An attractive provincial ledger, for the years 1663 and 1664. Clearly a functional volume intended to be used, it is bound in manuscript waste, a single leaf from a liturgical manuscript opening with Matthew 20, verse 24, ‘indignati sunt de duobus fratribus Jesus autem…’. The positioning of the waste as binder’s material is interesting and feels deliberate; wrapped around the volume this way, both initials and the full text are visible, and still legible. Allowing for rubbing and wear from use as a binding, the vellum of the leaf is coarsely textured, which might indicate that the parent manuscript, in turn, was itself functional rather than decorative.
The town of Meiselding is noted on the upper cover here, and again in the alphabetical index of places that opens the first [7]pp; there is a Meiselding in present day Austria, close to the border with Slovenia. Following the index, the following 79ff, numbered by hand and ruled for accounts, are organised by individual name, and appear to record quantities of grains and cereals - gerste, roggen, hafer, mais, hirse (barley, rye, oats, corn, millet) - occasionally labelled ‘Völlig’, complete, which might suggest that this book functioned as a record of the yields of farmers, perhaps tenants on a large estate.
Some edges frayed, otherwise in excellent condition.
