rouse exhibit home | special collections exhibits | special collections home | ucla library | ucla    ©2003Regents of UC
UCLA Charles E. Young Library Department of Special Collections
Medieval Manuscripts from the Collection of Richard and Mary Rouse
ROUSE MS 2
HENRY OF FREIMAR, OSA, SERMONES DE SANCTIS. GERMANY (WINDSHEIM), 1386
Rouse MS 2

Henry of Freimar, OSA. Sermons on Saints (Sermones de Sanctis). Copied in 1386 by Brother Berthold Remlin, prior of the house of Augustinian Hermits at Windsheim near Nuremberg, Germany. Berthold added an extensive subject index which he signed and dated. He was the teacher (Lesemeister) and prior of Windsheim in 1401. He had already copied another manuscript of Henry’s sermons, now Windsheim MS 55, also with an index, in 1380. He also gave to the house Windsheim MS 56 containing the works of the Augustinian Hermit, Jordan of Saxony, and annotated several other manuscripts in the Windsheim Library.

Henry of Freimar the Elder was born in Freimar near Gotha ca. 1245. He studied in Bologna, became prior of the German Province of Augustinian Hermits in 1290-99. In 1300 he went to Paris and by 1305 was a master and lector in the Augustinian house of studies there. He returned to Thuringia in 1315 and died in Erfurt in 1340. His Sermones de Sanctis for the liturgical year, considered the most important among the thirty works he wrote, survive in ca. 50 manuscripts, of which this is one of the earliest. The sermons remain unedited today.

The present copy is in its original Windsheim binding of tawed hide stained pink over oak boards. Signed and dated by its copyist, Berthold Remlin. The manuscript is an archeological object in its original condition. It was formerly chained in the library of Windsheim and still bears its chain clasp.

R.H. & M.A. Rouse MS 2

Front view of binding of MS 2
Germany #2 of 8
previous | next

Austria

Czechoslovakia

England

France

Germany

Italy

Netherlands

Spain

Switzerland