Beschreibung:

First leaf from a copy of Nicholas of Goram, Commentary on St. Paul’s epistles to the Romans, Corinthians and Hebrews, from the Beguinage of Aarschot, Flemish Brabant, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Low Countries (probably Aarschot), early fifteenth century] Single leaf, once the first leaf of a book, then reused the wrong way around as a pastedown at the end of another book, with ‘clover leaf’ symbol then inscription “Postille fr[atr]is nycholai de gorra[m] sup[er] Ep[isto]las pauli ad Romanos ad Corinthios et ad Hebreos”, above a single column of 21 lines in a squat secretarial hand, ending “Explicit prolog[us]”, ex libris at head of page (see below), some tears, holes, scuffs and stains on three edges from brown leather once folded around leaf there, blank on reverse except for a few pencil marks, overall in fair and presentable condition, 300 by 210 mm. The presence of the ex libris “liber curie beghinarum in a[r]scot” reveals this to be from the library of the Beguinage/Begijnhof of Aarschot (founded 1259, remodelled in the seventeenth century, restored in the last century and now the site of a local museum; see Het Begijnhof van Aarschot, 1976). Beguinages were reclusive communities of religious women, found only in the Low Countries and adjacent France. They were initially founded by Dominicans who reached the Low Countries in 1224, and as the confessors and religious advisors to Joan and Margaret of Flanders and Hainaut, the Dominicans must have had a hand in securing constant support for the beguinages from these noblewomen. This leaf later in the collection of Harry and Virginia Walton of New York, but not listed by de Ricci. The use of very similar ‘clover’ marks to open the ex libris as well as the rubric here, and the similarities of the hand, opens the possibility that the parent manuscript of this leaf was written at the beguinage itself, and perhaps by a female scribe. Evidence of women taking part in any part of book-production is rare.