Manuscript meets print, form meets function: a working prayer- and chant book for use by the Prior of the Hôtel-Dieu de la Madeleine in Rouen, in the early eighteenth century. Naively illustrated by hand, and with 25 additional full-page engravings carefully pasted in, the additions, edits and amendments indicate that this was a working volume that served the male and especially female religious communities resident at Rouen’s Hôtel-Dieu from the eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries. The final section provides extensive, practical instructions for the Vestition and Profession ceremonies for female novices.
Augustinian nuns tended to the sick and needy at the site of the Hôtel-Dieu in Rouen as early as the twelfth century; from the middle of the century the complex contained the hospital, along with two religious communities, male and female, and a rectory. In 1268, the relics of Saint Madeleine were brought to the site, giving it its name; accordingly, prayers to patron saint Mary Magdalene as well as St Augustine, founder of the order of the Hôtel-Dieu’s two communities, feature in the present manuscript.
This collectarium was compiled, written and illustrated by a local artist Jacob Methelet for the early eighteenth-century Prior of the Hôtel-Dieu, Louis Auguste Marye (1686-1766). Previously a canon of Ste. Genevieve in Paris, Marye had only been Prior of la Madeleine in Rouen for five years before the creation of this manuscript, presumably commissioned by him for his own use; he also commissioned a nine-volume catalogue of la Madeleine’s 10,000-volume library a few years later. Appropriately for an Augustinian religious institution, the library was one of just three in the city that was open for public use.
Contents
This volume contains ‘useful’ prayers and chants - collects - for the holy days and feast days of the church calendar, painstakingly written out by hand, with staves and musical notation, and hand-drawn illustrations. It begins (pp.1-9) with a brief section of chants to be used throughout the year e.g. for the sprinkling of holy water, and then the variant to be said at Easter; antiphons and orations to be used in processions for Nativity, Epiphany, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost; prayers to be said on the feast days of the Assumption of the Virgin, and the two patron saints of the priory, Mary Magdalene and St. Augustine; on the dedication day of the church; and for All Saints. The longest section contains the collects for services on the liturgical hours of the major feast-days: from Christmas, through Epiphany (p.17), the holy days around Easter (pp.20-35), Ascension (p.50), Pentecost (p.53), Corpus Christi (p.61); on the feasts of the Virgin, Mary Magdalene and St Augustine (pp.64-94), All Saints; and the Office of the Dead (p.95).
At the end of the volume in the same hand are the orders of the ceremonies ‘to be observed and the prayers to be recited in the Vestition and Profession of novices in this house of B.M. Madeleine at Rouen’ (pp.106-142, 149-153). These instructions, in Latin and French, are for the induction of female novices only, and begin with specific, practical instructions about setup for the Vestition ceremony. It should always take place on a Monday or a Tuesday - provided it is not a feast day - in order to avoid excessive gathering of people; both ceremonies should be held during a Mass for the Holy Spirit. The choir should enter at half past nine; while they chant the office of Sext, the Reverend Father Prior, the Deacon and the Subdeacon should proceed to the sacristy, to dress in the garments prepared for mass. The nuns should all gather in the middle choir, wearing their mantles, veils lowered, sitting on benches on either side, while the novice awaiting vestition ‘should kneel at the lowest step of the sanctuary and pray, while the vestments to be blessed are laid out nearby’.
Following those instructions are the words of the Blessing of the Vestments, which are sprinkled with holy water, and then the question of the presiding priest, written out here in French and addressed to ‘ma chere fille’, asking what the novice is seeking. After her response, pledging to spend her year of probation as a novice serving God, the poor, and the church, she receives first the tunic, followed by the girdle, veil, rosary, mantle, and so on. She then should receive a kiss from the Mother Superior, and proceed to kiss the assembled Sisters (p.121, ‘novitia accedens ad Superiorem Matrem, ab ea suscipit osculum, deinde pergit ad sorores omnes osculandas’).
The ceremony for Profession is outlined after this section; ‘the same rite serves for Profession as in Vestition’ (p.126), with the same demand and response. Instructions for the service in Latin are followed by the text, in French, of the vow to be made by the new Sister; ‘to live in chastity, poverty and obedience according to the rule of our father St Augustin, and the rules of this house, and to spend all my life in the service of Jesus Christ, serving the poor and sick of the Hotel Dieu of the Saintly Mary Magdalene, patron of this Church, in witness whereof I have signed this document with my own hand this day…’. Having signed, she presents the document to her superior and immediately kneels before the celebrant for final prayers. Instructions - ‘ut infra p.149’ - direct the holder of the collectarium to the page with the words of the pater noster, towards the end of the volume.
A working volume
Amendments to the text of both the Vestition and Profession rites indicates that this volume was put to practical use over an extended period of time. Plural verb and noun endings have been added throughout so that the text of the services can be used for groups of novices as well as just one at a time. In the section for the Profession ceremony, ‘ma chere fille’ has been corrected to ‘ma soeur’, to reflect the change in status of those being professed, from ‘daughter’ novices, to sister nuns, and there are marginal instructions for when, for example, the Kyrie Eleison should be sung. The text of Psalm 132, ‘Ecce quam bonum et quam jocundum habitare fratres in unum…’ has been added in a later hand, along with a prayer ‘Deus, cuius misericordiae non est numerus…’, in a nineteenth-century hand below and questions and responses for novices in the same hand overleaf; possibly a later addition for use in male novice ceremonies. The hymn to the Virgin is also a later addition in a nineteenth century hand, to page 134; and further instructions in a neat cursive to p.143, in French: ‘while the newly professed nun lies prostrate, two sisters begin the following litany’.
There are edits and additions to the text in earlier sections of the volume; Psalms 121 and 14 have been added in later hands at pp.104-5; there appears to have been an error with the text of Vespers for the feast of St Augustine, begun on the verso of an engraving and abandoned after one line (p.79). There is an interesting softening of the language of one prayer for Mary Magdalene, the namesake and patron of the Hotel Dieu, from ‘Remissa sunt ei peccata multa’, Forgiven are her many sins; to ‘cor meum et caro mea’, my heart and my flesh (p.66).
A decorative volume
This manuscript is both decorative and functional. More than sixty lively, brightly-coloured, naive illustrations accompany the prayers and chants here throughout, from elaborate floral decorations to thematically-appropriate vignettes for particular feast days and offices. The three crosses of Calvary introduce collects for Good Friday (p.26); an empty tomb and palm fronds introduce Holy Saturday (p.27), as well as the new fire for its blessing the same day; and a skull and crossed bones, followed by a tomb, for the Office of the Dead (p.95), among others.
In addition, 25 lavish full-page engravings introduce each section with an appropriate biblical scene or figure, numbered to indicate where they should be placed. Most carry the imprints of late sixteenth and seventeenth-century Parisian engraver-printsellers including Nicolas Pecoul, Jacques Chiquet, Jacques Chereau le jeune and the well known Jean Mariette (1660-1742), as well as Nicolas Bazin (1633-1710). Interestingly, Bazin gave his name to a particular size of religious print (c.250 x 190mm), and all of Bazin’s prints here fit more or less perfectly into this volume without the trimming inflicted on plates from other dealers; it may be that the volume was made to fit Bazin’s engravings, rather than the other way round.
They are principally vernacular prints of popular subjects and reproductions of old masters - see the Bazin print of the Holy Family after Raphael, for example - but in many cases are striking, particularly as a complement to, and in contrast with, the manuscript that surrounds them. Of particular note are Pierre Gallays’ (1677-1749) skeletal Death showing contempt for worldly vanities, illustrating All Saints Day; Bazin’s Virgin Mary (p.76) and the eye-catching plate of Mary Magdalene after LeBrun (p.70). They are a compelling, decorative addition to a functional volume, one that also occupies an interesting place between public ceremony and private devotion; both binding and content indicate it was intended for visible use in ‘public’ on ceremonies and feast days, yet the figurative drawings and engravings within would have been visible solely to the Prior or presiding celebrant.
In excellent condition.
