An opening page featuring Gothic script with the title 'Lavacrum consciencie omnibus sacerdotibus perutile' from a 1495 publication.

448J. Jacobus de Gruytrode

Lavacrum conciencie [sic] omnibus sacerdotibus perutile

Lyptzck [Leipzig] : Gregor Böttiger, 1495.             Price $9,900

An open ancient book displaying handwritten notes and text in Latin, showcasing its scholarly nature and historical significance.

Quarto  12 x 9 cm. Signatures: a8 b-p6 q8.[Errors in foliation: lxxxviiii-xcviii foliated xc-xcviiii, with xc as cxi, xciiii as cxv]  Blank initial spaces. Bound in half leather of the 19th century, with quite a bit contemporary marginalia.

Open ancient book displaying Latin text with handwritten marginal notes.

This “Soap of the Conscience” is filled with morally instructive stories intended to keep priests faithful to their vows and safe from worldly temptations, lest they suffer the “harshest punishments” of hell. In this work he tries in numerous moral and instructive stories to prove the nullity of worldly joys.

Open pages of a vintage book with handwritten annotations, displaying text in a Gothic typeface.

   Born in Gruitrode ca. 1400-10, Jacobus van Eertwach was a Carthusian monk who served as an abbot of the prior of the Liege from 1440 until his death in 1475, during which time he produced numerous works of spiritual guidance for both clergy and laypersons.  This treatise against immorality, especially the priests, which was first published in Nuremberg around 1488 and was attributed to Charterhouse, who died in 1482, with short stories and some German proverbs (e.g. on page XIIIv  On women and on “wein mag nyemant frolich gesein “ 

Open book pages featuring Latin text with marginalia, possibly from a 15th-century manuscript.
Detail of a manuscript page with handwritten notes and text in Latin, featuring margin annotations.

Although today the work is generally attributed to the Carthusian monk of German origin, Jacob von Gruytrode.     According to Theodor Petreius, Bibliotheca Cartusiana (Cologne, 1609), the actual author is Johannes Meskirchius  (Messkirch, d. 1511), a monk at the charterhouse of Güterstein near Stuttgart (for Messkirch see R. Deigendesch, ‘Bücher und ihre Schenker – Die Bücherlisten der Kartause Güterstein in Württemberg’, in S. Lorenz, ed., Bücher, Bibliotheken und Schriftkultur der Kartäuser. Festgabe zum 65. Geburtstag von Edward Potkowski, Stuttgart 2002, pp. 93-115. BMC assigns authorship to Jacobus de Gruytrode

ISTC il00099000  Goff L99; IBP 3382; Madsen 2157; Voull(B) 1383; Günt(L) 1205; Hubay(Würzburg) 1187; Pad-Ink 375; Wilhelmi 387; BSB-Ink L-71.050; GW 1388; 

Not in Hain, BMC, STC et c.

Two US Copies :  

Library of Congress 

and U Cal Law library.  https://data.cerl.org/istc/il00099000

Open antique book with handwritten notes and printed Latin text, showcasing two pages of a historical treatise.