14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook
14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook
14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook
14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook
14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook
14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, 14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, 14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, 14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, 14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, 14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, 14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook

14th century Medieval Binding Waste on 19th century Saint Catherine Hagiography and Student Notebook

$0.00 USD
$0.00 USD
Sold out
Tax included. Shipping calculated at checkout.

(150 x 90 mm) pp. 186 unnumbered pages; numbered 1-4 from back. Text in Latin with a few lines in Dutch. At least three 19th century hands in cursive. 19th century text appers on pp. 9; 12-79;  82-85; 182-186. Rest blank. 
 Bound in 14th century antiphon manuscript leaf on parchment, likely Dutch, with 4-line staves and musical notation. Text in Latin using Gothic textualis. One initials tipped in red, one executed in blue. Some darkening towards spine, perhaps due to the preparation of parchment (i.e. the hairside forms the cover, and the darkened area may be from the cow's coloration). Overall VERY GOOD condition. 


Typically medieval binding waste appears on printed material from the late 15th into the 17th centuries. It is unusual to see a peice of medieval manuscript as part of the binding of a 19th century book. 

The limp vellum binding, composed of a fragment of 14th century antiphon or gradual, presents the tab of Pierre-Joseph Hanicq (1753-1828), an important printer-bookseller based in Malines (Mechelen), Belgium.  Hanicq was well-known for publishing numerous religious and classical works. 

This little notebook was a product of his enterprise-- taking 'scrap' vellum and using it to create a visually attractive cover for a blank notebook. A small hole pierced through Pierre-Joseph's tab on the flap suggests that there was originally a thong to act as a tie, closing the book. 

The blank pages, textured with chain and lay lines of linen-based paper, are curiously oriented-- with the first page upside down to the bulk of the written text. This first page contains a short guide to the Latin abbreviations adopted by the writer, who may be a C. J. F. Rigouls (perhaps Jean Filip Rigouls?). 

The first sixty-eight pages of 19th century text are a paraphrase of the hagiography, or life, of St. Catherine of Alexandria, who used her exceptional knowledge of Classical literature, including Plato and Homer, to convert pagans before her martyrdom. The 19th century hand concludes their work: Iam finem letigi quem dudum corde pelivi. [Now I have reached the end of the journey which I long sought in my heart] dating it 1819. 

The next hand is a student writing in Dutch and Latin. In Latin, the student expresses that their teacher will be pleased by their responses. The Dutch is an archaic form of Early Modern Dutch possibly from around Brabant–Flanders region.

The final section begins at the end of the book and has been written upside down. It is in a 3rd 19th century hand and consists of numbered student-like questions such as 'What is rhetoric? What is debate? and, Man is a rational animal, Animal is a rational genus. But what are the differences of the definition?' (An interesting pre-Darwinian musing.)