[Gripsholm: Carthusian Monastery of Mariefred], 24 March 1498
Bound with six manuscripts and two Cologne-printed incunabula (for a full list of the contents of this volume, click “extended captions”)

This hefty tract volume demonstrates the intertwined relationship that existed between manuscript and print at the turn of the sixteenth century. Printed books did not immediately supersede manuscripts, indeed the two media co-existed for centuries. This collection of pastoral and theological texts contains both printed and manuscript items, the latter in a number of different hands. It was amassed by Johannes van Loe, ‘praesbiter’ of Marl, before passing to the Franziskanerkloster in Dorsten, Westphalia, where the book was chained to a lectern in the library. Its hybrid nature demonstrates that the motivating factor in its production was the need to draw together useful and thematic texts, irrespective of whether those texts were printed or hand-written.

Inc.4.A.4.15[573]