Raymond of Peñafort (Saint, of Santa Margarida i els Monjos, a small town near Barcelona, Catalonia, Dominican friar, canon lawyer, c. 1175-1275) Summa de casibus poenitentialis [Summary concerning the Cases of Penance] [&] Summa de matrimonio [Summary concerning Matrimony], decorated manuscript in Latin, on vellum, 1 + 207 + 1 leaves (modern foliation in pencil), some catchwords, collation: i-ii16, iii18, iv-v16, vi20, vii16, viii20, ix16, x22, xi16, xii16 [leaf cancelled between ff. 198 and 199 with no loss of text]), written in a small gothic bookhand in dark brown ink, two columns of thirty-three to thirty-five lines, guide letters for initials, guide notes for rubrics in margins (partially cropped), red rubrics, red letters in outer margins marking subdivisions within chapters, red roman numerals on upper outer versos designating chapters, running titles in red and blue in the upper margins, one-line paraphs in red or blue, one-line initials in red or blue in tables of contents, two-line initials in red or blue with contrasting pen decoration at beginnings of chapters, three-line initial in the same style (f. 179v), four- to six-line initials in red and blue with penwork decoration in contrasting colour (ff. 1v, 48v, 88v, 179), six-line initial in same style at beginning of text (f. 1), red and blue decorated bars in lower margin (f. 1), notations in red ink in the gutter of f. 198v and the adjacent stub to guarantee the proper ordering of the leaves in quire xii, some marginal corrections by the main scribe, other occasional marginalia, cropped along upper and outer edges, slight staining and soiling in places, some slight tears in the margins with no loss of text, corrosion from nails in an earlier binding (perhaps the medieval one) leaving very small holes on ff. 204-207 with very slight loss of text, but otherwise in good condition, modern light brown morocco, spine with four raised bands. 126-128 x 83-86 mm., [Northern France], [c. 1250].

*** This is a charming pocket-sized 13th-century codex. The two texts here, the Summa de casibus and the Summa de matrimonio, were produced as complimentary collections of cases for Dominican friars to aid them in the hearing of confessions. The work was finished and disseminated in the mid-1220s, and then revised and augmented by the author in the mid-1230s, and had the De matrimonio appended as a final book. It was this second edition of the text that established the text as a cornerstone of the practical application of penance, and it survives now in more than 311 manuscripts (L: Roblès, ‘Escritores dominicos de la Corona de Aragón (siglos XIII-XV)’, Repertorio de historia de las ciencias eclesiasticas en España, III, 1971, pp. 14-33; while the first recension survives in eight manuscripts).

The present volume contains a copy of Raymond of Peñafort’s second recension of the text, and its small size suggests that it was produced for a travelling friar who referred to it when administering the sacrament of confession.

Provenance: 1. Written and decorated in northern France in the third quarter of the thirteenth century, perhaps in a Dominican foundation.

2. At the close of the Middle Ages, the book appears to have belonged to the Monsieur Briçonnet, who left his signature on f. 207: “[...?] monseyeur bryconet quy ado[...?].” He may have been a member of the celebrated Briçonnet family, many of whom occupied powerful positions in the Church and royal court in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

3. Sotheby’s, 21 June 1994, lot 87.

4. Les Ventes Damien Voglaire, auctioneers of Charleroi, Belgium, their sale 21 June 2013, lot 102.

5. Les Enluminures, their TM 736, to the present owner.