Dutch Manuscripts

Date range: 15th-20th centuries

Medium: Manuscript

Number of items: 16 items

This small collection of manuscripts written in Dutch mainly comprises devotional and genealogical texts and armorials. Items include:

• An armorial of c.1600 containing 160 emblazoned coats of arms of knights of the Golden Fleece (Dutch MS 6);
• Two 15th-century Horae in the translation of Geert Groote (Dutch MSS 8 and 12);
• A devotional manuscript containing a translation of De Imitatione Christi, the life and miracles of St Barbara, and sermons, 15th-16th centuries (Dutch MS 9);
• A copy of the Martyrology of Usuard, written in 1472 for the nuns of St Lucy, Amsterdam (Dutch MS 10); Usuard, a Benedictine monk in the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, who is said to have died around 875-7, was the author of a martyrology widely used throughout the Middle Ages: André Vauchez et al. (eds), Encylopaedia of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2000), vol. 2, p. 1490;
• Communion prayers and devotions, mid-15th century (Dutch MS 13).

See also:

• The Latin Manuscripts include numerous items from the Low Countries.

Further information:

• Published catalogue: F. Taylor,Supplementary Handlist of Western Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library(Manchester, 1937), pp. 31-4. PDF version available online via Library Digital Collections.
• Dutch MSS 8-10 and 12-13 are catalogued in detail in N. R. Ker,Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, III, Lampeter - Oxford (Oxford, 1983), pp. 394-8. Copy available via Special Collections reading rooms.

Location:

• The John Rylands Library, Deansgate  [Map]
• Find out how to use the reading rooms in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library