The
Missale Nidrosiense and the
Breviarium Nidrosiense came out only a few weeks apart, the
Missale in May 1519 in Copenhagen and the
Breviarium in July 1519 in Paris.
1 The colophon of the Missale dates the final day of printing, 25 May 1519, and similarly the Breviarium is dated 4 July in its colophon. Both works are found in a modern digital edition: Breviarium Nidrosiense, ed. I. Sperber and introduction by E. Karlsen and S. Hareide (Oslo, 2019) (<bokselskap.no/boker/breviarium/titlepage>, accessed 8 March 2022) and Missale Nidrosiense, ed. I. Sperber and introduction by E. Karlsen and S. Hareide (Oslo, 2019) (<bokselskap.no/boker/missale/part1>, accessed 8 March 2022). The introductions by Hareide and Karlsen provide useful surveys of their contents. They were designed for different purposes, and so they differ considerably in their exterior appearance. The
Breviarium is a small, thick book, 451 leaves in octavo. It was meant for the clergymen’s personal use, a liturgical manual containing prayers and texts for the priests to use in the service outside mass for private praying. The
Missale, on the other hand, contains the prayers and texts to be used in the mass itself and is meant to be placed at the altar. This is a large, stately book in folio (303 leaves).
Even though the
Missale was published first, the preparation of the
Breviarium appears to have been completed some years earlier. Valkendorf’s preface to the
Breviarium is only preserved in one of the surviving copies, and it is dated 1 April 1516 in Nidaros.
2 The Royal Library, Copenhagen, 28a. It was not originally part of the copy in question, however, but has been glued into it at a later stage. Here the
Breviarium is referred to as finished, indeed printed. On this basis it has been suggested that the
Breviarium was already published in an otherwise unknown first edition in 1516 and that the 1519 edition was a second edition. Though this is unlikely, the date of this preface implies that the
Breviarium had in fact been ready for publication in 1516, albeit possibly in a less comprehensive version than the one eventually published in 1519, and apparently sent all the way to Nidaros for Valkendorf to inspect.
3 ‘This is the unsolved problem of the Nidaros Breviary. Was a first edition finished, and bound, ready for the Archbishop’s inspection, on April 1, 1516?’ (L. Gjerløw, ‘The Breviarium and the Missale Nidrosiense (1519)’, in H. Bekker-Nielsen et al. (eds), From Script to Book. A Symposium (Odense, 1986), pp. 50–77, at p. 56).Valkendorf’s information in the two prefaces about the members of the Nidaros Chapter involved in the production of the books also confirms that the Breviarium was prepared before the Missale. One of the collaborators on the Breviarium was Dean Peter Stut, who died in 1515, while his successor as dean Olav Engelbrektsson (c. 1480–1538) oversaw the Missale.
The
Breviarium Nidrosiense was printed in Paris by two accomplished printers, Jean Kerbriant and Jean Bienayse, who collaborated on several liturgical publications in this period.
4 Gjerløw, ‘The Breviarium and the Missale Nidrosiense (1519)’, p. 57. In fact, the
Breviarium itself gives us a glimpse into the prolonged process from the first contact between Nidaros and Paris to the finished product. In his preface Valkendorf himself tells us that he, after having commissioned his dean and arch-dean to produce a revised copy, had asked his secretary, Canon Johannes Rev (Hans Ræff), to see to the printing in Paris.
On the very last pages of the book, we find a postscript written by Johannes Rev and addressed to Valkendorf dated 1 July 1519. Rev is proud of having accomplished the task given to him by Valkendorf and looks back upon his enterprise in the Parisian book world on behalf of Valkendorf:
And since I was not myself sufficiently experienced in the art of printing, I sought advice and help from the excellent and highly learned Jodocus Badius, who directed me to the experienced and skilled printers Jean Kerbriant, also known as Huguelin, and Jean Bienayse. By their diligent labour our work has been brought to the fortunate conclusion that has been so wished for. I ask you to receive it in a friendly spirit dedicated as it is to your most excellent and auspicious name to which it owes its entire existence, and to distribute it to your clergy whom you have thereby bound to eternal obedience and willingness to serve. […] Goodbye, most worthy archbishop. From the printing office of the aforementioned printers in Paris, on 1 July 1519.
5 ‘In qua re, quia impressorie artis non satis eram peritus, usus sum consilio et adiutorio optimi et doctissimi viri Jodoci Badij Ascensij: qui nobis peritos et solertes impressores Joannem kerbriant alias Hugueli, et Joannem bienayse delegit. Quorum opera et accuratione opus nostrum ad felicem faustumque ac plurimum optatum sortitum est exitum: quod excellentissimo et auspicatissimo nomini tuo, cui totum debetur, dicatum benigno supercilio suspicias precamur cleroque tuo, quem eo nomine eternis obsequijs ac beneficijs deuinxisti, impertias. […] Vale archiepiscope dignissime. Ex chalcographia prescriptorum impressorum apud parrhisiorum luteciam ad Calendas Julias: anno salutis M.d.xix.’ (J. Rev’s postscript, Breviarium Nidrosiense (Paris 1519), fol. 305v).Here we learn that the contact between Valkendorf’s trusted secretary Johannes Rev and the two printers of the Breviarium had been established by Jodocus Badius, the Parisian printer who had published Saxo’s History of Denmark in 1514. Valkendorf, in other words, appears to have made use of his acquaintance with Badius which went back to the preparation a few years earlier of Christiern Pedersen’s edition of Saxo.
Johannes Rev probably stayed in Paris in the years 1516–19 in order to supervise the publication of the
Breviarium. He also appears to have played a central role in the publication of the
Missale Nidrosiense in as much as the printer of the missale was his brother, Canon Poul Rev (Poul Ræff), who during these years worked as a printer in Copenhagen. A solid expression of Johannes Rev’s mediating function is found in a letter dated 31 October 1520, in which he confirms to have received money from Valkendorf which the archbishop owed to his brother for the printing of the
Missale. In the same letter he promises to see to it that the churches that have paid in advance will receive their copy.
6 Letter from Johannes Rev to Erik Valkendorf, Trondheim (Nidaros), 31 October 1520 (Diplomatarium Norvegicum 1:1056. Gjerløw, ‘The Breviarium and the Missale Nidrosiense (1519)’, p. 74. As to the
Breviarium, the costs for the printing were covered by Valkendorf himself, as the title page proclaims, and the plan was, we learn from his preface, to sell it at a fitting price to the clergy of the diocese of Nidaros.
The size of the print runs is not known. But we know that Valkendorf left behind 120 copies of the
Breviarium when he left Trondheim in 1521 to seek out Christian II and that 25 copies were sent to the bishop in Iceland.
7 Gjerløw, ‘The Breviarium and the Missale Nidrosiense (1519)’, p. 74f. The 120 copies are mentioned in a survey written by Valkendorf himself of the property he left in Trondheim in 1521 (Fortegnelse paa de Klenodier og Penge, som Erkebiskop (Erik Walkendorf) af Throndhjem dels ved sin Afreise har overleveret, dels senere hjemsendt til Officialen Mester Olaf Engelbrektssön for at anvendes til Bygning paa Domkirken, written in Amsterdam summer 1521. Each copy is here priced at 3 Rhenish guilders (Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 8:500). Taking into account that the books were to be used by clergymen throughout Norway with its 1,200–1,300 or so churches, it is likely that both the
Breviarium and the
Missale were printed in considerably larger numbers.
8 Å. Ommundsen, ‘Books, Scribes and Sequences in Medieval Norway’ (PhD thesis, Bergen, 2007), pp. 76–7. However, it should be borne in mind that print runs of liturgical books in around 1500 only appear to have ranged from 150 to 850 copies.
9 N. Nowakowska, ‘From Strassburg to Trent: Bishops, Printing and Liturgical Reform in the Fifteenth Century’, Past and Present, 213 (2011), 3–31, at p. 13, where it is also underlined that information on print runs is very fragmentary.Nevertheless, there is another circumstance suggesting a large print run. The
Breviarium and the
Missale were not the only ecclesiastical printing initiatives taken by Valkendorf. He also took steps to have a book of prayers published in Amsterdam. A contract dated 30 April 1520 between Johannes Rev and the Amsterdam printer Doen Pieterszoon affirms the planned printing of a book of prayers in 1,200 copies, and this could indicate a similar number of the
Breviarium and the
Missale.
10 The print run may even have amounted to 1,500 copies, at least of the Breviarium, which is likely to have been produced in more copies than the Missale. See the discussion in E. Karlsen, ‘Breviarium og Missale Nidrosiense – Om trykk og bokkultur i Nidaros før reformasjonen’, Det Norske Vitenskaps-Akademis Årbok (Oslo, 2019), pp. 172–93, at pp. 185–7. Today both books are relatively rare. Eight copies of the Breviarium are extant, none of them complete, and fifteen or sixteen of the Missale, of which three are complete (Gjerløw, ‘The Breviarium and the Missale Nidrosiense (1519)’, pp. 51, 68). The complete copy of the Breviarium found in the National Library in Oslo (D Pal 7) is a modern reconstruction, composed of two incomplete copies and supplemented with reproductions of pages of copies in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Greifswald (cf. O. Kolsrud’s description of this process inserted in the book and dated 1915). This reconstructed copy forms the basis of the edition at bokselskap.noThe book of prayers was probably never printed. However, the contract is yet another indication of Valkendorf’s active efforts to furnish his diocese with printed ecclesiastical books.