Penyafort, Raymond of, Saint. O.P.

Summa de casibus poenitentiae [abridged]. [Incipit:] Symonia int[er] crimina eccl[es]iastica p[ri]mu[m] optinet locum.

[England], c. 1230-50.

8vo (134 x 92 mm.). ON VELLUM. [112]p. In a single English Gothic hand (textualis libraria), 24-5 lines per page (mostly above top line), writing frame c. 100 x 63 mm., ruled in plummet, evidence of fore-edge pricking, alternating red and blue two- and four-line pen-flourished initials, majuscules touched in red, red paragraph marks (some with red and black pen flourishes), penwork line fillers, red rubrication, quire marks in red and black.

17th-century gilt brown calf, outer frame of rules and a trefoil roll, a chain roll on the left and right sides, inner frame of trefoils, daisies and lozenges, central ornament of gilt volutes, dots and foliage above and below a circle of blind fan tools, flat spine vertically gilt with the chain roll, all edges gilt over blue.

            AN UNRECORDED AND UNSTUDIED ABRIDGEMENT — POSSIBLY THE EARLIEST — OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL MEDIEVAL EXPOSITION OF THE CANON LAW OF SIN AND PENANCE. This copy is an important witness to the Summary’s immediate impact in England.
            The text addresses necromancy, witches, astrology, gambling, tournaments, duels, surgery, abortion, rape, bigamy, arson, theater, usury, sodomy, drunkenness, Jews, Muslims, heretics, armorers, crossbowmen, attorneys, fornicating clerics, prostitution, taxes, shipwrecks, inheritance, kidnapping, tavern life, concubinage…. Legal precedents, the writings of the Church Fathers and the author’s own experience inform concrete cases of conscience.
            A distinguished canon law professor and the compiler of Pope Gregory IX’s influential Decretals, Penyafort (1175/85-1275)  originally wrote the Summary of Cases of Penance between 1222 and 1225 for Dominican confessors in Barcelona before revising and augmenting the work in 1234.
            Only a dozen codices preserve the first redaction of 1222-5, on which our text is based. The rest of the over three hundred known manuscripts of the Summary descend from the recension of 1234. Most extant copies are large-format codices freighted with commentary, marginalia and legal references — an incarnation of the text that quickly became ubiquitous in medieval universities. Stripped of citations and explanations, our compact, practical and portable codex most likely served simple clerics.
            In good condition (scattered light hand soiling, a few ascenders shaved at the top, catchwords partly trimmed, original vellum flaws in a half-dozen leaves — one repaired with stitches); bookplate of Antoine Mouradian (1939-). My thanks to Prof. M. Michèle Mulchahey for her invaluable assistance.
¶Schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts II: 410-3; Pennington, “Summae on Raymond de Pennafort’s ‘Summa de Casibus’ in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich” in Traditio 27 (1971) 471-80; Kuttner, “Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Summa de casibus poenitentiae des hl. Raymund von Penyafort” in Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 39 (1953) 419-34; Robles, Escritores dominicos de la corona de Aragón 14-48; see Teetaert’s “La ‘Summa de Penitencia’ de Saint Raymond de Penyafort” in Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses 5 (1928) 49-72.

Item #12074

Price: $115,000.00