Two editions of De Laudib[us] sancte Crucis

Nam digiti scripto laetantur, lumina visu  Mens volvet sensu mystica verba Dei

“The fingers rejoice in writing, the eyes in seeing, and the mind at examining the meaning of God’s mystical words.”

                The first printed facsimile of a manuscript.                                                                               

351J. Hrabanus Maurus.   784-856?

Magnencij Rabani Mauri De Laudib[us] sancte Crucis opus. erudicione versu prosaq[ue] mirificum.

Phorçheim. [Pforzheim : In ædibus Thom[ae] Anshelmi., 1503.             $10,700

Folio        Aa6, Bb4, a-k6, A-B6, C4 (last leaf blank).

THIS COPY LACKING A5 & 6, Bb1 and a1. [two woodcuts of Alcuin interceding on behalf of Rabanus before Pope Gregory iv, and of Rabanus presenting his poems to the Pope; a figured dedicatory poem to Louis the Pious ].       First Edition

Types 3:109R, 4:180G; 40 lines of transcribed verse + headline, 40 lines of commentary + headline, red and black printing throughout, calligraphic woodcut initial (Proctor, fig. 24) M on title page, woodcut initials printed in red, and a figured prefatory poem, 28 carmina figurata, the first entirely xylographic, the remaining poems combining printed and xylographic letters with the versus intexti printed in red (except fig. xvi), enclosed by either woodcut figures (of the emperor, Christ, the Evangelists, Cherubim, etc.) printed in black or by Christian symbols and characters, most defined by metal rules in red.

This is a remarkable typographical achievement, probably the earliest attempt to reproduce a medieval manuscript. The greater portion of the work comprises a preface in verse and twenty-eight poems.  “Hrabanus Maurus, the abbot of Fulda, wrote in the midst of the ‘new monasticism,’ a period associated with a revival of literacy and learning. In religious and secular spheres. This ‘script culture,’ as Rosamond McKitterick has it, used the written word not only as a mode of communication but as ‘a resource, a guide, a key, and an inspiration,’ especially in the devotional practice of Christianity.

Each of the twenty-eight picture poems that form In honorem sanctae crucis explores a different theme relating to the Cross through a complex interplay of word and image. The poems each have an equal number of letters per line, written continuously like a grid. By following the letters in the usual direction for a Latin text—from left to right, top to bottom—each grid reads as one long poem. But within each grid, certain letters are also marked out with colour and drawings to form pictures. The letters that make up these pictures read as separate short poems embedded within the larger poem. As such, each page of In honorem sanctae crucis presents a puzzle of words and pictures, full of hidden and interrelated messages for the reader to decode.

Proctor, R. Index to the early printed books in the British Museum,; 11747; Adams, H.M. Catalogue of books printed on the continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge libraries,; R3; Catalogue of a collection of early German books in the library of C. Fairfax Murray,; 350; Panzer, G.W.F. Annales typographici,; VIII 227, 2; Pollard, A.W. Catalogue of books mostly from the presses of the first printers … collected by Rush C. Hawkins,; 189 Panzer, VIII, 227, no. 2. Proctor 11747. Fairfax Murray 350./ Last leaf blank./ Edited by Jakob Wimpheling.–cf. title page verso./ Illustrations: 2 woodcuts of the author presenting his book to the pope, and many woodcut figures (Christ, cherubs, crosses, symbols, etc.) printed on 28 pages of text. Some of the text within and near the outline figures is xylographic, the rest printed. The letters within the outlines are printed in red and may be read separately in a different sense. Printed in red and black, initials (except on t.p.) in red./ With label of Sinclair Hamilton. Peter Godman, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 249.

G. Rigg and G. R. Wieland, ‘A Canterbury Classbook of the Mid-eleventh CenturyAnglo-Saxon England 4 (1974), 113-30. William Schipper, ‘Hrabanus Maurus in Anglo-Saxon England: In Honorem Sanctae Crucis’, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of   Patrick Wormald, ed. Stephen Baxter, Catherine Karkov, Janet L. Nelson, David Pelteret (Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate,  

&

2)   354J Hrabanus Maurus.   784-856?

Magnencij Rabani Mauri De Laudib[us] sancte Crucis opus. erudicione versu prosaq[ue] mirificum. Cum antiqviate avctoris <annis abhinc prope octingentis abbatis primum fuldensis, archiepiscopi postea moguntini. tum noitate scriptionis memorabile. Qvo figvris sive imaginibvs XXVIII. multi fedei christianae mysteria, multi mystici numeri; angelorum, virtutum, VII. donorum Spiritus Sancti, VIII. Beatitudinum,  IV. elementorum, IV. temorum anni, VI euangelistarum & agni, mensium, ventorum, V librorum Moysis, nominis Adam, alleluia, & amen, aliarumq[ue] rerum vis & dignitas in formam crvis reedacta, subtiliter et ingeniose explicantur.

Augustæ Vindelicorvm e typographeo Praetoriano. , 1605.                           $9,000

Folio  Aa6, Bb4, a-k6, a6, B4, c4.  This is the second Printed edition which is a page for page copy of the first with all woodcuts redone and time re-set excepting for the title.  This copy is bound in full contemporary blind stamped sheep.

There is a Printers mark  on title page, woodcut initials printed in red, two woodcuts of Alcuin interceding on behalf of Rabanus before Pope Gregory iv, and of Rabanus presenting his poems to the Pope; a figured dedicatory poem to Louis the Pious and a figured prefatory poem, 28 carmina figurata, the first entirely xylographic, the remaining poems combining printed and xylographic letters with the versus intexti printed in red (except fig. xvi), enclosed by either woodcut figures (of the emperor, Christ, the Evangelists, Cherubim, etc.) printed in black or  by Christian symbols and characters, most defined by metal rules in red.

This is a spectacular collection of poems all centered on veneration and meditation upon the cross.

,

“Hrabanus created  the various shapes and figures by highlighting individual letters in underlying poens in colour (in the printed editions red), and theses individual letters together make up meaningful text , ranging from simple declarations to very elaborate ones.  For example, Carmina 2 contains a simple cross inside a square (Hrabanus calls it a “tetragonum”)whose sides form a border for the poem as a whole. The text from the underlying poem that makes up the figure consists of six hexameters, each one an address to the cross beginning with the words ‘O crux…’ When we follow Hrabanus’s instruction in the accompanying prose text for reading these hexameters, we find the following: even though the verse that forms the top of the square is also the opening of the underlying poem, he insists that we begin reading with the stem of the cross, from top to bottom.” (Schipper)

Sunt quoque uersus duo in ipsa ccruceconscripti, quorum prior est:

O CRVX QVAE SVMMI ES NOTO DEDICATA TROPAEO

a summo in ima descendens. Alter uero:

O CRVX QVAE CHRISTI ES CARO BENEDICTA TRIVMPHO

a dextra in sinistram crucis tendens ‡

‡“there are also two verses inscribed in the cross, The first of which is :

“ O cross , thou who art at the height of fame, a dedicated moment”

running from the top down.  And a second;

“O Cross thou who through the body of Christ art the blessed triumph”

running from the right to the left.”

Further more Hrabanus flips left and right the texts point of view alternates , Hrabanus tells us the cross is looking out at the reader, not the other way around. “ Only after we have read the hexameters in the cross are we free to read the verses in the four sides of the tetragon, and even then Hrabanus constrains the order in which they are to be read: first the top, then the bottom, then the right side then finally the left side.”

More complex figures present further challenges in reading. The figure in Carmen 25, for example, consists of eight letters of the word ‘ALLEVIA’ arranged around a small cross. It does not take much effort to notice that we need to start with the A, read down to the E, continue on the left, and end on the right of the figure; and that each time we trace out those letters we make the sign of the cross. It becomes more difficult when we also try and read the text that is enclosed in the figures. The letters of ALLEVIA are made of the following letters from the underlying poem.

A  crux[a

L  eter

L  na[de

E  i]es[lave[v

L  ivis

V  in]arc

I   e]po

A  lorvm

CRUX AETERNA DEI ES LAVS VIVIS IN ARCE POLORUM‡

‡ Eternal cross, thou art the praise of God, thou livest in the arc of the skies.

Peter Godman, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 249.

G. Rigg and G. R. Wieland, ‘A Canterbury Classbook of the Mid-eleventh CenturyAnglo-Saxon England 4 (1974), 113-30.

William Schipper, ‘Hrabanus Maurus in Anglo-Saxon England: In Honorem Sanctae Crucis’, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. Stephen Baxter, Catherine Karkov, Janet L. Nelson, David Pelteret (Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2009), 283-98.