria; 2.7. St Swithun, with the grade erased; 7.7. translation of St Thomas Becket, totum duplex; 16.11. St Edmund, nine lessons; 20.11. St Edmund king and martyr, totum duplex.

The calendar seems to allow a rather precise dating to the middle of the thirteenth century: the terminus post quem is set by the inclusion (in the calendar) of St Edmund of Abingdon, archbishop of Canterbury, canonised in 1247, while the calendar and the breviary proper ignore the Dominican anniversary of the order’s buried members (7.7.), adopted in general councils between 1263 and 1266, and St Richard Wych, bishop of Chichester (3.4.), canonised in 1262, which provide rough termini ante quem (see Maliniemi 1944, 383–385).

The present manuscript has several additions, which provide information on the binding together of parts I and II and the later provenance of the book. In the early fourteenth century the book belonged to a London Dominican (fol. 6r: ‘[5.11.] Dedicacio ecclesie fratrum predicatorum londinensium totum duplex’; the hand also added the feast of St Thomas Aquinas 7.3. on fol. 2r, which seems to date him: Thomas was canonized in 1323 and his feast was added to the order’s calendar in 1326). The same hand or one much like it wrote several additions to part I (see e.g. fols. 7v, 9r, 78va).

A hand of saec. XV has added Scandinavian feasts (fol. 1v: ‘[4.2.] Ansgarii simplex’ and ‘[15.2.] Sigfridi duplex’), and a different, if probably not much later, hand a series of votive masses introduced in the diocese of Turku in the late fifteenth century (fol. 1v: ‘[23.2.] Missa votiva de trinitate’; fol. 3r: ‘[26.5.] Missa votiva [de beata virgine]’; fol. 4v: ‘[26.8.] Missa votiva de angelis’; fol. 6r: ‘[20.11.] Missa votiva [de] omnibus sanctis’). The addition on fol. 5r of St Wenceslaus (28.9.), three lessons, in a hand of saec. XIV–XV (in Scandinavia the saint had a feast only at Turku and Linköping, so Malin 1925, 104), suggests that while only the votive masses definitively situate the book there, the book may have been in the diocese of Turku already earlier in the fifteenth century.

Several other additions (see e.g, 80v, 347v–349r, 371r–v) testify to the book’s regular use in the middle ages.

 parchment (2 [a–b] paper) 371 + 2 fols. 11 15 7-8 10,5-12 part I: 7 × 10,5–11, part II: 8 × 12 Modern foliation throughout the book in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of every fifth folio. 1[a] + III6 + 6VI78 + I80 + 9IX242 + VI254 + (XI–1)275 + IX293 + VIII309 + (V–1)318 + (IX–2)334 + IX352 + 1353 + IX371 + 1[b] Quire signatures (an alphabet and Arabic numeral, c3 to g7) added (saec. XIV?) to part I on fols. 30v, 42v, 54v, 66v (subsequently erased) and 78v, suggesting that it was by this time bound with a calendar (as it would be quire a1), perhaps the present one. Part I comprises fols. 7–80, part II fols. 1–6 and 81–371. A bifolium (fols. 79–80) has been added to part I before or on the occasion of its being bound with part II (possibly to replace a missing or defective quire?) In part II feast days have been written in red in the upper margins.

Part II has been copied on thin and very finely finished parchment, while the support of I is rather coarse. At the time of the 19th-century rebinding the leaves were extensively trimmed. At some point the outer edges of the folia have been treated with a dark brown substance that stains the hands of the readers and through them the pages. This ought to have happened after the leaves were last trimmed, but some of the erasures impinge on the staining (see e.g. fol. 3r).

 26 (I: 22) lines in two columns, ruled in lead (I: ink); pricking not visible.

I: Gothic bookhand written by two scribes, B (fols. 7r–78v) and C (fols. 78r–80v); II: Gothic bookhand written by one scribe (A); with several additions in various hands writing bookhand and cursive. Hands A and B appear roughly contemporary, while C has a slightly later (saec. XIV?) look and is of distinctly lower quality.

Two grades of pen-flourished lombards for section openings; within sections, prayers and songs are marked with smaller lombards without flourishing; painted alternately red and blue (A: e.g. 81r, 82r; B: e.g. fol. 7r). The highest-grade flourished lombards in part I are of better quality than those in part II, although the general impression of part II is that it displays a higher quality. There seem to have been two artists working on the flourishing in part II, with a clear difference in skill: compare the inferior work on fols. 81–152, 310–318, 243–275 and 319–353 with the better quality on fols. 153–243, 354–371. The two may have worked together on fols. 276–309, cf. the red and blue flourishing on e.g. fols. 295v–296r. The decoration in the part copied by scribe C is the roughest, with small lombards in red and blue and larger blue lombards without flourishing.

Nineteenth-century rebinding in leather with raised bands; black laquer finish with gilding. The spine reads, erroneously, ‘Missale’, and the front cover has been blind-tooled with the National Library’s stamp. It is likely that the disorder of the contents arose on the occasion of this rebinding, executed after the book entered the library’s collections in 1862.

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Two books produced at roughly the same time, if probably not in the same place: part II is a Dominican book copied for English Dominicans, perhaps by commercial stationers, given the uniformity of the result, while part I is a psalter that in the early fourteenth century was modified for English Dominican use. By this time the two parts had been bound together and were in the possession of a London Dominican. The book seems to have spent some time in England, but had found its way to the Nordic countries, probably Sweden, by the fifteenth century. Although it may have arrived before, it can be securely localised to the diocese of Turku by the end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century, through the addition of the votive mass days particular to the diocese. It is possible that the movements of the book are explicable through the movements of Dominican preachers, but once in the diocese of Turku the book was probably used by a parish priest.

Several additions testify to the medieval provenance of the book; for these see Contents, above.

On the inside of the front cover, the blue stamp of the Helsinki University Library (now National Library), and on the inside of the back cover (in pencil) “Konkord. 1862.A.9” and the current shelfmark (in ink): “C.IV.10”. The book was found in an unknown parish church in Satakunta by student David Skogman in 1861 (see Skogman 1864, where the book is not explicitly mentioned; the only parish where he reports having found manuscripts was Sastamala, at 129) and donated to the Finnish Literature Society, which in turn donated it to the then University Library in 1862 (see the protocols of the society in Suomi 2:2, 1864, 221 and 242; Maliniemi 1944, 383 n. 2).

 Jesse Keskiaho, ‘Bortom fragmenten. Handskriftsproduktion och boklig kultur I det medeltida Åbo stift’, Historisk Tidskrift för Finland 93, 209–252. Aarno Maliniemi, ”Englantilaisperäinen 1200-luvun dominikaanibreviarium Suomessa”, Historiallinen arkisto 50 (1944), 378–387. Daniel Skogman, ’Kertomus matkoiltani Satakunnassa muisto-juttuja keräämässä’, Suomi 2:2 (1864), 123–162. Encoding added